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: Women Government Operations Reproduction

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this
resolution.
As a member of the Benghazi panel, I think what we have learned from
the Benghazi panel is that this House majority is not to be trusted
when it comes to forming special investigatory panels. Basically, they
form them for purely partisan reasons, as Representative McCarthy
admitted just last week.

The second point here is one that has been made repeatedly. There is
no evidence whatsoever that Planned Parenthood has violated the law.
So what exactly is it exactly that we are investigating? Even the
chairman of the House Committee on Oversight has admitted there is no
evidence that Planned Parenthood has violated the law.

Third, there is a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In fact, just about every committee in Congress has an oversight
function.

So why don't we use that instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on
something like the Benghazi Committee, which is admittedly breaking all
kind of records in terms of wasting taxpayer dollars? But we don't need
to pile on with another wasteful committee.

If you want to investigate this, do it through the Oversight and
Government Reform Committee. Do it through the existing committees.

Lastly, it is incredibly important to point out that Planned
Parenthood performs enormously important services to women in this
country. They provide much-needed health care to poor women and much-
needed family planning to poor women.

You should have a family when you want a family. If you are not
prepared to take care of children, then family planning makes an
enormous amount of sense. In fact, what it does is it prevents
abortions. It stops women from getting pregnant when they are not ready
to have children. It goes after precisely the issue that the majority
is most concerned about, to prevent abortions.
Planned Parenthood deserves our support, not another wasteful,
taxpayer-funded, partisan investigation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward