Congress Slows Inspection Reform

At virtually the last minute, just as a Congressional committee was about to rule on the Agriculture Department’s 1996 budget, several influential food industry trade groups abandoned an ambitious reform of the nation’s beleaguered meat and poultry inspection program and pressured Congress to withdraw support.

Last week’s reversal stunned federal officials working on the plan and alarmed consumer activists pressing for tougher food safety laws.

An amendment, which insiders say has effectively killed the USDA inspection reform proposal, was approved by the committee and attached to legislation funding the USDA budget. The measure, sponsored by Rep. James Walsh (R-N.Y.), was endorsed by the National Meat Assn., the American Meat Institute and the American Assn. of Meat Processors, groups that had previously supported all, or parts of, the USDA plan.

The USDA’s proposed science-based inspection procedures would have replaced the present system, which relies on federal inspectors’ sight, smell and touch to determine if meat and poultry are safe.

The modernization was modeled on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), a system that focuses government and industry efforts on combatting potential health hazards, such as harmful bacteria, rather than concentrating solely on visual imperfections of carcasses.

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The House Appropriations Committee action ruling that USDA cannot spend any federal funds implementing the HACCP-based system in Fiscal 1996 is likely to be mirrored in full votes of both the Republican-controlled House and Senate later this month.

Instead of action in 1996, the amendment instructs the USDA to convene all interested parties--industry, inspectors’ unions, consumer groups--under a format called negotiated rule making. The task force is then given nine months to come up with an alternative plan. Only after that process is completed can the USDA begin writing another version of inspection modernization.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman called the committee’s move extremely disappointing and said the Clinton Administration will strongly oppose it.

“There are 5 million illnesses and 4,000 deaths each year in this country because of contaminated meat and poultry,” said Michael R. Taylor, Administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. “We can significantly reduce [those levels] by putting in the measures that we are proposing. . . . The public can’t afford to wait any longer.”

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Industry representatives say their abrupt reaction was prompted by the USDA’s inattentiveness to producer and processor input. Historically, however, the Agriculture Department has been criticized for being more an ally of the nation’s food interests than a objective regulatory agency. (Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, for instance, resigned in December because of allegations of conflict of interest involving his close relationship with food companies.)

“The USDA has dismissed the industry’s views in the development of this [inspection reform] regulation,” said Sara Lilygren Clarke, senior vice president of the American Meat Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group. “There is a strong perception . . . that our voices are not being heard.”

But the inspection reform regulation was far from finalized before last week’s vote. In fact, the five-month public comment period only ended yesterday. As a result, USDA was still months away from issuing its final rules.

Consumer advocates say the industry’s shift is a simple stalling tactic. The aim is to delay any reform until after the next Presidential election in 1996 with the hope that a victorious Republican Administration may be more sensitive to food industry wishes.

“This [delay] really harms consumers,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group. “It only means that there will be more contamination, more outbreaks of illness and more deaths linked to meat and poultry [than would otherwise be the case]. The victims’ blood will be on the meat industry’s hands.”

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“These are huge changes,” responded Rosemary Mucklow, executive director of the National Meat Assn., an Oakland-based trade group. “And there have been so many things wrong with the process. Our great concern is that we are going to end up with a regulation . . . that is not going to improve the meat and poultry system for all participants because we have not had the dialogue to do that.”

Mucklow, who orchestrated the industry’s strategy, said that industry’s relationship with the USDA’s Taylor, in particular, has been adversarial.

Taylor disagrees and says the reform process has been very interactive. He stated that all interested parties are to be invited to the USDA to discuss the key disputes in the process, now that the comment period is closed, he said.

“We want input and dialogue,” Taylor said. “But we need to do it as part of a process that can come to a conclusion in a reasonable amount of time. . . . The issues are such that the public can’t afford to wait while interest groups come to a consensus.”

Delaying the pending HACCP proposal means that critical reforms designed in the aftermath of the deadly E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak linked to contaminated ground beef in January, 1993, may be delayed an additional two years or longer.

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A dissenting voice among industry groups is Iowa Beef Processors, Inc., the nation’s largest producer of fresh beef and pork. In a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Glickman, which was also sent to all members of Congress, IBP chief executive officer Robert L. Peterson urges expeditious adoption of the USDA’s HACCP plan.

Peterson wrote: “Any activities that substantially delay implementation of improvements cannot be tolerated. . . . The industry and government must respond to the expectations of the public.”