| Big Ag doesn’t care about safety or your health, only profit — and at no time has this been more evident than now. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has granted nearly 20 waivers to speed up slaughter lines at meat and poultry processing plants — allowing pork plants to monitor their own inspections and chickens to fly by inspectors at the breakneck speed of 175 birds per minute! Increasing line speeds means that inspectors can’t do their jobs, so the thought of granting waivers during a national public health crisis and further endangering public health is unthinkable and dangerous. That’s why Food & Water Action has championed an important new bill in Congress, introduced by Representative Fudge and Senator Booker, to stop regulatory waivers now. But we need your help to move it forward. Send a message to your Members of Congress asking them to co-sponsor the Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act. In most meat processing plants, social distancing is impossible. Workers and USDA inspectors are shoulder-to-shoulder, and most still have not been supplied with personal protective equipment. So seeing some of the worst coronavirus hotspots in the U.S. arise in meat processing plants is not surprising. This pandemic proves that our public safety agencies should be protecting workers, enforcing policies that create less dangerous conditions and imposing stronger inspection standards for our food. Instead Big Ag (with the aid of Trump and his administration) has continued to put profits before public health and safety, time and time again. Trump has suspended food safety inspections, rolled back common-sense food safety rules and hindered basic food safety enforcement. These actions endanger workers and consumers instead of protecting them. But this is all part of Big Ag’s long standing pattern of disregard for both worker and food safety. We need Congress to stand up to Big Ag and protect our food and the essential workers who supply it. Ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act. The Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act will: - Halt all active speed line waivers issued by USDA to meat and poultry plants, and stop any new waivers;
- Stop the implementation of the dangerous New Swine Slaughter Inspection System;
- Bar USDA from using taxpayer dollars to develop any policy that would increase line speeds at meat and poultry plants; and
- Direct the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation into the USDA’s disorganized response to the COVID-19 pandemic in meatpacking and poultry plants.
Food & Water Action has been mobilizing for years to stop Big Ag from endangering our food and public health. But we can only succeed when you add your voice. Your Congressional representative needs to hear from you. Send a message today to stop line speed waivers. Onward together, Tony Corbo
Senior Government Affairs Representative
Food & Water Action and Food & Water Watch | 
