A farsighted food safety law enacted in 2011 has faced obstacles to meaningful enforcement ever since, including delays in issuing necessary rules and a shortage of money. Now, in what may become the latest shameful chapter, Congress seems unwilling to provide enough money to effectively carry out regulations that are about to be issued. The losers, of course, will continue to be consumers, who live with the hazards of an unsafe food supply.

The Obama administration took two years to propose rules to carry out the law, partly because the complexity of the food system required a methodical approach and perhaps also from fear of being labeled job-killing regulators during an economic downturn. Consumer groups successfully sued to accelerate the timetable for final rules, and the Food and Drug Administration agreed to publish important regulations later this year.

There is no doubt of the need for food-safety reforms. Thousands of people have been sickened in past years by tainted peanut butter, spinach, eggs and melons. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year roughly one in six Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die of food-borne illnesses.

The Food Safety Modernization Act was designed to prevent deadly outbreaks, not just react to them. It put the burden on food producers to make sure that their products are safe and to develop plans to prevent contamination. It also gave the F.D.A. new powers to set standards for harvesting fresh produce, recall tainted foods and monitor produce imported from abroad.