§399 Grants to Enhance Food Safety

Summary

The Secretary can give grants to eligible entities to improve food safety. Grants can pay for inspections, exams, and investigations; training people to the Secretary’s standards for inspecting food at factories, processors, packers, distributors, importers, and retail places; stronger laboratory work, including spotting diseases that jump from animals to people; building program infrastructure to meet stated standards; and planning for or responding to official notifications or food recalls. Eligible entities are States, localities, territories, Indian tribes (see 25 U.S.C. 5304(e)), and nonprofit food-safety training groups that work with at least one college. Applicants must apply when and how the Secretary requires and include a plan, a description of activities, an itemized budget, a monitoring plan, and an agreement to report required information. Grant recipients must match the grant by funding their food safety programs each year at least at the prior year’s level increased by the Consumer Price Index. Matching money can be cash, donations, or in-kind (for example, equipment or services). Grants may last up to 3 years. The Secretary can renew funding up to 3 years without reapplication if the match rule was met, and may allow exceptions for disaster response or other special circumstances. Year 2 and 3 funding can depend on a successful evaluation after year 1. Recipients must report yearly on spending and progress. The Secretary will measure program results and, when possible, avoid duplicating other review efforts. Grant funds must supplement, not replace, other federal or nonfederal funds. Money was authorized as needed for fiscal years 2011 through 2015.