Ag Appropriations Focuses on Public Health in a Global Economy

Hearing explores equivalency determination between food safety systems of different countries

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), chairwoman of the House Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following opening statement during a subcommittee food safety oversight hearing: "Protecting the Public Health in a Global Economy: Ensuring that Meat and Poultry Meets U.S. Standards." Specifically, the hearing will examine this through the process the U.S. Department of Agriculture used to determine China's equivalency to export processed poultry to the United States.

In 2004, the USDA went to China to evaluate that country's food safety systems. USDA then issued a report on their findings that contradicted its conclusion that China's system is equivalent to the food safety system in the U.S.

The report also included a document review of the food safety system in that country and outlined a visit by FSIS auditors to visit food safety government offices, laboratories and a sample of poultry plants (three slaughter and four processing facilities) that could be eligible to export to the U.S.

The report described disturbing conditions at two of the plants including:

• "grease, blood, fat, pieces of dry meat and foreign particles were observed on product contact areas of conveyer belts and plastic containers in the poultry raw meat area and fried poultry processing area";

• "non-food contact surfaces of processing tables were observed with heavy grease in raw meat area";

• "conveyor belt, used for exposed edible product transfer had many deep cuts in it."

Additionally, in their report, the auditors listed the following deficiencies:

• China's food safety agency, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), did not exercise control over all of the food processing establishments under its jurisdiction;

• AQSIQ veterinarians did not consistently enforce FSIS food safety standards;

• Residue testing methodologies differed from those used by FSIS and in one laboratory, the sampling procedures could lead to cross-contamination;

• Testing for salmonella was not being consistently performed;

• Not all documents had been translated into English;

Further, food safety deficiencies were found in five of the seven food establishments visited. The sanitation issues were so egregious in two of the facilities that FSIS auditors would have recommended that they be de-listed or made ineligible to export to the United States.

Despite these findings, USDA found that the Chinese food safety system was equivalent to ours for processed chicken.

Below is the text of DeLauro's opening statement (as prepared for delivery).

Thank you everyone for coming today. The subject of today's hearing is "Protecting the Public Health in a Global Economy: Ensuring that Meat and Poultry Meets U.S. Standards."

I particularly want to thank Kevin Brosch, Lori Wallach, and Wenonah Hauter for coming to speak with us today.

One of our core responsibilities on this Committee is to ensure that the agencies under our purview safeguard America's food supply. Not all the dangers that threaten the health and safety of American families can be found in airports, border checkpoints, or harbor containers. Sometimes, they lurk in our fridges and on our kitchen tables. And protecting our food supply is not just a crucial matter of public health – It is vital to the success of our farmers and ranchers.

With that in mind, today we will review the process used by the USDA to determine equivalency between the food safety systems of different countries. Specifically, I have concerns about the granting of equivalency for processed poultry from China –processed poultry being the chicken that ends up in chicken soup, canned chicken, breaded chicken tenders, and a host of other products on the American market. [To use the exact USDA language, processed foods, which are exempt from Country of Origin Labeling, are retail items derived from a commodity that has undergone specific processing, such as cooking, curing, smoking, or restructuring, or that have been combined with another food component.]

It is my belief – and my concern – that this granting of equivalency to China was extremely flawed, and based on trade promotion rather than public health concerns. Decisions about the importation of food products – from China or anywhere else – are a public health issue that cannot and must not be entangled in and subordinated to trade discussions.

In its 2005 audit report on its inspections of several plants in China, USDA found disturbing, unsanitary conditions, such as grease, blood, fat, and foreign particles being observed on product contact areas of conveyer belts. Yet, despite these findings, USDA found that the food safety system in China was equivalent to ours in the U.S. And once this equivalency was granted, we ceded much of our ability to ensure the safety of these poultry products to the country in question – in this case, China. This experience with Chinese processed poultry raises troubling questions about the equivalency process which I hope this hearing explores today.

As I see it, there are four main questions which this hearing should attempt to address, and which we should take as a guideline for equivalency reform in the future.

First, can we come to a conclusion on whether the declaration of Chinese equivalency by the USDA was valid and well-founded, according to the standards of equivalency already outlined by the agency?

Second: If not, why not? Is there a way or process we can establish equivalency using the standards that are currently in place?

Third, do we know how to correct the problems that arose with China's equivalency based on how we currently determine equivalency with other countries, such as Chile, Canada, and Australia, to name a few?

And finally, what do we need to change about the equivalency process more broadly, independent of the example of Chinese-processed poultry here?

We intend this hearing to undertake a thorough review of the USDA equivalency process. Until it can be established that the process used for determining equivalency is focused primarily on protecting the public health, rather than facilitating global trade, and that it is based on sound scientific assessments, rather than business-minded wishful thinking or political considerations, we need to tread very carefully.

Particularly given the contaminated food outbreaks we have experienced in our own country of late, the continuing concerns about the safety of other products coming out of China such as toys, and the relative lack of transparency in the Chinese safety system, we need to make absolutely sure that we do not open the door to potentially unsafe processed meat and poultry imports, from China or from anywhere else around the world.

We all believe in the value of trade. However, we also believe that the health and safety of American families are non-negotiable. It is our charge, and that of the USDA, to ensure that consumers do not have to worry about the safety of processed poultry products on the market.

We are here today to ensure that the USDA is living up to its most important responsibility, and is always putting the public health first, above considerations of global trade.

To discuss the question today, we have three panelists with us:

KEVIN BROSCH

Kevin J. Brosch is a cofounder of DTB Associates, LLP, an international policy and agricultural policy consulting firm. Between 1989 and 1999, he served as Deputy Assistant General Counsel for International trade in USDA's Office of the General Counsel. Mr. Brosch also served as legal advisor to the USDA teams negotiating the Agriculture and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreements in the WTO Uruguay Round. And he supervised and participated in the negotiation of the agricultural portions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

I should say: My staff asked a coalition of industry groups to send a representative to today's hearing to discuss their views on this matter. They said that Mr. Brosch's testimony would speak for them.

LORI WALLACH

Lori Wallach is Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Wallach has testified before more than 20 U.S. congressional committees on trade and globalization matters. She has served as a trade commentator on numerous domestic and foreign news outlets. Wallach's most recent book is Whose Trade Organization? A Comprehensive Guide to the WTO (The New Press, 2004). She has also contributed to numerous anthologies including the International Forum on Globalization's Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible.

WENONAH HAUTER

Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food and Water Watch, a non-profit consumer organization founded in 2005. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen's Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization's 30 state–based groups.

Thank you all once again for attending. I look forward to hearing your testimony on this important subject.