House Passes Supplemental Funding Legislation to Address Infant Formula Shortage

May 18, 2022

Press Release

WASHINGTON - On a bipartisan 231 to 192 vote, the House today passed H.R. 7790, a supplemental appropriations bill to provide $28 million in emergency funding to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the resources it needs to address the urgent infant formula shortage.

"The shortage we are seeing today is in large part caused by those who chose not to prioritize the health and safety of our children,"Chair DeLauro said. "Our babies are vulnerable, and parents are desperate. This critical funding will work in tandem with President Biden's launch of Operation Fly Formula and invocation of the Defense Production Act to help quickly and safely address the infant formula shortage in this country and help prevent this from happening again. Now that we are ramping up production and preparing to purchase formula from abroad, we must ensure that it is safe. The FDA needs the resources to do that, and Congress has an obligation to meet those needs. This bill helps ensure that a lack of funding is not a barrier to getting safe formula to parents and babies.""Through this legislation, Congress is acting quickly to ensure that families have access to safe and affordable nutrition for their babies. It will also help prevent the sale of fake formula and provide Congress with more data to address the vulnerabilities in the infant formula market so we can avoid this happening again," Subcommittee Chair Bishop said. "This bill gives the FDA the resources it needs to respond to this crisis."

This bill provides FDA with the resources to strengthen and increase the number of FDA inspection staff, provide resources for personnel working on formula issues, help the agency stop fraudulent baby formula from entering the marketplace, and improve data collection on the infant formula marketplace.

The full text of the legislation is here.

117th Congress