Working Group Issues Action Plan for Improving Imported Product Safety (Part II - Long-Term Recommendations, Etc.)

The Action Plan contains 14 broad recommendations and 50 specific actions under the organizing principles of prevention, intervention and response. It expands upon the working group's initial September 2007 report, "Protecting American Consumers Every Step of the Way: A strategic framework for continual improvement in import safety."

This is Part II, the final part of a two-part series of summaries on the action plan and highlights the next step in assessing the plan's progress as well as the working group's recommended long-term actions.

Group Should Meet in 30 Days to Discuss Progress and How to Involve Industry

The working group recommends that representatives of the member departments and agencies meet within 30 days to assess progress so far in implementation of the Action Plan and to discuss possible mechanisms for collaboration with the private sector.

Long-Term Import Safety Recommendations

The Action Plan outlines the following recommendations for the long-term:

require federal departments and agencies by the end of 2009 to have the capability to exchange commercial data and, to the extent allowable by law, communicate electronically with the importing community and other departments and agencies through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE)/International Trade Data System (ITDS);

develop, as appropriate, within the Automated Targeting System (ATS), risk-based screening technologies to target high-risk products in a more effective way and facilitate the entry of low-risk products;

develop an implementation plan for the integration of the Standard Establishment Data Service (SEDS) module into ACE/ITDS;

identify whether additional information is necessary to enhance import safety as allowed for under the Security and Accountability for Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006;

develop voluntary certification programs based on risk for foreign producers of certain products who export to the U.S.;

create incentives for foreign firms to participate in voluntary certification programs and for importers to purchase only from certified firms;

develop a plan to ensure that information regarding certified firms and importers of record is easily accessible;

partner with the importing community to foster the creation of voluntary certification programs for importers;

develop Good Importer Practices;

enhance field laboratory capacity for testing and work collaboratively with the public and private sectors to develop analytical tools for enhanced rapid screening of larger volumes of import samples;

examine food safety control systems of other countries to determine whether improvements can be made to the operation of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) food regulatory program;

expand the use of public-private-sector standards programs;

expand and administratively streamline, as appropriate, government inspections in foreign countries and improve collaborative investigation and enforcement activities when negotiating cooperative arrangements with foreign governments;

review existing overseas programs that target rule of law, regulatory capacity-building and trade capacity-building, to determine how to improve product safety standards and conduct;

improve U.S. liaison to foreign countries;

develop strategic information sharing arrangements with key foreign government counterparts;

co-locate border officials from multiple agencies, when feasible, to enhance targeting and risk-management decisions on import safety;

exercise commissioning and cross-designation authority to leverage federal resources to prevent unsafe products from reaching consumers in the U.S.;

increase the capacity and capability of Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) laboratories by developing and validating methods to increase the number of chemical, radiological and microbial threat agents that can be rapidly detected in food as well as broadening the reach of the methods to allow foreign laboratories to provide information;

develop rapid test methods for pathogens and other contaminants to ensure that test results are quickly available at ports of entry for determining whether or not a product should be admitted into the U.S.;

increase the quantity and quality of data submitted by participating laboratories to eLEXNET;

consider cooperative agreements between the federal inspection agencies and their state counterparts for greater information-sharing;

develop best practices for the use of technologies to expedite consumer notification of recalls; and

work with foreign and domestic industry to encourage the development of best practices for the use of electronic track-and-trace technologies.

(See ITT's Online Archives or 11/08/07 news, 07110815, for Part I on the working group's short-term recommendations.)

(See ITT's Online Archives or 09/25/07 news, 07092510, for the final part in a multipart BP summary of the working group's initial report, with links to the previous parts.)

Action Plan for Import Safety (dated November 2007) available at http://www.importsafety.gov/report/actionplan.pdf

White House Fact Sheet on the import safety action plan (dated 11/06/07) available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/print/20071106-7.html