Washington Insider--Wednesday

Reforming Food Safety -- The Real Problem

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

McConnell Introduces Stand-Alone Bill to Block Obama on Immigration

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has a new strategy to block President Barack Obama's immigration orders and avoid a partial shutdown Friday of the Department of Homeland Security in the form of a bill that would separate the immigration issue from funding for the agency.

If the Senate were to act on McConnell's proposal on immigration -- and remove immigration language from the Homeland Security funding measure -- then Democrats would be expected to vote for the funding bill. McConnell has said repeatedly he wouldn't let the agency's funding expire.

McConnell and other Senate leaders now have just a few days to resolve the impasse before the department runs out of money and needs to furlough 30,000 employees, including much of the headquarters staff. Field staff, including U.S. Coast Guard personnel, would be required to remain on duty because they are considered essential. However, they would not be paid for their work unless Congress allowed that to happen once funding was restored.

***

Fed's Yellen: Interest Rate Hikes Getting Closer

The U.S. economy has continued to improve on several fronts but the Federal Reserve still has the view that it can be "patient" when it comes to the eventual increase in interest rates from their current zero to 0.25 percent level, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen yesterday told the Senate Banking Committee. In other words, it will be a while before the Fed's Open Market Committee increases rates.

Yellen said the committee would be cautious as the jobs picture improves. Her comments were received in a generally positive manner from the market, which pushed stocks further into record territory on hopes that the Fed would not move too aggressively in boosting its short-term interest rate target off near-zero levels.

In weighing when to increase rates, the Fed assesses progress toward reaching its two objectives: fostering maximum employment and price stability through a 2% inflation rate. While the labor market has improved, inflation has remained lower than the Fed's targeted 2% rate in part due to lower gas prices.

P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]

Public comments by heads of the Federal Reserve often appear cryptic to the uninitiated, largely because officials take great care to be circumspect in their pronouncements. The main takeaway from Yellen's testimony yesterday is the U.S. economy continues to improve, even as problems plague China and the euro zone, and U.S. interest rates are likely to remain low for at least the mid-term.

***

Washington Insider: Reforming Food Safety -- The Real Problem

It is amazing, really, how superficial is the urban press coverage of complex ag policy issues like food safety. And that includes some heavy hitters like the New York Times.

On Saturday, the Times took up the topic again and presented the old question of how messy the process is for a complex product -- like pizza. In the current system, the Times says, the pepperoni is examined by USDA; the cheese and tomato sauce by the Food and Drug Administration; and "each agency uses its own methods for inspecting and testing." If a disease outbreak occurs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might sound the alarm, but FDA would be responsible for any recall.

And, the NYT seems impressed that the administration wants a large, new agency to take over, become part of the Department of Health and Human Services and "provide focused, centralized leadership, a primary voice on food safety standards and compliance with those standards," the administration said in its new budget request. If only.

The Times notes that some 15 government agencies, in addition to the two in the central roles, have some involvement in keeping safe the food Americans eat. The Government Accountability Office has looked at the issue and notes it has "defied streamlining for decades."

Still, it seems the administration, a number of members of Congress and others are claiming to see a magic "food safety" wand being developed, even though the concerns they highlight probably have little to do with safer food.

The inconvenient fact here is that food safety demands different approaches for different food products because the health risk posed by each is very different. How the current proposal's focus on bureaucrats and the chairs in which they sit would better confront these very different problems and risks remains unclear.

One observer asserts the federal government does not do well with "big." Tony Corbo, a lobbyist for Food and Water Watch, points to the Department of Homeland Security that was created from different agencies with different missions.

Corbo also notes the current agencies have different missions -- often defined by the Congress -- and have evolved different approaches and different types of programs that require different levels of training and education for inspectors. This has led, among other things, to long-running turf battles between agencies -- and among their advocates in Congress -- and would inevitably complicate efforts to consolidate them.

There is no question that the organization of the food safety system is important, but if it is to be changed it should provide stronger, more scientific approaches and tougher rules. The Times notes 87 million Americans are sickened each year by contaminated food and perhaps 5,700 die from food-related disease. But exactly how the bureaucratic reshuffle the administration has proposed would help seems unclear, especially since the agency has not focused in differences threats arising from different products.

Most foods are the responsibility of the FDA, including seafood, vegetables, fruit, dairy products and shelled eggs, the Times notes. USDA inspects meat, poultry and processed eggs. But the vulnerability to contamination and consumer threats for general foods and meats are very different and the two agencies use very different approaches.

By law, meat and poultry plants are not allowed to operate unless a USDA inspector who examines animals before slaughter, each carcass and the plant's facilities. By contrast, FDA inspectors visit plants much less frequently, often only when there is a problem.

Stan Painter, a USDA food safety inspector in Alabama and president of the inspectors' union worries that the proposal would effectively bring USDA down to FDA's "miniscule" standard. "They don't do inspections. They run in for a visit," he said. Other experts insist the consolidation could be done efficiently.

White House officials told the Times that administration officials are framing their concerns in terms of government efficiency. And, USDA has declined even to say whether it would support a combined agency, adding the department is moving forward with its respective duties as Congress considers the president's proposal.

However, some experts like Doug Powell, a former professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the publisher of the barfblog.com, suggest the creation of a single agency might provide less protection than the administration or lawmakers like want to admit.

"The research doesn't support the idea that a single agency would protect food safety any more than the system the U.S. currently has in place," Powell told the Times. "Look at the United Kingdom and the horsemeat scandal or Canada, which had a massive beef recall a few years ago. Both of those countries have single food safety agencies, and it didn't stop contaminated products from reaching the public."

The hope is that the debate can be broadened to include more basic issues like those Prof. Powell has in mind and less on those highlighted by some members of Congress. If it doesn't, any consolidation could actually shift the bureaucracy and boost the cost but actually weaken the system the way Prof Powell suggests, Washington Insider believes.


Want to keep up with events in Washington and elsewhere throughout the day? See DTN Top Stories, our frequently updated summary of news developments of interest to producers. You can find DTN Top Stories in DTN Ag News, which is on the Main Menu on classic DTN products and on the News and Analysis Menu of DTN's Professional and Producer products. DTN Top Stories is also on the home page and news home page of online.dtn.com. Subscribers of MyDTN.com should check out the U.S. Ag Policy, U.S. Farm Bill and DTN Ag News sections on their News Homepage.

If you have questions for DTN Washington Insider, please email edit@telventdtn.com

(GH/CZ)

P[] D[728x170] M[320x75] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[L2] D[728x90] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[R1] D[300x250] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[R2] D[300x600] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]