You may have heard this statistic in the news recently: According to the CDC, there are 5,000 deaths related to foodborne diseases in the United States each year. These fatalities occur out of the estimated 76 million cases of foodborne disease and 325,000 hospitalizations annually. But are these deaths something that government regulation can help prevent? Enter the Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major overhaul of food safety provisions by the Food and Drug Administration since 1938 .

Introduced in 2009, the bill passed in the Senate on November 30 and will now go on to be voted on in the House. So what would the Act do if it passes? Perhaps most importantly, it gives the FDA the power to order recalls of tainted food. Currently, the “voluntary recalls” that you hear about on the news are indeed voluntary—the FDA can only ask companies to take that action. The Act would also require more frequent inspects of food manufacturers by the FDA, that manufacturers and processors have food safety plans, and that the FDA create a program to trace outbreaks more quickly to their source.

However, there are two major roadblocks right now—one is whether a technical flaw might stop the law in its tracks, and the other is an opposition that states that the Act wouldn’t really do what it purports to do. After the bill passed 73 to 25 in the Senate, the congressional backers of the legislation realized that they might have made a blunder.  The bill in part authorizes the FDA to assess fees on food producers and importers that fail inspections—which is a revenue-raising measure, a type of law-making that according to the Constitution must originate in the House. But lawmakers are currently working to fix this, despite some additional concerns over a last-minute amendment  that exempts small farms.

For a law designed to keep us safer, what is the opposition saying? Taking into account the bill’s $1.4 billion four-year cost, some are saying that it is a waste of taxpayer money without the ability to do much in terms of detection and inspection, and potentially harming smaller food producers by forcing them to spend too much on compliance. And some simply see the provision as government overreach; talk show host Glenn Beck even suggested that the government is trying to convert more consumers to vegetarianism by raising the price of meat.

So will the Food Safety Modernization Act help prevent some of these 5,000 annual deaths, or is it simply creating new layers of bureaucracy? Especially for those who have been affected by foodborne illness, the bill at least seems to be a step in the right direction. Also consider that if it works correctly, the law could ultimately prevent large losses for companies in the future due to lawsuits. But as its final version is still in flux, we will just have to wait and see.