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Tom Billy to Leave Post as FSIS Administrator Next Year

October 30, 2000

The administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says that within the next year he plans to have moved to another position at the department so he can devote more time to his activities as chairman of Codex.

For the past year, Tom Billy has been serving as the head of both FSIS and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, two high-profile, demanding and time-consuming posts.

Billy said he expects to be in the new position at USDA by next October and will begin transitioning to his new post no sooner than next summer -- well after the presidential election and the shift to a new administration.

While it is clear that Billy will not be running FSIS, it is not clear what his future role will be at USDA. Sources close to Billy say the department may create a special Codex assignment for him so he can run for re-election as chairman of Codex next year. That arrangement would enable him to devote his time to a more singular cause, rather than forcing him to divide his energies between Codex and heading a major U.S. food safety agency.

Another possibility would be for Billy to seek the job of undersecretary for food safety at USDA, which is a political appointment that will be vacated by Catherine Woteki at the end of the Clinton administration. Two sources close to Billy acknowledged that he is interested in the post, but Billy would not comment on the issue to Food Chemical News.

One source added that Billy could seek a post outside USDA, notably a job at the World Health Organization.

"People need to slow down and not read too much into things," Billy said of his announcement that he plans to step down as administrator.

Interested in running for Codex chairman Billy's term as chairman expires next June, and the administrator says he is interested in running for the elected position again so he can participate further in helping to implement several changes to Codex, including supporting the participation of developing countries and improving the efficiency and timeliness of the commission.

Billy said he is "definitely interested in seeing through improvements to Codex" and thinks it will require him to serve a second term. Billy acknowledged, however, that his re-election is far from certain, as it depends on the votes of the 166 countries now involved with Codex.

Regardless of whether Billy will serve another term as Codex chairman, his departure as the head of FSIS will be significant. During the last few years that Billy has headed FSIS, he has earned the reputation of being a gifted implementer of the biggest inspection change in U.S. meat-inspection history. He is also viewed by many of those who work with him at FSIS as well as by parties outside the agency as being a compromiser between the often-competing interests of industry groups and consumer advocates.

Sources close to Billy have said that he has viewed his job as administrator as being a mediator or balancing force between those two factions. Both sides, for the most part, have found him accessible and willing to listen to and consider their ideas. While neither side can claim him as being their advocate entirely, he has managed to earn the respect of both consumer groups and industry, even if they don?t agree with his policy decisions 100% of the time.

Some have argued that that sort of philosophy was acceptable -- possibly even ideal -- for the implementation phase of HACCP, when radical shifts in government and industry were taking place. But now that HACCP is firmly in place, some say it may be time for an administrator who has more vision and views himself as a leader, not a mediator.

Change always brings the possibility of opportunity and disappointment, and either side could stand to lose or gain by a change of leadership at FSIS, particularly with the presidential election looming in the next week. Depending on who wins the presidential race, food-safety programs from the undersecretary's office to the administrator's could be heavily geared to the consumer movement -- as they were under visionary Mike Taylor. [Editor's note: Remember, this was the man who Monsanto placed in the FDA to oversee the approval of Bovine Growth Hormone] Or the industry could once again have virtually unfettered access to the administrator's office, as it did under many of Taylor's predecessors.

Controversial issues like the Salmonella performance standards now being contested in court could be abolished by a pro-industry administration, or pathogen testing could be more of a fixture in USDA's regulatory scheme.

Allison Beers

Food Chemical News