However that was contingent on the administration submitting required paperwork to the committee by Nov. 19. It missed that deadline, doubtless pushing Califf’s affirmation vote into January. The doc submission is a formality within the affirmation course of, however have to be accomplished to make sure senators have all of the supplies they should totally contemplate a nominee.
A Democratic Senate HELP Committee aide stated that the panel obtained Califf’s paperwork on Monday, and was working “to schedule a listening to as quickly as doable.”
After this text’s publication, a White Home official careworn that there was no arduous deadline for submitting the nomination paperwork, solely an “arbitrary timeline.”
The timing challenge represents the most recent complication in a monthslong effort to put in a everlasting chief atop an FDA that sits on the heart of the Covid-19 response and vaccination marketing campaign.
Even earlier than Biden formally took workplace, his administration was eyeing longtime profession FDA regulator Janet Woodcock to run the company. However Woodcock bumped into opposition from a handful of Senate Democrats over the FDA’s monitor report on opioid approvals and perceptions she was too near the drug business.
The White Home spent the subsequent a number of months looking for various candidates, approaching greater than a dozen potential nominees earlier than selecting Califf, who headed the FDA for a 12 months within the Obama administration.
The drawn-out course of has pissed off FDA staffers exhausted by two years of pandemic stress and left at the hours of darkness on who can be their subsequent everlasting chief. It additionally puzzled some within the broader drug group, who’ve privately questioned why the administration took so lengthy to discover a nominee — solely to select one who was sure to face the identical criticisms that have been lobbed at Woodcock earlier this 12 months.
Three Democratic senators have already expressed deep reservations about Califf’s candidacy over his connection to the FDA’s decision-making on opioids, in addition to his work for a wide range of pharmaceutical corporations.
Nonetheless, the White Home is relying on Califf successful some Republican help within the evenly divided Senate, in addition to the overwhelming majority of Democrats. HELP Chair Patty Murray has already endorsed his candidacy.
Murray is scheduled to fulfill just about with Califf on Dec. 1, the HELP Committee aide stated.