Will Travel to California to Tour Fields, Packaging Plant

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) will travel to California’s Salinas Valley on Monday, October 12 as part of his investigations into food safety issues as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.  While in the Salinas Valley, Stupak will observe best-practices involved in food safety and examine changes the industry has implemented to improve food safety since his first hearings on this issue nearly three years ago.

“Observing food safety processes first hand provides valuable insight into both the weaknesses and best practices involved in protecting our nation’s food supply,” Stupak said.  “This investigative trip is a chance to see some of the critical changes that have been implemented by the California farmers, processors, packagers and harvesters since our committee began looking into this issue.”

Congressmen Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced) and Sam Farr (D-Carmel) will join Stupak on the site visits.  While there he will tour a spinach field, an iceberg lettuce field and a processing plant for leafy greens.  Also joining the congressman will be Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, who testified at one of Stupak’s food safety hearings in Washington, DC and officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Salinas Valley is home to 90 percent of the nation’s leafy green production, a food group associated with food borne illness according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

As chairman of Oversight and Investigations, Stupak has held 10 food safety hearings over the past two years examining the failure of the FDA and the food industry to protect the nation’s food supply.  These hearings have looked into contaminated spinach, lettuce, peanut butter, jalapeño peppers, and beef to name a few.

“It is not enough to bring attention to the problems surrounding food safety, we must also follow up to ensure necessary changes are being made by the food industry and the government to prevent future outbreaks from occurring,” Stupak said.  “If we do not learn and rapidly improve our food safety system, we will be doomed to repeat the failures of past outbreaks.  I will continue to hold as many hearings as necessary to fix this broken system.”

On July 30, the U.S. House of Representatives passed landmark food safety legislation, which Stupak helped write.  H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, establishes a national food tracing system, making it easier for the FDA to respond to outbreaks of food borne illness.  It also would increase inspections of foreign food facilities, a critical provision given the increasing amount of food coming from overseas.  The bill would provide the FDA with subpoena power, mandatory recall authority and require country of origin labeling on food.  The additional protections to secure the food supply come at no additional cost to taxpayers and are funded through a $500 per facility annual fee on food processing facilities.  Small and home businesses are exempted from the fee.

While the legislation passed the House, it is currently awaiting consideration in the U.S. Senate.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an estimated 76 million cases of food borne illness occur each year in the United States.  These illnesses result in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually.

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