The Senate recently rejected legislation designed to ensure USDA could close plants that violated salmonella limits.

Appeals Court Strikes Down Meat Tests
The Agriculture Department can't require meat processors to comply with limits on salmonella contamination, an appeals court says.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a Texas judge who blocked USDA from shutting down a ground beef plant that flunked a series of salmonella tests. Salmonella alone doesn't make meat unsafe, the appeals court said.

The department considers the tests a good measure of a plant's cleanliness. However, it is not known how much of the bacteria is necessary to make someone sick, and the meat industry says the testing limits are not justified scientifically.

The appeals court decision ``is clearly taking the harness off the ground meat industry by allowing meat that can be highly contaminated with salmonella to be sold to the public,'' said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Meat-Safety.html