Chairman Carter's Opening Statement at a Health Hearing on OTC Drug Regulation, Apr. 1, 2025
April 1, 2025 · House Committee on Energy and Commerce · 0:04:11
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
Chairman Buddy Carter welcomed witnesses to a hearing on the over-the-counter monograph drug user fee program, which he referred to as OMUFA, saying, as he stated it, that the hearing comes almost five years to the date after the initial bill — sponsored, as he stated it, by Representative Latta and Senator Johnny Isakson — was signed into law by President Trump in March 2020. He said, as he stated it, that the program reformed and modernized regulation of OTC monograph drugs and authorized the FDA to assess and collect user fees dedicated to monograph activities, streamlining the process while maintaining what he called the FDA gold standard of safety, as he stated it.
Carter said, as he stated it, that the program’s legislative authority expires September 30, 2025, at which point new legislation will be required to reauthorize it for another five-year term, and that nearly 9 out of every 10 Americans use OTC medications regularly, as he stated it. He highlighted, as he stated it, two Georgia manufacturers — Symrise, whose Colonel’s Island plant he said recovered from a serious 2022 fire to full pre-fire capacity, and Kobayashi Healthcare’s Dalton operations, whose expansion he said is doubling capacity — as examples of why timely reauthorization matters for jobs and access to affordable OTC drugs, as he stated it.
No administration official speaks in the clip; it is the subcommittee chairman’s opening statement only.
Why it matters
The user-fee program behind most over-the-counter medicines runs out on a fixed date; the chairman’s opening — with its Georgia manufacturing examples — is the starting gun for the reauthorization fight and the terms on which it would be argued.
Scoreboard watch
The program deadline stated in this opening — OMUFA’s legislative authority expiring September 30, 2025, requiring new legislation for another five-year term, as stated by Chairman Carter — is a dated, checkable marker. Flagged as a scoreboard candidate for the editor; no verdict is published from this page.
Sources: House Committee on Energy and Commerce, “Chairman Carter’s Opening Statement at Health Hearing on OTC Drug Regulation”, 2025-04-01 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-04-01). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.