Dive Summary:
- With Congress working until the last minute, the fiscal cliff i approaching quickly, with massive spending reductions if a deal is not made.
- This would be disastrous for both the FDA and USDA, as the new Food Safety Modernization Act requires a lot of funding from the federal government.
- An extension of the farm bill is also on the agenda after it expired a few months ago. Without it, farmers are warning of a 'dairy cliff' as milk prices are expected to soar.
From the article:
The combination of significant tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts, known as the “fiscal cliff,” is just 24 hours away, and still Washington has no solution to the crisis. Over the weekend, there were glimpses of hope that there might be a last minute deal, but so far there has been no formal progress toward avoiding the so-called cliff.
“There’s still time left to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said on the Senate floor Sunday, but the upper chamber was also not slated to vote on anything until going back into session at 11 a.m. Monday. Since Friday, Vice President Joe Biden was reportedly in direct talks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), which some viewed as a good sign, but as of late Sunday night there was no deal to speak of.
The automatic spending cuts, otherwise known as sequestration, which are actually slated to begin in 48 hours (just one day after the Bush tax cuts expire), would have a major impact on critical food safety agencies: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Michael Taylor, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods, said in September he believes sequestration would be “a huge blow to our progress on food safety.” The Congressional Budget Office estimates that FSMA would take about $1.5 billion over five years to implement, but the agency has been given just a small fraction of that to bolster food safety efforts. Many food safety advocates are worried that FDA won’t be able to do more with less.
“It will significantly slow down their progress,” said Chris Waldrop, the director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, earlier this month. “Both FDA and FSIS are very personnel-heavy agencies so an 8.2 percent cut will hurt them more than other agencies…it will mean fewer inspectors and scientists.”
Under sequestration, FDA would see a $318 million budget reduction, about $71 million of which would come out of the agency’s food program. FSIS, the agency charged with ensuring the safety of meat, poultry and processed egg products, would have to shave $86 million from its budget. CDC, which monitors foodborne illnesses and tracks multistate outbreaks, would lose $464 million.
