Fact Sheet: Import Safety Action Plan: Increasing Protection of American Consumers.

Interagency Working Group on Import Safety Presents Action Plan to President Bush

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety presented to President Bush its Action Plan, which contains short- and long-term recommendations for continuing to improve the safety of imports

entering the United States. The Action Plan contains 14 broad recommendations and 50 action steps that provide a road map for better protecting American consumers and enhancing the safety of the increasing volume of imports entering the United States. The Action Plan is the product of extensive coordination among Federal agencies, months of hands-on information-gathering, and feedback and suggestions from the private sector.

* The Action Plan proposes a strategy focused on a risk-based prevention with verification model that allocates import safety resources based on risk. The Action Plan proposes steps to replace the current "snapshot" approach to import safety, in which inspections are made at the border, with a cost-effective, prevention-focused model that maximizes the impact of public and private safeguards by identifying and targeting critical points in the import life cycle where risk is greatest and focusing attention and resources on these areas.

* The sheer magnitude of the import-export enterprise makes clear that our Nation cannot inspect its way to safety. Last year, the United States imported nearly $2 trillion of goods through more than 825,000 importers. Experts project that the value of imports will triple by 2015. Physically inspecting every item would bring international trade to a standstill and divert limited resources from those items posing the greatest threat.

* The Action Plan presented today reflects the Administration's commitment to continually strengthen and improve the import safety system. Americans benefit from strong and effective food and product safety standards. Implementing the Action Plan's recommendations will result in a system that builds safety every step of the way into the products on which American consumers depend.

Highlights Of The Action Plan's Recommendations

* Creating A Stronger Certification Process. Certification can be a powerful tool to foster compliance with U.S. safety standards while facilitating trade. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should have the authority to require that producers of certain high-risk foods in a particular country, under an agreement with that country, certify that their products meet FDA standards in order to export to the United States. This would help "shrink the haystack" and better target resources on the greatest threats. In addition, voluntary certification should be encouraged for foreign manufacturers of other products. Products certified as meeting U.S. safety standards could receive expedited entry.