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"  Back in February, when America was awash in excitement over its new president, food activists were excited, too. Would Obama finally bring change to the country&amp;#039;s agriculture and regulatory agencies and give them real teeth? Not wanting to wait it out, evidently, California&amp;#039;s Senate Majority Leader, Dean Florez (D-Shafter), introduced a bill into the state&amp;#039;s legislature to give the California Department of Public Health honest-to-goodness recall powers and more.  Following its passage Tuesday in the Senate, Senate Bill 173 is en route to its final showdown in the legislature&amp;#039;s lower house but, poor thing, it&amp;#039;s barely a shadow of its original self. Watered down and gutted, displaying barely a hint of its intended glory, the bill \u2014 whether it passes on to law or not \u2014 isn&amp;#039;t much to get worked up over.  Intended to give the state recall powers over contaminated or tainted food products, and to enforce stricter testing procedures and standards to ensure food safety, S.B. 173 met was dealt a critical blow in the Senate Appropriations Committee back in May.  &amp;quot;There might be as many as 8,000 tests for raw food products and 2,500 tests for processed foods,&amp;quot; Committee Director Bob Franzoia told me. &amp;quot;All of this was going to be reported. There was an enormous amount of reporting that would have to be done by the Department of Public Health.&amp;quot;  The problem? California is broke. Oh, so broke.  Not only would someone need to perform all those tests, there would only be a roughly 90-day growing period in which to conduct them. California, the largest agricultural state in the country, has some 85,000 growers and processors and supplies nearly 15 percent of the produce grown in the United States. There were issues about who would be responsible, too, for actually conducting the tests.  &amp;quot;This bill in this form was probably overly broad in its testing requirements,&amp;quot; said Franzoia. &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t clear what was going to be reported, and why all this was going to be reported.&amp;quot; The impact of the increased testing requirements on small producers was a concern, as well, said Joshua Walters, Sen. Florez&amp;#039;s deputy chief of staff. While large producers and processors, such as Kraft Foods, would be able to deal with increased testing relatively well, the burden of what might amount to hourly tests might be too much for small producers without the technical means to conduct them.  So, notably thinner after having its regulatory authority liposuctioned out, S.B. 173 is expected to hit the Assembly sometime between now and Sept. 11, when the Legislature takes a break. If it passes that hurdle, it goes face-to-face with the Governator. That&amp;#039;s assuming, of course, it still has the strength to stand up. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a37842/little-bill-with-a-big-dream/>