Food Safety Bill's Price High, Need Debatable

The U.S. Senate passed Tuesday what is called a food-safety modernization bill, S510, which grants the Food and Drug Administration extensive new powers to, as The New York Times put it, "recall tainted foods, increase inspections, demand accountability from food companies and oversee farming." The FDA's new powers would overlap the jurisdictions of the Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies that oversee food safety.

It is uncertain whether the full Congress will be able to approve this bill during a lame-duck session dominated by more important issues.

Keeping S510 in limbo could well be the best among the likely outcomes. The legislation would impose significant additional costs and paperwork requirements on various aspects of food production without significantly increasing the safety of the country's food supply. Indeed, it is unclear that a crisis exists of the sort that would justify such an expansion of federal power.

It is true that in recent years there have been some national examples of food contamination, including episodes involving spinach, peanut butter and eggs.

However, according to the FDA's own studies, there were 51.2 cases of confirmed food-induced bacterial contamination per 100,000 people in 1996 — and by 2009 the rate had fallen by a third, to 34.8 cases per 100,000 people. As troubling as they have been, the contamination incidents are a problem already on the decline when seen in context. It is doubtful whether S510 would lead to a more dramatic decline.

And the costs would be significant. Some of the more intrusive features of earlier versions, like new regulations on vitamins, on small local farmers and on organic farmers, have been eliminated. However, besides the hundreds of millions of dollars imposed on private sector players, taxpayers would have to shell out an additional $1.4 billion from 2011-15 to pay for the FDA to flex its newfound muscles, at a time when the dominant concern in the country is how to reduce (or at least hold the line on) federal spending.

The midterm elections clearly suggested a preference for focusing on reducing federal spending and debt rather than increasing it. It would be preferable if the new Congress grappled with whether the benefits S510 promises are worth the costs.

REPRINTED FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER.

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