HB 378-FOOD, DRUGS, COSMETICS, CERTAIN DEVICES  REPRESENTATIVE BILL WILLIAMS, sponsor of HB 378, said the bill is the result of several years work with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The need stems from concern that bar and restaurant owners are concerned about paying high fees but seldom receiving an inspection. Since 1995 the fees have risen from $50 to $450. He asked DEC to come up with a plan and they did so. Commissioner Ballard was available to explain the basic points, he said. CHAIR GARY STEVENS noted that Senator Cowdery had joined the meeting. SENATOR JOHN COWDERY asked which cities and towns already have food inspections and whether this bill would result in a duplication of effort. ERNESTA BALLARD, Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, acknowledged that it's hard for people to get excited about regulatory change, but if you're a regulator, this is exciting, she said. "We've been working for a year to redesign our food inspection and safety program so that it can achieve food safety in our state with its disconnected, no roads, vast reaches of open space but restaurants are available to our citizens and their guests all over the state of Alaska." For the last 50 years they've had a consultative inspection program so that whenever inspectors were able to make inspections, they reviewed deficiencies and made suggestions. This regulatory program hasn't kept pace with those that have been developed for air, solid waste and wastewater management. An overhaul is past due as witnessed by the fact that before WWII there were 20 million meals served in restaurants every day and after the war that number jumped to 60 million per day. The National Restaurant Association (NRA) predicts that in 2004, 70 billion meals will be served in restaurants every day. Today the average person eats out 4.2 times per week. It's time for a change, she asserted. The NRA more than agrees and they have already qualified over 1 million workers in their food-workers safety certification program. COMMISSIONER BALLARD said they propose to shift responsibility to the restaurant owners and operators in the same way that they hold other industry operators responsible for their performance in all DEC regulatory areas. "When the consequences of failure are unacceptable, we have learned...that standard operating procedures can be followed and can dramatically increase the likelihood of success." CHAIR GARY STEVENS asked how they would determine that they're doing a good job in the future. COMMISSIONER BALLARD said the first measure of success wouldn't be epidemiologic because you can't always be certain about the source of the illness. It could come from the post office as easily as from a restaurant. They will judge their success by the implementation of the program. It requires restaurants to advise DEC of their participation through annual or periodic signing. They will adopt standard operating procedures and conduct self-certification checks. DEC spot checks and will likely discover that a high percentage of those that are visited are maintaining their self-certification records. They implement their air and water programs in the very same way. CHAIR GARY STEVENS said, "So in the end you cannot tell me how many people have gotten ill in Alaska this past year from badly handled food in restaurants or how many people have died and you cannot tell me five years from now." COMMISSIONER BALLARD said that is true, but they are able to follow and track food borne illnesses. During the recent Iditarod, they tracked 74 cases along the trail and were able to prevent the spread of the disease to the celebratory banquet in Nome thanks to Kristin Ryan and her staff. They took 1,000 pair of disposable gloves to Nome and educated the food preparers and servers about ways to prevent the spread of disease. There wasn't a single case of illness. "That, to me, is a crystal clear demonstration. Every single checkpoint along the Iditarod Trail had an outbreak of Norovirus...and we stopped it in Nome with gloved hands. That is an operating procedure - clean hands. We couldn't guarantee that all 800 people would wash their hands, but we could guarantee that dirty hands wouldn't touch the common serving utensils." CHAIR GARY STEVENS said he applauds what they are doing, but he's uncomfortable with the lack of statistics. COMMISSIONER BALLARD said she could provide national statistics. KRISTIN RYAN, director, Division of Environmental Health, told the committee that they do have some figures for illness outbreaks in Alaska. They are reported to the epidemiology section, but food borne illnesses are reported at a 25 to 1 ratio. That's the dilemma they have in using numbers as an indication that the system is working, she said. CHAIR GARY STEVENS asked if we're getting better at protecting the public or not. MS. RYAN said it's hard to measure prevention because if one person dies that's too many. It's difficult to count the cases that didn't occur, but you can count cases that do occur and are reported so you can show trends. "But it's a slippery slope to base all your decisions on one indicator. I would recommend a balance performance measure portfolio. ....There are a variety of ways you can determine that people are getting safe food rather than just relying on outbreak numbers." COMMISSIONER BALLARD said ours is a different job than the epidemiology job, which is trying to count the results. Our job is to know that we're protecting people from exposure. MS. RYAN added that a previous performance measure that will continue to be an indicator is critical violations found while performing inspections. "We will continue to be doing our inspections at the frequency that we are doing them," she assured. SENATOR BERT STEDMAN asked about the fees. MS. RYAN said they are proposing to charge $10 for a food handler card that would remain valid for three years. SENATOR STEDMAN asked if the card could be obtained online. MS. RYAN said their primary conduit would be the Internet. The information and test would be offered online, but arrangements could be made for a proctored exam if a computer wasn't available. The information would be free while the test would carry a charge. When you pass the test, you could print your own card that would be similar to a driver's license. SENATOR STEDMAN asked who would take the test. MS. RYAN said they are proposing that anyone who touches unpackaged food would be trained. They haven't determined how they would apply the process, but they want to engage the regulated industry through a negotiated rule making process. SENATOR STEDMAN asked whether DEC would impose civil fines for violators. MS. RYAN told him the enforcement mechanisms are narrow. Currently they can close the establishment or press criminal charges, but neither option is efficient for enforcing minor regulatory violations. They propose the ability to impose civil fines. SENATOR STEDMAN asked whether the current inspectors would continue in their jobs. MS. RYAN assured him they are an essential component. She pointed to a chart that depicts food safety as a three legged stool with the three legs representing enforcement, managing risks and a knowledgeable workforce. The stool doesn't stand without all three legs. SENATOR COWDERY asked whether someone running a hotdog stand on the street would have to participate. MS. RYAN said they would address that through the regulatory process, but they're proposing that anyone who handles unpackaged food would participate. SENATOR COWDERY asked what score would result in a closure order. MS. RYAN said Anchorage is the only area in the state that has its own food safety program and he was probably familiar with that program. SENATOR COWDERY asked whether they would post scores in other areas of the state. MS. RYAN told him that inspections aren't frequent enough to rely on them alone for food safety. They're considering posting an 800 number that people could call to report bad food experiences though. CHAIR GARY STEVENS asked what other states are doing in this regard and whether this proposal is the best route. MS. RYAN said that other states are going this route to some extent, but Alaska food safety experts came up with this model. COMMISSIONER BALLARD added that this solution appeals to DEC because professionals developed the program and because it's the system that Pillsbury Kitchens designed for NASA. In that system you identify critical hazard steps, which are the places in food handling where contamination might occur and you focus on those through standard operating procedures and institutionalizing control. Finally, the proposal is sound because the Division of Environmental Health has used the same regulatory system for air and wastewater and they know that it works well. There's no reason the restaurant industry shouldn't fall in line, she said. It's reasonable to ask people to conduct self-inspections and implement standard operating procedures as the method of achieving compliance with standards that are set by the regulators, she asserted. CHAIR GARY STEVENS asked whether this proposal might not overlap with the Anchorage program ultimately causing the municipality to close their food safety program down and rely on DEC. COMMISSIONER BALLARD pointed out that DEC does have the statutory authority to delegate the responsibility for food safety. Alaska is currently the only state that administers the program at the state level and DEC would be delighted for jurisdictions that are capable to assume responsibility. MS. RYAN added that Anchorage already requires their food managers to be certified. PAT LUBBIE, advocacy director for AARP, Alaska, spoke in favor of the proposal. With regard to food safety, a good day is one in which nothing happened, he said. Training workers with certified managers does decrease food borne illnesses, he said, and this bill will provide for that training. It also provides fines for non-compliance. "We think this is very important for Alaska," he concluded. CHAIR GARY STEVENS asked whether other states take such a hands- off approach to inspections. MR. LUBBIE said there would never be enough people to do as many food inspections as they would like, but this is a good second choice because it places the responsibility on the restaurant owner/operator. ROBIN NORTHSAYER, owner/operator of Northern Hospitality Training, spoke in support of HB 378. Having been in business for about four years, she said she could speak from the standpoint of a trainer as well as a consumer who has contracted a food borne illness from a restaurant. In the last four years she has trained close to 1,000 food managers and about the same number of food handlers. These people leave the training program with the knowledge and desire to keep people safe. Food handlers and managers have a duty to send people home safely. Sending citizens and visitors home with food poisoning is not the kind of advertising we're looking for, she said. SENATOR COWDERY motioned to report HB 378 from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes. He asked for unanimous consent. There being no objection, it was so ordered.