Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, this bill is really important. It would provide funding for our critical food, nutrition, and rural development agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration.

What we are really asking is to keep the government open. There may be disagreement about the wall and some aspects of border security, but that shouldn't hold hostage these important spending bills that keep the government going.

I wanted to talk about the FDA. The FDA is one of our most critical public health agencies overseeing food, medical products, cosmetics, and tobacco, products that account for 20 cents of every dollar spent by U.S. consumers.

As a result of the Trump government shutdown, the FDA has had to cease a number of important activities that keep our Nation's food and drugs safe for all Americans.

For example, the FDA has stopped conducting nearly two-thirds of the domestic food inspections that the agency typically conducts, putting our Nation's food supply and food safety system at risk. This comes on the heels of a multi-State national recall of romaine lettuce in November and December. This stoppage should be alarming to all of us.

The FDA has halted routine inspections at food, drug, device, and compounding facilities. It stopped accepting any new medical product applications unless the application is within a small subset that did not require a user fee. This includes applications for new generic drugs that may bring further competition to the pharmaceutical market.

The FDA has ceased any activities related to over-the-counter products.

It put on hold any enforcement activities related to medical products or facilities that have been found to be in violation of the law.

What we are seeing are no inspections, no enforcement activities. And, today, more than 6,000 FDA employees are furloughed, and another 1,000 are working without pay.

This Trump shutdown has had a dramatic effect on our economy, our Federal employees, and the functioning of our government. Agency heads are being forced to plan without knowledge of whether the shutdown will last another day, another week, or another month. These are real lives that are being impacted.

Madam Speaker, I urge the Senate majority leader and the President to support this bill so we can restore funding to the FDA so that consumers continue to have safe food and medical supplies.

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