Government is the cause of the formula shortage, not the solution | Opinion

In the United States of America, there should never be a baby formula shortage. It’s unthinkable. But when you over-regulate a product, socialize over half of it, shut down your economy and then spike inflation with trillions of dollars, the unthinkable can actually happen. For parents of newborns, the unthinkable is having to ration, or even drive hundreds of miles to find, baby formula. As a father of two, as a Texan and as a public servant, I am especially concerned about this shortage’s acute impact on our state and the families I represent.

When the unthinkable does occur, our job in Congress is to address the problem—not compound it. When you hear politicians say “we have to do something,” be very wary because they aren’t leading; they are chasing feel-good headlines that say “Congress passes $X for Y problem” in order to show that they’ve “done something” and have thus covered up all manner of past sins.

Such were the recent votes on two “formula” bills in Congress, which I believe we were obligated to oppose.

First, H.R. 7791 would give the executive branch authority to waive a statutory requirement that states contract with a single manufacturer under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which accounts for about half of all U.S. formula purchases. While a short-term exception to the requirement may offer some relief from a government-driven monopoly, it will ultimately drive families to compete with others for an already-scarce inventory without reforms that boost production and/or importation. Moreover, Congress should not delegate even more authority to the executive branch; it should actually legislate to modify the requirement itself.

A worse bill is H.R. 7790, which simply throws money at the problem by giving $28 million in additional funding to FDA bureaucrats, who received a $102 million increase in fiscal year 2022 already! It is beyond ironic to increase funding to the agency heavily responsible for the shortage in the first place. In fact, just one day after the bill passed the House, the bill’s author, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), questioned whether the Democrat-run FDA was on the side of “babies and their moms and dads.” Why dole out more money with no reforms?

As usual, this new funding is not paid for. The bill would continue to fuel the inflation already eating away at working Americans’ paychecks—inflation contributing to a formula shortage driven by Congress and the Biden administration’s failure to strike at the crony, bureaucratic roots of the problem.

The data show that the formula shortage began in mid-2021 as inflation, labor shortages and supply chain disruptions began to take their toll on manufacturers. Foreseeable from the early days of the pandemic response, these issues were and are the direct result of tyrannical government lockdowns and the trillions of dollars Congress printed in its COVID-19 response. A bloated, incompetent and politicized FDA exacerbated the problem when it failed to promptly respond to reports of safety issues at Abbott Nutrition’s plant in Sturgis, Michigan. This foot-dragging resulted in a formula recall and the temporary closure of a plant that accounts for 20% of the nation’s supply.

Perhaps the FDA should have focused on the warning signs of an impending formula shortage, rather than helping tee up more Big Pharma profits by working to approve unnecessary COVID-19 vaccines for babies and toddlers.

Though the FDA and Abbott recently reached an agreement to reopen the plant, it will still take weeks to restart production. Why should one facility have such an impact? The simple answer is that long-standing crony capitalist policies restrict our formula supply. Formula is highly regulated, which seems understandable because parents want to be sure they are giving their children a safe product; however, many of the policies are exploited to benefit just a few large corporations. Our formula supply is controlled by four manufacturers who are effectively insulated from competition by a complex web of regulations that make it nearly impossible for new firms to break into the market. The government further helps out the big guys by government picking winners and losers through WIC—which, as noted above, can empower a single manufacturer to dominate a state’s formula market while crowding out competitors.

Meanwhile, many parents are wondering why they can’t just go online and order formula from a country that has it. After all, the Biden administration is patting itself on the back for airlifting more formula—celebrating a photo-op for a shipment that can only feed 9,000 babies for a week. Well, strict regulations and high tariff rates restrict formula imports—even from countries with similar safety standards, like those in Western Europe (where the recent airlift formula came from).

The American people elect their Congress to serve them, and we are obligated to ensure they can feed their children. The solution to this formula shortage is to get the federal government out of the way—not empower it to make things worse. Congress should increase the short-term supply of formula by easing imports from trusted nations. We need to pass long-term reforms to both the FDA and WIC to prevent future shortages, and we absolutely must cut through the knot of policies behind the skyrocketing inflation, record energy prices, supply chain disruptions and labor shortages driving this crisis. Above all, we should refuse to rubber-stamp deceptively titled legislation that fails to do any of that.

Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican, represents Texas’ 21st congressional district.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.