Mixed grill: The Tipline for 17 June 2022

The House passed a bill on Thursday evening to establish an “Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters” within the US Food and Drug Administration – albeit along starkly bipartisan lines. 214 Democrats voted in favour of the legislation, while 199 Republicans opposed it. The only members of the GOP in favour of the new law – such as Representatives Don Bacon of Nebraska, Randy Feenstra of Iowa and Dusty Johnson of South Dakota – are from the Midwest, with their states among the top 10 cattle producers in the country. But two Democrats from the state that tops that chart, Texas Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, voted against the bill.