[The House Food Safety Bill passed overwhelmingly Thursday afternoon. See more at bottom of post.]

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The House will vote today on a momentous, controversial plan to overhaul a large swath of the nation’s food-safety system.

The vote comes amid yet another round of recalls. On Tuesday, the FDA announced the voluntary recall of “one lot” of salmonella-tainted cilantro, distributed by a company called Frontera Produce.

The agency did not define how much cilantro makes up a lot, but it
must be, well, a lot, because “the lot in question, 118122, was
distributed to two retail store chains in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado,
Louisiana, and New Mexico,” the press release states.

Yet again, the sieve-like nature of our food-safety system comes into relief. According to the FDA:

This product originated in Mexico and was procured by Frontera
Produce, who [sic] subsequently routinely tested for contaminants as
part of their internal food safety program.

So if the cilantro underwent “routine testing” and showed up with
salmonella, why did it go out to two (unnamed) grocery chains with
operations in five states? Evidently, the tests got done
after
the stuff went out to potentially thousands of consumers. Nice one!
Just a week before, another Texas company issued a voluntary recall on
another (pardon the expression) shitload of salmonella-infected cilantro; and California produce giant Tanimura & Antle recalled 22,000 cases of salmonella-tainted lettuce that had already gone out to 29 states.

It is against this backdrop that the House is debating a major
overhaul of the U.S. food-safety landscape, or at least the part of it
that doesn’t include meat. The bill, H.R. 2749, or The Food Safety
Enhancement Act of 2009, would transform the role of the FDA, which
oversees food safety of all foods except for meat and eggs, which fall
under the (rather timid) purview of the USDA.

On Wednesday, the bill narrowly failed
in an attempt by its sponsors to pass it in a special vote that would
have required a two-thirds majority in exchange for not having to
consider amendments. The tally was 280-150—six votes shy of the
necessary margin. Small-farm and sustainable-ag advocates generally
opposed the bill, arguing it would place disproportionately heavy
burdens on community-scale players within the food system.