Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Donald M. Payne voted to better ensure the safety of the nation's food supply by improving inspections and oversight of the food we eat. The bipartisan Food Safety Enhancement Act, HR 2749, grants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority and resources it needs to prevent food-borne illnesses from occurring and the tools to respond if they do. The legislation also increases the food industry's responsibility for overseeing the safety of their own products and provides the FDA with new and enhanced tools to hold them accountable when they fail.

"For years, Americans took the safety of our food supply for granted," said Payne. "However, as our food supply becomes more global and our farming more industrialized, food-borne illnesses are on the rise. By increasing and expanding the FDA's authority, this legislation will help us give consumers the peace of mind once again that the food they buy and feed their families will not make them sick."

While many Americans assume our food supply is among the safest in the world, public health officials estimate that every year about 76 million people in the United States become sick, and 5,000 of them die, from food-borne illnesses. Since 2006, we have seen numerous outbreaks of dangerous infections in common foods – from spinach and tomatoes, to peanut butter and ground beef. This legislation will help protect the public health against such outbreaks and update our federal food safety laws to keep pace with the changes in our food production and processing methods.

The Food Safety Enhancement Act increases the number and scope of inspections for food production facilities and enhances the safety of foreign food imports. It requires the FDA to issue standards for ensuring the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables, and strengthens penalties on food facilities that fail to comply with safety requirements.

This legislation strengthens the FDA's notoriously weak authority over food safety. To better protect Americans' health, it gives the FDA new tools and authority to issue mandatory recalls of tainted foods and remove these products from the market safely and efficiently. It also significantly expands the FDA's ability to rapidly identify and trace the history of a tainted food product in the event of an illness outbreak.

"This bill finally gives the FDA the tools it needs to prevent outbreaks of food-borne illness and act quickly and safely to remove tainted food products from the marketplace if an outbreak does occur," said Payne. "Every parent should feel confident about what they feed their children, and this legislation goes a long way toward making sure they do."

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