The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749) failed to pass the House yesterday, despite receiving an overwhelmingly positive vote of 280-150.  Even with a 130 vote margin, the bill failed to get 2/3rds of the House vote, a requirement sometimes used for passing non-controversial bills on an accelerated schedule.  Following that vote, the House Rule Committee decided to bring the bill back to the floor today under what is called "regular order," meaning that it will be debated further and then only require a simple majority to pass.

"Unfortunately, the process yesterday led to the strange outcome in which a unanimously supported bipartisan bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee turned into a partisan fight on the House floor," said United Fresh President and CEO Tom Stenzel.  "Many Republicans off the Energy and Commerce Committee opposed the process as limiting the time in which they had to review and debate the bill, and thus voted against the bill as a statement of principle, rather than on its merits."

"While we recognize that this bill is not perfect, it clearly contains the most important principles United has worked toward over the past several years," said Stenzel.  "We support the bill moving forward at this time while continuing to work on improvements in the Senate version."

United Fresh will distribute a member alert later today if final action is taken on the House food safety bill.