Funding for a new food safety and defense research center, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had hoped to locate at the University of California, Davis, was not included in the federal budget after negotiations were completed between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The Senate version of the federal budget had allocated $1 million for the proposed center, which was to be a cooperative research effort with UC Davis' Western Institute for Food Safety and Security. It would have been the first FDA food safety center to address the food safety needs specific to California and the Western United States. Three other FDA food safety research centers currently are located in Maryland, Illinois and Mississippi.

The center would have focused its immediate research efforts on pre-harvest food safety and security, seafood safety, point-source contamination within food systems, and border security.

The initial $1 million would have enabled the Food and Drug Administration to establish collaborative research programs among its three existing food safety laboratories and the new center, as well as identify collaborators to join the UC Davis center.