The Food Safety Bill is Back (Again)

Update 12/21/10: It took more than a year-and-a-half of pushing, but on December 21, 2010, Congress finally passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). The move came after more than 1,800 Change.org members signed our petition asking Congress to pass the food safety reform bill. You can read more about this victory here.

It's dead, it's up for vote, it's passed, it's dead again! Trying to keep up with the vital statistics of the food safety bill is dizzying, and for those of us who are invested in safer food while protecting small farmers, it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. But it seems that after a nearly death-dealing problem was discovered with the Senate bill, the House has put aside politics and come together to save it.

After months of political sausage-making, debate, and occasional hysteria, the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) finally passed the Senate last week, complete with the much-needed Tester-Hagan Amendment exempting small farms from regulation. And there was much rejoicing! But within hours of its passage, Congress realized it had included a potentially fatal flaw in the bill. According to the U.S. Constitution, all revenue-raising measures must originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate bill includes in it the imposing of fees on importers and companies whose products wind up recalled or fail inspections, which technically meets that definition. Big oops.

Normally the House would simply send the bill back to the Senate to fix, but with Congress's lame duck session coming to a close, there didn't seem to be any time for that. The House certainly wasn't about to let the Senate overstep its Constitutional bounds, and many feared the House would invoke what's called the "blue slip" option and outright reject the bill on these grounds. Predictions for saving the bill were grim.

But instead, members of the House came up with a solution. They attached the bill (complete with the Tester-Hagan Amendment) to the must-pass Omnibus Spending Bill, the huge, all-purpose budget bill that keeps government working. The Spending Bill quickly passed in the House with a 212-206 party-line vote. Now the bill goes back to the Senate wrapped up in the Spending Bill. Voila! Now it has originated in the House!

Thanks to this clever solution, the food safety bill's future appears much more certain. A vote by the Senate is expected within the next 10 days. There's still time for another political fumble, though. If you haven't already, be sure to sign our petition telling Congress to pass this important piece of food safety legislation. Given the spate of recent food outbreaks, it's clear that lives depend on it.

Photo: Cliff via Flickr