OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Providing for Consideration of Establishing a Select Investigative Panel of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

Floor Speech

Date: Oct. 7, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Abortion

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her leadership on this issue.

She spoke a little bit earlier about the structure and the organization of the investigative panel, and I want to go back to that and help to make the point because sometimes I think, in our passion and the emotions as we talk about bills, we begin to attribute to legislation jurisdiction that may not be there.

This is a small bill. It is very explicit in how the energy of the investigative panel is going to be utilized. There are six items that they are being tasked to investigate.

Number 1, medical procedures and business practices used by entities involved in fetal tissue procurement. We know there are questions that surround this, whether it is a not-for-profit or a for-profit entity.

Number 2, any other matters with respect to fetal tissue procurement.

Number 3, Federal funding and support for abortion providers.

Number 4, the practices of providers of second- and third-trimester abortions, including partial-birth abortion procedures that may lead to a child born alive as a result of an attempted abortion.

Number 5, medical procedures for the care of a child born alive as a result of an attempted abortion.

And number 6 will be any changes in law or regulation necessary as a result of any of the findings which are there from the committee.

I want to clearly state this is about getting answers of how we treat and protect life in this country.

The select panel will act to centralize the investigations that are at the Energy and Commerce Committee, Judiciary and Oversight Committees, and bring it all under one umbrella.

Over the past several weeks, we have had lots of serious questions. They are troubling questions that have been asked. I think that the investigations we have had have raised a lot of those questions.

It is imperative that we centralize these operations and bring it together under one umbrella.

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