Stronger Regulation Saves Money

Bush Favors Profit over Preventing Bioterror

A little Friday dander-raiser and counterexample for my conservative readers: an article this morning contends that a broader and more rigorous food safety regulatory regime axed by the Bush Administration not only would have helped the FDA find and address the cause of the salmonella scare over tomatoes (and now jalapeño peppers) but also would have mitigated the $250 million in business losses:

The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April [Larry Margasak, "Food Industry Bitten by Its Lobbying Success," AP via Yahoo News, 2008.07.25].

If the stricter regulations had been in place, FDA investigators would have been able to discover more quickly that the problem was not a Return of the Killer Tomatoes (starring George Clooney! really!), and growers would have lost less money.

Bonus hypocrisy: The regulations the industry so vigorously (and apparently counterproductively) opposed were supposed to be part of America's War on Terror:

According to government records reviewed by the AP, business groups met at least 10 times with the White House between March 2003 and March 2004, as the FDA regulations were under debate. Food industry lobbyists successfully blunted proposals using arguments familiar in other regulatory debates: The government's plans would saddle business with unnecessary and costly regulations.

"The FDA's strong proposed bioterrorism rules were significantly watered down before they became final," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. The private advocacy group obtained the White House meeting records under the Freedom of Information Act and provided them to the AP.

Participants in the meetings included companies and trade groups up and down the food chain, including Altria Group Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc., when Altria was Kraft's parent; The Kroger Co.; Safeway Inc.; ConAgra Foods Inc.; The Procter & Gamble Co.; the American Forest and Paper Association; the Polystyrene Packaging Council; the Glass Packaging Institute; the Cocoa Merchants' Association of America; the World Shipping Council; and the Food Marketing Institute [Margasak, 2008.07.25].

So I shouldn't argue against giving up my Fourth Amendment rights to prevent terrorist attacks, but big food corporations aren't expected to sacrifice a little profit for their country? Right.