[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2590-S2591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. STABENOW (for herself, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Hoeven, 
        Mr. Brown, Mr. Marshall, Ms. Klobuchar, Mrs. Capito, Mr. 
        Bennet, Mr. Tillis, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Collins, Ms. Smith, 
        Mr. Grassley, Mr. Booker, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Warnock, Mr. 
        Cornyn, Mr. Casey, Mr. Lujan, Mr. Durbin, Ms. Hassan, Ms. 
        Duckworth, and Mr. Kelly):
  S. 4257. A bill to amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to establish 
requirements for infant formula cost containment contracts, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I remember being a new mom and then a 
new grandma, and all you want to do is hold your baby close and savor 
every single moment. Instead, parents across the country right now are 
in a panic--forced to search high and low to find baby formula, the 
safe baby formula that they need, any safe baby formula.
  Almost half of all of our babies born in the United States receive 
their baby formula through a really important program called WIC--the 
Women, Infants, and Children program--that we are so proud of, and it 
is something that has made sure that safe baby formula and healthy food 
is available for pregnant moms and for babies throughout the first 
years of a baby's life. So, as all of this has happened now with this 
emergency--and it is a huge emergency, a huge crisis--there are no 
options here when children--you know, when babies need to eat. When 
babies are born, they need safe baby formula.
  This has been an ``all hands on deck'' moment for all of us. That is 
why, as chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 
Committee--and I am so proud the Presiding Officer is a member of our 
committee, is a very valued member of our committee--I am joined with 
our ranking member, John Boozman, to introduce legislation today to 
make sure that the USDA can be as flexible as possible in getting our 
moms and dads and, most importantly, babies the critical baby formula 
that they need right now.
  We are doing this in conjunction with the House, which also has 
bipartisan legislation. It is my understanding that they will be voting 
on that soon, and I am hopeful that we can do the same thing. This 
should be something that brings us all together as quickly as possible.
  As an example, the reason we need the bill dealing with WIC--and 
there is a lot and so much positive that comes from this program. But 
right now, we make sure that there are safety standards, high-quality 
safety standards, and that we negotiate, through a competitive process, 
the best price for moms and babies, but we now need to have flexibility 
so when a family--for instance, maybe, in Traverse City, MI, or in 
Lansing or in Detroit--goes to a grocery store and there is only one 
brand on the shelf and it is not the brand under the WIC contract, that 
they can buy it. If that is the only thing available, they need to be 
able to use their WIC support to be able to purchase that.
  That is something that our USDA Secretary has jumped into gear to be 
able to make that happen, but we have got to make sure that that can 
continue, or we have got to make sure if a parent, again, goes to the 
store and there are different sizes of formula cans or different 
prescriptions that normally would not fit under the WIC contract, that 
they can waive those because we have to be able to get whatever is safe 
baby formula to families as quickly as possible.
  These may sound like small things, but they are the difference right 
now between whether or not our families on WIC are able to actually get 
the formula that they need.
  In order to make sure that that continues, we have introduced 
legislation that will guarantee that the flexibilities the USDA needs 
will continue beyond the public health pandemic flexibilities that they 
are currently operating under. They have short-term flexibilities 
because of the public health pandemic. We want to make sure this is 
permanent and that whether it is a recall, a safety recall, a supply 
chain breakdown--whatever it is--that, with all hands on deck, the USDA 
has the capacity--the authority, the tools--to be able to move forward 
and make sure that they can respond as quickly as possible.
  We also want to guarantee that formula manufacturers that want to 
compete for these WIC contracts have a plan in place to respond to any 
kind of shortage so we don't have this situation happen again. There is 
just no excuse, frankly, for what happened here.
  I want to thank Secretary Vilsack and the USDA for moving quickly 
once they were notified about the Abbott plant shutdown.
  I am deeply concerned that they were not given a heads-up earlier. 
The FDA was working for months, evidently--for a few months--with 
Abbott around concerns as it related to the safety standards and so on 
at the plant, and the USDA needed to know sooner so that they could 
prepare sooner. They understand how serious this is, what an emergency 
it is. So, when they found out, they went immediately into gear to make 
sure that our moms and babies, if at all possible, in any way possible, 
could get what they need. That has to be a top priority, not just for 
the moms and babies on WIC; all moms, all parents, all babies need to 
make sure that it is an ``all hands on deck'' and that we are moving as 
fast as possible.
  That is why I also want to thank President Biden and the FDA for 
working with other baby formula manufacturers to increase supplies.
  Supplies are going up. I am very anxious to see more manufacturers of 
baby formula. I think we, as in every area, it seems, of our economy, 
have too much consolidation--that is certainly true here--and we need 
more competition, and we need more baby formula manufacturers competing 
for our contracts. We need to have a contract that gives the best price 
to WIC's moms and dads and babies, but we need to make sure that we 
have as many large and small companies that are competing for that to 
be able to make sure that we have the formula available and that we are 
getting the very best price.
  I also want to thank them for carefully and thoughtfully opening up 
imports from the European Union. We certainly have other countries that 
have the same very high safety standards that we do. We have got to 
make sure that anything that comes in is of the very highest safety 
standard.
  We know that, right now, we have got to make sure that baby formula 
is on the shelf. Children--babies--need this every day, not ``let's 
wait a month or 2 months.'' This is like today that this needs to be 
happening. Again, there needs to be a sense of urgency to do whatever 
we can related to this issue and look at all aspects of it to make sure 
that this does not happen again, if at all possible. This should not be 
happening again.
  Within our WIC bill, we are focused on what we can do to support the 
USDA to have the maximum flexibilities to support moms and babies and 
on what we can do to make sure the manufacturers are prepared if 
something

[[Page S2591]]

like this were to happen--some shortage--down the road. We need to make 
sure that we are looking at every aspect of this and acting now, as 
fast as possible, and then preparing for the future.
  I want to thank, again, Senator Boozman and welcome all of our 
Members on both sides of the aisle to join us in what, I hope, will be 
legislation that moves very, very quickly.
  The Access to Baby Formula Act is something that every single Member 
of the U.S. Senate should be supporting so that we can move this 
legislation out as quickly as possible, working with the House, and 
getting this done.

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