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A couple other things get knocked out when the Senate ditched the omnibus bill last night. The House, when it passed its measure to fund the government, attached the food safety bill to it. That bill had passed both the House and Senate previously, but because of a drafting error, where the Senate didn’t make a shell bill and instead originated what amounts to a tax bill (because of some revenue-raisers in the measure), which is unconstitutional, the House couldn’t pass the Senate’s bill. So this bill, passed by both houses of Congress, still had an unclear avenue for passage.
Now, the Republicans could see that a bill which got 73 votes in the Senate would clearly pass, and forgive the error by fast-tracking a new version through the chamber. But the demons of obstructionism, led by Tom Coburn, wouldn’t allow that. Weeks have been spent already breaking filibusters on the food safety bill, and with competing priorities, the Senate couldn’t see its way clear to wasting more time.
So would there be another opportunity for the bill? Senate leadership aides tell FDL News that they will try to include the bill in their version of a continuing resolution. The Senate’s continuing resolution would only fund the government through February 18, in all likelihood, giving the more conservative incoming Congress an early opportunity to slash federal spending. But the Senate leadership does want to move that along with the food safety bill.
The question becomes whether all Republicans agree to that, or whether they force a fight on the bill – which would lead to at least a temporary government shutdown. The tea party movement really wants this fight, and with cattle-state Coburn itching for a fight even if it’s ultimately fruitless, I could easily see him object to this. The Senate would presumably have the votes to pass it, but it could take a few days, and the government runs out of money on Saturday. Clearly they want to pass something quickly with unanimous consent.
At the absolute minimum, the food safety bill should be included as at least a small measure of progress in exchange for giving away the ability to set FY 2011 budget priorities to the next Congress. But it’s still not clear whether that can move quickly.
Again, with rules reform and a more functional Senate, the decks would be more cleared to actually fight out this issue.
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Priority? Budget spending. If we don’t have time for the FSA then let the TEA party prove they care about anybody by pushing the Food Safety Act in January. It passed both chambers this time, so it’ll have a good chance in January too.
Unbelievable that a food safety bill would have any trouble passing, especially after all the e coli scandals in the last few years.
I don’t pretend to understand Tom Coburn, but this is really beyond me – how does a physician possibly rationalize opposing improving food inspection and safety?
I just gag when I occasionally hear a democrat say something like Coburn is a reasonable person they can work with…it must only be in comparison to the rest of ‘em.
Why is this an issue that needs battling out?
Didn’t you read Ross Douchebag in the Times this week? Coburn is the last statesman in the congress!
The way I understand it is that the House has to originate new taxes; that is the technicality.
Some people don’t like the bill because it sets up a two tiered structure of standards, one tougher one for large processors, another more lax one for small processors.
What I question about the need for this bill is the assumption that this many people get sick every year from food poisoning. If you look into it — I have — supporters of the bill point to a CDC analysis that says everyone on average gets sick to their stomachs (won’t go into the details here) more than once a year. The figure is 1.05 times/year or 1.4 times a year. I just don’t believe this figure. Also, it might very well be that 5,000 people a year die from food poisoning, although I question that too, but how much of that could be prevented if people would just washed their hands before handling food?
How utterly incompetent are the Democrats? Or did they do this on purpose to fool the public while protecting their corporate buddies?
Nothing says big government interference like preventing people from picking up peanuts that have already tested positive for salmonella and putting them in school lunches….
Douchehat said that? I don’t think statesman means what he thinks it means.
It strikes me that since the US government is now bought and paid for by the corporations, any halfway effective regulation of food safety is going to have to be conducted at the state level. One of the questions is whether that regulation will fall afoul of the interstate commerce clause. The problem at the Congressional level isn’t so much the budget as it is the power of the big food lobby.
Assume these questions are rhetorical, but for the record:
The “Democrats” are not incompetent in the slightest; they are just corporate whores doing exactly what the elites tell them to do.
Their corporate buddies don’t give a sh*t if some serfs die due to food poisoning, esp if it means the elites can rake in a few more buck$$$ for themselves alone. There is never enough for these glutinous oinking greed-heads. They simply want more and more and more and more and more…
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.
the problem with your analysis tejanarusa is that the food safety bill isnt really all that much about food safety, You actially should look beyond the title of the bill. Do you know who sponsored it? How much money did your Senators get from Agribusiness? Monsanto? Archer Daniels? Sponsors outspent the Dairy industry and outspent the Organic Farming Lobby by a factor of 10-1. Monsanto annd Co liberally doled out $100,000 – $500,000 to every Senator Repub and Dem alike. Why? Well for starters Farmers generally wont be able to reseed with their own seed as they have for 10,0000 years they’ll have to buy from Agribusiness genetically modified seed supplies. Also the FDA will have police power to do warrantless search seizure and quarantine. There are a lot of serious problems with the bill from the Codex to the clampdown on local farmers markets to the transfer of legislative authority on food supply to the UN. None of which is calculated to make any of us safer fron the 1,000′s of deadly food poisoning epidemics that sweep our nation every month, killing and maiming helpless citizens … Obviously our existing legal infrastructure is inadequate to deal with the mayhem caused by evil farmers and the public outcry to stop these horrendus epidemics mandated Instant and immediate change…that only took 25 years to move thru Congress to solve this Natinal CRISIS OMG!!!!
So rather than ask why the Senate won’t re-vote in an alleged Food Safety Bill ask what’s in it, why do we need it, who stands to profit and what problems does it solve? And btw where does the avg upper eschelon FDA exec come from ? Monsanto and Archer Daniels. Hmmm and as the family farms of California go bankrupt due to Fed Water Policy … Who stands to benefit? Agribiz. This bill simply legislates new methods to close down any small farm for any pretense with NO JUDICIAL REVIEW…. is this what you stand for?
By the way who here thinks that Reid’s Constitutional drafting mistake was really an innocent mistake?
I’m interested to know the backstory on the PR disinformation campaign against this bill. I’ve had a friend come to me with stories about how awful this bill is, how it will restrict people growing their own food in their own gardens. This canard was also used against an earlier version of the bill from 2009, and became so pervasive that it had to be debunked on Snopes [!]:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/organic.asp
What do you want to bet this originated with a food-industry PR flack?
Food safety got lost in this bill, as was intended, just as national security got lost in the Patriot Act, as intended.
“Food safety” is the cover story for vastly enhanced, self-policed corporate control of food, just as the Patriot Act used “Terrorism” as the cover story for vastly enhanced, self-policed corporate control of national security — the Department of Homeland Security is the second biggest corporate teat to ever exist (the first being the Pentagon). The FDA will be handing out fat corporate contracts to private companies who will spend billions going through the motions of food safety the way the TSA goes through the motions of airport security.
Fact: if the onerous reporting, tagging and tracking regulations that are imposed by this bill were applied to a small truck farm they would be out of business by the afternoon. Which is why they were written that way in the first place by the Big Agriculture lobbyists who crafted this bill to give their paymasters a tighter grip on all food production, handling and sales in America.
Monsanto in particular wants the growing local food movement squashed and redefined into terrorism plain and simple — selling your garden’s wares, fresh eggs, or organic fruit at the local Farmer’s Market was originally defined as criminal activities in the original drafts of the bill, before food activists fought back and got the Tester Amendment inserted at the last minute.
Even the current bill, which allows for the survival of small producers, is only a temporary compromise from Big Ag. When they come after the local food producers next time, it will take just as big a fight to keep local farming legal and affordable.
When this bill comes up again, watch these corporate lobbyists remove the Tester Amendment late at night, on a technicality. Then the fight will have to start all over again.
Why do you guys keep believing that any law is a good law? Why do you insist on believing that the government is here to protect and serve you? Where’s the evidence for these beliefs?
I am not at all convinced that this food safety bill is such a good idea.
Here is one side, with links:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/s510-revised-fda-coming-kennedy.htm
Just a quick drop-by – this has been addressed elsewhere – these are made up allegations; none of what you say is true. If it were, I’d be against it, but it isn’t true.
Book Salon up with Dave Zirin’s Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love hosted by Brad Reed
Yeah – wanna bet all these people popping up here registered just before posting?
I don’t have time to look up where we discussed this in detail earlier – it’s been a few weeks, but all these allegations are, as you say disinformation and have been debunked.
I recall reading the paragraphs of the bill someone pointed to as restricting people growing their own organic food – and yes, I do know how to read legislative-ease – and it most definitely does not say what the disinformers claims it says.
House? What House? Is it even relevant?
I checked cal222′s activity. Registration was a week ago, and exactly two posts are shown – the comment here attacking the food safety bill, and a post defending estate tax cuts!
I think it’s time for the moderators to increase the level of vigilance against astroturfing. As a relatively new user myself, I’m usually reluctant to point fingers at particular users, but a number of recent comments on issues that directly affect corporate bottom lines have looked very suspicious to me.
Another pattern I’ve seen is that on issues where the policies of the White House are particularly unpopular at FDL, some commenters have attempted to defend those policies by playing on issues stereotypically related to liberal guilt. In one case it was a supposedly African-American user pleading with the rest of us to accept the Obama tax deal because rejecting it would adversely affect poor blacks; in another case, we were supposed to accept uncritically the rape allegations against Julian Assange because doubting the word of any (supposed) rape victim is heading down a slippery slope. I have my suspicions that playing on liberal guilt is a technique being used systematically by White House astroturfers.
I don’t know whether these surmises have any truth to them or not. I defer to the experience and expertise of the moderators. But I would appreciate it if they could subject these kinds of commenting patterns to some scrutiny. I don’t want anyone’s honest opinions suppressed, but I believe strongly that “bought speech is not free speech” – and I agree with Jane’s stated policy that covert astroturfing has no place on FDL.
No substantive response to my actual points. Why? Because you actually have to read and learn about things to respond substantively rather than just sound off. As to the charge of “astroturfing,” I’m not sure what that is. Maybe it’s just having a view different from yours. I’m not working for one of the big bad corporations that you so fear and loathe, however.