Last month, Americans woke up to newspaper headlines that 143 million pounds of beef had been recalled from Chino, Calif.-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. The recall, the single largest of its kind in U.S. history, was prompted by gruesome undercover video from the plant depicting animals too sick or weak to stand — much less walk — being chained, dragged, fork-lifted, kicked, jabbed and dumped into America’s food supply.

The severity of the incident was compounded by the fact that the investigation behind the recall was not led by the US Department of Agriculture — the government agency responsible for the inspection system at meat and poultry plants — but the Humane Society of the United States, whose covert agent recorded the violations of food safety and humane treatment laws.

This incident raises serious questions about the gaps in our meat inspection system, and about current laws needed to enforce standards tough enough to ensure the safety of the food we put on the table, or serve to our children in school cafeterias. Westland/Hallmark was one of 23 slaughter plants that supplied meat to federal nutrition programs, which includes the national school lunch program administered by the USDA. The implications for the school lunch program are particularly troubling. We must remember what happens in the feedlot or slaughterhouse ends up in school lunchrooms throughout our country.

Last week, at a hearing before the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, I emphasized these concerns to Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer, pressing his commitment to a series of first steps needed to be taken to ensure food safety at our meat slaughter plants.

By law, all cattle are subject to inspection prior to slaughter. Despite the presence of five inspectors at the Westland/Hallmark plant, blatant violations had evidently occurred for some time. This begs the question of how this happened — and in the next breath, what violations are going unnoticed in other plants?

We do not want another Westland/Hallmark situation to happen anywhere in the country. This means under no circumstances should a single downer cow be permitted into our food supply. To accomplish this, we must have tougher standards, round-the-clock surveillance and stiffer penalties for individual plants violating U.S. food safety laws put in place to protect our families and children.

First, USDA must audit every single plant, making sure each facility has language-appropriate materials for its workers. We are only as good as the workers in the field. Plant workers must be properly trained so there can be no confusion on the laws and handling procedures. I urge the USDA to begin by auditing the 23 plants that are contracted to supply meat to federal nutrition programs within the next 30 days or less.

In addition, we must restore the rule prohibiting all downer cattle — with no exceptions — from entering the food supply. This rule was weakened last year after being imposed by USDA in 2003, when the first reported case of mad cow disease in this country was discovered. In the Westland/Hallmark case, there is evidence that even the weaker rule was being broken. The restoration of this bright-line rule would make it easier to uniformly enforce by inspectors at plants, and more difficult for meat processing companies to conveniently interpret the law for their own ends.

Plants violating laws should be fined significantly, with their licenses to operate temporarily revoked. By simply withdrawing its inspectors, USDA can force plants to halt operations until they demonstrate that they have corrected any violations, and are in compliance with the law.

Finally, there needs to be a foolproof system of monitoring slaughter plants. Allowing plant personnel to signal one another when a USDA inspector is coming is simply unacceptable. Because the camera never blinks, video monitoring systems could be an important way for USDA inspectors to be assured that violations are not occurring behind their backs at processing facilities.

The American people don’t want excuses or apologies about the mess in Chino. They want to know how we are going to clean it up and implement a solid plan for the future. They also know something must change before similar recalls of meat and meat products happen again, or even become routine.

This is a very, very serious issue. The issue affects food safety, it affects our children, it affects our trade partners, and it affects our markets. There are things we can do to fix this problem, to strengthen our laws and to protect our children. We should stand together in accomplishing this goal.

USDA is often criticized for trying to regulate an industry it is also trying to promote. Here is an opportunity for USDA to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Kohl is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.