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Federal Import Safety Panel Outlines Proposals

Contaminated pet food set off a chain reaction that has disrupted relations with China

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

October 1, 2007

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Reacting to an embarrassing string of imported product recalls this year, the U.S. government’s Import Safety Working Group met in Washington today, getting feedback from industry and government officials. In advancing proposals for making products safer, the Working Group said it has offered six strategies.

“In order to adapt to a rapidly growing and changing global economy, both the private and the public sector need to continually improve and change with it,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

Leavitt says the global nature of the economy has presented enormous challenges for government agencies charged with ensuring the safety of imported products.

For example, the group says that this year alone, more than $2 trillion worth of products are going to be imported into the United States. The products come from 25,000 importers through 300 ports and land border crossings and postal facilities and other ports of entry, and experts are projecting that the amount will triple by 2015.

“In the past two months, Working Group members have been criss-crossing this country fact-finding. I personally visited more than two dozen cities,” Leavitt said. “I've been in ports and post offices. I've been in railroads, at airports, seaports, warehouses, meat-packing facilities. I have been in freight hubs and border crossings and I visited wholesalers and retailers and fruit stands.”

The result of all those visits, says Leavitt, are six proposals, which include increased accountability, enforceability and a focus on risks. Leavitt also said enforcement agencies need to collaborate more and businesses need tougher standards so that they are producing better quality products.

“We need to create a better system that builds quality into the product from the very start, and that's what this is all about today,” Leavitt said. “Our meeting is to identify and to recommend actions that the public and the private stakeholders can take to ensure the safety of our products, imported products, into the United States are at the highest level possible.”

“Issues related to contaminated pet food set off a chain reaction that disrupted trade relations with China, a country whose importance as our trading partner for agricultural goods has grown so rapidly in the last five years, just as it has of course in manufactured goods,” said Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Connor.

“The import issues are arising against a backdrop of continued growth in our own agricultural exports. They are on-track of course to set a record of $79 billion in sales this year, and our imports of agricultural products aren't far behind.”

Meanwhile, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) said he will establish a presidential commission on food safety, as part of the current Farm Bill, which is making its way through Congress.

The commission was also part of the 2002 Farm Bill, but Harkin says the commission was never appointed or allowed to meet. He says the Cabinet-level Interagency Working Group, with its sole focus on imports, is not adequate to address the nation’s food safety needs – pointing to last week’s massive Topps Beef hamburger patty recall as evidence for greater focus on the safety of domestic food products.

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