Advocacy at a Glance

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.

• Government Funded Through December 22 in New CR; Budget Deal Will Be Required.  The House and Senate have approved (and the President will sign) a 2-week extension of the Continuing Resolution, which will now expire on December 22. The first priority is to agree on revised budget caps for FY 18 (and possibly for FY 19 as part of the same agreement). At that point, the appropriations committees will know how much they can spend and will adjust their FY 18 bills accordingly. Given the difficulties of accomplishing all of this in the next 2 weeks -- along with uncertainty about key legislative “side deals" -- it is likely that another CR will be needed.

• Alliance Plans Busy Year in 2018 to Counter Likely Shrinkage in Non-Defense Spending. The Alliance is planning for 3 days of meetings with appropriators in February and anticipates adding additional days/meetings thereafter. Our annual Hill Advocacy day will be April 25.  An Alliance meeting with CDRH director, Jeff Shuren, MD, JD, is slated for February 7. More details on these items (and others) will follow in the coming weeks. Success with Congress next year will be important for continued momentum at FDA, the topic of this week’s Analysis and Commentary.

• Suspended Debt Ceiling Back in Play.  Congress suspended the debt ceiling in a deal that ended along with the CR on December 8.  While the Treasury Department reported (on November 1) that it could continue to finance the government through at least January, 2018, the Congressional Budget Office suggested (on November 30) that extraordinary measures could be used until late March or early April of 2018. It is unclear whether the ceiling will be raised as part of a budget and appropriations agreement or dealt with separately in the first quarter of 2018.