On the surface this actually sounds good ..
To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.
Keeping food (ie peanuts) safe from contamination, I'm down with that.
But it's the "and for other purposes" that is going to make you want to kill yourself now ...
The (formerly) ubiquitous summer roadside vegetable stand appears to be both Category 3 and 5 "food establishments" since they sells "fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form" and "stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale".The explicit exclusions in Section 3 (13)(B) do not exclude roadside vegetable stands.
Section 3 (14) explicitly declares "any farm" (no matter what the size) to be a "FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY".
Section 406 is a real doozy which places the burden of proof on the small farmer or roadside stand operator to demonstrate that none of their goods were participants in interstate commerce (the basis for this whole thing appears to be the Commerce Clause)
SEC. 406. PRESUMPTION. 1 In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist
They are coming not only for our summer roadside stands and farmers markets, but they are also coming for that pot of tomatos you have growing in your backyard.
Failure for anyone to comply? A cool $1 million fine.
And I bet you can't can guess who not only wrote the bill but who the 39 co-sponsers are?
...The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), with 39 co-sponsor, all Democrats...
Oh and Ms DeLauro's husband has a client and has received $180,000 in donations, Monsanto a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation.
Viva la Revolution!
Posted by Quality Weenie at March 31, 2009 10:24 AM | TrackBackOh, crap.
Posted by: Pam at March 31, 2009 02:57 PM