In October 2013, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule that would subject breweries that sell or donate spent grains – a high-protein byproduct of the brewing process – to local farmers to onerous new requirements, driving up costs, and leaving these breweries with no choice but to dispose of spent grains in landfills.

The Protecting the Sustainable Use of Spent Grains Act, a bipartisan bill introduced today by Representatives Steve Womack (AR-3), Peter Welch (VT-AL), Chellie Pingree (ME-1), and Cory Gardner (CO-4),  prevents the FDA from interjecting itself into the long-standing relationship between breweries and farmers by regulating spent grain.  Specifically, the bill amends the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) to make clear that the exemption provided in Section 116 of the FSMA does not become inapplicable to a facility merely because the facility distributes, for use as food for animals, spent grains resulting from the facility's production of alcoholic beverages.

Upon introduction, the original sponsors released the below statement:

“The FDA’s proposed rule is a solution in search of a problem.  The last thing breweries and farmers across the country need is the federal government interjecting itself into the environmentally sound, centuries-old practice of breweries selling or donating their spent grains to farmers for use as food for animals, especially when there is no indication that this practice poses any sort of risk to our food supply.  The federal government should be praising this type of collaboration, not burdening it with onerous new regulatory requirements that drive up costs and discourage sustainable disposal practices.  With this bill, common-sense prevails, and our breweries, farmers, and environment will be better off because of it.”   

The final text of the bill can be found here.

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