Food Money: Appropriators Shape Food and Drug Policy

Shortly before the Memorial Day recess, the House Appropriations Committee amended and approved the fiscal 2006 agriculture spending bill, which funds the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related programs.

After passing through the Rules Committee, the bill will be scheduled for a House floor vote, where the legislation must win approval before moving on to the Senate.

Precedent dictates that any legislation that spends money must begin in the House with the Appropriations Committee. But the committee doesn’t simply act as an accountant. By appropriating funds, the committee shapes policy, rewarding favorite programs with extra cash and draining funds from less popular projects.

Who got what

The fiscal 2006 agriculture spending bill totals $100 billion. Here are some of the major expenditures:

• The FDA would get $1.48 billion, increased from $1.45 billion in fiscal 2005.
• The food stamp program would receive $40.7 billion; child nutrition programs $12.4 billion; the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program $5.3 billion.
• Food safety programs, particularly those that aim to protect the food supply from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, would see increased funding. The bill allocates $90 million for prevention and detection efforts, as the Bush administration requested.
• The Rural Community Advancement Program, which supports infrastructure in rural areas, would receive $657 million, a decrease of $53 million from fiscal 2005 but $136 million more than the administration requested.

Rejected amendment

The Appropriations Committee defeated an amendment by Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D- New York) that would have expanded drug safety testing.

Specifically, the measure would have granted the FDA the power to require pharmaceutical companies to continue to test the safety of medications after they have been approved for sale, through what are called post-marketing studies. These studies test hundreds of thousands of patients over time, while current procedure requires only short clinical trials on small groups.

Hinchey was motivated by recent drug-safety scares, such as the recent recall of Merck & Co.’s pain killer Vioxx, which was discovered to have unsafe side effects after being approved by the FDA.

But most Appropriations Committee members weren’t ready to authorize the extra testing, although they didn’t publicly oppose it. Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R- California) and Agriculture Subcommittee Chairman Henry Bonilla (R- Texas) opposed the amendment for technical reasons. They pointed out that appropriations bills are generally prohibited from authorization -- in this case from granting new powers to the FDA -- and suggested that the House Energy and Commerce Committee look into the matter.

Hinchey argued that the committee commonly adds authorizing language to spending bills, suggesting that the committee chairs were using the technicality as an excuse to avoid the issue.

No labels for Bonilla

In addition to thwarting Hinchey’s amendment, Rep. Bonilla was successful in delaying country-of-origin labeling for meat. By drying up the funding, Bonilla was able to postpone the new labeling requirement, originally sought by American ranchers who believe that Made in the USA stickers will help them to compete.

Bonilla is against the labels because they will add cost and liability for retailers and meatpackers. The White House wants to repeal labeling for meat altogether, and the House Agriculture Committee chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R- Virginia) has introduced a bill that would repeal the mandatory labeling system and replace it with a voluntary one.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D- Connecticut), senior Democrat on the Agriculture Subcommittee, would like to see the labels make it to the supermarket. She says that country-of-origin labeling would give people the information they need to make an informed choice and protect the safety of their families.

What do you think?

Do you want country-of-origin labels on your meat? What about extra testing for FDA-approved drugs? Do you agree with the spending levels on food stamps and food safety programs?

Now is the time to contact your representatives. You can influence their vote on the fiscal 2006 agriculture spending bill.

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Posted on: 6/8/2005