As you plan your Thanksgiving dinner menu, stop and give thanks for new rules issues by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 13th just in time for our uniquely American holiday dedicated to feasting. The rules mean the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011 has finally been implemented.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently issued an annual report to Congress that finds the benefits of major standards and safeguards far outweigh their costs. It serves as yet another indicator of the value of public protections and the positive impacts they have on Americans' everyday lives.
A decade ago, U.S. trade negotiators began to discuss a sweeping international agreement between the United States, China, Japan, and nine other Asian nations. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will establish the rules that govern 40 percent of the world’s economy. It is commonly referred to as a trade deal, but trade is a small portion of the pact. Trade rules constitute just five of the treaty’s 29 chapters.
Under the cynical guise of helping small businesses, on Jan. 27, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up, and the House will soon likely pass, the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2015 (SBRFIA, H.R. 527).
If passed, the REINS Act would require congressional approval of all major rules, potentially endangering the most important safeguards to our health, safety, environment, and economy.
As we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of days, we might be worried about who gets the drumstick or whether our crazy uncle will dominate the conversation. But we’re probably not worrying about whether the turkey is safe to eat because we’ve had a robust food inspection system in place for over a hundred years. That might be changing – parts of our food inspection system may not be keeping up with the threats posed by our current food production system.
Preventable foodborne diseases cause thousands of illnesses and deaths in the United States every year. Coupled with this pain and suffering, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently estimated that foodborne illnesses cost the American public more than $15 billion annually.
The guilty verdicts handed down on Sept. 19 in the unprecedented federal criminal case against senior officials of the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) should send a strong message to food company executives – you can and will be held criminally responsible for deliberately risking the health and safety of the American public for the sake of profits.
As part of the ongoing national effort by some in the business community and their allies in Congress to attack standards and safeguards, a report released today by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) provides a wildly exaggerated and unreliable estimate for the cost of federal rules in 2012. The report, prepared by economists W. Mark Crain and Nicole V.
