Senate and House Approve 6-week Continuing Resolution Avoiding a Shutdown

There is no Analysis and Commentary this week. Steven wants a few days to consider the big-picture implications of the new CR and FDA’s budget. He will be back next week with his thoughts. 

Still Time to Register for the Alliance’s Webinar on FDA Reorganization TODAY at 11 a.m. (January 19). Register here!

Both food safety and medical product stakeholders will benefit from the webinar because the reorganization plan has a sweeping agency-wide impact.  Our guests will be: 

• Principal Deputy Commissioner Janet Woodcock, 

• Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jone

• Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs Michael Rogers, and 

• Chief Scientist Namandje Bumpus, 

• Acting Director of CFSAN Donald Prater and Deputy Commissioner for Operations/COO Com for Operations/COO) will also be available to answer questions. 

John Taylor (former Acting Deputy Commissioner for Global Regulatory Operations and Policy) and Alliance Board member Sarah Sorscher (Center for Science in the Public Interest) will be the co-moderators.

Not too late to sign up: Register here!

If you can’t make it: contact Ben Dash to be sent a link for the video afterward.

Senate and House Approve 6-week Continuing Resolution Avoiding a Shutdown.  Yesterday, the Senate voted  77-18 to approve HR 2872, extending the Continuing Resolution (CR) by 6 weeks.  The new deadline is March 1 for bills covering funding for Agriculture/FDA, Energy & Water, Military Construction/VA, and Transportation-HUD bills. The 8 other appropriations bills, including Labor-HHS, have a CR deadline of March 8.

For all agencies, including FDA, funding will continue at FY 2023 levels and conditions carried forward from that year. 

Also, the Senate voted 13 to 82 to defeat a motion by Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) to return the bill to committee with instructions to make the CR last all of FY 2024, with some anomalies. While it was not adopted, calls for a full-year CR are likely to increase over the next few weeks, leading up to the new CR deadline. While there is some uncertainty about the specifics of how it would work,  a full-year CR is seen as likely to be disadvantageous for domestic programs

Following Senate action, the House approved the Senate bill by a vote of 314-108.  As with the prior CR, the bill was addressed on the suspension calendar, meaning that it was not subject to amendment and required a two-thirds vote for passage.

The President is expected to sign the bill.

Subcommittee Allocations Not Yet Determined.  Last weekend, House and Senate leadership pivoted from negotiating 302(b) subcommittee allocations to addressing the need for a CR.  The subcommittee allocation process has two components: do the sum of monies allocated total the amounts agreed to by Speaker Johnson and the Senate; and within the allocations, which subcommittees may receive larger allocations and which smaller ones? 

With regard to totals, Speaker Johnson continues to receive pressure–primarily from House Freedom Caucus members– to reduce spending below the agreed-upon levels. With regard to the subcommittee allocations, this is always a zero-sum game regarding which subcommittees receive more and which less. The Alliance closely monitors the 302(b) allocation that goes to the Ag/FDA subcommittee.  

What Comes Next in the Congressional Process. The Alliance is hopeful that the additional six weeks is enough time for Congress to complete action on the Ag/FDA funding bill. Progress has been made since the start of the fiscal year, but some difficult challenges must still be resolved.  

Additionally, between now and March 1, the House is in recess the weeks of January 22, February 19, and February 26, and the Senate is in recess the weeks of February 12 and February 19.

Other Upcoming Alliance Webinars: 

• Dr. Robert Califf, FDA Commissioner, January 31st at 2:00 p.m. ET. Register here!

  Alliance President Tom Kraus (ASHP; former FDA chief of staff) and Alliance Vice President Esther Krofah (Faster Cures/Milken Institute) will be the co-moderators.

• Kimberlee Trzeciak, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Legislation, and International Affairs, February 8 at 3 p.m. Register here!

  Alliance board members Emily Holubowich (American Heart Association) and Nancy Myers (Catalyst Health Care) will be the co-moderators.

You can also find all the transcripts & summaries of our past Alliance webinars on our website here.