House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone underscores FDA’s lack of resources and insufficient “regulatory tools” in a memo to Health Subcommittee members going into a 4 December hearing on cosmetics safety issues. The committee’s last hearing on the subject was in 2012 when Pallone unveiled the first version of his Cosmetics Safety Enhancement Act.

With Democrats in control of the House and New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone in line for chair of the Energy & Commerce Committee, cosmetics regulatory reform legislation could receive even more attention in the 116^th Congress than in the current session. The new climate could test how serious big business is about embracing large-scale changes as well as lawmakers’ openness to federal preemption. 

Recent polling suggests the “blue wave” headed for Congress may not be of the magnitude hyped by some. But if Dems do flip the House as expected, cosmetics reform legislation will go through an Energy & Commerce Committee likely chaired by New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, who’s been a highly vocal critic of current cosmetics safety controls.