But the policy statement stopped short of threatening a veto should Congress approve the bill.

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A House panel on Wednesday advanced legislation along party lines to increase the tracking of prescription drugs.

The Safeguarding America's Pharmaceuticals Act of 2013 requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to propose new rules to keep consumers safe from counterfeit prescriptions, but stops short of forcing regulators to finalize those rules.

Three more chemical mixtures of synthetic marijuana will be outlawed as of Thursday, following the latest in a series of actions by the Justice Department to the drug’s use. 

The American Beverage Institute said lowering the limit for drivers to 0.05 would “criminalize perfectly responsible behavior.”

The Obama administration is taking steps to codify looser regulations on "smart pills" that transmit messages from inside a patient's stomach.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is formally classifying the miniature medical device in a way that relaxes the government's control over the technology. The device can be attached to pills and send time-stamped messages about how drugs are being ingested.

The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) issued new guidance Wednesday designed to cut down on exorbitant spending on annual conferences.

Two financial services companies based in the United Arab Emirates will be frozen out of the U.S. financial market for helping Iran to evade economic sanctions.

The Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on an exchange house and a trading company for ignoring sanctions on Iranian banks and helping them access foreign currency.

According to the department, the financial service companies conducted millions of dollars of transactions with the Iranian banks.

“As Iran’s access to the international banking sector comes under increasing pressure, we have seen it turn increasingly to exchange houses and trading companies in its attempts to evade international sanctions and maintain its access to foreign exchange,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen in a statement. 

A whole host of agencies and their advisory boards will hold public meetings in coming weeks. Here are the new announcements:

The board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation, which funds legal aid for low-income Americans, is holding a conference call on May 21 to discuss an upcoming report to Congress. 

A bunch of new regulations and guidances will come out in Thursday's Federal Register, covering everything from liquor to radioactive material. Here are the highlights:

Food and Drugs:
The Treasury Department is issuing standards requiring that only Peru- or Chile-manufactured pisco, a type of brandy, can be labeled as such in the United States.