The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Food and Drug Administration (Executive Session)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the in the Senate section section on page S3323 on July 18.
The Department is primarily focused on food nutrition, with assistance programs making up 80 percent of its budget. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department implements too many regulations and restrictions and impedes the economy.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Food and Drug Administration
Madam President, 2 weeks ago, the Center for Disease Control issued an alert: There was a listeria outbreak that sent nearly 2 dozen people in 10 States to the hospital.
For those who may not know, listeria is the bacteria that causes listeriosis. It is serious. It is a life-threatening illness. In most cases, the infection causes fever, sometimes confusion, loss of balance; but in some cases, it can be deadly.
Tragically, an expectant mother from Massachusetts who contracted it lost her baby. And another person in my home State of Illinois lost her life. Her name was Mary Billman. She was from Pesotum, IL. It is a small downstate community, about 15 miles south of Champaign.
In January, she went to Florida to visit her daughter. One day, she decided to grab an ice cream cone. Harmless, right? As it turned out, no. That ice cream was contaminated. Ice cream is the most likely source of this listeria outbreak. Mary Billman was 79 years old. The listeria that she faced took her life.
This outbreak is one example of a long list of outbreaks in America, which are becoming way too common. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for regulating 80 percent of our Nation's food supply. Nearly all of the foods we buy at the supermarket are supposed to be guaranteed as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. So when we pick up a box of cereal for the kids, a bag of lettuce, a jar of peanut butter, a pint of ice cream, we assume it has been inspected. We assume it is safe.
Here is the problem: Too often, that is not the case. The FDA is failing to uphold its most basic food safety responsibility: inspecting facilities. Over the past decade, the number of inspections it performs has fallen by nearly 60 percent--60-percent decline in inspections in the last decade. And to add insult to injury, that decline happened after Congress passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act--a 2011 bill, which I offered, that instructed the FDA to increase the number of inspections. They did the opposite.
If that weren't bad enough, in 2017, the HHS inspector general concluded that, even when the FDA did inspect facilities, the Agency did not always take action when it uncovered significant inspection violations. We know that story.
This summer, a bacteria known as Cronobacter contaminated infant formula, leading to nationwide shortages. The FDA was alerted to this problem 4 months before it took any action--4 months. So even when the FDA performs an inspection and identifies a threat to public health, it doesn't take timely action, not even when the problem can sicken and kill adults, children, infants. That is hard to imagine.
The FDA is adrift. And our most vulnerable people in America--
children, mothers, and older Americans--are at risk.
Last week, I introduced a bill that would transfer all of FDA's food responsibilities to a new Agency outside the FDA that we hope will actually do its job. We are calling it simply the Food Safety Administration. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, my friend and a Representative from the State of Connecticut, has introduced the companion bill in the House. Our bill represents a clean slate for food safety in America. It would create a new Food Safety Administration that would be run by food safety experts who were focused on protecting the Nation's food supply.
If I went into detail of the responsibilities of different Federal Agencies to inspect foods, you wouldn't believe it. If you have a cheese pizza, Food and Drug Administration; put pepperoni on the pizza, now it is the Department of Agriculture. It changes based on definitions that might have made sense sometime in the past, make no sense anymore.
On behalf of the 15 million Americans who contract a foodborne illness each year and tens of thousands who are hospitalized, it is time to stop talking about it and do something.
The FDA failed my constituent Mary Billman, along with 3,000 Americans like her who lose their lives every year to foodborne illness. Many of these deaths are preventable, but they will keep happening if we don't fix our Nation's defunct food safety system.
We say America is the wealthiest Nation in human history. We are blessed, we know, with one of the most abundant agriculture industries. And we are home to some of the best and brightest scientists in the world. So there is absolutely no excuse for allowing the FDA's food safety failures to persist. With our legislation, we can replace this broken system with one that will finally protect our families.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
