Although both parties have urged a bipartisan response to the recent fungal meningitis outbreak, House Democrats pushed for legislation Wednesday that clarifies the Food and Drug Administration’s authority over compounding pharmacies, while Republicans expressed skepticism that a gap currently exists.

At a House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee hearing, Henry A. Waxman, the top Democrat on the full panel, said Congress should move “to correct the law” on a bipartisan basis before lawmakers head home at the end of the year. The often-heated hearing focused on whether the outbreak, which has been linked to a contaminated injectable steroid produced by a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy, could have been prevented.

“We’re going to be held responsible as members of Congress to make sure the law is clear and that the agency has the ability and resources to do the job that everybody expects you should have done,” Waxman, D.-Calif., told FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg. “And we want to make sure that you’re able to do it.”

Hamburg said her agency has “ambiguous, fragmented, unclear and contested authorities” over compounding pharmacies, noting that they are exempt from key parts of FDA law and that a “disconnect” exists between legal requirements across the country.

“I think there’s an enormous lack of clarity, and I think we should seize this opportunity to address it,” she said.