Is the Food Safety Bill a Blessing or a Corporatist Curse?

(I have a writeup at Red Green and Blue about possible problems with the Food Safety Act...)

For a few days it looked like the controversial Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) was dead in the water. Technical issues meant it was unlikely to make it through both houses in the last, crazy days of the current Congress.

But it now appears that it WILL make it through – it’s been attached in whole to the Continuing Resolution, the $1 trillion-dollar bill that funds the entire government through next September. Since intra-party sniping shot down the regular budget bills that should have been passed by now, a Continuing Resolution is the only way to keep the government running. It ought to pass before the politicians go home for the holidays, and now, if it does, the Food Safety Modernization Act gets dragged across the finish line with it.

The bill was initially meant to deal with food safety issues like the recent tomato, egg and beef recalls, and prevent future outbreaks. But as always, lobbyists had a hand in writing the bill, and most Congressional staffers are very far removed from the needs of the average American with a backyard kitchen garden.

Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) told Food Safety News, “I’m baffled by the controversy. Anyone who’s been watching remembers recall after recall after recall.” And yet the controversy continues…

Is this a good thing?

If you’re like me, you’ve heard a lot of crazy talk about the FSMA. “It’s going to protect our children from the big corporate farms.” “No! It’s going to allow the big corporate farms to take over the world!” “It’ll ban seed saving so we’ll have to buy all of our seeds from Monsanto!” “No, it’s perfectly fine, nothing to see here, trust our friends in the government.”

So which is it? Or, (as with most things) is it a little of both?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “While America has one of the safest and most abundant food supplies in the world, each year one in four peopleare sickened by food-borne illness and as many as 5,000 people die from food poisoning.” Juxtaposing those two statements takes a special kind of nerve. But will this bill do anything at all to deal with the reality of food safety?

I’m going to pull a few sources here, and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

(...Read the whole thing at Red Green and Blue.)