Three weeks after the White House proposed a central agency for food safety, the proposal “is already running into opposition from some food safety experts, consumer groups and the inspectors who would be most affected. The federal government, they say, does not do well with big,” says the New York Times. It quotes skeptics, such as Food and Water Watch, which says it is difficult to merge disparate activities into a smooth-running new entity. The White House proposal would move USDA’s meat inspectors and FDA’s food inspectors to a new agency inside the Department of Health and Human Services.
The USDA and the FDA have different mandates – meatpackers cannot operate without a USDA inspector on the premises, for example – and there could be turf battles and funding feuds in a new food agency. The idea has backers on Capitol Hill, though, where Sen. Richard Durbin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro have a bill to create a stand-alone food-safety agency.