The Food Safety Modernization Act and the expanding role of government control

The Food Safety Modernization Act is a controversial bill currently on the floor of the Senate that would expand the government’s ability to regulate the production of food products in the United States with an eye on helping reduce instances of widespread foodborne illness caused by bad manufacturing practices.

There has been widespread opposition to the bill from small farm and artisan food production groups because of the bill’s vague language and its potential to force small-scale producers to follow the same rules as large-scale ones even if the regulations are not appropriate or should not apply to small-scale producers.

Unfortunately, this bill suffers from some of the same flaws that have dogged many recent regulatory overhauls the Congress has tried to pass: while some of the bill’s ideas have merit, the language is too vague, the powers granted are too broad, and the potential for wide-sweeping unintended consequences are too great. In my opinion at least, the bill should be defeated, and Congress should find a better way to accomplish what it is trying to accomplish.

You can find the contact information for your representatives at this link to voice your opinion.

DLH

ht: to Michelle Hixon Lemley for reminding me to write about this.

This entry was posted in Economy, Farming, Government, News, Politics and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *