[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 22]
[House]
[Pages 30697-30702]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2315
                     FOOD SAFETY AND PRODUCT RECALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized 
for the remainder of the time until midnight.
  Mr. BURGESS. This evening I come to the floor to talk about a growing 
and disturbing trend of food and consumer product safety recalls, and 
this danger is very real. The danger has been widely documented and 
discussed in the media. It's been widely documented and discussed in 
committee hearings, in our committee, the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, discussed around the water cooler at work, kitchen tables 
around the country, and almost nightly on the ``Lou Dobbs Show.''
  And what does this mean, recall after recall after recall all summer 
long? What does this mean for average Americans? It means that parents 
are afraid that their children are playing with lead-contaminated train 
sets. It means that parents are afraid that magnets or toys and charms 
may cause internal damage if their child accidentally swallows them. It 
means that families are afraid that the food they feed their pets may 
actually have plastic in it. It means that people are afraid that their 
toothpaste may contain antifreeze. It means that people are afraid that 
the fish they serve to their families may contain dangerous levels of 
antibiotics.
  It is seemingly without end, and people are afraid about the source 
of their products and the dangers, and rightfully so.
  People are afraid. They're afraid of the defective products being 
imported into our country. And, Mr. Speaker, it seems like almost all 
of the trouble focuses around a single country, the People's Republic 
of China.
  Consumer health and well-being are endangered on two fronts: the food 
we eat, the goods we use.
  I want to use some of my time to discuss both fronts and what we in 
Congress are doing and should be doing to protect American families 
from harmful products.
  First, considering the issue of consumer product safety recalls, it 
seems like the Nation has turned its attention on to this issue. Every 
time you turn on the TV, you open a newspaper, you learn about yet 
another consumer product safety recall.
  People are generally concerned about the issue of recalls; and many 
people, myself included, are concerned about the source of the recalls 
since it appears that the majority of the recalls are coming from the 
People's Republic of China.
  Just last night, nine new recalls alone were announced, including 
recalled products that had lead-contaminated paint on their toys. As a 
parent, as a physician, one recall was extremely disturbing. According 
to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, an e-mail notification 
that I received last night read: ``Spin Master Recalls Aqua Dots--
Children Became Unconscious After Swallowing the Beads.'' It's a pretty 
innocent looking toy, and if my kids were little, I'm sure they would 
have loved this toy. It looks innocent. But this product is truly a 
wolf in sheep's clothing. And the recall notification, I encourage 
everyone to sign up for the notification at www.cpsc.gov, the Web site 
listed the injuries caused by these beads. And I quote: ``The Consumer 
Product Safety Commission has received two reports over the last 
several days of children swallowing Aqua Dots. A 20-month-old child 
swallowed several dozen beads, he became dizzy, vomited several times 
before slipping into a comatose state for a period of time, was 
hospitalized, and has since recovered. A second child also vomited and 
slipped into a comatose state and was hospitalized for 5 days.''
  This morning it was reported in the Dallas Morning News, my local 
newspaper, and other news outlets, that Aqua Dots were linked to 
rohypnol. Now, you may have heard of rohypnol in the past. Rohypnol 
gained some notoriety as the ``date rape'' drug. And according to ABC 
news, scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, 
metabolizes rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug, gamma hydroxy 
butyrate, GHB. When eaten, the compound made from common and easily 
available ingredients can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, 
coma, and death.
  While it is not yet clear how this chemical wound up in a child's 
product, it is clear where it was made: In the People's Republic of 
China. In fact, eight out of the nine recalled products announced just 
last night were from China. The other recalled product was from Mexico.
  Mr. Speaker, Christmas is coming. Christmas lights, Christmas sounds, 
Christmas music, Christmas shopping. I cannot help but think there 
would be a huge market for a ``Made in America'' label on the toys and 
goods parents and consumers are out looking for

[[Page 30698]]

this Christmas season. I encourage retailers to stock as many ``Made in 
America'' products as they can. You might even make it in Texas and put 
a little Texas flag on there. I bet that would be a big seller.
  The majority of the products that are being recalled this year were 
made in China. And, Mr. Speaker, quite honestly, I've made a decision. 
I'm treating that ``Made in China'' label as a warning label, and I've 
made a personal decision to try not to buy anything made in China, 
although it's extremely hard given the penetration that Chinese goods 
have in our consumer markets. Given all the circumstances, it seems 
like the right thing to do, the safe thing to do for my family. I feel 
certain that other American families have made similar decisions. In 
fact, Mr. Speaker, I bet the Lou Dobbs family is one of those families.
  Now, this concern about imported products is real and has been 
substantiated with real data. The United States Consumer Product Safety 
Commission, which is tasked with the job of trying to safeguard our 
society from unreasonable risk of injury and death associated with 
consumer products, informed me that in fiscal year 2007, a record-
breaking 472 consumer products were recalled for safety reasons. Of the 
472 recalls, 60 percent were manufactured in the People's Republic of 
China. Mr. Speaker, 60 percent of all recalled products this past year 
were imported from China.
  Furthermore, of the 472 total consumer product recalls, 61 of those 
recalls affected our children, our most innocent and vulnerable members 
of society. Sixty-one consumer products were toys. And how many of 
those products were manufactured in the Republic of China, you might 
ask? Well, I'm glad you asked, Mr. Speaker, because that figure is even 
more staggering. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission 
estimated that over 90 percent of the toy recalls were made in China. 
So I guess we really shouldn't have been too surprised last night when 
eight out of the nine listed recalls were manufactured in China. This 
is now clearly becoming a common business practice, part of the 
business model for Chinese toys.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm just a simple country doctor, and I don't 
pretend to understand everything that goes on up here in Washington; 
but I am asking what we in Washington can do to help Americans protect 
themselves and their families. Let's look at just a few of the product 
recalls from the month of October.
  For the safety of our families, we've got to get to the bottom of the 
cause behind all of these recalls. I am on the Commerce Trade and 
Consumer Protection Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over this 
issue; and our committee is investigating and working on the problem. 
And over the next several weeks, we're going to be working on 
additional legislation on the issue. We have passed several bills 
recently dealing with specific issues of consumer product safety. We 
passed a bill dealing with the safety of swimming pools, and a bill 
that I was actually able to amend to include ornamental pools, since an 
ornamental pool had claimed four lives in one of my home cities in Fort 
Worth, Texas.
  The House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced bipartisan 
legislation last week that will strengthen the consumer product safety 
system in this country, H.R. 4040. For those keeping score at home, 
H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act, along with 50 
Members, original cosponsors of this legislation. The legislation was 
introduced in the Commerce Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, 
and we had a hearing on the bill. And we have been promised that it 
will go through regular order, and all Members will have an opportunity 
to actually comment and amend the bill as it goes through subcommittee 
process and the full committee process. This is the way, Mr. Speaker, 
it should always be, the way that we formulate and work on legislation. 
I certainly thank the leadership of the House Energy and Commerce 
Committee for being committed to the legislative process. How 
refreshing after the donnybrook we saw with the State Children's Health 
Insurance Program this summer.
  The House version is a bipartisan effort, and I commend Chairman 
Dingell and I commend Ranking Member Barton for their leadership in 
getting this bill through the committee. I would also like to commend 
the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Commissioner, Chairwoman 
Nancy Nord, for her honest assistance for the bill. We asked for 
technical assistance and constructive criticism, and it was provided to 
us. The other Chamber asked for the same assistance with their bill, 
and she provided the same honesty. And for going to the trouble of 
providing that same honesty, she was, I think, unjustly criticized. The 
difference was that some of the Members of that Chamber and of our own 
Chamber didn't like her answers, so they called for her resignation.
  Unlike those Members, I appreciate and I welcome the candor of the 
chairwoman. Because Chairwoman Nord wasn't afraid to speak the truth 
about her own agency's needs, the House has been able to do what the 
Senate was not, craft legislation that will give the commissioner real 
tools needed to keep Americans safe from unreasonable dangers and 
consumer products.
  Now, a week ago, the Speaker of the House held a press conference and 
called for the resignation of Chairwoman Nord simply for speaking her 
mind, exercising her free speech rights. In my opinion, this criticism 
was a disgrace to this body and an embarrassment to the legislative 
process. I often feel that an imperial speakership that likes to govern 
by edict really has no place in this House. But Chairwoman Nord 
withstood the criticism and stood in the eye of the storm.
  Former Prime Minister Tony Blair once said the art of leadership is 
sometimes saying no. It's easy to say yes, and sometimes you just have 
to say no. Chairwoman Nord was a true leader and was able to say no to 
legislation that she knew would be harmful to the country. There are 
times we need leaders like that.
  Now, turning back to H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety 
Modernization Act, there are a lot of topics, there are a lot of issues 
on the table, including enhancing the commissioner's recall authority. 
And I firmly believe we've got to improve the U.S. Product Safety 
Commission's ability to notify consumers about dangerous products more 
quickly and on a broader scope.
  I'm concerned that there is a large universe of people and 
associations that are not receiving the information about product 
recalls in a timely manner. As we all know, products are recalled 
because they have been found to have an element of danger, otherwise 
the recall wouldn't take place. The danger is to the consumer, and they 
need to be immediately discarded. Now, nonprofits, like Salvation Army, 
Good Will, Christian Community Action, located in my home county of 
Denton County, they provide invaluable resources to the communities 
that they serve. And often these nonprofits run secondhand retail shops 
to additionally help some of the neediest members of society. But I 
have been informed, when I've questioned the nonprofits in my area, 
that, through no fault of their own, they're unaware of many of the 
recalls when they occur. Therefore, the fear is that they may 
inadvertently sell recalled products to families and individuals. So 
I'm currently working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to 
try to close that gap.
  I'm also working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission on 
another idea, and we'll talk in more detail in just a little bit, but I 
introduced legislation dealing with food imports that will give the 
Food and Drug Administration a big red button to push to be able to 
stop dangerous foods from entering the country.
  At our hearing this week, I asked Chairwoman Nord if she had the same 
authority that my bill would give the FDA, did she have the same 
authority for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the answer 
was no. So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be working with 
the commission and the commissioner to incorporate that

[[Page 30699]]

idea into the bill as it goes through the regular committee process.

                              {time}  2330

  While we continue to try to close the gap through legislation, I 
strongly encourage Members of Congress to sign up for product recall 
alerts.
  Mr. Speaker, I know we don't address the C Span audience directly in 
their living rooms but if I could address the C Span audience in their 
living room I would encourage them to go to the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission website and sign up for the product recall alerts. It is 
free. It is easy. And it can save lives. If you have access to an e-
mail account and to the Internet, all you have to do is simply go to 
the website, go to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's home 
page, which is www.cpsc.gov, Consumer Product Safety Commission, go to 
their website and they will direct you how to sign up for free recall 
and safety news. The website again, www.cpsc.gov.
  The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has a Neighborhood Safety 
Network which is for organizations, civic-minded individuals, to help 
disseminate information about recalls and posters to members of society 
who may not be aware of the recalls.
  Mr. Speaker, do you know what? This type of education can save lives. 
Unfortunately, though, certain groups of Americans, the elderly, urban 
and rural low-income families, some minority groups often don't hear 
about the safety messages from the government. So some additional 
outreach is needed. And it is critical, because when people go to yard 
sales, when people go to garage sales, when people go to Internet 
resellers, they need the ability to have this information and discern 
whether or not a product is on the recall list and is in fact unsafe 
for them to bring in their homes.
  So, Mr. Speaker, although rules of the House do not permit me to 
address people directly, but if I could, I would ask that they help 
make their community safer by getting the word out, getting the word 
out about recalls. I am a member of the Neighborhood Safety Network, 
and we will disseminate information about the recalls vie my website, 
www.house.gov/burgess.
  Let's talk a little bit, in the time remaining, about food safety 
because that is an issue that is critical. And again it is in the news. 
Has there been any attention at all paid by the United States Congress 
to the food we eat? Well, again, I am glad you asked because there has 
been a lot of attention paid in Congress regarding the safety of the 
food we eat. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, we are pursuing an 
aggressive investigation, and then we will move on to subsequent 
legislation, to try to correct this problem. As a member of the 
Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, we have taken an active role 
in investigating the safety of our Nation's food supply. In August, a 
bipartisan team of investigators was sent by our committee to China to 
see, first-hand if they could delineate some of the causes of the 
problem. In the committee staff report, the investigators came to the 
following conclusions about their trip and their investigation thus 
far. Quoting directly from the staff report, ``Number one, it would 
appear that the Chinese food supply chain does not meet international 
safety standards. In fact, it is responsible for very serious domestic 
Chinese food poisoning outbreaks.
  ``Number 2, the Chinese Government appears determined to avoid 
embarrassing food safety outbreaks in exports markets due to the 
damaging and potentially lasting effect this would have upon their 
`Made in China' branding.''
  It seems like that has happened any way.
  ``Number 3, the lack of meaningful internal regulation of farming and 
food processing in China, the advanced development of the document 
counterfeiting industry, and the willingness of some entrepreneurs in 
both China and the United States to smuggle foodstuffs that do not meet 
quality standards, necessitates a much more vigorous program of 
inspection and laboratory testing in China and in this country and at 
the U.S. ports of entry than the Food and Drug Administration has been 
able or willing to pursue to date.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, these are important conclusions, and yes we must 
not simply watch the problem worsen. We must be willing to handle the 
problem head on and transform the Food and Drug Administration into an 
agency that can fully cope with the importation problems of the 21st 
century. The Energy and Commerce Committee is doing their part to do 
just that. In addition to the staff trips to China, we are in the 
middle of a series of five hearings to discuss the topic, can the FDA, 
can the Food and Drug Administration assure the safety and security of 
our Nation's food supply?
  What have we learned so far? Well, let's recapitulate. At the hearing 
on July 17, 2007, on this very topic, former FDA Associate Commissioner 
William Hubbard testified that in 1999, the Food and Drug 
Administration drafted a legislative proposal which would have given 
the Food and Drug Administration the authority to require foreign 
countries to take more responsibility for the food that they send to 
the United States. The agency's proposal would have allowed the Food 
and Drug Administration to embargo a given food from a given country if 
there were repeated instances of food being found contaminated when it 
arrived in the United States. Well, that seems pretty simple, to 
embargo a given food from a given country if there were repeated 
instances of that food being found contaminated when it arrived in our 
country, when it arrived in the United States.
  Countries that sent safe food have no reason to be concerned. They 
would be unaffected. But countries that demonstrated a pattern of 
disregard for United States law and safety standards are going to have 
to increase their oversight of food exported from their country.
  Now, unfortunately, Congress did not accept this recommendation in 
1999. And the situation with imported foods has gone from bad to worse 
to simply awful. Congress now has a chance to examine the problem and 
consider recommendations on how to solve the problem. Mr. Speaker, the 
world was a different place in 1999. It was difficult to anticipate the 
acceleration of foreign products, how rapidly the acceleration of 
foreign products coming into our country would occur. Was the safety of 
food products from foreign countries not a priority for Congress back 
in 1999? Well, I am sure it was but not nearly as much as it should 
have been.
  Why we have allowed this problem to persist when we know how much 
harm these unsafe products have the potential to cause? We may not be 
able to answer that question, but as I stand here tonight, I will tell 
you, it is absolutely a priority of mine, and I hope a priority of my 
committees that we intend to do something about it.
  On October 11, the Energy and Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and 
Investigations held the third part of a five-part series of hearings on 
the Food and Drug Administration's ability to assure the safety and 
security of our Nation's food supply.
  According to testimony given by Mr. David Nelson, the senior 
investigator for the Energy and Commerce Committee, currently the Food 
and Drug Administration does not go over and see if the products that 
are produced in China are done so under the same standards that we 
expect those products to be produced in the United States. These are 
the products that are produced in China and then sent over here for 
consumption, the products that Americans will be consuming, and they're 
not produced under American standards.
  The ranking member of our subcommittee, Ed Whitfield from Kentucky, 
asked Mr. Nelson that, if he were speaking to a group and a member of 
the audience raised their hand and asked how safe is it for consumers 
to consume the products produced in China, he said, ``Well, you're 
taking your chances on any imported food from China.''
  Well, we can't act like that. America has to have the authority to 
prohibit these foods from coming into our country if they're not safe. 
We have to be

[[Page 30700]]

able to stop those foods on which our consumers would be taking a 
chance. It's not worth it.
  Chairman Dingell, the full committee chairman, asked Mr. Nelson 
whether or not the Food and Drug Administration can protect the United 
States citizen from unsafe imports with the resources that they 
currently have.
  His answer: ``That would be an emphatic no.''
  Not just ``no'' but an emphatic ``no.''
  When I got my chance to question, I asked him while they were over in 
China, they were there for several days, perhaps a couple of weeks, did 
they have occasion to eat anything. And he smiled and said, yes, they 
did. I said, Were you worried at all? And he said, yes, he was.
  Fortunately our committee staff weathered that, put themselves in 
harm's way and they weathered that trip okay, although I think some of 
them did get a little ill, no one got severely ill, which is actually 
fortunate.
  We had a witness come before the committee and during my questioning 
of Mr. James Rice, the Vice President and Country Manager of Tyson Food 
in China, he was just talking about the problem, I said, Do you look 
for problems? In your policies and procedures while you're in country 
in China, does it cause you to look for problems from Chinese 
suppliers? And he said, of course it does. And I said, Do you ever find 
a problem with a Chinese supplier? He said, oh, yeah, we sure do.
  So when you find a problem with a Chinese supplier, do you get on the 
phone and do you call other companies that are over there working in 
businesses like yours? Do you kind of send out a little e-mail alert, 
hey, watch out for this supplier, he has some really bad chicken wings 
coming your way?
  And the answer was, no, we don't do that. He explained to me that 
because Tyson was using local Chinese suppliers and the products were 
mostly for the Chinese market, they didn't feel that it was necessary 
to do that. So in essence there would be no dialogue whatsoever.
  Mr. Rice told me that if there were persistent problems from one 
supplier, no one would alert the others to this problematic supplier 
and, probably more frighteningly, they wouldn't pick up the phone and 
call the local Food and Drug Administration inspectors that were in 
country and were responsible for assuring the safety of products that 
are going to be shipped into this country. There is no system in place 
to let other suppliers or, indeed, the Food and Drug Administration 
itself know that someone is significantly misbehaving, that someone is 
behaving in a criminal manner.
  That's a serious, serious problem.
  Mr. Speaker, it was important that I introduce legislation that 
relates to this 1999 proposal and H.R. 3967, the Imported Food Safety 
Act, was introduced a few weeks ago. And I firmly believe, firmly 
believe that the FDA needs the ability and the explicit authority to 
immediately stop dangerous foods and products from coming into this 
country.
  It's a pretty simple concept. Think of it like this. You got all this 
stuff, all this food coming into this country on a big giant conveyor 
belt. And when the FDA finds a bad apple on that belt, they need to be 
able to push a big red button that says Stop on it and immediately stop 
that bad apple from continuing into the line of commerce in this 
country.
  The legislation that I introduced would give the Food and Drug 
Administration a big red button to push that would stop the food from 
coming into this country. The idea is so simple that I don't understand 
why it hasn't been enacted previously.
  If this is enacted, the Food and Drug Administration would have the 
authority to embargo a specific food from a specific country if there 
were episodes of repetitive violation of United States food safety 
standards or if the food was found to be contaminated. Quite frankly, 
we've got to be able to stop countries from sending harmful food 
products into the United States. So H.R. 3967 will allow us to finally 
take control of the food that is being sent to America. And, Mr. 
Speaker, it would send a pretty strong message to countries that in the 
past have sent harmful products to the United States: Solve the problem 
on your end because we mean business on our end.
  After a summer of recall upon recall upon recall, it is time. It is 
time that Congress take this matter into its own hands. I for one am no 
longer going to tolerate hearing a different news story every night 
about a new and dangerous product coming into our country from the 
People's Republic of China.
  The Health Subcommittee of which I am also a member had a legislative 
hearing on September 26 regarding Chairman Dingell's bill, H.R. 3610. 
Having reviewed this legislation, I think the intentions are good and I 
look forward to working with the chairman on this issue. Clearly I 
don't support every provision but I do support the spirit of the 
proposed legislation. I believe we need to look toward how other 
Federal agencies have dealt with this issue and whether or not it would 
be appropriate to give the Food and Drug Administration similar 
authorities.
  According to the Government Accountability Office, 15 Federal 
agencies collectively administer 30 different laws related to food 
safety. The Food and Drug Administration, which is part of the United 
States Department of Health and Human Services, and the Food Safety and 
Inspection Service, which is part of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, together comprise the majority of both the total funding 
and the total staffing of the government's food safety regulatory 
system. However, food safety laws vary greatly from agency to agency 
and not all foods are treated equally.
  For instance, the United States Department of Agriculture, which has 
jurisdiction over meat, poultry and eggs, has an established 
equivalency determination standard for those foods.
  What is equivalency, you might ask? I'm glad you did ask.
  On October 11 at the third Oversight and Investigation hearing on the 
FDA's ability to assure the safety and security of our Nation's food 
supply, the Undersecretary for Food Safety at the United States 
Department of Agriculture, Dr. Richard Raymond, gave the following 
definition:
  ``Equivalency is the foundation of our system of imports. It 
recognizes that an exporting country can provide an appropriate level 
of food safety, even if those measures are different from those applied 
here at home. The Food Safety and Inspection Service has always 
required an assessment of foreign inspection systems before those 
nations can export their products to the United States. This prior 
review is mandated by our laws, which originally required that a 
foreign system be `equal to' our system before the foreign product can 
be admitted.''

                              {time}  2345

  He further went on to state, ``An exporting country has the burden of 
proving that its system is equivalent to our system if that country 
wishes to export that product to the United States.''
  Now I understand, I understand that applying this system of 
equivalency that is currently employed by the United States Department 
of Agriculture, implying that more stringent requirement to the Food 
and Drug Administration, which, in fairness, has about an 80 percent 
jurisdiction of all food compared to the roughly 20 percent of the 
United States Department of Agriculture, that is going to be hard. That 
is going to be difficult.
  Currently, only 33 countries are eligible to ship meat and/or poultry 
products to the United States. If the exact standard that the United 
States Department of Agriculture employs was used by the Food and Drug 
Administration, it would drastically change and some people would even 
say it would cripple the food import system if, if there were not 
enough resources to support it. That's why the resource aspect, the 
staffing aspect becomes so critical.
  Mr. Speaker, former Speaker Newt Gingrich in his book on 
Transformation lists as his second principle of transformation: Real 
change requires real change. This is a time for

[[Page 30701]]

real change. This system should be drastically altered. Consider this: 
In 2005, 15 percent of the overall volume of U.S. food consumption was 
imported. Between 1996 and 2006, the amount of U.S. imports of 
agriculture and seafood products from all countries increased by 42 
percent. In the last decade, the volume of FDA regulated imports has 
tripled. Chinese imports to the United States have increased more 
rapidly than the global average, and between the years of 1996 to 2006 
the volume of import of Chinese agriculture and seafood products 
increased by 346 percent. China is now the third largest exporter of 
agriculture and seafood products to the United States, only behind our 
neighbor to the north and our neighbor to the south.
  So perhaps our food import system should, should undergo real change. 
It should undergo significant change. The Food and Drug Administration 
was created in a time when we were still domestically growing the 
majority of our foods here in this country. We have got real issues 
here at home to deal with regarding our food regulatory system, but at 
least we have a regulatory system here in this country to deal with the 
problem.
  This is not the case for all the countries from which we receive 
food. It seems that it would be common sense that we would only import 
food from a country if they can prove that their products are as safe 
as ours. Yet, only the United States Department of Agriculture can 
require this.
  Let's think about this for a minute: USDA, 20 percent; FDA, 80 
percent stringent controls on the 20 percent far less stringent 
controls on the 80 percent. Kind of seems like an imbalance, Mr. 
Speaker. Now it seems to me to be very arbitrary that the system the 
United States Department of Agriculture can employ is so much tougher 
than what the Food and Drug Administration can employ.
  At the end of the day the American consumer doesn't know whether that 
food has been checked and regulated by USDA or FDA. The final common 
pathway, the end target is the kitchen table. When it goes from farm to 
fork, people don't consider what regulatory agency has had jurisdiction 
over that food, especially if it came from another country. We don't 
discriminate as Americans about the food, where it comes from and which 
agency has the regulatory control over that food. You know, it's almost 
a little curious that Congress does. Congress set forth dual standards 
and Congress must have a candid conversation and discussion with itself 
on whether or not we need to make these two systems, the United States 
Department of Agriculture 20 percent, Food and Drug Administration, 80 
percent, whether or not we need to make those two jurisdictions perhaps 
more comparable.
  Now Chairman Dingell's food safety bill is tentatively scheduled to 
be marked up at both the subcommittee level and the full committee 
level later this month. I don't know if we will have time. I hope we 
are able to do it before the end of the year, but the legislative year 
is rapidly passing us by with each successive day and I hope that we 
can get that work done because I think it is critically important. It's 
my goal to encourage this frank conversation at the committee level, 
and hopefully Members on both sides of the dais will continue to have 
input on this critically important issue.
  As we all know, this system, our system works best, and we have the 
most effective legislation if our bills are allowed to go through the 
normal process, if they are allowed to go through regular order. I 
implore the leadership, implore the leadership to allow this important 
piece of legislation to go through the normal process. Don't rush it 
through, don't jam it through. We saw what happened to the State 
Children's Health Insurance Program when that process was circumvented. 
Did we save any time delivering a State Children's Health Insurance 
Program to the children of America by jamming it through at the end of 
July and jamming it through in September and trying to jam it through 
in the early part of October? No. We didn't save any time. We are now 2 
months passed the time that we should have reauthorized that 
legislation and, quite frankly, no resolution is in sight. That is no 
way to run an airline, that is no way to run the United States 
Congress.
  I implore the leadership, let's stick to the regular legislative 
process and let this legislation work its way through the committee. 
Let it be improved by the committee. There's some of the best and 
brightest minds in the United States Congress that sit on both sides of 
the dais on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Some of the biggest 
brain firepower in this Congress sits on that committee. Don't 
circumvent the committee process, don't cut them out of the process. 
You don't serve the American peoples' interests when you do that, you 
don't serve congressional interests when you do that. Quite frankly, 
leadership does itself a huge disservice when it continues to do that. 
You're not scoring points politically and certainly not scoring points 
with the American people.
  So let's not allow the issue of protecting our families from harmful 
and dangerous goods coming in from other countries to become a debate 
of one political party versus the other. It's something that I am 
certain holds resonance in the minds of us all. Realistically, we do 
our best work when we work together, and that is that the American 
people realistically sent us here to do. We need to work together 
effectively, solve this crisis now. It ought to be a priority for 
everyone in this body, regardless of their political party.
  Just this week the President's working group on Import Safety 
presented their proposal to both the President and Congress. I wish the 
working group had been able to get their proposal together at a little 
bit earlier date, but better late than never. I do believe they have 
presented many sound policies, many sound ideas, and we should 
incorporate some of these ideas when we are formulating our own 
legislation.
  I am still reviewing that group's findings. They are certainly 
voluminous, and have recently come to us. I was pleased to read that 
they would also like to see a legislative proposal that could give the 
Food and Drug Administration additional authority for preventive 
controls for high risk foods from high risk countries. If you would 
like to read their proposal for yourself, I encourage you to visit 
their website at www.importsafety.gov.
  Mr. Speaker, you might ask, is there a dark side, is there a downside 
to all of this that we have been talking about tonight? Of course, the 
answer to that is yes. We always, we always in this Congress, have to 
be cautious about crossing the line and approaching or pushing that 
ever-expanding reach and grasp of the Federal Government in places it 
doesn't belong. But, you know, that is one of the basic activities that 
Americans expect out of their Federal Government, and that is to ensure 
the safety of the food supply and ensure the safety of the products 
that come into this country from other countries.
  The last thing we want is for the Federal Government to control every 
little aspect of things that we pick up off our grocers' and stores' 
shelves, but it is a balancing act, as always, and we have to be always 
vigilant and be always cognizant of that fact.
  We also must be vigilant in restoring safety and trust back into the 
foods we eat and the products we use. I believe that H.R. 3967, the 
Food Import and Safety Improvement Act of 2007, will further that goal, 
will further that purpose, as will the enhanced recall authority for 
the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission that we talked 
about a little earlier tonight.
  Compromising the safety of the foods that we put on our tables must 
not ever be an option for this Congress. Compromising the consumer 
products that we buy for our families must never be an option, must 
never be an optional activity, for this Congress. Compromising the 
security of Americans cannot be an option. Compromising cannot be an 
option because we simply lack the power or lack the political will to 
exercise that power.
  Remember the big red stop button. H.R. 3967 gives us the power to 
protect Americans by stopping things before

[[Page 30702]]

they get into this country. We can no longer sit back and continue to 
allow harmful products to reach our homes. All Americans, all 
Americans, and I include myself, have the choice to take a stance 
individually and simply not buy products that come from a country that 
serially violates our safety standards. And we have talked about that 
country several times tonight, the People's Republic of China, because 
they have not proven that their products are safe, and, over and over 
again, we hear and see the news reports that their products are not 
safe.
  But we have got to go further than that. Stricter rules are 
necessary. It is up to this Congress, it is up to this Congress, to 
step up, take the necessary legislative activities under their control, 
and do what is right for the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, you have been very indulgent, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.

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