Sequestered User-Fee Funds 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.

• Senate Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA Subcommittee Marked-Up Tuesday and the Full Committee on Thursday. The committee provided FDA with a budget authority appropriation of $2.552 billion, a $96 million increase over the FY 13 enacted level (post-rescission, pre-sequester). In addition, the Committee included $11 million for buildings and facilities repair, a $6 million increase. In the aggregate, the Senate mark is $102 million more than the FY 13 enacted level and $78 million above the House FY 14 mark adopted 10 days ago. For more information, on the appropriations situation, and particularly the Senate numbers, please see this week's Analysis and Commentary, which includes a detailed chart showing how the House and Senate proposals relate to each other and also compare to FY12 and FY13 (after the across the board cuts), as well as the President’s FY 14 request.

• Sequestered User-Fee Funds.  The committee indicated it will include language that will prevent the sequester of FDA user-fee funds and, possibly, restore the FY 13 funds that were taken away. However, the bill text and committee report are not yet available.

• Senate and House Still Wide Apart on Aggregate Appropriations Spending. When the full Senate Appropriations Committee marked up on Thursday, it also adopted 302(b) allocations, which determine how much money each appropriations subcommittee has to spend. In the aggregate, the Senate is proposing to spend $1.058 trillion, which is about $91 billion more than the House. The House level, $968 billion, is consistent with the total spending limitations in the Budget Control Act of 2011, but still is not in compliance because it proposes spending more on defense and less on non-defense programs than the BCA allows.