Herb Kohl: “I rise to elaborate on a food safety amendment that has been accepted on both sides. Under current law, the FDA's most…”

“I rise to elaborate on a food safety amendment that has been accepted on both sides. Under current law, the FDA's most decisive legal recourse for dealing with suspect food imports is to stop them at our boarder. My amendment strengthens the FDA's hand by providing explicit authority under section 415 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act, to proactively deny entry of all food products from questionable suppliers if they fail to cooperate and allow timely inspection of their facilities. Events of recent weeks have made clear that the FDA's ability to inspect foreign food is inadequate. In the case of melamine tainted wheat gluten from China, FDA inspectors were forced to wait more than 2 weeks before the Chinese Government would grant them access. Two weeks is unacceptable. There is simply no excuse for such delays if you want to ship food into this country. FDA must be able to respond quickly to identify threats and protect public health and safety. My amendment provides a succinct and direct legal basis for the FDA to seek access and inspect foreign food facilities on demand. If a foreign exporter to the United States delays access for FDA inspectors unnecessarily, the FDA can stop all food imports from that firm immediately thereby denying them access to our markets. If an exporter does not want to let the FDA inspect its firm--on FDA's schedule--that exporter can't ship to this country. It is that simple.”