Congress is ramping up its response to a national shortage of baby formula, seeking to pass legislation on Wednesday that’ll address the short supply and safety standards – in addition to oversight of the Food and Drug Administration and formula manufacturers – after a recall months earlier.
The issue, which has been percolating since Abbott Laboratories closed a plant on Feb. 17 after contamination of its baby formula, has now come to the forefront of federal government. President Joe Biden has taken recent steps to address the crisis and help restock the shelves, including as of Wednesday invoking the Defense Production Act to boost supply and authorizing the use of commercial aircraft from the Pentagon to import formula from overseas. Now, lawmakers are seeking to help rectify the situation through legislative fixes.
The House on Wednesday night will debate and vote on a supplemental funding bill from Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut to provide $28 million to the FDA as a way to address the shortage. The emergency funds will help the agency hire more inspectors, boost data collection on the formula marketplace and block fraudulent products from being available to purchase.
Another bill up for consideration is the Access to Baby Formula Act from House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott of Virginia and Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut. The legislation expands access to formula by waiving specific requirements for low-income families who participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, specifically during a public health emergency or when there are supply chain issues.
“We are in the midst of a national emergency where families are panicking as they work to prevent their babies from going hungry. … We are actively seeing the consequences of an essential service throttled by a monopoly industry during a time of unprecedented supply chain challenges,” Hayes said at Tuesday's press conference about the shortage. The chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee’s nutrition subcommittee said she used WIC benefits as a young mother.
Democrats are also preparing for investigations and hearings to understand what led to the bacterial contamination of baby formula from Abbott, one of the largest manufacturers. The company, which has said there’s no evidence that the illnesses were caused by the formula, agreed this week to reopen the shuttered plant in Michigan and will address safety conditions.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon announced Wednesday that his committee will investigate the tax practices of Abbott. Meanwhile, in the House, members will hold two separate hearings: one on Thursday with testimony from FDA Commissioner Robert Califf followed by another next Wednesday with Califf, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response and top officials from Abbott and two other baby formula manufacturers, Gerber and Reckitt.
The bills are both expected to pass the House when they come up for final votes. And, as is the case with House-passed legislation, the bills will face a trickier path in the Senate.
Republicans, who have been blaming Biden for not doing enough to resolve the ongoing crisis, are unlikely to support the bill giving a multimillion-dollar boost to the FDA. House leaders are reportedly whipping votes against the bill, which will receive a vote later Wednesday night.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana argued that the bill was hastily crafted without Republican input “in hopes of covering up the administration’s ineptitude by throwing additional money at the FDA,” according to News.
But there’s a bipartisan version in the Senate of the WIC benefits legislation sponsored by the Democratic chairwoman and the GOP ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, respectively. This bill is expected to garner more support from Republicans.
Most legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to avert a potential filibuster. If all Democrats support a bill in the split 50-50 Senate, they’ll need at least 10 Republicans to join them.
But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said lawmakers will try to pass formula-related legislation through unanimous consent, though any one senator can block it when using that approach to speed up legislation. The Democratic leader also indicated that this is far from likely the last effort to try and address the crisis.
“We hope no one will block it. It’s such an immediate need,” Schumer told reporters at a Wednesday press conference. “We’d like to do more, but we want to move quickly because you know the crisis. You’ve all seen the pictures of the empty shelves in the supermarkets. If this bill can move quickly, we’ll move quickly. But it’s not going to be the last thing we try to do.”
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