WHOOPS -- FOOD SAFETY BILL HITS CONSTITUTIONAL SNAG

By Sarah Foster
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
December 2, 2010
© 2010 NewsWithViews.com

WASHINGTON -- A controversial food safety bill that supporters were confident would sail through the House following passage this Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, has been stopped in its tracks by a constitutional provision that revenue-raising measures must originate in the lower chamber.

The bill had come under fierce attack for its grant of massive new powers to the Food and Drug Administration, and today’s announcement that the chances for passage during the lame duck session are slim-to-none was hailed by natural food groups, family farming organizations, health freedom advocates and their allies.

“We see it as dead in the water,” said Darrell Rogers, communications director for the Alliance for Natural Health-USA, an advocacy group that has been on the frontlines opposing the bill.

“If not dead, it’s verifiably on life-support and its condition is terminal,” he added.

S. 510: The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is intended to extend the regulatory and enforcement powers of the FDA over food production and distribution, empowering the agency to inspect food facilities more often and expanding its access to food facility records. It further requires food producers and processors to develop and keep detailed records and prevention plans.

Critics view it as a highly intrusive measure, the enforcement of which will not lead to greater food safety, but could spell the end of both family farming and the burgeoning local food movement.
The House had already passed a version, H.R. 2749: the Food Safety Enhancement Act, on July 30, 2009.

S. 510 was introduced in March 2009, but held back in the Senate and not brought to the floor until the current lame duck session, where it ran into a firestorm of opposition. Yet despite a massive outpouring from the opposition, the Senate voted 73-25 in favor, with 15 Republicans joining all the Democratic senators. Click here for Nov. 30 vote.

Normally, the two bills would go to a conference committee where the differences between them would be worked out, and a final vote taken by each house. But that takes time, and as NWV warned might happen, Democratic leaders in the House (specifically Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Henry Waxman, agreed that since there are only a couple of weeks left that they’d accept the Senate version and send it to the floor as is for passage.

Once it had arrived in the House, the Ways and Means Committee staff caught a serious constitutional blooper: a fairly lengthy provision – Sec. 107 – that authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to collect fees to pay for food recalls, inspections, re-inspections of food facilities, and the registration of food importers.

The authors of S. 510 decided not to include the House version’s $500 annual registration fee for domestic food facilities, which was intended as a source of revenue to pay for the FDA’s vastly expanded responsibilities, but to use a fee scheme instead.

Originating Clause

However, the “Originating Clause” of the U.S. Constitution clearly gives revenue-raising authority only to the lower House, stating: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives."

“So it’s up to the House Ways and Means Committee, particularly the Republican members, because there’s a tax-raising provision in the food safety bill that was sent from the Senate, and any bill that raises any taxes or revenues has to originate in the House,” said Rogers.

There’s a procedure that’s called “blue slipping” that’s used in cases like this. The House has to give the bill the “blue slip,” that is, it rejects the bill, and returns it to the Senate.

Full story HERE