DELAY POSSIBLE FOR MEAT HACCP SYSTEM

JOYCE BARRETT

WASHINGTON (FNS) -- An amendment to the House Agriculture Appropriations bill could delay implementation of the ruling on a new meat and poultry inspection service for at least two years, according to the amendment's opponents.

Sponsored by Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., the amendment in question would require negotiations between industry and the government on a new meat and poultry inspection service before a final ruling on pathogen reduction and the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points program is achieved.

Michael Taylor, acting undersecretary for food safety at USDA, has been attempting to update the current meat inspection system, which relies on visual checks, to the scientifically based HACCP system.

The system, which has been on a fast track since several children died after being poisoned with E.coli bacteria in meat, requires that samples of meat and poultry be checked at key stages of the production process.

Walsh's amendment, which was accepted by the House Agricultural Appropriations Committee at the end of June, prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from spending money to implement the ruling on HACCP until up to nine months of negotiations have been completed.

Advocates say this will simply give industry, organized labor and the government a chance to resolve their differences in a reasonable manner.

Sara Clarke, senior vice president of legislation for the American Meat Institute, Arlington, Va., said there likely would be no delay in implementation of the ruling because the USDA sets the timetable. Clarke said the negotiated rule-making process was needed to ensure that the industry was involved. She pointed to objections raised to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman by state agriculture departments and industry sectors as evidence that many feel left out of the process. Clarke also said that the proposed ruling did not correct all the problems in meat inspection and that a negotiated settlement would address these.

In a statement, Taylor said that the amendment would "delay modernization by at least two years. We have aggressively sought and will consider the views of all interested parties, but we should not delay readily achievable progress toward reducing foodborne illness in what is likely to be a futile search for consensus."

However, Walsh argued in another statement that the current rule-making process is biased toward Food Safety and Inspection Service employees "who have a vested interest in maintaining the labor-intensive meat inspection system."