Orrin Hatch: “this morning, my friend Senator Glenn, criticized S. 343 for not containing an explicit and separate provision exempting…”

“this morning, my friend Senator Glenn, criticized S. 343 for not containing an explicit and separate provision exempting regulations dealing with food safety and E. coli bacteria. To be fair, Senator Glenn recognized that S. 343 contains emergency provisions that would allow agencies to quickly deal with bad meat and E. coli emergencies. He recognized that this was a good thing, but he also stated that this may not be enough because such emergency provisions leave too much to agency discretion. Perhaps a separate provision just dealing with E. coli bacteria is needed, he concluded. Now I want to point out that Senator Glenn's own substitute does not contain a separate provision dealing with E. coli bacteria and bad meat. Instead, the Glenn bill also contains an emergency provision that exempts rules from risk assessment requirements when there exists a threat to public safety. This is exactly the approach the Dole bill takes. You simply cannot specifically exempt all emergencies that may arise that requires a speedy promulgation of a rule. If you did that you would have to enumerate every disease and natural catastrophe that ever existed. The bill would become too long and would wind up looking like one of those 100 page insurance policies. I support the Dole amendment not because it is necessary--rules that need be quickly promulgated because of an emergency and agency safety inspection and enforcement actions are already exempt from S.…”