The FTC’s request for a nearly 25% increase in funding for fiscal 2025 was splashed with cold water May 15 in a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. That’s “a dramatic increase in funding for an agency whose work continues to raise concerns among many members of Congress and the public,” Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, said as he opened the hearing.
Artificial intelligence recently roiled the regulatory world, but the U.S. Congress has yet to dive into the task of legislating on the concept. Barrett Tenbarge, general counsel for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told an audience here in the nation’s capital that while the Senate is considering several legislative proposals, the desire to avoid legislation that will create as many problems as it solves suggest that legislative development “is a long-term process.”
The U.S. FDA’s final rule for regulation of lab-developed tests promises to remain controversial for the foreseeable future, but FDA commissioner Robert Califf said that many of these tests have been shown to be less than adequately reliable. Califf said that one of the effects of the final rule is that it will force clinical labs to “wake up and develop better tests,” if only because compliance and enforcement regimes will soon be applied to clinical labs.