000764 Senate Rejects Bill to Overturn Inspection Ruling

Washington - The U.S. Senate narrowly rejected a proposal that would have allowed the USDA, the loser in a recent food safety lawsuit, to deny its inspection seal to meat that failed salmonella tests.

Senators defeated the idea, 49-48, after Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran argued it was a premature attempt to overturn a May 25 decision by a federal judge in Texas.

In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Fish said the USDA's salmonella rules were not a fair measure of a plant's sanitary practices. The ruling was a blow to the USDA's sweeping 1996 modernization of meat inspection rules that sought to reduce contamination by requiring testing and safety checkpoints.

The Clinton administration has said it would fight the decision but still was mulling an appeal.

Salmonella can cause diarrhea in healthy adults, and can be deadly for young children, the elderly and others with weak immune systems.

Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, sponsor of the proposal, said it would give USDA meat inspectors the power to enforce salmonella reduction standards and keep bad meat out of the food supply.

MEAT INDUSTRY NEWS SERVICE NOTE: What Harkin fails to realize is that USDA is trying to create a zero-tolerance standard for salmonella – a standard that the scientific community knows is impossible. Harkin’s measure, therefore, has the potential to affect ALL beef packing and/or processing operations. Under federal law, meat cannot be sold in interstate commerce unless it bears a USDA inspection stamp of approval.

“The bill is an attempt to reverse the decision of a district court in Texas,” said Cochran, who said senators should not rush to act when the administration had not decided whether to appeal.

Senators voted on the Harkin amendment after more than two hours of debate that included an attempt to table it, which failed 49-49, and a Cochran attempt to modify it.

Harkin and consumer activists said Cochran's language had the potential to prevent use of salmonella standards nationwide. Cochran eventually withdrew the language.

The landmark Texas lawsuit was sparked by USDA attempts to shut down Supreme Beef Processing Inc. after the company's hamburger processing plant flunked three sets of salmonella tests. The company argued the tests were not an accurate gauge of plant sanitation because meat could have been infected when it left the slaughterhouse and before it entered the plant.

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