On import safety

Find the transcript of remarks here by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Acting USDA Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner at today's import safety working group public meeting.

Some excerpts:
Leavitt:
In the past two months, Working Group members have been criss-crossing this country fact-finding. I personally visited more than two dozen cities. I've been in ports and post offices. I've been in railroads, at airports, seaports, warehouses, meat-packing facilities. I have been in freight hubs and border crossings and I visited wholesalers and retailers and fruit stands. On the 10th of September we were able to bring all of that together into a strategic framework which we presented to the President. It focuses on the full import cycle by building safety into the products that we purchase every step of the way. Based on the keystone principles that service a foundation-prevention, intervention, and response - this framework recommends six cross-cutting strategies.
The first is to advance common vision. Second, to increase accountability, enforceability, and enforcement and deterrence. The third is to focus on risks over the life cycle of imported products. The fourth is to build interoperable systems. Fifth is to foster a culture of collaboration. And last, to promote technologic innovation and new science that help us do a better job. It was an FDA inspector who said, Mr. Secretary, our job is to find the needle in the haystack, and we have to start first with technology to shrink the size of the haystack.

Later....

As a next step, an action plan will be submitted to the President. We intend to do so by mid-November. It will lay out a road map with short and long-term recommendations for improving import safety. Those recommendations are still very much under discussion, and our conclusions about them will depend heavily on what we hear today.




And from Conner:
The import issues are arising against a backdrop of continued growth in our own agricultural exports. They are on-track of course to set a record of $79 billion in sales this year, and our imports of agricultural products aren't far behind. We expect them to approach $70 billion as well. Now we expect both categories to be up more than $4 billion next year. We cannot afford to jeopardize such a large portion of our agricultural and frankly our national economy.
When an import of a certain product is contaminated, even if only a tiny percentage of the product is affected, of course, everyone suffers. We must be vigilant about maintaining our high standards for food quality and safety that American consumers expect. We owe it not only to our consumers but of course our farmers and ranchers and producers as well. And we must work with our trading partners to share best practices and agree on common standards of science-based approaches for food safety. This will allow us to quickly and effectively tackle any problems that arise in the future.
That is why we are looking forward to hearing your ideas on what should be done to improve the import safety regulations and practices that we have in place today.