House Scheduled to Consider Food Safety Bill on July 29th
The House of Representatives is scheduled to consider an amendment in the nature of a substitute for H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 on July 29, 2009.
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The bill will be considered under "suspension of the rules" which is a special procedure used to speed up action. Bills brought up under this process are debated for 40 minutes, may not be amended, and require a 2/3 vote.
(An amendment in the nature of a substitute is an amendment that strikes out the entire text of a bill and inserts a different full text. An amendment in the nature of a substitute can be similar to the bill it replaces, or quite different.)
New Version Would Exempt Customs Brokers from Certain Penalties
Among other things, the new version of H.R. 2749 would exempt customs brokers from a number of civil penalties.
See future issues of ITT for detailed BP summary of this and other aspects of the new version of the bill.
(A prior version of H.R. 2749, as ordered reported by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on June 17, 2009, had included the following:
importer, broker/filer registration
certification for high risk imports
allowing for a "safe importer" program
restructured/added penalties and revised detention procedures
extension of facility registration to exports
requiring facility food safety plans
consideration of ban of Bisphenol A in food/beverage containers)
(See ITT's Online Archives or 07/08/09, 07/02/09, 06/30/09, 06/26/09, and 06/25/09 news, 09070820, 09070210, 09063015, 09062625 and 09062515, for BP summaries of various aspects of the House Energy and Commerce Committee version of H.R. 2749.
See ITT's Online Archives or 06/18/09 news, 09061805, for BP summary of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approving the previous version of the food safety bill.)
H.R. 2749 amendment in the nature of a substitute available at http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090729/hr2749_floorans.pdf