House of Representatives

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of supporting the rule and the underlying legislation.

I want to begin by congratulating Chairman Upton and the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee on both sides of the aisle for crafting what is genuinely a bipartisan piece of legislation in a very divisive era and working it for years and bringing it to a successful conclusion. They have given all of us an opportunity to vote for something really, really important to every single American.
Now, a lot of focus will be put on the money aspect of this bill.

Certainly, $6-plus billion is a nice chunk of change and will be very, very gratefully received. But in that same multiple-year period, in 5 years, if we didn't increase appropriations by a dime, we would spend $160 billion dollars at NIH. And over a 10-year period, if we didn't increase annual appropriations by a dime, we would spend $320 billion.

So the real genius of the bill is not the money. It is actually the three things that have been mentioned by multiple speakers before me.

First is the regulatory reform that, at the FDA and at the NIH, will literally save billions of dollars and thousands of lives over the next decade.

Second is the opioid initiative. We all know the crisis. It touches all of our districts. To direct money there and then to build on that through the appropriations process is extraordinarily important, and I congratulate the Energy and Commerce Committee for taking a lead here.

Finally, the mental health legislation that is wound up in this that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) provided is just absolutely spectacular in terms of its long-term importance.

We can all disagree about this or that or some technicality in the rule. The reality is this is important legislation. If it doesn't pass now, it won't pass and we will be missing an opportunity.

So I want to urge my friends on both sides of the aisle--I don't expect my friends to vote for the rule. They shouldn't. They never do.

I wouldn't if I were in the minority. But I hope they will vote for the underlying legislation because that legislation is worthy of passage.

It is a bipartisan compromise, and it will improve the life of every single American.

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