House chair questions agencies on food inspection duplication
FDA official counters that few facilities are inspected by more than one agency.
House Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Jon Porter, R-Nev., blasted the heads of four federal agencies who oversee food inspection for not doing enough to streamline the program, which Porter said has numerous -- and seemingly nonsensical -- duplications.
"If Congress were to set up the organizational structure today, I hardly believe that we would have the USDA inspect manufacturers of ... pepperoni pizza ... and require the FDA to inspect manufacturers of cheese pizza," Porter said. He also noted that a recent GAO report found that the FDA, the Agriculture Department, EPA and the Seafood Inspection Program had 71 different agreements on coordinating operations, but that all agencies were only aware of seven of them.
But Robert Brackett, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety, said many of those arrangements only affected small parts of the agencies or had expired. He said he disagreed with GAO's characterization of overlap, since no food is inspected by both USDA and FDA.
Brackett added that while the GAO report was critical of the fact that some facilities are examined by more than one agency, only 2 percent of all inspected plants fall into that category.
Brackett and officials from USDA told Porter they would continue to cooperate and collaborate with one another to streamline the program.
But Porter lambasted that response as meaningless, saying "cooperation and collaboration" were "political terms" and that agency officials did not have specific suggestions for eliminating inefficiencies that have been a problem for "at least a decade."
In an interview after the hearing, Porter said he would rather work with the agencies to craft a plan to overhaul operations than enact "band-aid" legislation.
During questioning, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, suggested allowing the White House to submit an overhaul proposal -- possibly combining all operations into a single agency -- to lawmakers for an up-or-down vote. The idea met with resistance from administration officials testifying before the panel.
"I don't know why," Marchant said in an interview after the hearing. "I'm a little surprised the administration is not interested in considering consolidation."