The safety and quality of the U.S. food supply is governed by a highly complex system stemming from at least 30 laws related to food safety that are collectively administered by 15 agencies. The two primary food safety agencies are USDA and FDA. USDA is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, processed egg products, and, as soon as recently proposed regulations are finalized, catfish. FDA is responsible for virtually all other food, including seafood. In fiscal year 2009, budget obligations for FDA’s Foods Program were $685 million and budget obligations for FSIS were approximately $975 million. Federal food safety activities include inspecting domestic food-processing facilities and imported food at ports of entry, visiting foreign countries or firms to inspect and evaluate foreign food safety systems, analyzing samples collected at food-processing facilities to identify possible contamination, rulemaking and standard setting, and developing guidance for industry, among other things. Appendix II summarizes the federal agencies’ food safety responsibilities and main authorizing statutes. The federal food safety system is supplemented by the states, which may have their own statutes, regulations, and agencies for regulating and inspecting the safety and quality of food products. The existing food safety system, like many other federal programs and policies, evolved piecemeal, typically in response to particular health threats or economic crises. Existing statutes give agencies different regulatory and enforcement authorities for different food products. For example, the 2008 Farm Bill gave USDA responsibility for inspecting catfish, but left general responsibility for seafood safety with FDA, making the system more fragmented. According to USDA officials, USDA estimates it will spend no more than $5 million in fiscal year 2011 and did not request funding for fiscal year 2012 for its catfish inspection program. Three major trends also create food safety challenges. First, a substantial and increasing portion of the U.S. food supply is imported. Second, consumers are eating more raw and minimally processed foods. Third, segments of the population that are particularly susceptible to food-borne illnesses, such as older adults and immune-compromised individuals, are growing. Creation of the FSWG by the President in March 2009 elevated food safety as a national priority, demonstrated strong commitment and top leadership support, and was designed to foster interagency collaboration on this crosscutting issue. However, the FSWG has not developed a governmentwide performance plan that provides a comprehensive picture of the federal government’s food safety efforts. The FSWG is co-chaired by the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Agriculture. It also includes officials from FDA, FSIS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, and several offices in the Executive Office of the President, including OMB. Both FDA and FSIS have created executive positions to focus agency efforts on food safety, and officials from both agencies told us that the FSWG has increased interagency collaboration. However, while creating the FSWG is a positive first step, we have reported that the continuity of food safety coordination efforts can be hampered by changes in executive branch leadership. As a presidentially appointed working group, the FSWG’s future is uncertain, and the experience of the former President’s Council on Food Safety, which disbanded less than 3 years after it was created, illustrates that this type of approach can be short lived. Nevertheless, through the FSWG, federal agencies have taken steps designed to increase collaboration in some areas that cross regulatory jurisdictions––in particular, improving produce safety, reducing Salmonella contamination, and developing food safety performance measures. Produce safety. Preventing contamination of fresh produce is an FSWG priority. In 2009, FDA issued draft guidance for industry on produce safety to minimize food safety hazards and contamination of leafy greens, tomatoes, and melons. FDA has also publicly announced that it is developing a proposed regulation setting enforceable standards for fresh produce safety at farms and packing houses, and FDA and AMS officials told us the agencies are collaborating on the rulemaking process, as AMS establishes quality and condition standards the food industry can voluntarily adopt for marketing purposes through marketing agreements. Specifically, an AMS employee who USDA describes as having extensive experience working with the produce industry for over 20 years has been temporarily assigned to work as a Senior Policy Analyst in FDA’s Office of Foods from October 2009 to March 2011 to help develop the regulation. The AMS employee told us she is providing FDA with information about practices on farms and in packing houses that FDA officials are using to inform their rulemaking. She is also helping FDA leverage existing AMS- industry relationships to conduct outreach to farms and packing houses before the produce safety regulation goes into effect. In addition, AMS has publicly announced that it is developing a proposed national marketing agreement for leafy greens that will include food safety standards. The purpose of the proposed marketing agreement is to enhance the quality of fresh leafy green vegetable products through the application of good agricultural and handling practices, and to improve consumer confidence, among other things. Based on our review of Federal Register documents and interviews with AMS and FDA officials, we found that AMS is coordinating with FDA to ensure that the standards in the proposed marketing agreement are consistent with the standards FDA is setting in the produce safety regulation. Salmonella contamination. According to FSIS, FDA, and OMB officials, FSIS and FDA worked together to establish complementary performance goals under the High Priority Performance Goal initiative—a White House management initiative—for reducing illness caused by Salmonella. FSIS officials told us that staff from FSIS and FDA communicated on a regular basis to coordinate efforts to develop their respective agencies’ goals, as they are closely intertwined. Salmonella contamination can occur in poultry and egg products, which are under FSIS’s regulatory jurisdiction, and shell eggs, which are primarily under FDA’s jurisdiction. Both agencies set goals to reduce illness from Salmonella within their own areas of egg safety jurisdiction by the end of 2011. According to the FSIS officials, FSIS and FDA coordinated on ensuring that the goals complemented one another, utilized the same datasets, and covered the same time period so that the agencies measure their progress consistently. FSIS’s goal is to reduce the rate of illness due to Salmonella in FSIS- regulated products to 5.3 cases per 100,000 people by 2011, a reduction of approximately 22,600 illnesses below the current baseline with an associated cost reduction of $404 million. FDA’s goal is a 10 percent decrease by 2011 over the 2007-2009 average baseline rate of Salmonella Enteritidis illness in the population. The agencies have taken additional actions to address Salmonella. Specifically, in May 2010, FSIS announced new performance standards that poultry establishments must meet for Salmonella and released a compliance guide for industry. In July 2009, FDA issued a final rule requiring shell egg producers to implement measures to prevent Salmonella Enteritidis from contaminating eggs and, in August 2010, issued draft guidance for producers on implementing the rule. Food safety performance measures. FSWG members have proposed 21 performance measures for assessing the federal government’s progress toward meeting its crosscutting food safety goals. For example, to assess progress in preventing harm to consumers from unsafe food, one of the performance measures the FSWG is proposing is to track the prevalence of selected foodborne hazards in key commodity groups. As a next step, FSIS and FDA are beginning to set quantitative targets for the measures. For example, one of FSIS’s proposed quantitative targets is to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella Enteritidis in FSIS prepasteurized egg products from 14.12 percent (the fiscal year 2009 baseline) to 12.71 percent by fiscal year 2015. FDA is developing its own quantitative targets. FSWG and agency documents show that both agencies, with support from CDC, are coordinating to pilot-test a framework for developing the quantitative targets for Salmonella Enteritidis that covers multiple agencies’ oversight jurisdictions. FSIS officials told us this framework could identify data gaps and help target areas where more attention is needed. An FDA official told us that the agencies plan to use this framework to assess progress toward other food safety goals, but could not estimate when the agencies will finish developing a complete set of quantitative targets for the food safety performance measures. In addition, we found that federal food safety agencies are taking actions in two other areas. First, FDA is leading an effort involving other federal agencies including CDC, USDA, and the Department of Homeland Security, to increase the inspection, laboratory, and outbreak-response capacities of state and local food safety agencies. FDA issued a draft paper describing its vision and established working groups of federal, state, and local government representatives to address issues such as national standards for food regulatory programs and standardized laboratory practices and procedures, among others. It has also hosted two national meetings that were attended by public health and food safety officials from federal, state, local, and territorial government agencies. Second, in February 2011, federal food safety agencies established a Multi-Agency Coordination group intended to improve the response to outbreaks of foodborne illness, an FSWG priority. According to agency documents, the group will be used to coordinate the response of federal agencies, and state, local, and tribal governments, in managing large-scale foodborne illness outbreaks, prioritizing the allocation of critical resources, and making policy decisions. It is co-chaired by USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services and participating federal agencies include FDA, CDC, FSIS, AMS, the Food and Nutrition Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Justice. However, while the FSWG has taken steps to increase interagency collaboration on food safety, it has not developed a governmentwide performance plan that provides a comprehensive picture of the federal government’s food safety efforts.