President Trump’s Budget Proposes Reduced Funding for FDA & USDA

The FY 2018 budget request earmarks a total of $5.1 billion for FDA as a whole – an increase of $456 million or 10 percent above the funding provided by Congress in the FY 2017 Continuing Resolution. This increase, however, would consist of reducing FDA’s total budget authority by $854 million, while proposing an increase in user fees of $1.3 billion in non-food programs (which are unlikely to pass, as explained below).

The FY 2018 budget request proposes $137 billion to USDA, a decrease of $12 billion or 8 percent from an estimated $149 billion in FY 2017, and outlines plans to lower spending on USDA programs by roughly $230 billion over a decade. This memorandum discusses FDA and USDA’s plans for reducing expenditures as they relate to food safety.

As described in more detail below, the proposed FY 2018 budget calls for a sizeable reduction ($82.8 million) in FDA’s food safety program and a modest increase ($25 million) in the Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) food safety program at USDA. Notably, no new user fees are proposed for either FDA or FSIS food safety budgets, although the USDA budget alludes to a desire for legislation authorizing user fees, as have past budgets.

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Authored by Joe Levitt and Biran Eyink.