Both House and Senate Back Increased FDA Funds for FY 2009
Resolutions to increase the funding for the Food and Drug Administration during fiscal year 2009 have been approved by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. The two budget resolutions are similar and include requests to fund healthcare endeavors with more than $3 trillion. Information about the resolutions was published by Health Imaging.
The bills include an additional $71 million for the FDA. The new resolutions includes more money than was previously requested by the FDA Science Board’s Subcommittee on Science and Technology. The resolutions are now passed to a joint committee for comparison and reconciliation.
Bills passed both Congressional Houses with small margins. Further, the resolutions exceed President Bush’s recommended discretionary fund by more than $25 billion. The two resolutions further ignored Bush’s request to decrease Medicare and Medicaid expenses by $196 billion.
A report was posted on HospitalBuyer last week noting initial legislative efforts in the U.S. Senate to expand the amount of funding available to support the FDA. That report includes some of the ongoing concerns about the planned funding for the agency during the forthcoming fiscal year.
Reports in CQ Today suggest that there was significant fighting about the resolutions along party lines. Republicans suggest that their democratic counterparts request too much funding to support domestic programming.
March 28, 2008 Related topics: Legal & legislative