Washington - A key U.S. food safety program would double inspections of foreign food processors and step up monitoring of high-risk U.S. foods like fresh vegetables, cheese and infant formula, the White House said in its budget proposal for fiscal 2000.
President Bill Clinton's food safety initiative included an extra $35 million -- for a total of $151 million -- with most of the increase earmarked for the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA's meager budget for food inspection was spotlighted in a series of Senate hearings last year on the safety of imported fruits, vegetables and processed foods. Agency officials acknowledged that their 450 inspectors were able to visit U.S. food processing plants only once every few years, and could check fewer than two percent of all imported foods.
The White House proposed giving the FDA an extra $30 million for food safety programs in fiscal 2000, which begins Oct. 1.
The budget proposal was submitted to Congress, which usually changes funding levels before finalizing the budget.
“The bulk of that $30 million would go to increasing our inspection force,” said Joseph Levitt, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
The FDA would hire at least 60 more field inspectors with the funds, as well as beefing up staffing at its headquarters.
“We have committed to doing between 75 and 100 foreign inspections of companies that are stationed overseas in fiscal 1999,” Levitt said in an interview. “We anticipate doubling that to 200 to 225 in fiscal 2000.”
The United States imports a growing amount of food from around the world, including such delicacies as shark fins from China, rice sticks from Thailand, and a variety of specialty foods from Latin America. Last year, about 38% of fresh fruit and 12% of vegetables consumed by Americans were imported, according to the General Accounting Office.
Extra food inspectors would also step up the agency's checks of U.S. plants that process such “high risk” foods as fresh fruits, cheese, infant formula, seafood and other ready-to-eat foods, Levitt said.
“By next year, we hope to have an annual inspection of each of these high- risk areas,” he said, adding that about 6,200 U.S. processing plants were on the FDA's list for yearly checks.
Consumer groups praised the White House proposal for extra funding of FDA inspectors, but blasted the administration for again including a proposed user fee for meat and poultry inspections by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Under the Clinton budget, user fees would generate a half-billion dollars for the FSIS, representing 80% of its proposed budget.
Attempts by the administration to win meat inspection user fees have been repeatedly rejected by Congress.
“User fees contradict the Clinton Administration's policy on food safety,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, a former USDA official who leads the Safe Food Coalition.
“User fees won't be adopted by Congress and this means you have to get the money from somewhere else to pay for the FSIS budget,” she said. “It's less likely that FSIS will get all the rest of its food safety budget funded at the level it wants.”
The Grocery Manufacturers of America and other food industry groups have threatened to challenge any user fee in court.
“Funding food safety activities through user fee assumptions practically guarantees that FDA's and USDA's food safety budgets will be a tough sell on Capitol Hill,” said Kelly Johnson, vice president of the National Food Processors Association.
House Agriculture Committee chairman Larry Combest, a Republican from Texas, told reporters he was “very much opposed” to user fees for meat inspection.
The FSIS is responsible for meat, poultry and eggs while the FDA handles processed foods, fruits and vegetables.
Food safety programs represent a tiny portion of the FDA and USDA budgets, which have total proposed budgets of $1.14 billion and $55.2 billion, respectively.
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