Expanded Food Safety Investigation Act of 2025

This bill, the Expanded Food Safety Investigation Act of 2025, lets the Food and Drug Administration ask to enter large animal farms (concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs) to test for germs when needed to investigate a food poisoning outbreak, find its cause, or handle other public health needs. CAFOs include stabled or confined animal-feeding operations of a specified size. Testing can include plants, animals, water, and the surrounding environment.

Farms must give reasonable access for this testing, and they may set reasonable time, place, and safety conditions as long as those rules don’t block timely sampling. Refusing reasonable access would be a violation and can lead to penalties . Data from testing must be shared with the Department of Agriculture and state and federal public health agencies to help detect and prevent foodborne illness, and existing public records rights are unchanged. The bill does not add new FDA rules over foods already under USDA’s meat, poultry, and egg programs beyond allowing this sampling.

Key points

• Who is affected: FDA; large animal farms (CAFOs); USDA and public health agencies; communities facing foodborne illness .
• What changes: FDA can request on-farm microbial sampling; farms must allow reasonable access; refusal is a violation; test results are shared with health agencies; USDA’s existing authority stays in place beyond sampling .
• When it applies: During outbreak investigations or other public health needs identified by FDA.