President´s FY 2010 FDA Budget Proposes Food Industry User Fees

(Mondaq – Michael D. Flanagan et al., Foley & Lardner LLP)

President Barack H. Obama’s recently released Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 budget for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposes historic spending for the agency of more than $3 billion, an increase of more than $500 million over FY 2009 spending. One of the two major initiatives proposed by the FY 2010 budget is “Protecting America’s Food Supply.” To help fund the budget increases, the president’s proposal would impose four new user fees to generate more than $200 million. The president’s FY 2010 budget for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also proposes new user fees, but would require new legislation to allow the USDA to collect the fees.

Under the food safety initiative, funding for food-industry regulatory activities would exceed $1 billion, a $259 million increase over FY 2009 spending levels. Notably for the food industry, the budget proposes to collect nearly $95 million in new user fees. The proposed user fees would be allocated to register food facilities, increase food inspections, issue food and feed export certificates, and re-inspect food facilities that fail to meet the FDA’s safety standards. Read more here.