Tribal Power Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank my friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin), for bringing this legislation, the Tribal Power Act. It is an important piece of legislation to help those Tribal communities. He does, as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) said, provide great leadership for Tribal issues, and this is surely one I am sure we will work with.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Pallone, for bringing this as well.
Now, with my time, Mr. Speaker, and you may want to cut it short if this turns into a roast, my friend from Oregon is, as Mr. Mullin said, departing at the end of this Congress.
I am not sure why you would want to leave after 22 years in Congress, but you have surely earned the right.
I got to know Mr. Walden when I was a freshman coming onto the Energy and Commerce Committee back in 2009 in my first year in Congress.
When you look at the dais now, it has surely changed a lot, but back in those days, I would offer, of my own good will, to make coffee for Mr. Walden. He was one of those senior members of the committee-- probably more of a junior member, but I was the most junior member. But we actually developed a really good friendship.
As we do around here, we all battle it out on issues. We come up here to fight for the things that are important to our districts, important to the country from our perspective, and then you find people along the way you befriend who have that same perspective, and Mr. Walden has been one of those. I have learned a lot from him.
We have really, I think, achieved so many things on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and especially during his time as chairman.
I just want to mention a few of those areas where he has made this a better country, because we can all talk about the things that we want to do when we come up here and you would like to work with others, but then to be able to look back and see real, tangible achievements that make this a better country, it really does pay tribute that your time here was well spent. And for Mr. Walden, it surely was, and, you know, maybe none more obvious than what we just saw yesterday.
President Trump had a summit to talk about the rollout of a vaccine for COVID-19, a vaccine that came through work that we did in this Congress and the CARES Act to give money to the administration so that they could focus on finding a vaccine, but then it takes the ability, the tools.
The FDA is the gold standard in the world. The FDA has had problems over the years, and this committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, has had to come together to address some of those problems so that FDA can continue to be the gold standard that not only ensures that the trials go through the proper process, because you don't want a drug to come to market that has adverse consequences, but you also don't want government to get in the way and slow down the ability for a drug that will save lives to go through years and years of bureaucracy, and that had been going on.
When we were able to pass the bill to modernize FDA approval of drugs a few years ago when Mr. Walden was chairman, some of those reforms actually are what got us to the brink of an FDA-approved vaccine for COVID-19, and that will save millions of lives in America and around the world. You have seen people like the 90-year-old woman in Great Britain who is the first person to get the vaccine. That is from the work of what we did here at the FDA.
FDA is on the verge of approving that vaccine in America, and it will also, in addition to saving lives, allow us to reopen our economy fully, and I think that is another objective we all have.
That doesn't happen by accident. It happened because of leadership.
Again, without your leadership in reforming the FDA, we may be waiting years, not months, to get that vaccine to market.
We had the SUPPORT Act to address the opioid crisis in this country. Every community in America had been touched by the opioid crisis, and Congress had to take action. Again, working, Republicans and Democrats together, under your leadership as chairman, we did just that, and there are millions of lives that are saved because of that work.
The FCC modernization and reauthorization, which typically happens, but when it was done in 2018, it was named after Ray Baum, who was the staffer who ran the Energy and Commerce Committee. I believe you all served together in the legislature. Unfortunately, we lost him, and to name that important piece of legislation after Ray Baum, I know, was not only important to keep the FCC going, but also to pay tribute to someone who came up here to do good public service for the country and did.
Finally, the reauthorization was to free up spectrum. This has been a challenge for years as we worked to get more spectrum, which has improved everybody's lives, to get to a 5G network.
That work was done, and the leadership of Chairman Walden to get that done when even the scorekeepers here said it wouldn't really produce anything for the country, well, billions and billions of dollars later that this country has to pay down our debt came out of that legislation, as well as spectrum to allow us to get to a 5G network, spectrum to allow us to build up more rural broadband.
All of the things that improve people's quality of life happened because of the leadership of Chairman Walden, during your time as chairman of the committee. You have earned the opportunity to go and enjoy the next phase of your life.
But while you will be missed here, you leave a great legacy where you can point to the things you have done that make America a greater country, and for that, I thank you. I know all of us join in in applauding your time here in this great institution.
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