Money and Food Safety
The new food safety law – long in the making and long overdue – represents a major step forward in the federal government’s ability to reduce the number of illnesses and deaths associated with foodborne illness. Among other things, the law grants the FDA authority to order recalls, conduct more frequent inspections and require food producers to have written plans that identify and protect against modes of contamination.
What the new law does not guarantee, however, is funding to implement these important safety requirements. And without proper funding, the food safety mandates in the new law may become empty promises.
In a recent Smart Money article by Sarah Morgan, David Plunkett, a senior staff attorney in the food safety department of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, was quoted as saying the FDA’s “budget right now is not adequate, and it’s certainly not adequate to implement this law.”
Before a bill is passed into law, the United Sates Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is required, with some exceptions, to conduct a cost estimate of implementing it. The CBO report on the Food Safety and Modernization Act concludes that after deducting fees earned pursuant to the new law, the net cost will be approximately $1.1 billion over five years beginning in 2011. According to the CBO report:
CBO estimates the fees collected would not offset all of the costs of the new requirements in S. 510. The additional inspections and administrative activities not covered by fees would increase discretionary outlays by $1.1 billion over five years beginning in 2011. That amount incorporates savings to the FDA for food safety activities conducted under current law that would henceforth be funded by fees in the bill. The spending total also reflects the cost of authorized grants to states and certain other entities to enhance food safety.
A significant cost? Sure it is, but not compared to the cost of medical care, lost wages, pain, suffering and death associated with the thousands of cases of foodborne illness that occur each year in the United States.
And that’s the problem with the short-sighted Tea Party-Republican mentality that has infected Congress like a case of diarrhea-inducing salmonellosis. To improve health and safety, to create new jobs and to decrease the cost of human misery, you have to spend money. Far from being a net loss, this added expense actually saves money and lives. Let’s hope our representatives realize that.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
