US food manufacturers and drug makers could be hit with over US$280m in new fees under proposals included in President Obama’s 2011 budget.
The new fees are slated to cover inspection costs, research into food and feed safety and the monitoring of food imports.
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Obama wants to “transform” food safety in the US, where the issue is a regular hot topic after recent high-profile contamination scandals including spinach, peanuts and cookie dough.
Vice president Joe Biden said: “Our food safety system must be updated – one in four people get sick every year due to foodborne illness, and children and the elderly are more at risk.
“Our inspectors and scientists lack sufficient resources. Our goal is to overhaul the system so that we can get better at both stopping food safety problems before they happen and almost equally as important moving quickly – much more quickly – to deal with them when they do. We want to make our new priority preventing those things from happening in the first place.”
Congress must pass the proposals before the fees can be collected and previous administrations have been unsuccessful with similar moves in the past.
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