Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 5/17/21

House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro and Rep. Sanford Bishop, chairman of the Ag Appropriations Subcommittee, are pressing the FDA for answers on how the agency is spending hundreds of millions of dollars Congress has allotted for food safety.

“We write to express concern over the lack of transparency related to the budget for food programs at the Food and Drug Administration,” the lawmakers wrote to acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock late last week.

Where have all the food inspections gone? DeLauro and Bishop note that FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs, or ORA — the arm of FDA that does inspections and other field activities — receives about 70 percent of the money Congress appropriates for the foods side of FDA. They want to know how the office is spending the money because it appears food safety activities have been dwindling, a trend that started before the pandemic.

Between fiscal year 2018 and 2019, ORA’s food funding was relatively flat at $732 million but “key indicators of performance declined significantly,” the lawmakers said. Domestic inspections decreased 18 percent; visual exams of imported food products decreased by 25 percent; and sampling of imported products decreased 21 percent, the letter states.

Congress has questions: DeLauro and Bishop, two of the lawmakers who hold FDA’s pursestrings, want to know why the agency has apparently cut back on food inspections. They want a full accounting of food inspection staffing levels and why there are so many inspector vacancies. Lawmakers are also asking for an estimate of how much domestic and foreign food safety inspections cost.

Thought bubble: These are pretty basic questions for appropriators to be asking about how FDA functions, which suggests the agency has not been as forthcoming as lawmakers would like.

The inspection mandate debate: The letter comes after top FDA officials recently floated scaling back the agency’s inspection mandate under the landmark Food Safety Modernization Act, which includes a requirement to inspect all high-risk food facilities at least once every three years and other food facilities at least once every five years.

Consumer lobby is not happy: Top voices in consumer advocacy are already raising concerns about the direction FDA is headed.

"The letter asks some very important questions about how the food safety budget is managed at the FDA and calls into question the validity of the agency's recent proposal to reduce FSMA's inspection frequency requirements,” said Brian Ronhom, director of food policy at Consumer Reports.

'It would be a mistake’: Mike Taylor, former deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at FDA, where he was the driving force behind FSMA, also expressed concern.

“The domestic facility inspection mandate was a crucial part of the legislative agreement that made FSMA possible and provides a crucial measure of accountability for FDA and the food industry, as well as an assurance to consumers that at least some minimum level inspection will occur,” Taylor said. “It would be a mistake to repeal it.”