CBS News reported over the weekend that “the Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work … and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities,” according to multiple federal health officials. According to the story, “The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.”
CBS News has previously reported that “steep layoffs at the office’s support staff is expected to result in cutbacks to the number of inspections that can be done by the agency … FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has also greenlighted plans to hire contractors to attempt to plug the hole left by the laid-off workers.”
Some context from the story:
“Some FDA employees have been working on a possible shift of the agency’s routine food efforts to states for years, one current and one former official said, which could free up resources to focus on higher priority and foreign inspections. The FDA already outsources some routine food inspections through contracts with 43 states and Puerto Rico … Multiple federal health officials said that the state work currently is often reserved for lower-risk inspections. A third of routine food safety inspections were done by states over recent years, a Government Accountability Office report said earlier this year.
“The FDA is ultimately responsible for the safety of much of the U.S. food supply that’s distributed over state lines, like packaged products, seafood, eggs and produce. Some kinds of meat are regulated by a different agency inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Some higher-risk routine food inspections would likely remain at the FDA under the plans, two officials said. For example, agency staff currently conduct annual visits to infant formula manufacturers, which are overseen separately as ‘critical foods’ inspections. States would also not be able to take on the work of routine inspections in foreign food facilities.
“It is unclear what would happen for the states that do not have contracts with the FDA to conduct food inspections, which range from Hawaii to Delaware.”
CBS News notes that “some states and advocacy groups have called for years for the FDA to move its routine food inspections out to states. States can often do inspections at a lower cost than the FDA, while meeting the same standards, they have argued.”
In a statement to CBS News, an FDA spokesperson said, “”The claim that the FDA is suspending routine food safety inspections is false. FDA is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and inspections continue.”
“In theory, relying on states to do more routine food inspection work could lead to better food safety,” Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said in an email to CBS News. However, he added, “So far, this Administration has acted with reckless disregard for how its policies will affect the detection and prevention of foodborne illness, and any plans to replace federal food inspectors with some other workforce deserves suspicion.”
KC’s View:
The concern here is that delegation will lead to diminution. Efficiency does not always result in effectiveness.
We are in a moment when – in so many arenas – price and value are being confused. People think about the price of something without considering its short-term and long-term value.
Which is not say that the FDA is operating at peak efficiency or effectiveness. Far from it.
But a move to shift much of the nation’s food safety infrastructure strikes me as problematic. Some will argue that by doing so, the federal government will be able to rid itself of big numbers from its budget, which in turn should reduce the federal tax burden on citizens. All it may do, however, is shift that tax burden – to keep up with the demands of an increasingly complex and (at least for the moment) global food supply, states will have to spend more, which is likely to increase local tax burdens.
Which local officials won’t want to do. So they’ll look to make cuts.
Keep in mind that states get a lot of their budgets with which to deal with such issues from the federal government. Pew Charitable Trusts research shows that it is roughly 35-36 percent, with some states getting far more from others. Axios writes that “the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are looking for ways to cut federal spending, and some states may be more vulnerable than others to major decreases … Big losses in federal dollars can leave states scrambling for alternate funding for federally-supported programs and projects, or cancel them entirely.”
The question is, which functions will be cut or trimmed?
It is like three-card-monte played by governmental entities at various levels. The house always wins. Citizens usually are the victims.
The food industry should want an effective, efficient, nuanced and complex food safety infrastructure that insures that the entirety of our food supply is safe, and when there are problems, recalls take place with alacrity. The food industry should argue that these responsibilities should not be doled out piecemeal to different states, with responsibilities and accountability dissipated rather than centralized.
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