Medical Manufacturing, Economic Development, and Sustainability Act of 2023 or the MMEDS Act of 2023 This bill provides incentives for relocating medical manufacturing facilities in the United States and for manufacturing medical products (i.e., drugs and devices) in economically distressed zones. Specifically, the bill allows a income tax credit for 40% of the sum of wages paid in a medical manufacturing economically distressed zone, employee fringe benefit expenses, and depreciation and amortization allowances with respect to qualified medical manufacturing facility property, and a credit for economically distressed zone products and services acquired by domestic medical manufacturers. The bill increases the credit rate for minority businesses.
Safeguard Healthcare Industry Employees from Litigation and Distress Act or the SHIELD Act This bill establishes a framework to limit interference with persons seeking to provide or access reproductive health services at the state level. For the purposes of this summary, interference with persons seeking to provide or access reproductive health services includes acts to prevent, restrict, impede, or retaliate against a health care provider who provides reproductive health care services, any person or entity who helps health care providers to provide such services, any person who seeks to access such services, or any person or entity who helps another person to access such services. First, the bill reduces the allocation of funds under certain law enforcement grant programs for a state that has in effect a law authorizing state or local officers or employees to interfere with persons seeking to provide or access reproductive health services. Second, the bill prohibits interference with persons seeking to provide or access reproductive health care services by state or local officers or employees acting under color of law in any manner that would have a discriminatory effect on a woman, and by persons who are not state or local officers or employees and are attempting to implement or enforce a state law in circumstances affecting interstate commerce. The bill authorizes civil remedies for a violation, including damages and injunctive relief. Additionally, it authorizes criminal penalties for a violation involving the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or the infliction of bodily injury.
Facilitating the Reshoring of Energy Grid Component Manufacturing Act of 2023 This bill directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a loan program for the production of energy grid products or components. Under the program, DOE may provide loans for activities related to projects that reequip, expand, or establish manufacturing facilities to produce energy grid products or their components. Energy grid products include large power transformers or any other electrical equipment commonly used for the transmission or distribution of electric energy by public electric utilities.
Essential Medicines Strategic Stockpile Act of 2023 This bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create a pilot program to test the effectiveness of acquiring, maintaining, managing, and distributing a stockpile of generic drugs at risk of shortage. To carry out the pilot program, HHS must enter into contracts for a term of up to three years with drug manufacturers, co-op or chain pharmacy warehouses, or other eligible entities to create a six-month stockpile of up to 50 types of such drugs. The bill establishes various program requirements, including annual evaluations by the Government Accountability Office.
Drug Pricing Transparency and Accountability Act
Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients Act This bill requires the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and specified public housing programs to subject individuals to substance-abuse screening and to deny benefits for individuals who test positive for a controlled substance.
Domestic Security Using Production Partnerships and Lessons from Yesterday Act of 2023 or the Domestic SUPPLY Act of 2023 This bill establishes a program and sets out other requirements to promote domestic manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE) for infectious diseases and other public health emergencies. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must establish a program to enter into purchasing agreements for PPE produced domestically by manufacturers that are majority-owned and -operated by U.S. citizens. HHS must coordinate with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security on this program. In addition, the federal government must only procure, subject to limited exceptions, PPE that is produced domestically to prevent the transmission of an infectious disease. If using federal funds, states or localities must also procure PPE domestically. Further, the bill requires HHS to consult with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on a report about changes to federal requirements for PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of those changes on health care workers who cared for patients in 2020 and 2021.
Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act or the HALT Fentanyl Act This bill places fentanyl-related substances as a class into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. A schedule I controlled substance is a drug, substance, or chemical that has a high potential for abuse; has no currently accepted medical value; and is subject to regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal penalties under the Controlled Substances Act. Additionally, the bill establishes a new, alternative registration process for schedule I research that is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Veterans Affairs or that is conducted under an investigative new drug exemption from the Food and Drug Administration. The bill also makes several other changes to registration requirements for conducting research with controlled substances, including permitting a single registration for related research sites in certain circumstances, waiving the requirement for a new inspection in certain situations, and allowing a registered researcher to perform certain manufacturing activities with small quantities of a substance without obtaining a manufacturing registration.