Agriculture, Rural Development, Food And Drug Administration And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2744, AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 08, 2005)

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me time and for all the effort and attention the committee has paid to this important bill on agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

I just might say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, I, too, want to applaud his passion and his diligence and vigilance on the issue of hunger and how it affects our children and families in the United States and internationally. I thank him for leading the way for us.

I also want to compliment the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) on working under very difficult circumstances to deliver this bill on the floor and for working across the aisle. His staff, the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Obey) staff and mine have worked diligently to get us here today, and I thank all of them for their service and for their patience.

This bill, unfortunately, falls short in filling the needs in rural America and in fully protecting our public health. While I believe that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) has done his best with a difficult allocation, regrettably there are shortfalls. We have barely maintained the same

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funding level as last year, $16.8 billion, in discretionary funds; and we all know that there are increased benefit costs and salary increases that need to be accounted for in that number. A stable number does not mean a stable agriculture and food and drug effort by our government.

The chairman had to make up for a huge gap in the administration's proposal when it included an unauthorized user fee of $139 million in the budget. Finding that amount of money to keep our extremely important food safety efforts for meat and poultry operating was not an easy task. It certainly forced the chairman to leave other needs unmet at USDA.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the bill still does not include enough funding to cover the food security needs of the elderly under the Commodity Supplemental Food program. There are hundreds of millions more pending requests for building and repairing water and sewer systems and for conserving our precious soil and water resources.

The Commodity Supplemental Food program operating in 32 States and providing surplus food commodities to seniors and to families of young children who no longer qualify for any other help, but who have hungry young ones to feed, is predicted to have to stop feeding at least 45,000 people with the current level of funding in this account.

At the same time, USDA resources are essential so that our agricultural base is not harmed by outbreaks of diseases such as soybean rust or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE or mad cow. United States agriculture is not isolated, and we need to remain vigilant and steady in our support of scientific research institutions in our prevention efforts and in our strategic planning and coordination for these types of challenges to our food supply and our health.

In the natural resources area, the bill is $52 million below last year. Water and waste grants, so critical to public health and economic growth for our rural communities, are funded below 2004.

The agriculture community has so many important needs, from commodity support to export promotion, from building new community facilities in rural areas to conserving farm land, and by combating animal and plant diseases and protecting human health, by enforcing our food safety laws and maintaining basic nutrition for our citizens. Rural areas are not always places with high tax bases and young working people. Rather, we know 90 percent of the country's poorest counties are in rural America, and these counties have a poverty rate that is a disturbing 14.2 percent. If we want these areas to begin to prosper again, we have to help them with infrastructure and community-building.

Some forget that another important public health agency is also funded in this bill, the Food and Drug Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. Again, the chairman has done a good job in trying to find funding for this budget for the Food and Drug Administration.

This year, the subcommittee was deprived of the opportunity to hear from the Acting Commissioner of FDA due to what we understand was intervention from the administration. This meant that we had to work on their portion of the bill without being able to ask questions that we would ordinarily have used to learn about their current operations. Nevertheless, with the gentleman from Texas' (Mr. Bonilla) help, we have started down a road to building some additional resources for drug safety and the possibility of more effective oversight of postmarket prescription drugs, by increasing the resources of the office that performs direct-to-consumer advertising claims reviews.

FDA is an agency that has demonstrated itself to be in crisis over the last year. We had an influenza outbreak predicted, but we were surprised to learn that another government's regulatory system had found the flu vaccine supply on which we were counting to be flawed.

Drugs like Vioxx and Bextra that scientists at FDA knew were causing illness and death were permitted to remain on the market and be advertized well beyond the point that they should have been voluntarily withdrawn or forced off the market.

Companies that had promised to perform postmarket studies in return for early introduction of their products failed miserably in keeping their promises without penalty.

However, I am pleased that the subcommittee took action on this matter by fencing off 5 percent of the appropriation to the leadership offices of FDA until the head of the agency testifies before our subcommittee. This is a very important provision to maintain in this bill until we get some answers.

I am also pleased that the subcommittee adopted an amendment addressing the reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs from FDA-approved facilities from Canada and other developed countries so that our people can buy them at affordable prices. This House has expressed its will on this issue over and over again, most recently with a letter signed by a bipartisan majority of the House to the Speaker, and we want to be able to keep this provision in the bill through conference.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) for his willingness to work across the aisle to replace many of the cuts sent up by the President. We know that we cannot meet all the actual needs that are out in the country; but this bill is a valiant effort, given the budget parameters.

I know there will be several amendments offered today, especially on behalf of enhanced civil rights and solutions to regional or specific problems. I believe that debate will be a healthy one, and I look forward to it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

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