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In This Issue:
Page 5............................Fuel prices impact Produce prices
Page 5.........................Small business requirement delayed
Page 24............................. Tolerance to Mosaic Virus found
Congress asks FDA to
re-propose FSMA rules
Capitol Hill weighed in on the need to re-propose
food safety rules as 75 members of Congress sent
a letter to the Food & Drug Administration warning that farms and processors will suffer and some
businesses may close if there’s no opportunity to
comment on revamped food-safety rules before they
become final.
Businesses in the produce industry have been
grappling all year with the impact of the proposed
produce safety and preventive control rules required
by the Food Safety Modernization Act. FDA is being
swamped with comments asking for major changes in
the proposals, but the agency is under a court-ordered
deadline to accept comments on the rules only until
March 2014.
While the agency appeals the court order, food
industry groups have been running to Capitol Hill for
relief in hopes of convincing the FDA that another
round of proposed rules should be released for public
comment.
“After hearing many reservations from our farmers
and businesses, we are concerned that the rules as
currently proposed, and the heavy cost of complying
with them, will force some producers and processors
to shutter their operations,” 75 members of Congress
said in a Nov. 22 letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. “By seeking additional input through
second proposed rules for public comment before
final rules, we believe that producers’ concerns can
be addressed and unintended consequences can be
greatly mitigated.”
The letter listed the top concerns for their constituents: agricultural water testing frequency; manure
restrictions; mixed-use facility compliance; conservation and environmental practice conflicts; small farm
definitions; and farm ownership issues.
FSMA is the most significant regulatory overhaul
of food-safety rules in 70 years, so Congress asking
FDA to seek additional input through a second set of
proposed rules before final rulemaking makes very
good sense.
Speaker of the House John Boehner can’t even eat
breakfast in peace. Recently a pair of teenage girls,
activists for immigration reform, approached him
at Pete’s Diner, his early-morning stop, to ask how
he’d like to be deported.
“How would you feel if you had to tell your kids at
the age of 10 that you were never coming home?”
13-year-old Carmen Lima, of California, asked
Mr. Boehner. “That wouldn’t be good,” replied the
speaker.
The rest of his remarks on immigration that day
were not so clear. Mr. Boehner, who pledged to
press ahead with immigration reform a year ago
following Mitt Romney’s dismal performance
with Latino voters, now says the House will not
negotiate with Democrats on the basis of the
sweeping reform bill passed by the Senate in June
with bipartisan support. Some experts have this
translation: Don’t hold your breath for immigration reform this year.
The Speaker of the House says he still wants to
deal with immigration, but in a common sense,
step-by-step way. The trouble is, no one knows
what those steps would be.
The Senate’s immigration bill is 1,300 pages long,
a fact that Mr. Boehner cited to dismiss its viability as the basis for negotiations. In the wake of
Obamacare’s rollout troubles, large-scale reforms
are in poor standing. As the old saying goes, “the
devil is in the detail”.
But the fact is there are an estimated 11 million
undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The country needs to deal with them in some
way. When it does so, it needs to set up a sensible system for future immigration so we don’t
wind up in the same fix 10 or 20 years from now.
That requires legislation of some complexity, but
members of Congress are elected to solve complex
problems.
The House should vote on the parts of immigration
reform they consider priorities and take that sensible step-by-step approach into negotiations with
the Senate. To delay it again and again with politics
at the center is not productive, and definitely not
good for our economy, security or job growth.
FDA Will Issue a
Second Draft of
Produce Safety Rule
FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary
Medicine Michael Taylor recently issued a statement
saying FDA will issue a second round of draft rules concerning key provisions and seek additional public comments. The rule provisions undergoing major revisions
focus on water quality standards and testing, standards
for using raw manure and compost, provisions affecting
mixed-use facilities, and procedures for withdrawing the
qualified exemption for certain farms.
The FDA released this statement from Taylor:
“FDA appreciates and takes very seriously the extensive
input we have received from produce farmers and others
in the agricultural sector on the proposed FDA Food
Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rules on produce
safety and preventive controls for human food, which we
published in January 2013. We have made every effort to
solicit input on the proposed rules, not only through the
standard rulemaking process, but also by participating
in more than 150 meetings and by traveling to numerous
farms of varying types and sizes from Maine to California. To ensure broad input and facilitate constructive dialogue with the produce community, FDA has extended
the comment periods on the proposed rules three times.
Based on our discussions with farmers, the research
community and other input we have received, we have
learned a great deal, and our thinking has evolved.
Everyone shares the goal of ensuring produce safety, but,
as we said at the beginning of the process, the new safety
standards must be flexible enough to accommodate
reasonably the great diversity of the produce sector, and
they must be practical to implement.
To achieve this goal, we believe that significant changes
will be needed in key provisions of the two proposed
rules affecting small and large farmers. These provisions
include water quality standards and testing, standards
for using raw manure and compost, certain provisions
affecting mixed-use facilities, and procedures for withdrawing the qualified exemption for certain farms. We
have heard the concern that these provisions, as proposed, would not fully achieve our goal of implementing
the law in a way that improves public health protections
while minimizing undue burden on farmers and other
food producers.
Because the changes to the key provisions would be
significant, FDA plans to propose revised rule language
and seek comment on it, allowing the public the opportunity to provide input on our new thinking. There
may be other revisions to the proposed rules; the scope
of the revised proposals, on which we will seek further
comment, will be determined after we complete our
initial review of written comments. We believe that this
additional step to seek further input on revised sections
of the proposed rules that need significant adjustment is
critical to fulfilling our continuing commitment to getting these rules right.
Our plan is to publish revised proposed rule language by
early summer 2014. We will accept additional comments
only on those sections of the proposed rules that
have been revised. FDA remains under a court order
regarding the timelines for finalizing these rules. FDA
recognizes that completing these rules is essential to
protecting the public health and is committed to com-
pleting them as quickly as possible.
It is gratifying to FDA that in our meetings around the
country, we have received broad support for moving
forward in implementing FSMA in a timely manner in
light of its important food safety and public confidence goals. Thanks to all of you who have worked
with us. We will continue this collaborative approach
as we move down the pathway to final rules and to full
implementation of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act in the years to come.”
U.S. House must act
on immigration now
