WASHINGTON – The fight to ease looming FDA requirements over e-cigarette and vaping manufacturers were put on hold at least until spring, with the so-called Cole-Bishop Amendment failing to get into federal budget legislation passed last month.
The bill from U.S. Reps. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., was to have shifted the Feb. 15, 2007, “predicate date” for new products to sometime in 2016. That would have allowed most vaping products an easier road to approval under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “deeming” rules.
The amendment was to be included in an omnibus bill that would have become part of the pending budget, but that did not happen, according to Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, Hoboken, N.J.
The House and Senate passed legislation in December to fund the federal government until April 25, according to Washington, D.C.-based legislative news source The Hill. President Obama signed the bill soon after.
Conley told CSP Daily News that individual lawmakers in both the House and Senate are pulling for the vaping industry, and he hopes that whatever version of the amendment effort eventually emerges will have a chance in the spring.
“With the new [President-elect] Trump administration, we’re hoping to pull the FDA before Congress [on this matter],” Conley said.
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