Food safety

Senate leaders have agreed to postpone a vote on two amendments and final passage of food-safety legislation until Tuesday morning, congressional sources tell The Hill.

The move would give Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) time to debate the merits of his two amendments to the legislation. One amendment is a stripped-down substitute to the bill — the other is a moratorium on congressionally directed appropriations.

"A morning vote is the right move," a spokesman for Coburn told The Hill. "Reid would be sending the wrong message to have a late night vote on keeping the lights on at the earmark favor factory."

Votes on two other amendments to repeal the healthcare reform law's 1099 tax reporting requirements are still scheduled for Monday evening.

The Senate bill would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to recall tainted food, quarantine geographic areas and access food producers’ records.

The House passed its version of food-safety legislation in July 2009. House leaders say the lower chamber could pass the Senate bill as is during this lame-duck session in order to get the bill to the president's desk before a new Congress is sworn in.

A coalition of farming interests and advocates for healthy nutrition launched a new initiative Monday that aims to put 6,000 salad bars in U.S. schools in the next three years. The campaign, "Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools," seeks to bolster first lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity.

The founding partners of the initiative are the National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, the United Fresh Produce Association Foundation, and the Food, Family, Farming Foundation. The group is trying to raise $15 million from corporations, foundations and the public.

"We are thrilled to build upon the success and momentum of the First Lady's 'Let's Move!' initiative with 'Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools'," Tom Stenzel, president and CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association, said in a statement. "School salad bars are a proven strategy for increasing children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and launching them on a lifetime of healthy eating."

Getting salad bars into schools isn't without controversy, however. 

As the environmental website Grist reports, "many school districts [refuse] to install salad bars for food-safety reasons and because of cumbersome (Department of Agriculture) rules governing the federally subsidized school lunch program that feeds some 31 million U.S. school children every day."

Among the concerns: elementary school children might spread germs by sneezing on the salad components or handling it with their hands. And USDA regulations require that cashiers verify that children have served themselves the correct portions of fruits and vegetables required under the federal lunch program.

"In October," reports Grist, "the USDA's Food and Nutrition Services division, which oversees the subsidized meal program, circulated a memo saying that while it encourages the use of salad bars in schools, school menu planners must tell students the minimum amounts they must take from salad bars, cashiers 'must be trained to judge accurately the quantities of self-service items,' and point-of-sale registers 'must be stationed after the salad bar.' "

Debate is expected to include votes on two proposals to repeal the healthcare reform law's 1099 tax reporting requirement.

Democrats and Republicans who worked together on food safety legislation have signed off on a compromise amendment protecting small farmers, making it more likely the bill could pass as early as this week.

The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), could be rolled into the food safety bill or could be voted up or down separately. Under the amendment, small producers - those selling most of their food directly to consumers, local restaurants and retailers within a 275-mile radius and earning $500,000 or less in annual sales - will continue to be regulated at the state and local level.

"This amendment is a critical change to the food safety legislation and will protect our small producers from excessive government red tape," Hagan said in a statement. "Senator Tester and I worked with our colleagues to ensure this amendment’s inclusion in the final food safety bill, and this protection will benefit small farmers across North Carolina."Changes to the amendment give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to withdraw an exemption from a farm or facility that has been associated with a foodborne illness outbreak. In addition, the distance from a facility or farm that is eligible to be a "qualified end-user" has been reduced from 400 miles to 275 miles, and language clarifying that farmers' market sales are "direct-to-consumer" for FDA’s purposes has been revised.

The bill cleared a major legislative hurdle on Wednesday when it passed cloture by a vote of 74-25. The legislation would require more frequent inspections at food-processing plants and would give the government more authority in food-recall cases.

The House passed its version of food-safety legislation in July 2009.

You can read the revised amendment here, and its summary here.

This post was updated at 12:25 p.m.

The White House on Wednesday threw its support behind a ban on beverages that infuse alcohol and caffeine.

After a year of waiting, legislation to promote food safety moved Wednesday toward passage during the Senate’s lame-duck session.

Connecticut Attorney General — and Senator-elect — Richard Blumenthal (D) is asking the Food and Drug Administration to "do the right thing" and ban alcoholic energy drinks.

In a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, Blumenthal says the agency should quickly wrap up its investigation into whether the drinks meet the FDA's Generally Recognized As Safe standard. The investigation started in November 2009, and since then, Blumenthal and others have argued that scientific and medical evidence proves they don't meet that standard.

"Alcoholic energy beverages are a witch's brew of stimulants and alcohol, creating wide-awake, energized drunks who pose a serious threat to themselves and others," he writes.

Blumenthal's letter comes as the state of Washington voted to ban the drinks, effective this Thursday. The ban comes after nine students were hospitalized last month.

Michigan, Utah and Oklahoma have also banned the drinks.

The bill was forced onto the Senate’s back burner while the upper chamber grappled with healthcare and Wall Street reform.

Newly empowered conservatives are vowing to stymie Democrats' policy priorities in the lame-duck session. That could have repercussions on a couple of health-related bills, including childhood nutrition and food safety.

The nonprofit Americans for Prosperity is holding a "November Speaks" event on Monday to press lawmakers "not to pass any new legislation from the Left's agenda in the Lame Duck session." Expected speakers at the event include Republican Reps. Mike Pence (Ind.) and Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and congressmen-elect Morgan Griffith (Va.), Frank Guinta (N.H.) and Sean Duffy (Wis.).

Bachmann herself rejoiced on her Web site last week that Democrats' "train of big spending and big government has been stopped in its tracks." Still, she warned, "in the meantime, a dangerous agenda could be presented by the Democrats in the lame duck session of Congress and Americans must keep a vigilant eye."

Americans for Prosperity hasn't specified which bills it opposes, but conservatives in the past have objected to the cost of a childhood nutrition bill that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said is one of three lame-duck priorities -- along with the new START treaty and the Bush tax cuts -- for President Obama.

The $4.5 billion bill would expand eligibility for school meal programs, establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools and provide a 6-cent increase for each school lunch to help cafeterias serve healthier meals.

The Senate passed its version unanimously right before the August recess, and Democrats see the lame-duck session as their last best chance to get it through the House before the new majority takes over in January. The bill got an extra boost last week when a diverse coalition of more than 1,100 groups announced their support and two liberals -- Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.) and Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) -- got on board despite reservations that the bill is half paid for by ending an expansion of the food stamp program five months early.

For its part, the Senate is expected to take up food safety legislation this coming week. The bill was held up before the elections because Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) objected to passage by unanimous consent.

The House passed its version in July 2009 and a final bill could yet clear Congress this year if there's a speedy conference committee or if the House adopts whatever the Senate ends up passing.

Another priority is preventing a 23 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians that's scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. Both parties agree the cut needs to be prevented to keep Medicare functioning smoothly but finding pay-fors acceptable to both parties will be tough.

One thing's for sure: Lawmakers can expect to be inundated with calls from physicians next week. The American Medical Association, which wants Congress to pass a bill that will prevent cuts for 13 months at least, wants doctors across the country to call their senators for "White Coat Wednesday" on Nov. 17.

Advocates on behalf of poverty and children's issues are gearing up for a lame-duck session that many see as their last chance to get a childhood nutrition bill passed.

Supporters expect that a Senate-passed bill could pass as a stand-alone or be incorporated into an omnibus package if it doesn't get the votes it needs, but they're split over how to pay for it. Poverty advocates favor the bill, but not if it's paid for by cutting the food-stamp program.

"We cannot trade off one excellent nutrition program for another," said Mariana Chilton of Witnesses to Hunger during a conference call announcing a new report from the Food Research and Action Center.

The report, released Tuesday, found that 17.7 percent of Americans reported having struggled to get food on the table between April and September. That's down from the last quarter of 2009 and much less than what advocates say would have happened in a faltering economy if last year's recovery act hadn't boosted food stamp spending.

The Senate-passed bill would move up the end of that temporary increase by five months, to November 2013, saving $2.2 billion. The $4.5 billion bipartisan proposal would expand eligibility for school meal programs; establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools; and provide a 6-cent increase for each school lunch to help cafeterias serve healthier meals.

In August, 106 Democratic House members wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) opposing the food-stamp cuts.

But President Obama last month rekindled hope that a solution is possible, when his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, listed childhood nutrition alongside ratification of the new START Treaty and the Bush tax cuts as being the Democratic priorities for the lame-duck session. Obama has committed to addressing the food-stamp issue after the bill passes, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. And more than 950 public health and other groups have signed on over the past few weeks.

"All in all," she told The Hill, "I am hopeful the child nutrition bill will be passed soon."

The debate coincides with the recent release of two new reports documenting the cost of Americans' lack of interest in fruits and vegetables. The average American consumes only 43 percent of the daily intake of fruit and only 57 percent of vegetables as recommended in federal dietary guidelines, according to the Produce for Better Health Foundation.

Poor nutrition is costing $56 billion a year to treat just three diet-related chronic diseases — coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer — according to a new report from the foundation. The nonprofit blames the federal government's relegating of fruits and vegetables to a "low funding priority status" for part of the problem.

"The research reinforces the importance of fruits and vegetables to good health. Increased consumption helps reduce the risk of obesity and many diseases, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and some cancers," the group's president and CEO, Elizabeth Pivonka, said in a statement. "Everyone can benefit from eating more fruits and vegetables. That is why the federal government must make fruit and vegetable spending a public health priority."

Concurrently, the group released a "State of the Plate" report examining America's produce consumption. It found that while children have increased their fruit consumption by at least 5 percent since 2004, teenagers and seniors appear to be eating less fruits and vegetables.