On February 29, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg testified before the House Subcommittee on Agriculture and detailed FDA's proposed $220 million in Food Establishment Registration Fees. Our readers, regulatory food science professionals, will want to read her entire testimony (which we post below), not just the FSMA discussion.

We note that Commissioner Hamburg terms these User Fees "novel user fee revenue" and that the industry is already mobilizing to push-back on these User Fees for general services that are not specific to individual users.

Please note Commissioner Hamburg's discussion of the FSMA implementation process on pages 16 to 18. Also, readers should note an additional User Fee which will affect the food industry - the Food Contact Notification User Fee (page 19).