The Clock Is Ticking; Act Now Please!

Write your letters to appropriators NOW!

Congress has altered the nation’s budget, allowing discretionary spending to increase by about 5% more in FY 16 than permitted under the 2013 Ryan-Murray budget agreement. As a result, FDA has a shot at a portion of the $25 billion in non-defense spending that is newly available. Every interest group in Washington is trying to get a share. So, we need to move fast, marshal the right arguments, and stay united behind our common cause of a better-funded FDA.

On Wednesday, we asked all Alliance members to write to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture/FDA appropriations subcommittees. We provided a template letter, as well as a recap of the Alliance messages that we repeat often.

If you have been putting it off, there is no time like the present to write a letter reflecting what is most important to you and your organization about FDA having enough resources. Once you have completed your letter, e-mail it to Tony Curry and we will aggregate the letters and send them on to Congress. We would like to do this by next Tuesday, so please get your letters to us by close of business on Monday, November 9. If you also want to deliver your letters yourself, please do so, but we still would like an electronic copy for the aggregation effort.Our suggested topline for the letters to appropriations’ leaders:

As you work to finalize the FY 2016 Agriculture Appropriations budget, we respectfully urge you to make increased appropriated funding for the United States Food and Drug Administration a national priority.Specifically, we are requesting $2.8 billion for the FDA’s FY 16 budget authority appropriation. This amount is $200 million above FY 15 funding, about $160 million above currently proposed House/Senate FY 16 funding, and $52 million above the President’s FY 16 request.

If you have questions about what to put in your letter or need more information about the current appropriations “open season,” please don’t hesitate to let Tony know or connect with Ladd or with me.

My final thought: write your letters to appropriators NOW!

Note: This week’s Analysis and Commentary was written by Steven Grossman, the deputy executive director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.