Congress Returns Next Week

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.

• Congress Returns Next Week. The Senate is scheduled to return on May 9 and will stay in session until July 15, except for a week at Memorial Day and a week at Independence Day. The House returns on May 10, but is otherwise on a similar schedule. The July 15 date marks the beginning of the presidential conventions. Congress will stay in recess until September. All of this means a highly compressed schedule, one that probably doesn’t have enough time for House and Senate to work on and clear 12 appropriations bills.

• Public Openness is a Virtue in Government. FDA is a model for government agencies, in that “the inner components or logic [of decisions] are available for inspection.” This is explained in this week’s Analysis and Commentary.

• No News on Senate Innovations and FDA Funding. While staff-level negotiations continue, there has been no news from the Hill about the status of the Senate Innovations package.

• Alliance FDA 101 Event a Success. This week’s FDA 101 Hill Day was a success, with more than 20 organizations participating in meetings with Congressional offices. Feedback was remarkably positive; information and understanding of FDA has definitely increased over the last few years among Hill staffers not on committees of jurisdiction.

• Alliance Sponsors Productive Food Stakeholder Meeting with FDA. This week almost 20 food stakeholders participated in a far-reaching dialogue with Deputy Commissioner for Foods, Michael Taylor and his successor, Dr. Steven Ostroff. As part of the meeting, the Alliance wished Mike Taylor the best as he looks to the future, and we felt that have begun our work with Dr. Ostroff in his new role on strong footing.