Dive Brief:
- The Safe Food Act of 2015, recently introduced to Congress, calls for the simplification of food safety oversight to be governed by a single, independent agency, called the Food Safety Administration.
- Right now, 15 agencies in the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Commerce oversee the nation's food safety.
- The new agency alone and "independent of any federal department" would handle all food safety inspections, regulation enforcement, and food labeling, according to Food Safety News.
Dive Insight:
One of the representatives proposing this bill, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), said, “What the bill does is remedy the situation. With a single agency, we believe our country will be able to have the ability to detect relatively minor problems before they become major outbreaks.”