Vilsack hedges on single-agency food regulation, NAIS

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack appeared to step back Tuesday from earlier comments endorsing the creation of a single food safety agency. Vilsack told a House agricultural appropriations subcommittee that it was premature to say how food regulation should be organized. Recent outbreaks and food recalls have forced the Obama administration to focus on food safety. Fifteen federal agencies have some responsibility for ensuring the safety of food. But the bulk of the responsibility is with the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, which inspects meat, and the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates most other foods, and those agencies have competing philosophies, Vilsack said. He said the food safety system should focus on the riskiest products and eliminate "hazards before they have the opportunity to make anyone sick," rather than just try to contain outbreaks. The Bush administration wanted to focus meat inspections on the highest-risk products, but the plan was delayed amid criticism that the Agriculture Department had insufficient data to know which processors to target. Before it moves ahead with creating a mandatory animal identification system, the Obama administration also wants to allay the concerns of producers who oppose making any such system compulsory. Unless those objections are addressed, officials will get tied down chasing producers who are evading the program, Vilsack told the House subcommittee. An animal identification system is intended to allow investigators to quickly trace the sources of food-borne disease outbreaks. Vilsack stopped short of explicitly endorsing a mandatory identification program, though he said he is "supportive of the effort to make sure that we have an identification system that will allow us to prevent and/or mitigate problems." But many cattle producers and small-scale farmers strongly oppose a mandatory system. They cite such concerns as the cost, the potential for lawsuits arising from disease outbreaks, and the confidentiality of records. Some key lawmakers — including the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee, Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro — are pressing the administration to set up a mandatory system anyway...Des Moines Register