White House Working To Make Our Food Safer

by Stuart Shapiro

This week, President Obama reminded the Senate that it is considering legislation on food safety and that there is good reasons move the law (already passed by the House) forward.

The bill addresses longstanding challenges in the food safety and defense system by promoting a prevention-oriented approach to the safety of our food supply and provides the Federal Government with the appropriate tools to accomplish its core food safety goals.

These tools include allowing the Food and Drug Administration to order mandatory recalls of tainted food products (a power it does not currently possess) and implementing a program to collect fees from certain food facilities to fund increased safety inspections. The bill would also require the FDA to set new standards aimed at preventing contamination of fresh produce.

We’ve recently had crises on tainted beef and contaminated vegetables.  The Senate’s got a lot on its plate (pun intended) but it shouldn’t allow this to fall off of it.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.