President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on Wednesday to speed up the production of baby formula and authorize flights to import supplies from overseas. The domestic shortage was caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula manufacturing plant, Abbott Nutrition.
The Defense Production Act order requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill orders from those companies before other customers, in an effort to eliminate production bottlenecks. President Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly formula supplies that meet federal standards from overseas to the U.S., in what the White House is calling “Operation Fly Formula.”
Supplies of baby formula across the country have been severely cut back in recent weeks after a February recall by Abbott Nutrition exacerbated the already slow supply chain disruptions among formula makers, leaving fewer options on store shelves and increasingly anxious parents struggling to find the proper nutritional replacement for their infants.
Baby Formula shortage.
Dem solution: Biden invoking Defense Production Act to boost formula manufacturing
Republican solution: Let the babies of undocumented parents starve
Your pro-life bumper sticker is coming off, guys.
— flexghost. (@flexghost1) May 18, 2022
The announcement comes two days after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was streamlining its review process to make it easier for foreign manufacturers to begin shipping more formula into the U.S.
I’m taking two new steps to increase baby formula supply:
– Invoking the Defense Production Act to increase domestic production
– Launching Operation Fly Formula to use federal planes to fly formula in from abroadWe’re making sure safe formula gets to all who need it. pic.twitter.com/lnkxsaCY6T
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 18, 2022
Regulators said Monday that they’d reached a deal to allow Abbott Nutrition to restart its Sturgis, Michigan, plant, the nation’s largest formula plant, which has been closed since February due to contamination issues. The company must overhaul its safety protocols and procedures before resuming production. After getting the FDA’s OK, Abbott said it will take eight to ten weeks before new products begin arriving in stores. The company didn’t set a timeline to restart manufacturing.
Trump wouldn’t even invoke the Defense Production Act to manufacture PPE during a once-in-a-century pandemic. Biden did it for a baby formula shortage that Trump’s idiotic NAFTA 2.0 agreement caused.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) May 19, 2022
“I know parents across the country are worried about finding enough formula to feed their babies,” President Biden said in a video statement released by the White House. ”As a parent and as a grandparent, I know just how stressful that is.”
Just now, President Biden announced two additional actions – invoking the Defense Production Act and launching Operation Fly Formula – to speed up the import of infant formula and get more formula to stores as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/4Ss9H2T7BO
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 18, 2022