Unlike the California leafy greens industry, which introduced a marketing agreement to avoid legislation and regulations over food safety issues, the Florida tomato industry is asking to be regulated, according to an article in the Palm Beach Post:

But in what could be the first successful move to establish enforceable standards, the Florida tomato-growing

According to an Associated Press article in Business Week, important food safety bills passed through the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday.  California Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, introduced and supported the bills, which will require fresh produce growers and processers to follow food safety practices, rather than a marketing agreement that was introduced by the Western Growers

food safety legislationSan Jose Mercury News reports that California lawmakers are looking into changing food-safety laws.

California has been “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to preventing produce contamination, according to a Central Valley legislator who ended a food-safety hearing Wednesday by saying it’s time to stop letting growers police themselves.
“We have a very, very

The non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has hit out against the possibility of new food legislation being put in place.
More than 220 state and local food safety and labeling laws – including restaurant hygiene codes, milk pasteurization requirements, and even some states’ warnings to pregnant women about drinking alcohol – would be killed if a controversial bill before the Senate becomes law, the CSPI said in a recent statement.Continue Reading Food protection act threatens state food safety laws, says CSPI

The National Meat Association reports that late last month, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the “Safe and Fair Enforcement and Recall for Meat, Poultry and Food (SAFER) Act.” S. 3615 would give the USDA and FDA mandatory recall authority. It would also require companies to notify USDA or FDA if they have reason to believe

Cindy Skrzycki of the Washington Post reports that for the first time, the Department of Agriculture is proposing that consumers be told which supermarkets and retail outlets have sold meat or poultry that is subject to a recall because of safety concerns.
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service publicizes recalls by issuing a press release, describing the food being recalled and any identifying codes, the name of the company that produced it, a contact person and, more recently, a picture of the product.Continue Reading USDA list would pinpoint locations of recalled meat

Don Thompson of the Associated Press reports that food distributors would have to provide the state with a list of stores and restaurants that received deliveries of recalled meat or poultry, under a bill sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday.
Local public health officials want the information so they can publicize potential outbreaks of E. coli or other contaminants. They have been thwarted by an agreement by the state Department of Health Services to keep secret any information about recalls that comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Continue Reading Legislation seeks public notice of meat recall

The St. Petersburg Times reports that the House passed the bill (H.R. 4167) and the Senate will considered it in coming weeks. Don’t be fooled by the bill’s innocuous title, the National Uniformity for Food Act. “It’s about more than food labeling,” Aller said. “It pre-empts state food adulteration laws.”
The bill has the backing of the powerful Grocery Manufacturers Association, the lobbying arm of such heavyweights as Archer Daniels Midland, Campbell Soup Co. and Del Monte Foods. The group’s stated goal is to give consumers “the best, science-based food safety standards and information available to them regardless of where they live.” But the bill does just the opposite.Continue Reading Fooling with food safety

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Edward Epstein reports that California’s two senators vowed Wednesday to go all out to block House-passed legislation that critics say would gut the state’s voter-approved Proposition 65, which requires food manufacturers to list any cancer- or birth-defect-causing substances in their products.
The legislation, strongly backed by food manufacturers, hasn’t even come before a Senate committee yet, but Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein said they are mobilizing opposition now to try to ensure its defeat. On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a letter disclosing his opposition to the bill, which advocates say is necessary to set a single national standard for food safety.
The senators and Schwarzenegger also said the proposal is another assault on California’s right to set consumer protections greater than those provided in other states or by the federal government. Already, the state’s financial privacy laws have been rolled back through congressional action undertaken at the behest of industry.Continue Reading Senators vow to kill House bill

A recent LA Times OpEd by Al Meyerhoff and Carl Pope said the House of Representatives this month passed the National Uniformity for Foods Act, a measure that would kill or cancel significant parts of 200 food-safety laws in 50 states. This ill-advised bill, supported by millions of food-industry dollars, passed without a single hearing. Now it’s in the hands of the Senate. If it passes there, among its many victims would be California’s requirement that foods containing harmful chemicals display a warning for consumers.
Those warnings are mandated by Proposition 65, enacted, as one court described it, to be “a legislative battering ram” by an overwhelming majority of voters in 1986. In passing the measure, Californians wanted to encourage manufacturers to remove dangerous substances from their products before they reached supermarket shelves.
Proposition 65’s requirement that companies either warn consumers or remove harmful chemicals works, and it remains a vital protection.Continue Reading Warning: This bill could make you sick