Food and Drug Administration Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, this bill makes sure that, even during this shutdown, the Food and Drug Administration's critical safeguards remain in place to protect our food and drug supply. The health of our people should not be jeopardized. This legislation provides funding for the FDA at the current post-sequestration annual rate of $2.3 billion. This will provide funding to maintain protections for food, drugs, and medical devices, and allow the FDA to collect and spend user fees.

The length of this authority will last until December 15 or until we enact year-long appropriations that address the funding of the Federal Government in full.

As with each of the other individual bills we have considered this week, the language in H.J. Res. 77 is nearly identical to what was included in my clean continuing resolution filed back in September. This bill moves us a step closer to the finish line, but we've got to remember that we can get there much faster if we find a way to fund the entire Federal Government. This will require cooperation and conversation from both the Senate and the House.

This will be the ninth bill the House has sent to the Senate to reopen the Federal Government. The ninth bill, Mr. Speaker. The House has voted to provide nearly one-third of the funding to reopen the government; but, unfortunately, the Senate won't even consider these bills, and so the government is still shut down. Our colleagues in the Senate say they want a clean CR, but when we've sent them these bills--pieces of a clean CR with clean funding mechanisms, nonetheless--they won't even bring them up for a vote.

This is not my first choice of how to fund the Federal Government. My preference would be to have passed full-year appropriations bills for all the government before September 30. The House made great strides toward that goal with our committee approving nearly all of our annual bills and with the full House passing four of them, yet the Senate would not even pass a single bill off the floor of the Senate. But I still hope and believe that we can find a path forward. It will require both parties, both bodies, to find ways we can work together to end this shutdown.

As we work toward that end, we can pass this bill to ensure that nearly all of the Federal Government's food safety activities are funded during the shutdown. I urge support of the bill.

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