Thad Cochran: “the issue here was joined with the offering of the amendment by the distinguished Senator from Iowa. It is an amendment…”

“the issue here was joined with the offering of the amendment by the distinguished Senator from Iowa. It is an amendment related to the Food and Drug Administration's funds for an antismoking regulatory program that has been developed and put out by the Food and Drug Administration. The issue is whether or not there is sufficient funds in the FDA account to help pay the cost of this regulatory program. Some Senators may not be aware of the fact that we have increased in this legislation the proposed funding for FDA by over $20 million. As a matter of fact, I think the total is around $30 million--$24 million for the FDA account for this next fiscal year. This is in comparison with this current year's funding level. So there are funds available to carry out the additional food safety initiatives that the Food and Drug Administration has proposed. There is a specified $4.9 million available, the same amount as last year, for the FDA's smoking regulatory program, or antismoking regulatory program.”