Political Quotes

“we can all agree that the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service is critical to keeping our food safe and protecting us from foodborne illnesses. This administration is trying to undermine this office and our country's ability to prevent foodborne illness. Just last week, the USDA announced that it is moving its food safety headquarters from D.C. to another part of the country. Now, 200 food safety experts will have to choose between uprooting their lives or staying in their jobs. We have seen this before. The last time the administration moved a USDA office across the country, it was two research-focused offices, and moving them was a complete disaster for the work of those offices. They lost over a third of their full-time staff, particularly the most experienced people, and they saw steep declines in agency productivity. It completely disrupted the grants and research that they do. This administration claims that the food safety office continues operating without interruption during this move, but we know from experience that is just not true. In every other case, the people who resigned were the people who had the most experience, the people we needed the most. Mr. Speaker, the American people can't afford to have an inexperienced, understaffed, and unproductive food safety office, so the USDA needs to stop this move and stop jeopardizing our Nation's food safety.”