(Image source: Pittsburgh Hot Plate)

BY GRACE MEINERS

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Get ready for a congressional crackdown -- on the stuff that goes from your grocery cart to your dinner plate.  This week, the Senate approved -- 73 to 25 -- the Food Safety Modernization Act.

The bill would grant new powers to the FDA to recall tainted foods, increase inspections, demand accountability, and oversee farming. The bill is a response to some of the deadly diseases caused by tainted eggs, spinach, and peanut butter in the past few years. (Video from KATU)

Among other things, the new bill would allow the FDA to mandate food recalls. Under current law, the FDA can only request the producer issue a recall. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow says, it’s about time.

“It is the biggest deal in food since sliced bread. Seriously, well close at least. Sliced bread dates to 1928. The last time we had a full overhaul of our food safety system was 1938. It has been 72 years.”

On KMSP, Senator Amy Klobuchar says the bill is a necessary move to clean up America’s food supply. She says the bill is even good for businesses. Corporations like Hormel and Schwans are already behind it.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.): “And you look at some of the bad actors like that peanut butter plant out in Georgia, what happened here was that there were no inspections, no requirements for them to keep their documents together, and so we’ve really upgraded our food safety system.”

The bill received unusually bipartisan support. And an economics professor tells Fox Business there's more to the story than tainted peanut butter.

WALTER WILLIAMS: “I think in a large measure, this bill is being pushed by large food processors to get a competitive advantage over their smaller competitors.”
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: “Half the Republicans in the Senate voted for this. I don’t know if they represent these districts or states with large agro-conglomerates in them.”

The House passed its own version of the food safety bill earlier this year. Food safety advocates prefer the House’s version since it gives more money for inspections, but The New York Times says both versions may cause some bureaucratic confusion.

“Neither would consolidate overlapping functions at the Department of Agriculture and nearly a dozen other federal agencies... leaving coordination among the agencies a continuing challenge.”

So what do you think?  Time to clean up America’s pantry? Or will more government regulation sour business?

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