President Biden invoked his executive powers on Wednesday to give infant formula manufacturers first call on ingredients, and announced Operation Fly Formula, which would carry formula from overseas suppliers to the United States. Both steps were aimed at alleviating shortages that followed the shutdown of a large formula plant in Michigan, where FDA inspectors found bacteria that can cause foodborne illness.
On Capitol Hill, the House passed a pair of bills to ease formula shortages and to give the FDA additional funding to keep fraudulent products off the market. The Access to Baby Formula bill, which would create more flexibility in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, passed 414-9. Republican leaders faulted the administration’s response to the shortage and said the FDA did not need the $28 million in the second bill. It passed 231-192, with Democrats and 12 Republicans in support.
House Appropriations chair Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said the $28 million could help pay the cost of flying formula into the United States. Seven FDA-approved formula plants in Europe could be sources for U.S. imports, she said. “There is an immediate need to bring infant formula to babies.”
Abbott Nutrition, owner of the shuttered plant in Sturgis, Michigan, sells 43 percent of the infant formula in the country and is a major supplier of U.S. public nutrition programs. The Justice Department submitted a proposed consent agreement to a federal judge on Tuesday that would allow the plant to reopen with safeguards to assure sanitary operations.
Biden used his authority under the 1950 Defense Production Act to put formula makers at the front of the line for ingredients, telling suppliers that their needs superseded orders from other customers. Under Operation Fly Formula, the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services can use cargo aircraft under contract with the Defense Department to bring infant formula into the country.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the USDA, which oversees the WIC program, “will immediately begin coordinating with the Department of Defense and expand its coordination with our Health and Human Services counterparts to get safe formula on store shelves as quickly as possible.”
The White House fact sheet on infant formula ingredients and Operation Fly Formula is available here.
The White House memorandum on the Defense Production Act is available here.
The text of HR 7791, the Access to Baby Formula Act, is available here.
The text of HR 7790, additional funding for the FDA, is available here.