Congressional Efforts Continue on User Fees and Sequester and more
Advocacy at a Glance offers you the bullet point summary of current advocacy issues associated with the goals of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.
House Subcommittee Marks Up Ag/FDA Appropriations Bill. This past Wednesday, House legislators became the first appropriators to publicly consider FDA’s FY 14 budget. The result is a proposed budget authority (BA) appropriation of $2.485 billion. This is $24 million above the enacted (pre-sequester) FY 13 level and nearly $100 million above the agency’s post-sequester funding level. However, it is $22 million below the FY 12 funding level. The Alliance’s press release called the House effort a “step in the right direction,” while making clear that the amount is not enough to fund FDA’s growing responsibilities and mission. The mark-up is discussed further in this week's Analysis and Commentary. Full committee mark-up is expected next week.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Recognizes FDA Commissioner Hamburg for Her Leadership. At Wednesday’s Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee mark-up, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee Hal Rogers (R, KY) commended Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and the FDA for their role in helping to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs. To watch Chairman Rogers’ remarks please click here.
Congressional Efforts Continue on User Fees and Sequester. As reported in this morning’s FDA Week, efforts are continuing to find ways to take FDA user fees out of any sequester. The obstacle to restoring the FY 13 sequestered user fees is the need to find offsetting cuts from other programs. The House is looking at whether there are alternative ways to handle FY 13 and to proactively prevent user fees from inclusion in an FY 14 sequester, should one occur.
Alliance Ramps Up Social Media Efforts. For those following the Alliance on Twitter (@strengthenfda), you may have noticed we have increased the frequency of our tweets and are using it to get information out faster than the Friday Updates. If you would like more information from the Alliance, and faster, we encourage you to follow us on Twitter. We’ve gone from zero to 165 followers this year, and would like to get that number even higher.