Tuberville’s Food Safety Bill Unanimously Passes HELP Committee

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville's (R-AL) bill, the Making America's Food Safer Act, unanimously passed out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP). Sen. Tuberville introduced the legislation with Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) last week.

The Making America's Food Safer Act would give the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the authority to destroy imported food that is flagged as posing a significant public health risk at U.S. ports of entry. By destroying these dangerous products, it both protects American consumers and helps Alabama's producers, including shrimpers. The bill also strengthens American public health infrastructure to respond during supply chain disruptions and public health crises.

Read excerpts from Sen. Tuberville's remarks during the markup below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.

"First, I'd like to thank Senator Kaine on this. This is really important, especially [for] those that have ports. You know, it's a common sense, targeted approach [that] modernizes our food safety system. It removes outdated statutory restrictions, allowing the FDA to leverage accredited third-party certifications [and] program data from both domestic and foreign facilities to prioritize inspections to help our supply chains. The bill grants the FDA authority to immediately share vital, unredacted food safety data with state, local, tribal, and territorial health officials when public health is on the line. And finally, it grants the HHS Secretary the authority to order the destruction of unsafe food imports that present a significant public health concern, preventing dangerous illegal products from simply turning around and reentering supply chains-while preserving full due process rights for owners. This is a bipartisan step forward for public health supply chain efficiencies and American farmers. Basically, what this does is when bad food comes into our ports, and it's turned around by food inspectors, it goes right back out into the waters and goes to another port, and hopefully they get [away] with murder, so to speak. So, we want to be able to destroy this food and not allow it into our country. So, I urge my colleagues to support this bill."

BACKGROUND:

Currently, when the FDA identifies unsafe imported food at a U.S. port of entry, it often cannot order the product destroyed. Instead, the shipment is supposedly sent back to its country of origin. According to U.S. shrimpers, some importers then repackage the same bulk shipment and send it back through a different port, hoping it will not be flagged again. This bill gives HHS the authority to destroy imported food that poses a significant public health risk, helping prevent unsafe products from repeatedly attempting to enter the U.S. market.

The Making America's Food Safer Act makes several targeted updates to strengthen the nation's food safety system. It allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use information from accredited third-party inspections of both U.S. and foreign food facilities to prioritize its own inspections better, improving oversight of the food supply. It also gives the FDA the authority to quickly share critical food safety information with state, local, tribal, and territorial health officials during public health threats. In addition, the bill allows the HHS Secretary to order the destruction of unsafe imported food that poses a significant health risk, preventing it from re-entering the U.S. food supply while preserving due process rights for owners. Overall, the legislation aims to improve food safety, strengthen the supply chain, and better protect consumers and American farmers.

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.

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