Peanut butter tainted with salmonella sickened hundreds of people and caused 9 deaths in recent months, adding yet another outbreak to the already poor track record of the U.S. food supply.

Everyone remembers other tainted food scares: tomatoes, spinach, and even canned chili were all recalled within the last year because of food safety problems.

“These are not isolated incidents and are the result of an outdated, underfunded, and overwhelmed food safety system,” says Dick Durbin, the senior Democratic Senator from Illinois.

Last week Durbin, along with Georgia’s Republican Senator, and long-time champion of the peanut industry, Saxby Chambliss, co-sponsored a new bill, The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, to overhaul the FDA’s food safety program, giving it more power and a lot more funding, up to $825 million worth.

Among the contaminated food scares of the past few years, the peanut case has been particularly disconcerting.  Reports of extremely lax oversight and sanitation at the Georgia and Texas plants owned by Peanut Corp. included dead mice in crates of peanuts packed for shipping among other violations.  The company has since declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Two days after the introduction of the Senate bill, Democratic Representative Jim Costa of California and Republican Representative Adam Putnam of Florida introduced to the House a companion bill, called the Safe Foods Enforcement, Assessment, Standards, and Targeting Act (FEAST).

The National Restaurant Association (NRA) has voiced its support for both pieces of  legislation, and both are expected to win bipartisan support.