Four democratic senators wrote President Donald J. Trump on February 13, the same day that the General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on federal oversight of food safety, asking that the Administration work with Congress to implement the recommendations in the report. The report is titled, Food Safety A National Strategy Is Needed to Address Fragmentation in Federal Oversight, and is dated January 2017.

The GAO report states that while FDA and FSIS have taken actions since 2014 to address fragmentation in the federal food safety oversight system, more needs to be done. GAO calls for a national strategy to identify short- and long-term actions to improve the food safety oversight system.

The four senators—Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)—requested that efforts begin immediately to establish the recommended national strategy to address the shortcomings in food safety oversight. The letter also asks the Administration “to work with Congress to request any additional statutory authority or budgetary consideration that is required in order to enhance the implementation of the government performance plan.”

The senators concluded by stating that if the Administration does not feel that their recommendations are justified, they would like “detailed responses from the appropriate agency and department authorities as to why the current food safety system is considered adequate to address the Nation’s food safety needs.”

Concern about fragmentation within the federal food safety system is not new. However, obtaining more funding to develop a national strategy on food safety under the current Administration might be problematic, given its emphasis on reducing regulatory costs.