On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama took over the airwaves for the annual State of the Union address. The President tackled a lot of important issues facing the nation, from the economy to education to international relations. He also made it clear that he will not be backing down on the issues he finds important – and that includes the improvement of food safety standards and regulations across the country as championed in his Food Safety Modernization Act.
“I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago,” he asserted in the speech. “I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury poisoning, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny your coverage, or charge women differently than men.”
President Obama also called for Congress to stop slashing the budget on federally financed universities and research labs doing important scientific work. “Innovation also demands basic research,” he noted. “Don’t gut these investments in our budget. Don’t let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.” While he referred to cancer cures and energy advancements, it isn’t difficult to imagine he’s also referencing the massive budget cuts currently faced by the USDA.
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Of course, the President also clarified that his determination to push forward with food safety standards doesn’t have to mean more regulations – just smarter regulations, a point he illustrated with a truly Dad-worthy (and perhaps, as Gawker points out, a bit gauche) quip.
“There’s no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly,” he noted. “I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We’ve already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill – because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.”
How do you follow an act like that? With action, and the hope that all that purpose and resolve is taken to heart in the form of improved U.S. food safety conditions in the years to come.
[Source: Obama Foodorama; Food Safety News]
