Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. While I am glad to see the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill on the floor, this is the first time it has been considered with amendments since the 2010 appropriations cycle. But even with that, I cannot support the underlying bill.

I will be blunt. This process is a sham. The combined omnibus would violate the Budget Control Act caps. It triggers a sequester of $72 billion from the Department of Defense. I am troubled to see the Labor- HHS bill, once again, bearing the brunt of Republican budget cuts.

The overall cuts to nondefense discretionary spending is $8 billion, and the Labor-HHS bill is cut by more than $5 billion. This cut, by the way, is completely unnecessary because the allocations that we approved are approximately $5 billion below what they have said we need for nondefense spending, which is allowed under the Budget Control Act. We have the resources available, yet the majority refuses to allocate them to the essential programs funded through this bill.

I will also note that when adjusting for inflation, the Labor-HHS bill is approximately $30 billion below what it was in 2010.

Instead of moving this bill, we ought to be negotiating a bipartisan budget deal to lift the sequestration caps on both defense and nondefense programs, then we could begin working on a bipartisan basis to draft a reasonable Labor-HHS bill that adequately funds the programs that support the middle class.

The biggest economic challenge of our time is that too many people are in jobs that just don't pay them enough to live on. The programs in this bill provide opportunities for hardworking Americans to improve themselves and for our economy to grow. We need a country that works for the middle class and the vulnerable, not just the wealthy and those with the most lobbyists.

Right now, we grow jobs, but not incomes. The Federal Government has long played a key role in helping American workers learn and grow through workforce development and connecting businesses with talent.

But the programs that help grow our economy, educate our students, and protect our women and seniors cannot operate if the Labor-HHS bill is starved for funding, which is why I oppose the underlying bill.

I admit that there are a few bright spots. I strongly support the increases for NIH research, emergency preparedness, special education, and the TRIO and GEAR UP programs. Unfortunately, the modest increases in this bill are far outweighed by decimating cuts to programs that ought to be seeing increases.

This bill fails our students and is fundamentally anti-teacher. It fails to make new investments in Title I. It eliminates $2 billion for supporting effective instruction grants--what that is is teacher training.

This bill's approach to women's health pushes a dangerous and harmful ideological agenda and eliminates funding for Title X Family Planning. It also eliminates the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, and it includes ideological riders that would block funding for Planned Parenthood and effectively block lifesaving research that use stem cells from fetal tissue.

The bill cuts access to the Mental Health Block Grant and the Substance Abuse Prevention Program. It cuts nurse training, tobacco prevention, and it completely eliminates the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative.

It hurts workers by eliminating the Employment Service, which helped nearly 6 million unemployed workers, including veterans, find jobs in 2015. It eliminates grants expanding the highly effective Registered Apprenticeship model that connects jobseekers with good-paying jobs that employers are desperate to fill. It also cuts funding for other job training programs like Job Corps and the Dislocated Workers Program.

Why would we eliminate programs that for so long have been about economic opportunity and a ladder to the middle class? There are the riders, which I mentioned. This bill blocks funding for the Affordable Care Act. It continues to prohibit funding for gun violence prevention, which has had a chilling effect on gun violence research.

Finally, it prohibits the Department of Labor from ensuring that financial advisers act in the best interests of their clients. This week we expect to see several more harmful riders added to the bill.

At full committee markup, we proposed more than 40 amendments to strengthen and improve this bill, but the majority rejected all of them.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this minibus because the funding in this bill fails to meet our country's needs, and it breaks our promises to women, to seniors, to students, and to our workforce.

While I am strongly opposed to this bill, I do want to thank the committee staff--majority and minority--the ranking member; the chair of the committee; and the chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Cole.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment because it undermines the Drug Quality and Security Act, which we passed here in 2013 to protect patients from contaminated compounded medications, which are drugs that are tailored to the specific needs of an individual patient.

By the way, there is bipartisan opposition to the Carter amendment: myself, Congressman Fred Upton, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, and Congressman Mike Bishop. This is bipartisan opposition.

Let me be clear. The intent of the law was not to go after local compounding pharmacies but, rather, the larger compounding pharmacies who act as big drug companies. Traditional pharmaceutical companies that make vast quantities of drugs are held to robust safety standards.

If these large compounding pharmacies intend to manufacture large quantities of drugs like a traditional pharmaceutical company and ship them across State lines, then they should be held to a similar safety standard.

This amendment would change the law and put patients at risk. Some people can potentially die. This is not hyperbole, given that a meningitis outbreak in 2012 was caused by unsafe compounded drugs. That was less than 5 years ago. I am astonished that we would entertain further undermining of the law. The meningitis outbreak associated with the New England Compound Center in 2012 led to 64 deaths and more than 750 illnesses across State lines.

There are inherent risks with compounding medications, and particularly with compounded medications shipped across State lines.

That is why, in fact, we passed the Drug Quality and Security Act. By prohibiting the FDA from implementing this law, this amendment exposes patients to a potentially life-threatening catastrophe.

Again, as we saw in 2012, this amendment also takes away incentives for pharmacies to register as an outsourcing facility and gives these facilities no reason to raise their quality and safety standards and to submit to the FDA for inspection. We owe it to the American people to not put their health and their safety at risk. Sixty-four people died.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, why are we afraid of safety standards? The safety concerns with this amendment are also exacerbated by the fact that many States do not exercise appropriate oversight over compounding pharmacies.

A recent study revealed that nearly half of all States surveyed do not track the number of pharmacies that perform the sterile compounding in their State. They make proactive State oversight impossible.

Do we really want to allow these facilities to go unchecked? That is exactly what this amendment allows.

The FDA is a regulatory agency. It needs the ability to regulate large-scale shipment of compounded drugs across State lines, especially in certain States that have minimal, if any, safeguards for drugs compounded in pharmacies.

I was concerned that this law was weak to begin with, and this amendment would further weaken and threaten the safety of patients.

Sixty-four people died, 22 of them in Michigan. We should ensure that any legislation passed by this body is not weakened. The safety of American children and our families and our kids are at stake.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. This is not a road, a bridge, a helicopter, or anything else. This is people's lives.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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