<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:95290.wais]
A SYSTEM RUED: INSPECTING FOOD
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL SERVICE
AND AGENCY ORGANIZATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 30, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-182
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
95-290 WASHINGTON : 2004
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia, Chairwoman
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
ADAH H. PUTNAM, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Columbia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Ron Martinson, Staff Director
B. Chad Budgard, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Reid Voss, Clerk
Tania Shand, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 30, 2004................................... 1
Statement of:
Dyckman, Lawrence J., Director, National Resources and
Environment, U.S. General Accounting Office; Robert E.
Brackett, Director, Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration; and Merle Pierson,
Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of
Agriculture................................................ 8
Glickman, Dan, director, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, and former Secretary of
Agriculture; and Caroline Smith DeWaal, director, food
safety, Center for Science and Public Interest............. 106
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Brackett, Robert E., Director, Center for Food Safety and
Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, prepared
statement of............................................... 43
Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois, prepared statement of................... 7
Davis, Hon. Jo Ann, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 3
DeWaal, Caroline Smith, director, food safety, Center for
Science and Public Interest, prepared statement of......... 115
Dyckman, Lawrence J., Director, National Resources and
Environment, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared
statement of............................................... 11
Glickman, Dan, director, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, and former Secretary of
Agriculture, prepared statement of......................... 110
Pierson, Merle, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, prepared statement of........... 75
A SYSTEM RUED: INSPECTING FOOD
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TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency
Organization,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in
room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jo Ann Davis of
Virginia (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, Davis of
Illinois, Norton, Deal, Blackburn, Murphy, and Van Hollen.
Staff present: Ron Martinson, staff director; B. Chad
Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel; Shannon
Meade, professional staff member; Reid Voss, clerk; John
Landers, OPM detailee; Michelle Ash, minority senior
legislative counsel; Tania Shand, minority professional staff
member; and Teresa Coufal, minority assistant clerk.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. We're going to go ahead and start,
and there will be a few more Members joining us in a few
moments.
The Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization
will come to order.
Two years ago, the Federal Government saw its largest
reorganization since the end of World War II with the creation
of the Homeland Security Department, which involved the merger
of 22 existing agencies and 180,000 employees into one mammoth
Cabinet department. Today, this subcommittee begins its
examination of how the rest of the Government is structured,
and whether the existing structures need reorganization on a
much smaller scale.
We begin this process by focusing on one aspect of the
Federal Government that touches our daily life, which is how
the Government inspects food. Right now, there are more than a
dozen Federal agencies that enforce more than 35 food safety
laws, creating such illogical situations as the Food and Drug
Administration having responsibility for inspecting closed
faced meat sandwiches, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture
is in charge of inspection open faced meat sandwiches. Or if
you prefer, the FDA is in charge of cheese pizzas, while the
USDA has jurisdiction over pepperoni pizza.
And here is one more. The FDA inspects both beef soup and
chicken broth, but USDA inspects chicken soup and beef broth.
In case you didn't get that, it's reversed. As the old saying
goes, you can't make this stuff up.
This situation did not happen overnight, but it's a result
of piecemeal legislative solutions crafted over the years. It
is a good example of why, every once in a while, Congress needs
to take a step back and look at the whole picture to see if
there is some rearranging that should take place.
In this instance, one possible solution that some have
raised is to consolidate all the food inspection programs under
a single agency. We're going to hear testimony today on that
subject, as well as the other organizational issues facing food
inspection programs. Regardless of the organizational ideas
offered here today, I want to emphasize at the outset that
everyone in this room is in agreement that we want our food
supply to be safe. So that is not an issue.
I thank our witnesses and I look forward to the discussion.
We've been joined now by Ms. Holmes Norton and I'm going to
recognize you. Do you have an opening statement?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jo Ann Davis follows:]
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Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I want
to especially thank you for calling this hearing on a subject
of vital importance to the American people, especially in
recent years and months. Some of us thought that mad cow would
never make its way, for example, to the United States, some of
us thought it was only a matter of time. I grew up thinking
that the food supply of the United States was impenetrable. We
have learned differently.
We have just finished a major reorganization, one of the
largest reorganizations since World War II, of the Homeland
Security agency. I'm on the Homeland Security Committee, I was
on the two main committees that considered most of the
legislation that resulted in the Department.
As much as it is apparent that this set of blocks doesn't
make much sense, about the easiest thing to do, we've learned,
is to say that what it takes to cure a problem is simply
reorganize it. I happen to be a big fan of reorganization,
because I believe in rational structures. When I headed a
Federal agency, one of the first things we did was to
reorganize the agency, reconfigure it to better do its job and
I do believe that it worked.
But we are still very much in a learning mode when it comes
to the Department of Homeland Security, huge disruptions and
disquiet has resulted in some parts of the agency that we learn
are far worse off than they were before, such as processing of
immigration claims. Perhaps there are other parts that are
better.
I do hope before we jump in again with both feet that we
learn from that experience, I certainly hope that we learn from
the experience that employees have had, where we have disrupted
the way in which employees relate to the agencies from which
they came, thrown out many of their Civil Service and
collective bargaining rights all in the name of reorganization.
It does seem to me one can reorganize without that kind of
penalty and disruption.
Finally, let me say that because of the melange we see of
agencies with different jurisdictions when it comes to our food
supply, of course, is the way in which Congress does business.
The way in which we do business is of course endemic to a
democratic society. When a crisis arises, and when a problem
arises, we say let's fix that problem. And what you have if you
will forgive the analogy is some real sausage there. We just
pack it in wherever we can seem to fit, and nobody sits down
and says, now, let's do this in some rational way, even if we
reorganize our food, our approach to food safety, we're likely
to continue to do that.
I would only caution, Madam Chairwoman, that we take a deep
breath, learn from what is happening to the Homeland Security
Department before we jump right back in with another whole, big
reorganization with all that entails for employees and
management alike.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Ms. Norton. We've been
joined by our ranking member, Mr. Danny Davis. I'll yield to
you for an opening statement.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
let me apologize for being late. I was having difficulty
pulling myself away from a very interesting discussion of the
effectiveness of drug treatment at another hearing. So I thank
you for your indulgence.
Madam Chairwoman, experts and Members of Congress have long
complained that there are jurisdictional overlaps within the
executive branch. As a result, some important Federal missions
slip through the cracks. Some complaints, however, go as far
back as World War I, when calls for efficiency and economy in
Government led to efforts to strengthen the President's
management ability.
In 1932, for the purposes of reducing expenditures and
increasing efficiency in Government, the President was given
statutory authorization to issue Executive orders proposing
reorganization within the executive branch. A reorganization
order became effective within 60 days, unless either the House
of Congress adopted a resolution of disapproval. Modification
of the President's reorganization plan authority was made
necessary in 1983, when the Supreme Court in the Chattah case
effectively invalidated Congress' continued reliance upon a
concurrent resolution to disapprove of a proposed plan.
Currently in the absence of reorganization plan authority,
the President may propose executive branch reorganization
through the normal legislative process. Calls to reorganize the
Federal Government have more recently come from the National
Commission on the Public Service. The Commission, also known as
the Volcker Commission, released a report in January 2003 that
included the recommendation that the Federal Government be
reorganized into a limited number of mission related executive
departments.
The Federal Government's structure for regulating for
structure is a prime example of Federal agency mission and
program overlap. Twelve different agencies administer as many
as 35 laws that make up the Federal food safety system. Two
agencies account for most Federal food safety spending and
regulatory responsibilities, the Food Safety and Inspection
Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food
and Drug Administration within the Department of Health and
Human Services.
I look forward to hearing testimony from today's witnesses
on how the Federal food safety system should be reorganized and
who
should have the authority to effect the reorganization. So I
thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and yield back the
balance of my time and look forward to hearing from the
witnesses.
Thank you again.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]
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Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Are there any further opening statements?
[No response.]
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions for the hearing record, and that any answers to
questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the
record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the statement of the Grocery
Manufacturers Association be included in the record. And
without objection, it is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and
other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be
included in the hearing record and that all Members be
permitted to revise and extend their remarks. And without
objection, it is so ordered.
On the first panel, we're going to hear from Mr. Lawrence
Dyckman, Director of National Resources and Environment at the
General Accounting Office. Second, we will hear from Dr. Robert
Brackett, Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration. And finally, we
will hear testimony from Dr. Merle Pierson, from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
It is standard practice for this committee to administer
the oath to all witnesses. If all the witnesses on both the
first and second panel will please stand, I will administer the
oath to you at one time. Anyone who is going to be testifying.
If you'll please raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
And if the first panel would come forward and please be
seated.
We will begin with you, Mr. Dyckman, Director of National
Resources and Environment at the General Accounting Office. And
we do have your complete statement in the record, so if you'd
like to summarize for 5 minutes, we would certainly appreciate
it.
STATEMENTS OF LAWRENCE J. DYCKMAN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RESOURCES
AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; ROBERT E.
BRACKETT, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR FOOd SAFETY AND APPLIED
NUTRITION, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION; AND MERLE PIERSON,
DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOOD SAFETY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Dyckman. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Good afternoon,
Members.
I'm pleased to be here today to discuss the subcommittee's
interest in streamlining the Federal Government. Today I will
highlight our considerable body of work on the Federal food
safety system and whether its current design provides
sufficient protection for consumers while ensuring logical and
effective Government resources.
In his September 2003 testimony before this subcommittee,
the Controller General stressed the importance of beginning to
take steps to achieve fundamental reorganization of the Federal
Government into a limited number of mission related executive
departments. His testimony pointed out that redundant,
unfocused, uncoordinated programs waste scarce resources,
confuse and frustrate program customers and limit overall
program effectiveness.
As we've heard in the opening statement, our food supply is
governed by a highly complex system, more than 30 laws
administered by 12 area agencies and various departments. Now,
the system is not a product of strategic design but rather, it
emerged piecemeal over many decades, and as was indicated,
typically in response to particular health threats or economic
crisis. The result, in our opinion, is a fragmented legal and
organizational structure that gives responsibility for food
commodities to different agencies and the real problem is, it
provides them with significantly different authorities and
responsibilities.
As we heard in the opening statements, two principal food
safety agencies involved are FDA and USDA, but many others are
involved. And we have a flip chart which shows the ever popular
frozen pizza example. If you look at the chart, and you have it
before you, multiple agencies regulate both the ingredients and
the processing of the pies. And to complicate matters, it was
mentioned that non-meat pizzas fall under one agency, FDA,
while pizzas with meat toppings fall under USDA. As a result,
some manufacturers, those with meat toppings, get inspected on
a daily basis while others are inspected much less frequently.
The fact that the frequency of inspection is not based on
risk is really a very important but troubling distinction
between the two agencies' enabling legislation. USDA by law
must maintain continuous inspection at slaughter facilities and
visit each processing plant at least once a day while FDA
generally visits plants under its jurisdiction once every
several years.
Another problem with the food safety system is that Federal
resources are allocated on the basis of statutory requirements
and not based on risk. If you look at the pie charts there,
you'll see that USDA and FDA, their funds are not proportionate
to the amount of food produced in terms of the food that they
regulate. It's not proportionate to the level of consumption of
these foods by the American consumers or even more importantly,
the frequency of food-borne illnesses associated with these
products. While USDA regulate about 21 percent of the consumer
food supply, its expenditures are about 50 percent more than
FDA's.
Our past work has chronicled these problems with the
current food safety system, but I'd like to go into, and my
full statement goes into more detail, but I'd like to touch on
some highlights of some additional problems. Let's talk about
egg safety, the overlapping responsibilities there. FDA
regulates whole eggs, which are eggs in shells. USDA regulates
egg products, which are liquid eggs or freeze-dried egg
products, mostly used for manufacturing. However, over 10 years
has passed since the Government is aware that salmonella
contamination from eggs poses a significant health risk, we
still don't have a comprehensive Federal egg safety program.
Another example, with regard to health benefits that
certain food products claim. Our work shows that consumers face
risks because current Federal laws and agencies do not
consistently ensure that these products are safe. Also, health
benefits may be treated differently by different agencies.
There are three agencies involved with health claims, we have
USDA, FDA and the Federal Trade Commission. This leads
consumers to face a confusing array of decisions on health
claims of certain products, and particularly on the health
claims of dietary supplements.
Now, the same fragmented structure in this inconsistent
approach unfortunately is being used to ensure the safety of
imported foods, which is an increasing part of the national
diet. USDA must determine that foreign suppliers of meat and
poultry products have food safety systems that are basically
comparable to ours. We refer to that as equivalency agreements.
While FDA, not having that authority, doesn't have similar
requirements, and therefore it depends largely on port of entry
inspections, which we have pointed out are not as effective.
Let's look at livestock regulation. We've heard about the
one case that we had in Washington on BSE, and the Canadian
case. That's another example where you have USDA regulating the
animal and the meat it produces, but FDA regulates the safety
of the feed fed to the livestock. We believe this can
compromise our ability to protect our citizens from animal
diseases.
Finally, potentially an even more serious issue is that the
current food safety system is further challenged by the
realization that American farms and ranches and our processed
foods are in fact vulnerable to potential attack and deliberate
contamination. As we recently reported to the Senate Committee
on Governmental Affairs, bioterrorist attacks could be directed
to many different targets in the farm to table continuum. This
includes crops, livestock, food products, processing foods,
transportation, storage facilities and even food and
agricultural research laboratories.
While both FDA and USDA have taken steps to protect our
food supply from terrorist attack, we have to realize for the
most part it's this antiquated system that we're talking about
that we must depend on to prevent and respond to any such
attacks.
In conclusion, given the risk posed by the existing and the
new threats that I spoke about, be they inadvertent or
deliberate, we believe we can no longer afford these
inconsistent, overlapping programs and this patchwork approach
to food safety. It's time to ask whether a system that has
developed piecemeal over many decades can efficiently and
effectively respond to today's challenges. That's why we
believe that creating a single food safety agency to administer
a uniform risk-based inspection system is the most effective
way to prevent and protect the Nation's food supply.
Madam Chairwoman, I would be happy to answer any questions
after the panel is completed.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dyckman follows:]
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Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Dyckman. Now we'll
hear from Dr. Robert Brackett, Director of the Center for Food
Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug
Administration. Dr. Brackett, you're recognized for 5 minutes,
and again, we have your full statement for the record, so if
you can summarize, that would be great.
Mr. Brackett. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairwoman
Davis and members of the committee. I am Dr. Bob Brackett,
Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at
the Food and Drug Administration within the Department of
Health and Human Services. And I am pleased to be here today
with my colleague from USDA, Dr. Merle Pierson, as well as Mr.
Dyckman, to discuss the Federal food safety system. And I do
want to thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on
behalf of Health and Human Services.
The subcommittee has expressed interest in the potential
benefits of consolidating a number of food safety functions
into a single food agency. Over the years, there has been much
discussion about this. In fact, in 2002, the White House looked
into this issue and concluded that the goals of the
administration are better advanced through enhanced interagency
coordination rather than through development of legislation to
create a single food agency.
Is the interagency food coordination working? Yes, the
American food supply continues to be among the safest in the
world, and food safety agencies are working more closely than
ever before. Of course, we continue to face many challenges. We
face the traditional challenge of reducing the incidence of
food-borne illness due to unintentional contamination and in
addition, we now face a heightened challenge of protecting food
from deliberate contamination.
To address these issues, the Department of Health and Human
Services has been implementing the most fundamental
enhancements in our food safety and food defense activities in
many years. FDA is the Federal agency that regulates about 80
percent of the Nation's food, everything we eat except for
meat, poultry and certain egg products, which are regulated by
our partners at USDA. FDA's responsibility extends to live food
animals and animal feed. Our sister public health agency in
HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plays a
very important and complementary role through its surveillance
of illness associated with the entire food supply. Food supply
and food defense continue to be top priorities for this
administration.
In our food safety and defense efforts, FDA has many
partners, Federal and State agencies, academia, and of course
industry. We're working closely with our Federal partners, such
as USDA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Homeland
Security Council at the White House, and the Department of
State as well as with law enforcement and intelligence
gathering agencies.
I want to emphasize the close working relationship with
Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Animal and Health
Plant Inspection Services at USDA, Customs and Border
Protection at the Department of Homeland Security, and with our
sister public health agencies, CDC and the National Institutes
of Health. Specific examples of cooperative activities included
within HHS and USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency and
other agencies that are working with DHS, Department of
Homeland Security, to achieve the objectives of Homeland
Security Presidential Directive No. 9, or HSPD-9, which has
established a national policy to defend the agriculture and
food system against terrorist attacks, major disasters and
emergencies.
A second example is that FDA, CDC and USDA work together on
Healthy People 2010 to identify the most significant
preventable threats to health and to establish national goals
to reduce these threats. FDA, CDC and the Food Safety
Inspection Service work together on food code to provide a
model ordinance to local, State and Federal Governmental bodies
and tribal nations to ensure that the food provided by retail
food establishments and institutions such as nursing homes is
not a vector of communicable diseases.
To increase laboratory search capacity, FDA has worked with
CDC and FSIS to expand laboratory response network by
establishing the Food Emergency Response Network to include a
substantial number of new laboratories capable of analyzing
foods for agents of concern. These are just a few of the many
cooperative activities that we participate together on.
Last July, former FDA Commissioner Mark McClelland issued a
report to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson
entitled, ``Ensuring the Safety and Security of the Nation's
Food Supply.'' The report outlines a comprehensive 10 point
program to protect the safety and security, now referred to as
defense, of our food supply. I'll briefly describe three of the
program areas.
A key component of the FDA's strategic plan is to assure a
high quality professional work force. So we're trying to create
a stronger FDA. FDA has created many new human resource
policies to attract and keep high caliber employees.
A second point involves imports. Thanks to a bipartisan
congressional support, a fiscal year 2002 supplemental
appropriation enabled FDA to hire over 800 employees, 635 of
these were hired principally to address food safety and food
defense issues, primarily at the borders. With these additional
field employees, we've expanded FDA's presence at ports of
entry, increased surveillance of imported foods, increased
domestic inspections and enhanced our laboratory analysis
capacity. In addition, we're using risk management strategies
to achieve the greatest food protection for our limited
resources.
The Bioterrorism Act provided the Secretary of Health and
Human Services with new authorities to protect the Nation's
food supply against the threat of intentional contamination and
other food related emergencies. These new authorities will
improve our ability to act quickly in responding to a
threatened or actual terrorist attack as well as other food
related emergencies. FDA has been working hard to implement
this law effectively and efficiently.
In conclusion, the Department of Health and Human Services
is making tremendous progress in its ability to ensure the
safety and defense of the Nation's food supply. And due to the
enhancements being made by FDA, CDC and other agencies and due
to the close coordination between the Federal food safety,
public health, law enforcement and intelligence gathering
agencies, the U.S. food safety and defense system is stronger
than ever before.
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Health and Human
Services food safety and defense activities, and I would be
pleased to respond to any questions after the panel.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Brackett follows:]
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Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Dr. Brackett. Finally,
we'll hear from Mr. Merle Pierson, with the USDA. Dr. Pierson,
again, your statement is in the record, if you would summarize
in 5 minutes.
Mr. Pierson. Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity
to speak to you about the important issue of protecting the
Nation's food supply. I'm Dr. Merle Pierson, Deputy Under
Secretary for Food Safety at USDA.
Although I served in this capacity for only the past 2
years, my entire career, including 32 years at Virginia Tech,
has been devoted to food safety and public health. First, let
me offer a brief overview of the work and responsibilities of
the Food Safety Inspection Service [FSIS]. FSIS operates under
the legal and statutory authorities of the Federal Meat
Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act and the Egg
Products Inspection Act. Under these authorities, FSIS inspects
all meat, poultry and egg products sold in interstate commerce
and reinspects imported products to ensure that they meet U.S.
food safety standards.
Ensuring the safety of meat, poultry and egg products
requires a strong, well integrated infrastructure. In order to
accomplish this, FSIS has a work force of approximately 10,000
employees, which includes 7,600 inspection personnel stationed
in over 6,000 federally inspected meat, poultry and egg
products plants every single day these plants are in operation.
FSIS jurisdiction encompasses over 45 percent of all foods
produced by U.S. agriculture. The FSIS work force verifies the
processing of 43.6 billion pounds of red meat, 49.2 billion
pounds of poultry, 3.7 pounds of liquid egg products, certifies
that these meet strict statutory requirements.
In addition, 3.8 billion pounds of imported meat, poultry
and processed egg products were presented for entry into the
United States from 28 of the 33 countries eligible to export in
2003. I welcome the discussion on the creation of a single food
safety agency. As you and members of the subcommittee are
aware, any food safety and security system must be able to meet
current and future food safety and security challenges. In
addition, I strongly believe that any effective food safety and
security system must be rooted in public health and science.
FSIS believes and the GAO and National Academy of Sciences
has agreed that a critical component of the food safety system
is a verifiable food safety inspection system that is both risk
based and science based. A risk based system allocates
resources based on the greatest risks or hazards, while a
science based system takes these risks and hazards into account
to develop science based programs and policies.
Thanks in part to the efforts by FSIS to follow the
scientific approach in administering its food safety programs,
the American public remains confident of the safety of the U.S.
food supply. Additionally, our efforts are paying off, as seen
by the decline in food-borne illness over the past 6 years.
FSIS routinely communicates and coordinates with its sister
public health agencies. Cooperation, communication and
coordination are absolutely essential to effectively address
public health issues.
I'd like to point out a few of the many examples
exemplified in these successful partnerships. FSIS works
closely with the White House Homeland Security Council, the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health
and Human Services, the USDA Homeland Security staff and other
Federal, State and local partners to develop and carry out
strategies to protect the food supply from potential attack.
In December 2003 there was the discovery of a single case
of BSE in Washington State. This provides an excellent example
of the strong communication ties between USDA and its Federal
and State food safety partners. The Federal Government's swift
response to the BSE diagnosis played a vital role in
maintaining high consumer confidence.
Since 1999, FSIS and FDA have had an MOU to exchange
information on an ongoing basis about establishments that fall
under both jurisdictions. Another example is the Codex
Alimentarious Commission, which is a joint WHO-FAO
international standard setting body for food safety. The USDA
Under Secretary for Food Safety has responsibility for
leadership of Codex with the U.S. Government and the Codex
office is managed through FSIS. Codex is an excellent example
of wide reaching coordination of food safety activities
throughout the U.S. Government.
In considering a single food safety agency, Congress must
analyze the efficacy of the single food safety agency models in
the countries that have adopted such paradigms, while being
mindful of the ultimate goal, improving food safety and public
health. FSIS bases its policy decisions on science, so the
single food safety agency discussion boils down to the
question, will there be a measurable benefit to public health.
As with any new food safety and security effort, we want to
make sure we maintain and continue improving on any progress
that we have made to improve public health. We must also
consider the costs associated with any major overhaul to the
U.S. food safety inspection system. In addition, Congress would
need to determine how current statutory authorities would be
merged into a single food safety agency. The acts under which
the food safety inspection service operates are different than
the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act administered by the
Food and Drug Administration. Under the acts FSIS administers,
it must find a product not adulterated before the product can
enter commerce. This is because inherent in these acts is a
finding by Congress that the risks presented by meat, poultry
and egg products are such that trained inspectors must affirm
that these products are safe before they can enter commerce and
be distributed to consumers.
We are proud of our accomplishments, particularly the
declines in food-borne illnesses over the past few years, and
we must maintain and improve on the progress that FSIS, FDA,
and our food safety partners have made thus far. Thank you for
the opportunity to provide these overview comments on our food
safety and security programs. We look forward to working with
Congress to continue to keep the Nation's food supply safe and
secure and strengthen public health. I certainly welcome any
other questions or comments. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pierson follows:]
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Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Dr. Pierson. I thank all
three of you.
We are going to move now to the question and answer period,
but I will say that we may very well be interrupted for a
series of, I believe three votes. We may have to ask for your
indulgence, to wait for us until we get back.
I will yield now to my ranking member, Danny Davis, for
questions.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
I want to thank the witnesses.
Mr. Dyckman, GAO has widely reported and talked about the
high number of Federal employees that can be expected to retire
over the next few years. What impact would these retirements
have on our ability to protect the Nation's food services and
to your knowledge, are the agencies, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, taking steps to
address this probability?
Mr. Dyckman. Mr. Davis, we have not looked specifically at
human resource management issues in the inspection service at
USDA or at FDA. But it is my understanding that like other
agencies, they face aging work forces and the stress of trying
to train their employees, to keep their skill levels up, and to
transition to a new work force. But we haven't specifically
looked at the impact of the aging work force on the food safety
agencies.
Mr. Danny Davis. Drs. Brackett and Pierson both in their
testimony talked about in 2002, the administration established
a policy coordinating committee to look into the possibility of
creating a single food agency, and it concluded that the goals
of the administration are better advanced through enhanced
agency coordination, rather than creating a single agency. Do
you agree or not agree?
Mr. Dyckman. With all due respect, I can understand to some
extent why the administration would do that. It is difficult to
bring about change. Unfortunately, it usually takes a crisis in
the food safety system. It might unfortunately take a health
crisis, a larger outbreak of mad cow disease or foot and mouth
disease or something of that nature.
Obviously, you can improve the effectiveness of any system
where you have multiple operatives of you have improved
coordination. But I think the question really should be, why do
we have to rely on coordination just because we have players
there? Why can't we reshuffle the deck and have a smaller deck,
so we don't have to rely on one agency talking to another
agency? The issue of coordination obviously is important. Over
the years we have done some work that has questioned in some
cases the effectiveness of coordination.
But I'm not here today to criticize FDA or USDA. I think
I'm here today to talk about, does it make sense to have a
single food safety agency. If we had to do it from scratch, if
we just started today and we had to do it from scratch, would
we create the existing organizational structure or would we
create one agency.
Obviously, the short answer to your question is, I can
understand how the administration would like to improve
coordination and not embark on a new reorganizational
structure. But I think for the long term and for the American
people, it really pays to have one agency look at food safety,
for a lot of the reasons I outlined in my testimony.
Mr. Danny Davis. Dr. Pierson, Dr. Brackett, why do you
think that there appears to be so much resistance to, I mean,
we know that agencies kind of grow up and take on roles and
responsibilities that are perhaps a little different than if we
were to start something from scratch or have the opportunity to
just kind of say, we're going to create X to take care of these
needs, and so no one, do you have any ideas about why there
seems to be the reluctance to let something go and start
something new?
Mr. Pierson. As I stated in my opening comments, the
baseline is protecting public health. That should be our main
concern and consideration. We are certainly open and willing to
have consideration, discussion, opportunities looked at in
terms of how can we do what we're doing better, and again to
enhance public health. So I don't think it's something that
we're closed minded about it, but we're open to discussion and
to further doing the best job we can possibly do. I think we're
totally devoted to doing that.
I might also further state as an example, there was a
tremendous undertaking in creating the Department of Homeland
Security, and the President and Congress should be applauded
for that just absolutely major undertaking and doing something
very, very well and very successfully. In doing so, we still,
in USDA and other agencies have to work in a collaborative way.
And we do very, very actively work in a collaborative way to
address our issues and to cooperate to assure that the security
of the American public is protected from potential threats.
So the point I'm making is, if one creates a so-called
single food safety agency, you still have to have collaboration
and cooperation with other partners, other States, other
governments, so on and so forth, in order to make that
effective.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Brackett. Congressman Davis, I would like to also
emphasize that the current structure results from the statutes
that we must operate under. So even with the single food agency
model, you would still end up having two systems, one governing
meats, poultry and eggs, the others all the other foods. So
again, the coordination, the communication between these
different groups that would oversee those sorts of foods would
still be critical, and as critical as they are right now.
Mr. Dyckman. Could I just add, I should have probably added
that it's not our intent to just simply create a single food
safety agency. And I agree with Dr. Brackett that doing that by
itself wouldn't accomplish that much. What we're really talking
about is looking at the underlying legislation, coming up with
a single food safety model legislation that covers all food
based on science or risk.
The other thing, and then, and you can even do that before
you reorganize, and maybe you might find that it's not
necessary to reorganize, you could just have a level playing
field on the regulatory authorities of the agencies.
But I do want to add something interesting. In our full
testimony we have a chart which shows that, we interviewed
senior, very senior, and one of them will testify, former
executives that worked at USDA, even the former Secretary of
Agriculture. It's funny, when you leave the position,
frequently your ideology and your views on the subject change.
I believe that on page 18 of our full statement, we indicate
how these positions have changed. Most of the former executives
that we spoke to do favor a consolidation.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis. We still have
about 13 minutes. Mr. Deal, do you have questions you'd like to
ask?
Mr. Deal. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I think it's
interesting to note, as you indicate in your surveys of these
officials, they all agree on consolidation. We have the two
heads of the two primary agencies here, and obviously there's
always going to be the feeling and desire to protect what you
already do, because you feel you're doing it well. And I notice
your recommendation is not specific as to where that
consolidation should occur.
Is it inappropriate for me to ask you, Mr. Dyckman, whether
or not you have a preference from the GAO perspective as to
what agency, if any, and I notice that only two of the ones you
interviewed said an independent agency should be created for
that purposes, which is a minority position. I think most of us
who are interested in downsizing Government would say we don't
need to create another agency.
Where would you think it would be most logically placed?
Mr. Dyckman. That's obviously an interesting question, one
that I've given a lot of thought to. I've testified on this
issue before and I've been asked this before. I hope I'm
consistent in my answer.
First let me start off by saying there are advantages and
disadvantages with creating it either in USDA or FDA. Our first
preference would be an independent agency, but I recognize that
creating another agency in this budgetary crisis that we find
ourselves might be very difficult.
So if you don't create an independent agency, the issue is
which of the two existing agencies. USDA has, in my opinion,
more expertise, has more resources and possibly one could argue
more experience. They do, however, have a downside. They
promote agriculture. And one can perceive a possible conflict
of interest. And I'm not suggesting that there is a real
conflict of interest, but one can perceive that.
On the other hand, FDA, with a much smaller staff, one
could argue that it is a health agency, and that's really what
food safety should be about. So I could see transferring assets
from one agency to another. The long answer is that I would
lean, if I personally had to choose, toward putting it in FDA
because it is a health agency and because it has, I think, more
scientific knowledge and it is not a promotion agency, as
agriculture is. But obviously that is a congressional decision.
Mr. Deal. I would just make one further observation. One
thing that all of your interviewees agree with is that there
needs to be legislative reform, and I agree with that.
Mr. Dyckman. That is correct.
Mr. Deal. I have some specifics that may be more
appropriate in the next panel we'll get a chance to discuss
some of those specifics. Because quite frankly, what we have
done with the legislative language in many cases is create a
conflict between the agency that's required to certify food
safety, we put barriers to their efforts to certify because of
legislative language.
The organic industry is one that comes to mind right off
the top, because we are on the one hand allowing it to be
touted as safer than everything else, yet they are excluded
from many of the inspection provisions that are required of
others that produce main line products that are not labeled
with a label that is giving the impression to the public at
least is safer than other products. That I think is primarily a
legislative problem that needs to be addressed.
I realize we have votes going on. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Deal.
If you all will be patient with us, we have three votes.
Hopefully we'll be back here around 4:15. But we will start the
minute that I get back in here.
Thank you. With that, the hearing is recessed.
[Recess.]
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Gentlemen, thank you so very much
for your patience.
Let me ask a few questions. Mr. Dyckman, let me ask you,
would the consolidation of the food inspection activities
result in any savings for the taxpayers?
Mr. Dyckman. In the short term, probably no. There probably
will be startup costs. In the longer term, or the mid-term,
particularly again if we could have one uniform risk-based
legislative authority to cover food safety, I think we would be
able to reduce some inspections on foods that are not as high
risk. Because inspections, particularly some of the USDA
inspections, are fairly expensive on a product by product
basis. So we might be able to free up some of that inspection
power and make it available for higher risk things, or to some
extent, reduce expenditures.
But there are also other savings that can be achieved. You
have regional office structures in two agencies, and some of
them, I think on average are within 10 miles of one another.
You have regulatory writing, you have enforcement, you have
attorneys. I think there would be an economy of scale if you
would combine.
We haven't done specific work to look at some of the
savings. And as you know, Madam Chairwoman, we are continuing
our review to look at some of these issues. Plus we're also
doing a review for the Senate Agriculture Committee to look at
the experiences of some of the other nations that have
consolidated their agencies to see if they have tangible
benefits, whether it's cost savings or reductions in illnesses
or pathogen reductions.
So it's an appropriate question to ask. Right now I can't
assure you that there will be cost savings. I believe I can
assure you that there will be more effective regulation and
you'll have a lot more latitude to spend the existing dollars
that we spend. But I'm hopeful that there will be eventually
cost savings.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. If we went the route of the
legislation to make it more consistent as opposed to
consolidating and making one agency, would there be a savings
then?
Mr. Dyckman. There should be some savings, again,
particularly in the inspection, reduction of inspections. If
inspections were purely based on risk, and not on legislative
requirements, there should be some. But obviously there are
more opportunities if you can combine functions.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Let me go to you, Dr. Pierson. Based
on something that you said on there being a cost to
reorganization, some believe that the status quo is acceptable
in this system because there is communication between the
various agencies with food safety responsibilities. But
wouldn't the system be better served if you spent more time and
resources on enforcement as opposed to communication?
Mr. Pierson. No. 1, certainly we again are very open to
consideration of a regulatory authority on how we carry out our
responsibilities. Whether or not there would be specific cost
savings relative to----
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I'm not even talking cost savings
now, I'm talking, wouldn't we be better served if one or more
agencies, depending on whether you want legislative or into one
agency, wouldn't we be better served, the public, if we were
concentrating on enforcement instead of worrying about FDA
communicating with USDA?
Mr. Pierson. Within our area of responsibility, of course,
our main focus is in fact enforcement. And yes, there are
certain areas where we do in fact have to specifically
collaborate. I think these collaborations in fact, even though
you might be under one structure, would still have to occur.
You still have the boxes and lines and arrows to different
areas, segments, etc.
So it would depend on how all this would set up. There
would still have to be collaboration between these areas. We
have that within our own structure within FSIS. Different
specific areas have to communicate with those other areas and
collaborate with them, our policy labeling staff relative to
field operations, and other examples where we have to have that
continuing interaction. But our overall goal of course would be
to focus on the major resources. That's where our major
resources are, is in the inspection side of our agency.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I guess the one thing that concerns
me on the whole issue of communication, and I think you guys
are probably doing a very good job of that, please don't
misunderstand me, I'm not attacking USDA or FDA. I'm just
trying to make some sense out of where I know Congress has
gotten us, not by any fault of yours. It's by piecemeal
legislation.
But it's been said that when everyone's in charge, no one's
in charge. I guess that's my concern, if we were to have some
problem or something and there's no one official who's in
charge of all the food inspection, responsibility gets
scattered around to so many different agencies. How do you deal
with that? How do you handle that? And that can be to any of
you.
Mr. Pierson. I think that we, through the collaboration
that does in fact occur that responsibility is quite well
relied on, and there are many examples. Dr. Lester Crawford,
Acting Commissioner of FDA, we work with him very closely. We
know who has responsibilities for different areas. Very
specifically, the BSE issue that occurred, I think we all very
well realized our area's responsibility. It was really, I think
an excellent example of a seamless interaction to address what
was a major issue and to make sure that we maintain consumer
confidence relative to the safety of this food supply.
But that effort took interaction between Animal Plant
Health Inspection Service, Food Safety Inspection Service, the
Center for Veterinary Medicine. So it was multiple mission
areas. I think it worked in, as I said, a seamless operation
where we really understood those divisions of responsibilities.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I may come back with some other
questions, but I want to get to our other Members here. Forgive
me, but someone testified and said one of you was responsible
for the dairy and so forth, but the other is responsible for
the grain. How do you then reconcile what I said in my opening
statement, one does chicken soup and beef broth and the other
does chicken broth and beef soup? That doesn't fall in line
with anything I heard. Where's the area of responsibility
there? I guess I'm not even sure of the clear lines of
responsibility, so I'm not sure how you all can keep it
straight.
But I want to go on to the other Members now. Mr. Deal,
were you finished before we left?
Mr. Deal. Yes, but if you have second go-around, I'd like
to ask one quick question.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. OK. Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I'm really
confused. Because your statement just about one does beef soup,
another one does beef broth, and one does chicken broth, the
other one does chicken soup, one does frozen cheese pizza----
Ms. Davis of Virginia. You didn't even get it right.
Mr. Murphy. No, I didn't. [Laughter.]
The other one does frozen pizza manufacturing, meat pizza.
Is there a difference between the level of job training
requirements, education, anything between those who inspect
cheese pizzas and those who inspect pepperoni or sausage pizza?
I didn't think so. When we talk about, how about beef broth
and beef soup? Why do we have to have two different groups
inspecting those?
Mr. Pierson. I think in part some of this is something that
has evolved over the years, quite frankly.
Mr. Murphy. I'm a psychologist, and we always say, one of
the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over again, expecting different results. This seems to fit in
that category.
Mr. Pierson. Yes.
Mr. Murphy. Let me go to a statement that you made, Dr.
Brackett. You said, should a single food agency be created,
there may be a request to reallocate 635 field personnel to
newly formed agencies. Such reallocation would measurably
diminish FDA's ability and efficiency to potentially address
issues involving the safety and efficacy. Why would we have to
reallocate 635 people, if they're needed?
Mr. Brackett. Congressman, I think the main reason why that
would be necessary is actually, again, and a lot of this goes
to the risk based, if you have a uniform inspection across all
different commodities, you would be taking from areas to put
them in another one, as opposed to doing it with a risk based
system where you are focusing specifically on those areas that
are the highest risk.
Mr. Murphy. But I don't understand why merging this into
one agency would prevent you from making the kind of
adjustments necessary to do it right. I don't think that's part
of the discussion here, is everybody do the same thing one way.
But I would think the discussion is still to allow enough
flexibility so that you could do the job.
Mr. Brackett. It would be. And again, this goes back to my
earlier statement about with the assumption that if you have
the current statutory structure, you have all the meat, poultry
and egg products with continuous inspection mandated as opposed
to the FDA's laws, which require a risk based approach which is
not continuous. So you still have those commodities outside of
meat, poultry and egg products that do not have the requirement
for a continuous inspection, together with those inspectors who
must be in the meat, poultry and egg plants under----
Mr. Murphy. Why can't you make that adjustment? Why can't
we design it so--I think with some of these issues here, unless
there's really an entirely different graduate degree required
to inspect one thing versus another, can't there be some
overlap and cross training of skills, someone could check a
couple things at the same time, beef broth, beef soup, chicken
and the eggs?
Mr. Brackett. Congressman, there are also cases where this
is being done now. A good example might be a plant that
produces a cheese pizza and a meat pepperoni pizza, in which we
have an MOU with the FDA so that their inspectors are looking
at everything. If they happen to see something related to the
cheese pizzas, they have the authority to call us, we come in
there, so they are eyes and ears----
Mr. Murphy. Call you into what?
Mr. Brackett. To act upon the observations that they have
made.
Mr. Murphy. But they don't have the authority to take other
actions, they can't simply say, there's something wrong with
the cheese here?
Mr. Brackett. Or perhaps that it was produced under
unsanitary conditions. But now with the new Bioterrorism Act,
that will allow us to actually give them that authority, and we
are looking into that possibility of doing that.
Mr. Murphy. So they wouldn't have to call in another layer
of bureaucracy. Yes, Mr. Dyckman.
Mr. Dyckman. Again, I want to emphasize that we're not
calling for reorganization or consolidation first, without
looking at the basic underlying statutes. I think your
assumptions are correct, that it would make no sense to just
reorganize with the same statutory legislation requirements,
because that would tie up the flexibility that you would gain
by a reorganization. So I think what we're talking about is
looking at the enabling legislation, coming up with a uniform
food safety piece of legislation, and then considering how best
to reorganize.
Mr. Murphy. Do we know what the level of administrative
costs are of having these multiple agencies?
Mr. Dyckman. We have issued a report, it's several years
old, that documents the costs of each agency. What we have not
done is try to estimate what would be saved by consolidation.
That's a little more difficult.
I might add that one of the countries that we will be
looking at that did consolidate, they originally estimated, I
think, a 7 percent initial startup cost, but they hope to save
13 percent in the mid-term. So those are the types of things we
will look at when we look at the foreign country experiences,
so we might have some additional information on other
countries' experiences with this issue.
Mr. Murphy. That would be helpful. Thank you.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. If the gentleman would yield to me
for just 1 second, let me just be clear on the cheese and meat
pizzas. I think you said it depends, sometimes there's overlap
if they did both at the factory. Do I take it to mean that you
inspect it at the manufacturer, and if that's the case, I
wouldn't think DiGiorno has a cheese manufacturing plant and a
meat manufacturing plant, do they?
Mr. Brackett. No, they don't.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Don't most of the frozen pizzas,
don't they do them all in one place?
Mr. Brackett. Yes, Madam Chairwoman, they do that. But what
I'm saying is those products that have a certain level of meat,
that is, such as pepperoni pizzas, must be produced under
continuous inspection. That is not the case with the cheese
pizzas, which are under FDA authority.
The other point that I omitted to say about the FDA
inspectors is they often do have multiple responsibilities,
that they also may do drugs, devices, other FDA regulated
products, in which case they would have to have significantly
more education.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I think you make the argument
yourself for having one set of inspections. Because it bothers
me a little bit that the cheese wouldn't be inspected very
often but the meat is. You can do something to cheese as well
as you could to meat, right?
Mr. Brackett. You could do something, and if it's
intentional, that's a different story. But one of the reasons
that we look at it this way, too, is risk based inspection.
Cheese pizzas are typically not considered one of the higher
risk foods, so it would not necessarily get the same scrutiny
that another high risk product will. Whereas in the case of
USDA, and I'll let Dr. Pierson talk, their product, they don't
have a choice, it must be done under continuous inspection.
Mr. Murphy. I feel better already.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I'm glad you do, Mr. Murphy, because
I don't.
Mr. Murphy. I actually don't feel better.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I thought you were being a little
facetious over there.
Mr. Murphy. I did get sick off a cheese pizza once.
Mr. Pierson. That's correct, for meat and poultry topped
pizzas, the type of thing that Bob is talking about, they would
come under our authority, that's our statutory authority for
inspection on that particular case when our inspector has to be
there at least one time during the shift, during the day at
those operations. Slaughter operations, our inspectors have to
be there continuously. So there's differences on that. But it's
a presence each day in those operations.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I've gone way over my time, but Mr.
Dyckman's dying to say something.
Mr. Dyckman. Yes, I really don't want to pick on the frozen
pizza industry, I love pizza.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. It's the easiest one to talk about.
Mr. Dyckman. Right. But I think their most substantive
issues in terms of the whole issue of whether meat has
continuous inspection or should it have continuous inspection
or not. But another issue, you asked about overlap and
duplication in general. Let me give you an example. Both USDA
and FDA did risk assessments because of bioterrorism and the
like. And they did them independently. Both agencies issued
guidelines to the industries that they regulate in terms of how
to protect for security issues. And they did those
independently.
And those are the types of issues that I think we're also
talking about in terms of a scale of efficiency that would be
appropriate and would be achievable if you had one agency.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I started something here. Dr.
Brackett.
Mr. Brackett. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The point I'd
like to make, or correction for the record, which is that the
vulnerability assessments at USDA and FDA were done
collaboratively, sitting down together, going through the whole
thing. The guidance documents were done separately, because
again of our constituencies and our knowledge of the particular
commodities. So USDA had one set for meat and poultry and FDA
had some for our commodities. But that was mainly a means of
communicating to our regulated constituency.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you. Mr. Van Hollen, I will
yield to you for questions.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, I'll just wait to hear the next
round of testimony.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Davis, do you have any other
questions?
Mr. Danny Davis. Well, I do indeed, thank you, Madam
Chairwoman.
Dr. Pierson, I know that Mr. Glickman, former Secretary of
Agriculture, is going to testify on the next panel that due to
a lack of resources, products in FDA's regulatory system do not
undergo as thorough an inspection process as products under the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's jurisdiction. My question is
how would coordination efforts address these concerns? And
would Mr. Glickman's concerns be better addressed if one entity
had the resources and responsibilities for all the inspections?
Mr. Pierson. I think it all boils down to, again, the issue
of statutory authorities. What Congress has passed is the acts
under which we operate. Those provide that basic difference,
basic differences between what FDA does and how they carry out
their functions and what we do as FSIS. There are just certain
fundamental requirements there for our continuous inspection
and our continuous presence.
Mr. Danny Davis. But would not the products require as much
review or as much inspection? What we say is, because of their
statutory authority----
Mr. Pierson. I think what you're driving to is what you
would call a risk based inspection system. That's something
that we're working on very hard, how to prioritize those risks
and where do we best place the resources in that food system.
And so we were of course identifying what are the risks, and at
what point should these risks be best controlled. So we want to
redeploy the inspection force such that we do address those
priority issues. Certainly we need to collaborate as the laws
now exist with FDA in those priorities.
I'll give you an example, the risk ranking that was done in
collaboration with FDA for listeria monocytogenes. And we
addressed those areas with the highest risk, and for instance
on our part specifically passed a regulation that addressed
listeria monocytogenes and its control in ready to eat meat and
poultry. As a matter of fact, our regulatory compliance
sampling as a result of that has shown significant reduction in
terms of positive ready to eat samples for listeria
monocytogenes.
So it's an example of where yes, there's collaboration and
we did our risk ranking and identified where the greatest risks
are and placed resources in that area. The type of model I
believe you're driving at is the same thing or the same
direction we should be going to. That's where we're headed.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I
have no further questions.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr. Deal.
Mr. Deal. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Dyckman, in your report you talk about the area of
claims of health benefits. And you point out that both FDA,
USDA and the Federal Trade Commission all have that certifying
responsibility to varying degrees. I assume that's a function
that you would also recommend be consolidated, and if so, do
you have a preference as to where that consolidation should
occur?
Mr. Dyckman. I think it would follow the same lines as
where the inspection activities would be consolidated. The
issue there is again, different legislative responsibility,
different legislative authorities. When we did our report on
functional foods and dietary supplements, we found again big
differences between the legislative authorities that each
agency has, and that accounts for the differences in the
quality of or the types of claims that different products can
make, whether it's a dietary supplement, whether it's a food,
whether it's a functional food.
So I would say that it would still follow wherever the
inspection activities would go, that agency should have the
lead on that as well.
Mr. Deal. The reason I think that is a little more
difficult question is that there are certain certifications
both at the production level and at the processing level. If
you're only at the tail end of the system, it's pretty hard to
verify the claims that are inherent in the production phase of
it.
Mr. Dyckman. No question about that. And the
inconsistencies that we found relate to the testing evidence
that has to be presented by the manufacturer depending on the
type of product that's involved.
Mr. Deal. Let me go to the border situation. We do have the
border agency now that has that responsibility, I believe USDA
still continues, and I presume FDA has some responsibilities
there, too. Is that a function of border inspection that could
be consolidated? It appears to me that there could be some
consolidation. Does it make a difference whether the product
that is coming across the border is in the process stage versus
the unprocessed stage, and how would that kind of consolidation
end, under what agency would it take place?
Mr. Dyckman. Representative Deal, you're getting into a
line of questioning that is appropriate, but we haven't done
the work to look at all the different factors. Obviously border
inspections are different than food inspections at a plant. It
could very well be that, and Homeland Security has
responsibilities as well. So there's another agency involved.
I don't have the short answer for that question in terms of
which is the most appropriate agency. It could be that the
responsibilities, if you only take the inspection in food
processing facilities and consolidate that, it could very well
be that we might decide to leave some other responsibilities
with the current agencies.
Mr. Deal. This is my final point. The difference between
standards of production and standards at the processing stages,
we have some legislative problems there, and I've used the
organic industry as an example. And I think it's a classic
example where we, through the Organic Standards Board, have
given them authority to set certain standards. But they are
basically self-certifying, no pesticides, no commercial
fertilizers, no GMOs, etc. But they have their own certifying
agencies.
We found, as I was looking into it, a dairy farmer whose
wife was his certifying agent, that he had complied. And if
there is no testing at the processing stage to verify the
things that are inherent in the production requirements, there
is a huge inconsistency and I think quite frankly a misleading
of the public and perhaps even some safety factors that ought
to be considered.
So it's not a simple issue, and I think it does require a
comprehensive review of everything that we have out there. Once
again, a piecemeal approach may not produce us any better
results than our piecemeal approach we currently have.
Mr. Dyckman. I agree with you. What I would hope though is
that at some point, and it might occur next month, next year or
in 5 years, that the Congress decides, well, the current system
is not the best system, so let's begin. We have to begin
somewhere. Let's put together a panel that is not going to
decide whether or not we will consolidate, but how do we go
about consolidating, what is the best way to revise and to
restructure the current system, which is clearly a patchwork
system.
Mr. Deal. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Murphy, do you have any other
questions?
Mr. Murphy. Yes, I just want to followup on an area that
has to do with how information is shared between all the
agencies. For example, are there alerts or communications and
training that takes place between the agencies, so people are
going through the same training processes, or does everybody
have their own, with training on how to do inspections? Any
crossover there?
Mr. Dyckman. I'll let FDA and USDA respond.
Mr. Brackett. Thank you. Well, as I mentioned earlier,
because our inspectors do have multiple authority, they do get
specialized training. And it may be different than that for
USDA, and I'll let Dr. Pierson talk about that. Because each of
these commodities takes a special knowledge.
But we do communicate directly, calling each other, we know
each other, when we have issues, we share them. We also serve
on committees together to look at the scientific basis and the
risk rankings for the different foods. And in fact, Dr. Pierson
and I, Dr. Pierson is chair and I'm vice chair of the
microbiological criteria for foods, in which we both use the
scientific knowledge and share the scientific knowledge and
issues with each other in deciding on what we're going to do.
Mr. Pierson. The training that we provide for our
inspection force is of course very specifically designed to
inspect relative to the meat and poultry as well as egg product
inspection acts and the regulations that we promulgate based
relative to those acts. Those would be fundamentally different,
of course, than under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
So you have to train according to those requirements, that's
one.
There are some basic principles, quite frankly, that are
similar, such as in the hazard analysis critical control point
concept that's used for food safety management.
Mr. Murphy. Is that training done together, between
agencies, or is that separate?
Mr. Pierson. No, because they are under the USDA, FSIS, all
meat and poultry plants must have developed and implemented
HACCP systems. And these HACCP systems, this rule as
promulgated is of course relative to our authorities, too.
Whereas FDA, Bob could speak to it relative to seafood, for
example. So there are some differences relative to the basic
approach to inspection. There are commonalities.
Let me mention if I could briefly, where you have this dual
jurisdiction issue that our inspectors are trained on those
overlap areas.
Mr. Murphy. That's important to know, that they're capable
of doing that. Also, is there any sharing of computer
information files, data back and forth between agencies? Are
the computers compatible in communicating that information back
and forth between all these agencies?
Mr. Pierson. As far as our inspection activities, because
of the different approach, I think we don't have systems we
share such as that. But we do in fact, when we work, for
example, on risk assessments, collaboration on risk
assessments, we would share back and forth.
Mr. Murphy. But you have to share then in terms of
producing a report, and that has to then, or I'm thinking, when
you're dealing with, whether it's the feed or beef and poultry
and also with the grains and etc., whether it's in the early
stages or it's in the processing, that if there's information
that comes across in terms of risk alerts or management or
training issues, that those would be shared across all
agencies. Does that happen or does that not occur?
Mr. Pierson. Certainly in issues, we definitely notify one
another. I was thinking of an example, for instance, in the
school lunch programs. If in fact there is an issue that might
occur, there's a Food and Nutrition service under which there's
a responsibility. We work very closely with Food and Nutrition
Service if in fact there's an unfortunate event of a food-borne
disease outbreak.
In fact, we then will work in collaboration with FDA when
those involve potential FDA products. So there has to be a
seamless operation to immediately share that information such
that FDA is well aware of what's happening. As a matter of
fact, we end up doing that, too, very closely in working with
States.
Mr. Murphy. Given that, it just seems to me to solidify the
idea that if everybody's on the same mission and you begin to
at least have some ways of communicating between folks, I still
don't understand why we need different agencies to do it. Dr.
Brackett.
Mr. Brackett. Thank you, Congressman Murphy. We do have,
and are looking toward actually sharing real time data. For
instance, in the President's budget there is a laboratory
reporting network system known as E-Lexnet that is going to
serve as the platform for both USDA as well as FDA and State
laboratories. So we are cognizant of that, we are working
toward that end.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. We're going to move on to the second
panel, but I just want to leave Dr. Brackett and Dr. Pierson
with this last question. If you were to design our food
inspection agency today, would you use the system that we have
today? If not, why not?
Mr. Pierson. Coming from an academic background, that's
like a prelim question.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Yes, it's sort of a loaded question.
Mr. Pierson. Thank you very much.
Before I came to USDA, I thought, gee, wouldn't that be
nice to consolidate it into a single agency. But after
experiencing the Federal Government and the Federal Government
process and the agency, I'm not trying to avoid you, Madam
Chairwoman----
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Sure you are, but it's OK.
Mr. Pierson. But anyway, what I come out with is that
before we just jump into such a thing, before we consider such
a thing, we have to make darned sure what we're doing is the
right thing, that we're protecting public health. And whatever
that system might be, I think we have to build it upon
assurance of public health and the outcome, if it's a single
agency, if it's such as we have now, if it's redoing the acts,
let's go one of those directions, let's pursue one of those.
But let's not just jump into it without giving very careful
thought and attention.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I don't think you'll have any
argument from me. I'm not one to want to jump into anything.
Mr. Brackett. Madam Chairwoman, I agree with Dr. Pierson.
The critical thing is to maintain public health and to continue
having the safest food system in the world that we do have now
and we do enjoy. A single food safety system or one involving
several different agencies or a number of different agencies
are two different models that one could use. I think it would
take a complete fore-thinking of what we would be losing with
the current system versus what would we be gaining, the
underlying statutes as we mentioned earlier, to be sure that we
don't lose public health, that we don't lose public trust.
Even though we have a number of different agencies involved
now, I prefer to think of it less as a fragmented system and
more as a tapestry.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. With that, gentlemen, I want to
thank you all for your patience and your understanding, for
being here today, and I hope we didn't grill you too much. I'm
sure we'll have other questions as time goes on.
I'd now like to invite our second panel of witnesses to
please come forward to the witness table. First, we will open
with a statement from the Honorable Dan Glickman, former
Secretary of Agriculture and Member of Congress. Then we will
hear from Carolina Smith DeWaal, Director of Food Safety at the
Center for Science and Public Interest. I want to thank you
two, as well, for being so patient.
STATEMENTS OF DAN GLICKMAN, DIRECTOR, JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF
GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER SECRETARY OF
AGRICULTURE; AND CAROLINE SMITH DEWAAL, DIRECTOR, FOOD SAFETY,
CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND PUBLIC INTEREST
Mr. Glickman. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Let me say that
I spent 18 years in this body----
Ms. Davis of Virginia. So you understand.
Mr. Glickman. And I also spent many times in this room,
many hours in this room, which the Judiciary Committee has some
of their subcommittees operating under at times. So to all of
you here, Mr. Murphy who I don't know, Mr. Deal, who I did
serve with, Mr. Davis, Mr. Van Hollen, it's a pleasure to be
here.
As you know, now I'm at Harvard, not because I could get
in, because Mr. Van Hollen was a good predecessor of mine, but
I run a program there at the Kennedy School. I'm a little bit
probably less partisan than I used to be. But this has been a
terrific hearing. I think everybody has asked amazing
questions. One of the best hearings I've ever heard on food
safety, and it's a pleasure to be here with my friend, Caroline
Smith DeWaal.
Let me just make a couple of comments. One of the big
issues here is resources. USDA has all the resources. FDA has a
pittance of resources. The truth of the matter is, one of the
problems is that they have probably, USDA has probably more
resources per problem than FDA does. So we have a mis-
allocation of resources in terms of these issues.
One of the first things I would recommend to you is that
should be a, the allocation of resources in food safety should
be done on the basis of a comprehensive, qualitative and
quantitative risk assessment. Mr. Murphy talked about this. To
my knowledge, that has never been done. Who does what in the
Federal Government on food safety? What kinds of resources do
they get, and what kinds of public safety protection is there
in there?
Until you get to that question, you can't really decide how
you want to reorganize this stuff. We can talk about pizza and
chicken broth until we're blue in the face. But quite honestly,
the real issue is the threat to the American people from
contaminated and infected food. We have never done that kind of
assessment to figure out where the threats are, where the
resources are. Maybe we have mis-allocated them dramatically. I
suspect that we have. And that's one of the things that maybe,
I think that will take some legislation to do that. But that's
something I would recommend to you.
The second thing is, I believe that we need to consolidate
desperately. I was Secretary at a time when we went through the
HACCP program, we had a lot of food safety problems, it was
after the Jack in the Box situation, it was before the BSE
issue, which by the way I think my successor has handled very,
very well in quelling any kind of fears out there.
But you know, H.L. Mencken once said, for every complicated
problem there is a simple and a wrong solution. I would like to
tell you that this problem is simply solved by just creating a
single food safety agency. But what happens to issues like GMOs
which may be safety related or may be trade related? Sanitary
and phytosanitary barriers of other countries, hormones,
antibiotics. There are a whole litany of problems there that I
suspect while we might be able to get a consensus in this room
that are food safety related, out in the country side and among
the constituency groups, I don't think you could do that.
On the other hand, if we were to start the system up today
as I think Mr. Davis and you, Congresswoman, suggested, it
would never look like the system we have today. So let me tell
you where I think we ought to start. We ought to start with the
inspection functions. We have 10,000 or so inspectors in the
USDA or FSIS employees and about 10 percent of that at the FDA.
We have a mis-allocation of inspectors.
One of the things I recommend you do is you look at this
inspection force of food and we try to consolidate that
inspection force. Mr. Murphy talked about cross training. We
don't do any cross training to speak of, really quite honestly
it's very nominal. And we could, as a first step toward
consolidation, we could begin the process to cross train and
cross deputize food safety employees so that they could do the
various functions either at the border or at the meat and
poultry plant or at an egg plant, or at a pizza plant or
wherever else it is.
I suspect what you're going to find is that people are not
necessarily, and the resources are not necessarily always where
the threats are.
Now, to do what even I'm talking about is no simple task.
There are an awful lot of people who have a stake in the status
quo, and don't want any changes in the system whatsoever. Some
employees, some companies, there are people who think the
system is just fine the way it is.
But we are bound to face more serious food safety threats
in the future. Where I think you need to go down the road is to
allocate and focus your attention on what are the most serious
food safety threats, which are both naturally occurring,
whether it's salmonella, e coli, listeria, campylobacter, all
of the basic threats that we know people get, whether it's the
unnaturally occurring, terrorist type or insidious type of
activities, both in terms of internal processing plants and at
our borders. And then focus on what resources are there
necessary to employ enough inspectors at every one of these
places of high vulnerability and cross train them, cross
deputize them, and they're probably going to have to ultimately
be subject to one agency or a lead agency in that process.
Whether that's USDA or FDA or somebody else, I think that's the
main road.
If you wanted to really start out, if you really wanted to
protect the public interest, that's where I think you have to
protect the public interest. Because if you have an inspection
problem in south Florida, or on the border in North Dakota or
some place else, and you don't have any FDA inspectors there or
far too few USDA or some Homeland Security inspectors, and you
want to get some others who are more in surplus positions, we
can't do that right now. We can't cross deputize.
Now, the States and the Federal Government have some
memorandum of agreement, but I must disagree a little bit with
both speakers who were here today. The truth of the matter is,
there is no seamless structure between the agencies. Everybody
does their job the best they can. And by the way, most do a
good job. Most of the employees are really hard working and
doing their best. But there is not seamlessness there.
Let's look at the recent BSE crisis, which was handled
very, very well. When there is a crisis at a national level,
the agencies can usually get together pretty well. But on the
day to day threats that occur, those are the problems that
really worry me very, very much. So I would suggest that you
look at the inspectors, focus on trying to consolidate their
functions and if necessary, make the statutory changes to do
that, to give them the authority to, and this is going to take
a few years, this is nothing that's going to happen overnight.
And probably not get too hung up on one single food safety
agency that you're going to end up with every trade problem in
the history of the world, every export-import problem, all
sorts of things that are perhaps not classic trade problems
that we're going to find in that category because of turf
battles here in the Congress, because of problems with industry
and employee groups are really never going to get solved.
One final point I would say is this, and again, I would
say, I think there have been better questions raised here in
this hearing than I have heard in all the years that I was in
USDA on this particular point. I would encourage you as members
to be, one thing that always struck me about FAA is the
oversight over FAA and the airline industry was impeccable in
this country. Because one accident occurs and it's absolutely
catastrophic usually. Not to mean that it's not perfect, and
the accidents have produced what I call a better Federal
oversight over safety issues. Even with airlines that are in
problem areas financially, you don't really worry about the
fact that they're not doing the work that needs to be done.
And I would encourage you in the Congress, and I encourage
the White House to give this matter of food safety oversight
continuing attention and not just when there's a BSE crisis.
Because I'm telling you, that's what happens here.
I don't know if they kept it up, during the Clinton
administration, we had the President's Council on Food Safety,
which had all the various agencies that would meet
periodically. I don't know whether that has continued to meet
or not. It should. And it ultimately may be that the President
is going to have to designate an agency to kind of be in
charge, at least on paper, of all these kinds of situations.
But I would also encourage the White House to have this
constant level of engagement. These people are trying to do the
best job that they can. Unfortunately, they couldn't answer
your last question because it was a political question. If I
were them, I would be scared to death to answer that kind of
question as well.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. I didn't expect them to answer it.
Mr. Glickman. But what you've done is you've raised very,
very good questions. This is a complicated issue. The science
is evolving, the threats are evolving, the pathogens are
evolving. They're even becoming more virulent all the time. And
what you need is an inspection force, at least initially, it's
a little bit like the armed services, we need an inspection
force that's ready on the ground to protect the American people
against the most basic threats there are. Then you move out
after that to try to deal with perhaps some of the more
comprehensive type problems.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Glickman follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5290.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5290.081
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much. We appreciate
all your insight and all the years that you were here to learn.
Mr. Glickman. Sometimes those years don't give you insight.
But I got the chance to say it anyway.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. When you get outside, you get the
insight. [Laughter.]
Ms. DeWaal, thank you for your patience and you're now
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. DeWaal. Thank you so much, and it's so hard to follow
former Secretary Glickman.
I'm director of food safety at the Center for Science in
the Public Interest. I'm also a constituent of Representative
Van Hollen, and I really appreciate the opportunity to testify
today.
CSPI is supported by 850,000 subscribers, and we have no
either Government or industry money, which means our views can
be very independent. I've been monitoring this issue since 1997
and have been involved in the issues of food safety for well
over a decade.
Nearly 100 years ago, Congress passed the food safety laws
that form the basis of Government food inspection. Today, two
Government agencies inspect the food supply. USDA checks meat
and poultry processors daily, including inspecting each
individual carcass, meat or poultry carcass, individually. FDA
meanwhile has authority for all other food products, including
many other high risk products, like seafood, fresh fruits and
vegetables and raw eggs, but manages this mandate on a
shoestring budget.
In 1997, the huge resource imbalance between FDA and USDA
led CSPI to call on Congress to cerate a single, independent
food safety agency, so that the Government could apply
resources more equitably to all the foods that pose the
greatest risk to the public. In 1998, the National Academy of
Sciences published a report that also called for consolidation
of food safety responsibilities under a single statute with a
single budget and a single leader. This report, entitled,
``Ensuring Safe Food from Production to Consumption,''
concluded that, ``The current fragmented regulatory structure
is not well equipped to meet current challenges.''
Here are just a few examples. Food safety problems that
start on the farm often fall through the cracks completely of
agency jurisdiction. The same food processing plant may get two
entirely different food inspections as we have seen with the
pizza example. Quality inspections sometimes occur more
frequently than safety inspections, as happens in the egg
industry. New food safety programs like HACCP are implemented
completely differently at USDA versus FDA. And multiple
agencies may prolong the time that it takes to bring the
benefits of new technologies to the consumer.
Let me highlight a few other examples. One is that the
coordination with the State agencies that handle food safety is
literally a nightmare. State laboratories that analyze food
samples for chemical or microbiological contamination, which
are critical in our fight against bioterrorism, for example,
these labs have complained about the lack of uniform testing
methods and about inconsistent reporting requirements with the
Federal agencies. They have to provide samples to USDA, FDA,
CDC and EPA.
And under the current structure, imported products are
treated completely differently if they're regulated by FDA,
which just does a border inspection and USDA, which actually
goes to the country, they approve the program, they approve
each individual plant and they check 20 percent of the meat or
poultry that's crossing the border.
In a global marketplace, other countries are moving quickly
to modernize their food safety programs. And the United States
is falling behind, literally, when it comes to having a modern
food safety statute and mandate. Numerous countries have
already created unified food safety agencies that cover the
entire food supply. And in Europe, especially, this effort was
driven by the BSE crisis.
It's clearly not news to anyone that statutes designed when
the model Ts were being driven are not suited to address modern
hazards. But make no mistake, if the terrorists were to strike
the U.S. food supply, consumer confidence in the Government's
fractured food safety programs would plummet as far as
confidence in airport security did following September 11th.
Even Dr. John Bailar, the chairman of the National Academy of
Sciences Committee calling for a more unified food safety
structure, said ``When bioterrorism is added to the mix, the
case for prompt and sweeping change becomes compelling. While
additional tinkering with the details of our food safety system
might be helpful, the consolidation of responsibilities,
authorities and resources for food safety into a single high
level agency is critical.''
Today, a unified agency operating under a modern food
safety statute is truly an issue of national security. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. DeWaal follows:]
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Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you so much, Ms. DeWaal and
Secretary Glickman.
We'll now go to the question and answer period, and I'll
call on Mr. Davis, our ranking member, for questions.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much, and I too want to
thank the witnesses especially for their patience. Mr.
Glickman, Dr. Brackett testified that the Department of
Homeland Security has taken the lead in establishing national
policy to defend the agriculture and food systems against
terrorism. However, you testified that the creation of DHS
creates a disincentive for the Congress to make fundamental
changes in the short term.
DHS appears to be working collaboratively with the
Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration
to address food safety concerns as it pertains to terrorism. If
DHS is actively involved in the process, do you still believe
that Congress needs to act in the short or the long term?
Mr. Glickman. First of all, I think that, my judgment is
that the jury is still out on DHS and what they're doing in the
bioterrorism areas that affect food and agriculture. I think
they're trying their best, and I'm not privy to the systems
that are going on there. But there has been an enormous amount
of reorganization in the Government as a result of DHS. For
example, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service at USDA, which
is the lead agency for basically inspecting imports of animal
products, other food products, has seen its mission further
divided as a result of the Department of Homeland Security.
Some of their mission is now in DHS, some of the mission
remains in USDA.
So in effect, what we have done as part of that statute is
further complexify it, as opposed to consolidating, we
basically divided. What it's done, I suspect if you talk to
people in USDA, and maybe this is just temporary, is that it's
created morale problems and is has not enhanced a lot of the
feeling that USDA is out there largely promoting its own food
safety functions. That's to be, I assume that's to be expected
because of what happened after September 11.
I guess my point is that the Department of Homeland
Security is still feeling its own oats, and I'm not sure that
is not going to interfere to some degree with the possibility
of consolidating food safety functions. Because my guess is
they're going to want to have more and more jurisdiction over
these issues, not less and less.
Mr. Davis. Ms. DeWaal, how would you rate our system and
the safeness of our system with that of other countries?
Ms. DeWaal. I appreciate your question. I think we're
blessed with a very safe food supply compared to many other
regions of the world. That said, there is a lot we can improve.
And unfortunately, our system, our fractured Federal system
actually stands in the way of us correcting some well known
food safety problems.
Our representative from GAO today mentioned the egg issue.
We've known for almost 10 years that you could solve, you could
virtually eliminate illnesses from eggs by instituting on-farm
controls. We've known that. We've had pilot studies. USDA ran
them. They were very, very effective. Yet we don't have a
regulation in place that actually implements them, because it
took them a bunch of years actually under the Clinton
administration to just figure out who was in charge of eggs.
One agency today regulates chickens, another regulates eggs
and a third regulates the meat from the chickens. In almost
every problem we end up with that kind of division where almost
three agencies are involved. So I think that we have some areas
of the food supply that are very safe but other areas that
desperately need improvement.
Mr. Glickman. I just want to add one thing. One of the
positive notes in all this is large sectors of private food
industry have actually moved ahead of the Government in doing
food inspection and setting up systems that are actually more
stringent than what either the FDA or USDA requires. That's a
trend we have to continue to encourage.
Mr. Danny Davis. Ms. DeWaal, can I infer then that you're
saying that it's really time to bite the bullet and go ahead
and put in place an agency that has this responsibility?
Ms. DeWaal. Exactly right. The rest of the world is really
moving ahead of us in this area. You know, we're the United
States, we don't want to be behind in anything. So I really
think it is time to bite the bullet and move forward.
Mr. Danny Davis. Thank you very much. I have no further
questions.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and welcome here.
I'm from Pennsylvania, so your comments about the hepatitis
A outbreak are particularly a concern to me. I just want to
followup with regard to this. In your written testimony you
talk about meat that's imported is inspected by the USDA at two
points, once onsite at the farm and once at a processing plant,
then maybe inspected again somewhere after that. But plants
that come in, vegetables that come in are only inspected once
they reach this country and then only 1 to 2 percent?
Ms. DeWaal. That's right.
Mr. Murphy. Now, of that 1 to 2 percent, if you have
several hundred bushels coming from the same farm, does that
mean that, maybe green onions or something, 1 or 2 percent of
that particular farm is inspected, or it's just 1 to 2 percent
of anything? So a whole farm could go by with no inspection at
all?
Ms. DeWaal. In most cases, whole farms are going by and
never being inspected. At FDA, they don't have authority to go
to the foreign country to check.
Mr. Murphy. But USDA does?
Ms. DeWaal. USDA does.
Mr. Murphy. Why not?
Ms. DeWaal. It goes back to these hundred year old statutes
that were just designed differently.
Mr. Murphy. So even when there is an outbreak, it's tough
to get authority to go back and inspect the farm in Mexico or
wherever that might be?
Ms. DeWaal. They can't go unless they're invited by the
country. But USDA can go any time they want.
Mr. Murphy. Clearly there's an arcane rule that needs to
change to allow us to do that.
Also, you were here before when I asked the question about
communicating between agencies. Mr. Secretary, I'm wondering,
with your experience, if you can comment on that because part
of my sense is if Congress wants to answer a question, we have
to go to each agency and ask the same question. Hopefully then
they'll give it to us. But then we have to fit the pieces
together after that. Is that your understanding?
Mr. Glickman. That's correct. It's absolutely correct. In a
crisis, the agencies communicate rather well. Because usually
the political pressures from the Congress are very great and
the White House to get people together at the table at the same
time. That's how this President's Council on Food Safety was
ultimately created.
But these processes don't seem to have any sustained life
to them. So right after the BSE epidemic, which thank God was
only one case in this country, is over, or the e coli epidemic
is over, we kind of go back to the way we were, everybody doing
their own thing.
Mr. Murphy. Let me add another layer to that. Then you have
the State departments, whether it's a department of agriculture
or a department of health, also trying to coordinate it. My
assumption is they also face the same dilemma. So in
Pennsylvania, we have the other issues with poultry and
concerns about flu there. So they also then have to begin to
talk to different agencies and coordinate that. But that's a
day to day issue for them.
Mr. Glickman. Yes, actually, FDA does have some agreement
with States, they have these collaborative agreements. One
thing I would tell you is, you may want to consider looking at
the statutes to see if in fact the agencies are really
authorized to have collaborative or joint operating agreements.
And I'm not sure they necessarily are. For example, USDA's
Forest Service and the Department of Interior now operate under
joint operating agreements with respect to some park and forest
facilities. I'm not sure, as a matter of fact, if there's
different statutory formulas and bases, whether they can do
that under current law.
Mr. Murphy. Do you have anything to add to that, Ms.
DeWaal?
Ms. DeWaal. FDA does have agreements, cooperative
agreements, for the inspections by the States. In fact, what
we've seen over the years is more and more of the food safety
inspections are actually being done at the State level. So
Pennsylvania probably has a very active inspection program at
the State level. Pennsylvania also was where the pilot study
was run which showed the on-farm controls for salmonella in
eggs was very effective.
So the States are very effective in this area, but they
have trouble coordinating with the Federal Government.
Mr. Murphy. Does that information then go up to the Federal
level and the Federal people disseminate that to other States,
or is that up to the States to figure that out between
themselves?
Ms. DeWaal. It's up to States to figure out. And again,
during a couple of years during the 1990's there was an effort
to bring the States together with the Federal Government. But
in recent years, that effort has fallen apart. I know the
States are anxious to get it going again, because they just
need standards like consistent laboratory standards, and they
need a way to interact with a Federal Government that is much
more streamlined.
Mr. Glickman. If there is a public health or an imminent
disease problem, the Center for Disease Control is basically
the agency of Government that tries to coordinate all this.
Therefore, you've got another player in this game, which is
CDC, which once there's an outbreak or once there's an
epidemic, then they handle all the epidemiological data, all
the transfer of information, a lot of the communications. And
they are very engaged, by the way. I don't know what the
resource needs are. But you can't really probably even
consolidate a lot of these functions without considering what
CDC's role is, because it's the disease prevention agency.
Ms. DeWaal. But CDC then can't engage one of the Federal
agencies until they know what food it is. So you have an
outbreak going on, but they don't know which Federal agency to
engage, because they don't know whether the food is regulated
by USDA or FDA.
Mr. Murphy. I appreciate the candor the two of you have
brought to this situation, where it seems like there's a number
of ongoing mistakes that have been made for decades. It reminds
me of a Will Rogers quote where he says, good judgment comes
from experience and lot of that experience comes from bad
judgment.
Mr. Glickman. My father used to tell me that all the time.
Mr. Murphy. You learned well. [Laughter.]
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. Van
Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I want to
thank both of you for being here today. Secretary Glickman,
thank you for your service, and you're doing a good job from
all reports up at the Kennedy School. Caroline, thank you for
all you've done in this area over many, many years. I
appreciate all your work in this area.
I'm just struck by the fact, Mr. Secretary, you started out
by pointing out that we have this huge resource imbalance
between USDA and FDA. Then I turned to Ms. DeWaal's testimony
where she says in 1997, the huge resource imbalance between FDA
and USDA led CSPI and other consumer organizations to call on
Congress to create a single independent food safety agency, and
it goes on to cite a 1998 National Academy of Sciences report.
It does remind me of the other point you raised, which is
that so often, we respond to emergencies and there's a flurry
of activity, and very quickly the political momentum behind any
change gets lost. I think if there's one lesson coming out of
the 9/11 Commission that can be generalized to all sorts of
issues, which is where you have very credible evidence of a
threat, it's important that we respond quickly and seriously to
it. So I hope that we will not wait for another food type of
emergency before we act on this issue.
With respect to consolidation, there's one question that
sort of, dealing with all these budgets and resources that
comes to mind, which is, are we talking about consolidating
existing resources and better utilizing them, or in order to
get the safety results that we need, are we going to at the
same time we consolidate, we're going to have to add resources
and manpower to this issue? And if it's going to be a question
of actually not just reorganizing, but adding people,
inspectors to the process, has anybody, I haven't had a chance
to look at the GAO report, has anyone taken a look at what
additional manpower is required and what the cost would be to
get the kind of system that we want that would really provide
for food safety?
Mr. Glickman. I think it's an excellent question. I do not
believe there has been in recent years an independent,
qualitative and quantitative risk assessment of food safety
threats. So it's hard to really know how many inspectors we
need.
My judgment is we need more than we have overall. Although
on the USDA's side, in terms of meat and poultry inspection,
because of all the new HACCP systems, in the future we may not
need quite as many there as we have in the past. That's
controversial and a lot of people in the inspection community
might disagree with me.
But I suspect we need way more on the FDA side of the
picture, then you need to make the law somewhat compatible in
the process. But until you do that kind of assessment, you'll
never really know.
Ms. DeWaal. We are actually working with several Members,
Representatives DeLauro and Latham on this side, and then
Senator Durbin on the other side, on looking at this question
of how to develop a risk based inspection system. So I hope
that this committee would work with those Members or tackle
your own issue of how to create this risk review, so that we
can get inspection that's risk based today.
We have more inspectors inspecting chickens at a rate of 30
birds per minute than we have invested in any other area of
food safety. And literally, we have Government employees who
sit at one point on a line and watch birds, chickens plucked,
broiler chickens fly by them. I've seen it in action, it's
quite amazing. But it's amazing they can stay awake, too,
because it's not an effective situation.
Mr. Glickman. If I may add, just quickly, on the other
hand, the new HACCP systems that are employed in many of the
plants actually reduce that need, because they're a more
science based system and they work very well. A lot of the
pathogens you can't physically see as they go by, you've got to
test these products to see what's in there.
But one other thing I would warn you about, especially at
USDA, the relationship between the inspectors and the
management of the Food Safety Inspection Service is, shall I
say, historically very unstable. And to go down this road,
there are a whole lot of labor-management issues that are going
to have to be addressed that are not going to be easy to
tackle.
Mr. Van Hollen. One quick followup. You talked about
chicken being one of the most inspected items. Seafood, on the
other hand, I gather, is one of the least inspected items, and
that comes under FDA, I understand. I think the HACCP standards
for USDA with respect to poultry are very different and uneven
compared to the fish. Can you just talk about seafood for a
moment?
Ms. DeWaal. Seafood has been a fascinating issue, and
actually when Secretary Glickman was a member of the House of
Representatives he worked on a seafood inspection bill back in
the early 1990's. Basically, while meat and poultry are
inspected every single day, regardless of whether it's
pepperoni being chopped onto a pizza or meat slaughter plant,
seafood, they've actually improved now, they're up to once a
year for the highest risk seafood plant.
So the bottom line is, we have like products that pose a
comparable risk but are inspected entirely differently. The
HACCP systems are also entirely different, because the agencies
just don't have the same kind of legislative authority.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.
I guess you heard, we have bells and whistles going off,
because we have three more votes. I'm just going to ask you one
question, to you, Secretary Glickman.
Why do you think, this is an issue that has been studied
for a long time, from what I'm gathering, why do you think any
efforts to correct these deficiencies have pretty much gone by
the way side and not brought any greater changes?
Mr. Glickman. I think for several reasons. It's a
fundamental question. One, the system is generally safe. It
could be made safer, but it's generally safe. Second, American
people have confidence in the safety of the system.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Keep in mind that the purview of
this committee is reorganization. So we're looking for
efficiency.
Mr. Glickman. Right. But you asked why hasn't anything been
done. And I think one of the reasons it hasn't been done is the
public hasn't been clamoring for this, with the exception of
when there is a food safety crisis. Then you tend to gin up,
there tends to be more interest, then it tends to come back
down again.
My own experience after serving in the Congress, frankly,
is the turf divisions between various congressional committees
has a lot to do with this issue. I don't know if they are still
as profound as they once were, but I suspect they are.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Every bit.
Mr. Glickman. Fourth, by and large the White House,
previous White Houses, have not viewed food safety in the same
general, same area as they have viewed, let's say homeland
security in recent years, or terrorism or those kinds of
issues. I suspect you can do some consolidation and save some
money. But I'll tell you, my judgment is ultimately we're going
to have to spend more money on this issue, not less. It's just
you'd like to have it spent on the inspectors out there in the
field who are actually protecting the public interest.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you both very much, and we
will have some questions for the record that we will submit to
you in writing. Rather than have you wait, we have three votes,
it could be 45 minutes or so. So we will adjourn the hearing,
and thank you both very much.
Hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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