A Good Move: Administration Gives People More Time to Weigh in on Wrongheaded Poultry Rule

Statement of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards

April 19, 2012

Contact: Angela Bradbery, (202) 588-7741 or abradbery@citizen.org
Brian Gumm, OMB Watch, (202) 683-4812 or bgumm@ombwatch.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration is doing the right thing by giving people another month to weigh in on a dangerous proposal to let companies oversee most inspections of chickens in processing plants. The close of the comment period for this rule had been April 26; the administration today extended that by 30 days.

Under the dangerous U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposal, food safety inspections in poultry processing facilities would largely be handled by the poultry industry, and assembly lines would be sped up. This means that workers would have less time to inspect birds for fecal matter and other dangerous material – and the people looking for the hazards would primarily be company employees, not government inspectors.

This wrongheaded proposal threatens the health and safety not only of the country’s food supply but of poultry plant workers. It shouldn’t take effect, but at least now, people have 30 more days to convince USDA of that.

To view comments filed so far, go to http://www.regulations.gov/#!searchResults;rpp=25;po=0;s=FSIS-2011-0012.

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The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards is an alliance of consumer, small business, labor, scientific, research, good government, faith, community, health, environmental, and public interest groups, as well as concerned individuals, joined in the belief that our country’s system of regulatory safeguards provides a stable framework that secures our quality of life and paves the way for a sound economy that benefits us all. For more information about the coalition, go to www.sensiblesafeguards.org.