Looking Toward Full House Appropriations Committee Markup July 10
This week’s Analysis and Commentary is entitled “Two Pathways for Saving FDA’s FY 25 Budget.”
Looking Toward Full House Appropriations Committee Markup July 10. The formal full committee markup of the Agriculture/FDA bill has not yet been announced, which is no surprise given that the House is in recess this week. Nonetheless, the expectation is that the mark-up will be July 10. The House will be in recess the week of July 15, so the bill will either move on July 10 or wait until later in July.
Apart from that, other appropriations bills will be on the move next week (June 24). Three appropriation bills - Defense, State-Foreign Operations, and Homeland Security - are expected to be on the House floor. Additionally, five more bills are expected to be considered by their respective subcommittees: Commerce-Justice Science, Labor-HHS-Education, Transportation-HUD, Interior-Environment, and Energy-Water. If that occurs, the House will have completed at least initial action on all House FY 25 funding bills. The House has only three weeks of session scheduled before the August recess.
As we previously reported, the House Agriculture/FDA Subcommittee was given a total discretionary allocation of $25.873 billion, which is $355 million (1.35%) below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level and $2.688 billion (9.4%) below the President’s Budget Request. The House Subcommittee measure is a reduction of less than 1% in FDA’s Salaries and Expenses account, which is less than the percentage reduction for the entire Agriculture/FDA bill.
Senate Appropriations Update - Subcommittee Markups Week of July 8 Expected. The Senate is now in recess until July 8. In a statement to the full Senate on Tuesday (June 18), Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray said she plans to hold the Committee’s first FY25 markup the week the Senate returns from the Fourth of July recess.
While she did not identify which bills may be considered, there are reports that she has provided the Agriculture/FDA, Military Construction, and Legislative Branch subcommittees their FY 25 302(b) allocations, which means they could be the bills considered the week of July 8.
In her floor statement, Senator Murray also argued for increases in nondefense discretionary (NDD) spending. “In FY25, I cannot accept net cuts in real resource levels to NDD, which is what a one percent increase means.” She made a specific reference to FDA: “When FDA pulls an unsafe product off the shelf? That is NDD.” It is definitely a good thing that FDA is on her mind. For more discussion of the implications, see this week’s Analysis and Commentary.
The Senate will be in recess the week of July 15, so the bill will either move during the week of July 8 or not until later in July.
Interesting Article of the Week: How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Drug Development. This week, the New York Times wrote about how artificial intelligence is being used to generate algorithms to select the most promising drugs for development.
AI and machine learning are increasing parts of FDA’s work – both in the agency’s application of the technology and its review of its use by product sponsors. Within FDA’s jurisdiction, day-to-day change is constant and AI is but one of the challenges the agency faces in staying ahead of technological change.
As discussed in this week’s Analysis and Commentary, needed growth in FDA’s funding is at risk despite the agency’s expanding mission and growing responsibilities. AI is just one part of this – but an important and transformative one.
Friday Update Returns with a Special Edition on July 8. With the upcoming Congressional recess for July 4, Friday Update will not be published on June 28 and July 5. We will resume publication with a special July 8 edition. Even though Friday Update will not be published, Alliance staff will be available to assist members during the entire period.
Exclusive Opportunity for Members of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA. Yesterday, we sent a note to all dues-paying members of the Alliance announcing two member-only, in-person meetings with FDA this summer.
If you did not receive the letter, but think you should have, please contact Steven. If you are not a member but have a fear of missing out, consider chatting with Steven about the benefits of joining the Alliance.