With government "off the backs of business," certain beneficiaries of Bush-administration freedom treated it as license to be lax about consumer health and safety. So what Americans got were dangerously tainted peanut butter and spinach — not to mention the "tomato scare" that was finally traced to some Mexican chiles, and the hamburger panic before that.

All that was bad for business — so commercial-food lobbyists have been a subdued bunch since so many clients were devastated during recent outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli and othersuch pathogens. When millions are sickened every year in this supposedly advanced nation, and a few thousand die, folks are going to be wary of what they buy to put on the dinner table; thus some industry organizations recognized the need for reform.

President Barack Obama was barely in office when he issued his call, not just for greater Food and Drug Administration competence, but also for food-safety laws tough enough to rebuild Americans' confidence in what we ingest.

This week, the House of Representatives passed some sweeping food-safety reform. Among other things, it demands more FDA inspections, and it gives the agency authority to order recalls.

Y'mean the feds haven't had that power? Nope. All they could do is suggest such things — even when people were dying from industry negligence. And that's still all our officials can do until or unless the Senate approves similar legislation, which the president is sure to sign.

Even the House vote was against this bill earlier in the week. Farm-state representatives moaned that it was too tough on agriculture — and they set up a procedure demanding a two-thirds vote. But the bill's supporters ran it through again Thursday under simple-majority rules. It passed, 283-142, with Northern New Mexico's Ben Ray Luján on the wrong side. He raises some district-specific concerns — some of them, including fees and small-farm burdens, are borderline valid, and could be met with the help of Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall when it gets there.

Not only would the FDA be able to set high science-based standards for growing, harvesting and transporting food — foreign as well as domestic; it also could demand a process for tagging food so the source of illness could be chased down more quickly. The higher the risk that comes with certain kinds of foods, the more frequent the inspections — and the greater the demand for safety plans.

The potential for bureaucratic interference is enormous — so if the Senate wanted to improve on the House bill, it could insert common-sense clauses. But as Michigan Rep. John Dingell, long frustrated in his reform efforts, simply and persuasively put it this week, "Americans are dying because the Food and Drug Administration doesn't have the authority to protect them."

Surely someone in the Senate — perhaps food-safety advocate Dick Durbin of Illinois — will make similar arguments. In that case, our nation will see at least a start toward food we can trust.

In time, Congress must give the FDA — or even a split-off agency overseeing just food — further powers: Meat, for example, is out of its jurisdiction, and under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That wall has got to be breached.

Still, this is legislation both the public and private sector can applaud — when, or if, it gets Congress' and the president's approval.