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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] What happens next with S.510?
  • Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:15:56 -0700


I received this about 2 pm from Steve Gilman NOFA-IC Policy Coordinator

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
-----------------------------------------

What happens next with S.510?

First a Recap:
After more than a year of negotiations, S.510, The Food Safety Modernization
Act finally cleared the Senate on November 30th, in the final days of the
lameduck session.

Since the time is so short before the end of this Congress – the House, who
previously passed their own version of the bill (HR2749) in 2009 – either has
to accept this Senate version or work to reconcile S.510 with their own
version. At this point the process is still unclear on how this will proceed
– but it looks like the Democratic leadership (who still hold the majority in
this lame duck session) may opt to quickly bring it to the House floor for a
vote to pass S.510 intact.

IF the S.510 version is indeed accepted, (it's not over until it's over) then
it goes to the President who has said he'll sign it and it will become law.

Then comes Rule-Making:
Then there's a lengthy rule-making process where the legislative language in
the bill is translated into on-the-ground FDA regulations. This process is
also heavily scrutinized – with extensive lobbying from all sides. Although
the intent of Congress is open to some interpretation – the rules can't stray
too far from the specific empowering language. And the draft rule has to
undergo a period of public comment before it is finalized.

What about Funding?
S.510 is an Authorization bill – meaning the legislation is authorized but
there's no funding attached. By some estimates the cost of this legislation
could amount to some $1.4 billion (that's with a B) a year for FDA to ramp up
the personnel, etc. to implement the inspections of foreign imports and
processors, along with everything else they're empowered to do.

The funding for what FDA actually receives in any given year will depend on
the annual Appropriations process in the House. In this day of pay-as-you-go
rules in Congress, any money appropriated for one initiative have to come out
of another – although at this point tax cuts (with subsequent loss of income
to the US Treasury) don't seem to enter into this equation.

The bottom line for small farmers is that in addition to the beneficial
protective provisions, including Tester, that the farm coalitions managed to
insert into S.510 is that FDA will not have many resources for farm scrutiny
– and may have to rely on the S.510 amendment by Senator Stabenow (who is
slated to become the new chair of the Senate Ag Committee in 2011) to fund
training and education for small farmers – a much better approach for
achieving food safety in the small farm sector than their one-size-fits-all
regulations, any day.

Steve Gilman
NOFA-IC Policy Coordinator




  • [Livingontheland] What happens next with S.510?, Tradingpost, 11/30/2010

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