House appropriations bill undermines food safety at the Food and Drug Administration

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bill out of committee last week that threatens to strike a crippling blow to the Food and Drug Administration’s already beleaguered foods program, cutting funding necessary for state food safety inspections and freezing the rollout of a major rule designed to facilitate outbreak investigations.

Even prior to the release of the House bill, FDA’s foods program had been struggling to keep up with its mandate to carry out food safety inspections for the more than 84,000 domestic and 122,000 foreign food facilities registered with the agency, many of which are high-risk facilities such as those handling sensitive items like infant formula, juice, fresh produce, soft cheese, or seafood.

The President’s budget, possibly tightening its belt in anticipation of a lean year in Congress, proposed a meager amount for the FDA foods program of $1.25 billion, a mere 5 percent increase over the prior funding granted by Congress. Most of FDA’s proposed FY2025 budget increase would be needed to meet rising salary costs, according to an analysis published by the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.  

These funds are not adequate to sustain the FDA foods program. In May of this year, a group of 21 stakeholders representing consumer groups, state regulators, and regulated industry sounded the alarm in a letter to appropriators signaling that the proposed FDA budget would lead to cuts for food safety inspections. Due to years of rising costs and flat budgets, the money available for state inspections has plummeted by 30 percent, from over $117 million to $83 million. These deep cuts would strike a devastating blow to a network of state inspection programs that has already struggled with staffing shortages and inconsistent funding.

Rather than heed these warnings, the version of the House bill approved by committee last week recklessly cuts even further into FDA’s food budget, flat-funding the program at $1.185 billion, no increase over FY24 levels, a move that will force FDA’s foods program to eat rising costs, requiring cutbacks in other areas. That means the House bill, if enacted, could lead to even steeper cuts to the inspections that keep our food system safe.

On top of this, the House bill includes a poison pill rider that will prevent FDA from moving forward with a rule on food traceability, finalized in November 2022, which is designed to provide critical information to trace foodborne outbreaks. The rule was originally set to go into effect in 2026 and would require businesses to maintain the records needed to solve outbreaks. This includes keeping records of foods’ lot codes, critical information to allow FDA investigators to trace back contaminated foods to their source and carry out effective recalls. The House appropriations bill would force FDA to hit “pause” on implementing this important new rule while demanding that the agency engage in pilot projects. One of these pilots would require the FDA to solve outbreaks without using lot code information, which is the very challenge that rule was meant to address. 

Congress should prioritize protecting consumers by funding good food safety practices, not cutting budgets.