FY 24: No Certainty on What Comes Next
This week’s Analysis and Commentary is entitled “What Happens to FDA If There is a Shutdown.”
FY 24: No Certainty on What Comes Next. At press time on January 12, the path to completion of FY 24 funding is uncertain and opaque. Chaotic would not be an exaggeration.
In the stories below we cover 1/ the House/Senate deal on top-line FY 24 spending and the vehement objection it drew from the House Freedom Caucus, 2/ the status of subcommittee allocations specific to Ag/FDA, and 3/ the need for another short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) to prevent a possible government shutdown for those agencies whose CR only runs to January 19. Analysis and Commentary looks at what happens to FDA if there is a shutdown.
Topline Agreement on FY 2024 Appropriations May Not Hold. Last Sunday, House and Senate leaders reached an agreement that will provide $1.666 trillion in total spending for FY 2024. Under this agreement defense funding will be set at $886 billion for FY 2024, and non-defense funding will be nearly $773 billion. Non-defense budgets will face about a 1 percent decrease compared to current funding, while military programs will increase nearly 3 percent.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter, Speaker Johnson said the agreement provides more than $16 billion in additional spending cuts to offset the discretionary spending levels, resulting in an overall $30 billion total reduction from the Senate’s spending plans. This was not perceived as sufficient by a bloc of conservative House Republicans, who are trying to persuade Johnson to walk away from the deal.
Subcommittee Allocations Yet to be Determined. Assuming the deal on top-line spending survives, the next key issue is what 302(b) allocations will be provided to each subcommittee. The House originally provided $25.3 billion for the Agriculture/FDA Subcommittee, while the Senate provided $25.993 billion.
The higher allocation made it possible for the Senate to provide $3.55 billion for FDA, an increase of $20 million over the $3.53 billion provided by the House measure. The Senate bill also provides $12.788 million for Buildings and Facilities. No such funds were included in the House measure.
Congressional Democrats also said they will not support poison pill policy riders in any appropriation bill put before the Congress. The Agriculture/FDA bill contains a particularly controversial rider, reversing a long-ago FDA action that increased access to the abortion drug mifepristone. Disagreements about this rider was said to be one of the reasons why the House on September 28 defeated this bill by a vote of 191-237.
Continuing Resolution Needs to be Extended, but Process and Politics are Unclear. With only one week left before the current Continuing Resolution (CR) for the Agriculture/FDA and three other spending bills expires, Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY) announced on Thursday that he is filing cloture on a shell bill that will become a short-term CR to avert a government shutdown, with the vote to be taken next week. He has support from Republican Senate leaders–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), as well as support from Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus have already said they do not agree with the new budget agreement, and have said they will not support a Continuing Resolution. What happens next is unclear and echoes an observation we have made several times that: Speaker Johnson is likely to have the same problem on January 19 as he did on November 17 and as Speaker McCarthy had on September 30: do you pass another short term CR (needing support from House Democrats) or let the government shut down. No one–not even Speaker Johnson—knows for sure what he will do.
Shutdown is Possible. The short timeline and long term uncertainty renew the risk of at least a partial government shutdown at the end of next week. In September, the Alliance provided an updated version of its FDA Shutdown Tool Kit. There have been no changes announced by FDA since that was published. We will update the Tool Kit as warranted.
What happens in a shutdown is the topic of this week’s Analysis and Commentary.
The Release of the President’s FY 2025 Budget Request Likely Delayed until March. In last week’s Friday Update we suggested that delay in completing action on FY 24 bills may impact when the FY 2025 budget proposal is submitted.
In most years, the State of the Union (SOTU) address is the third or fourth week of January and the budget release comes about 2 weeks later. Perhaps recognizing the value of closure on FY 24 before the SOTU, it was announced this week that the SOTU will be March 7. That puts the likely budget release date in mid-March. However, no date has been announced publicly and nothing requires the SOTU to come before the President’s budget release.
Three Webinars Kick Off the 2024 Alliance Webinar Series:
Webinar on FDA Reorganization Plan with Senior FDA Leaders, January 19 at 11 a.m. ET. 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:
Deputy Commissioner Janet Woodcock,
Chief Scientist Namandje Bumpus,
Deputy Commissioner for Human Food Jim Jones, and
Acting CFSAN Director Donald Prater.
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.
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.