Timing predicted for food safety budget decisions for 2025

Congress is heating up to make some budget decisions just as temperatures in Washington, D.C., have turned hot.  The  Food and Drug Administration has requested $ 7.2 billion for the president’s fiscal year (FY) 2025 proposed budget.

Budget requests are for the period from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025.

Funding requested by the FDA would enhance food safety and nutrition, advance medical product safety, help support supply chain resiliency, strengthen the agency’s public health and mission-support capacity, and modernize the FDA’s infrastructure and facilities. 

The request includes an increase of $495 million — or 7.4 percent above the FY 2023 funding level. It includes $15 million to protect and promote a safe, nutritious U.S. food supply. Funds for the FDA’s human foods initiatives will modernize the FDA’s capacity to prevent or mitigate foodborne illness outbreaks by investing in necessary tools and processes to strengthen root-cause investigations. 

For the status of the various budget requests, many rely on  Steven Grossman, Executive Director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.  He reports that the Full House Appropriations Committee will likely hold a markup session on 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,” Grossman reports.

The House Agriculture/FDA Subcommittee was given a total discretionary allocation of $25.873 billion, which is $355 million (1.35 percent) below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level and $2.688 billion (9.4 percent) below the president’s budget request. The House subcommittee measure is a reduction of less than 1 percent in the FDA’s Salaries and Expenses account, less than the percentage reduction for the entire Agriculture/FDA bill.

Grossman also expects a Senate Appropriations  Subcommittee Markup during the week of July 8.  “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,” he said.

“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,” according to the Alliance report.

Senator Murray also argued for nondefense discretionary (NDD) spending increases in her floor statement. “In FY25, I cannot accept net cuts in real resource levels to NDD, which is what a one percent increase means.” She specifically referenced the FDA: “When FDA pulls an unsafe product off the shelf? That is NDD.” It is a good thing that the 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.

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