Ohio Sen. Wants FMCSA’s Role in Food Safety Defined
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) wants the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to take a more active role in food safety when the national food supply is moving in refrigerated vans and tank trucks.
Brown said Nov. 22 that he asked FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro to update him on “the number and frequency of FMCSA inspections in Ohio and nationally, and the number of reports by [Department of Transportation] inspectors to the [U.S. Department of Agriculture]’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.”
FMCSA, a part of DOT, was created by Congress to regulate interstate truck and bus safety.
Food safety traditionally is the province of the Agriculture Department’s FSIS and the Food and Drug Administration, said Jon Samson, executive director of the Agriculture and Food Transporters Conference of American Trucking Associations. Samson did note, though, there is some variation among the states.
“In Indiana, they passed a state law that gives law enforcement officers the ability to stop suspected ‘hot trucks’ and test the temperature of the products and then call in health officials if temperatures are not within legal limits. This example, while not a federal law, is as close to regulating food safety as FMCSA has gotten,” Samson said.
He also said FDA probably will release in January a proposal on the sanitary transportation of food that will give that agency more oversight on the industry.
