Supporting the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration Act
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about S. 1662, the Supporting the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration Act. The companion version of this bill, H.R. 3743, was led by Energy and Commerce Committee colleagues Representatives Hudson and Eshoo and passed the House in December.
Unleashing biomedical innovation in the United States is critical in saving lives and maintaining our global competitiveness. We saw how important it was to invest in creating new treatments during the COVID- 19 pandemic, and we need to carry that momentum into the future.
S. 1662 authorizes increased transfer authorities from the FDA and NIH to the Reagan-Udall Foundation and the Foundation for NIH, respectively. Allowing FDA and NIH to transfer additional resources to these public-private partnerships will give the Reagan-Udall Foundation and the Foundation for the NIH more flexibility to meet the growing research demands and accelerate future medical innovations.
And I close with this: I was in Brussels last week. I am on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I was with our allies as everything took place that we all saw in Europe.
This is the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have done some wonderful work on these bills, and they are important. But I will tell you, as I just talked about innovation and world leadership, it reminded me of this. We were energy independent a couple of years ago, and I will tell you, people in my part of the country, and I am sure all over the country, are struggling with what they are paying for gas. But I will tell you this: I was with our European allies, and they are terrified about what this is going to do to the oil markets.
What we are doing now is just not sanctioning the Russian oil because we are all terrified of that. So hopefully, the Energy and Commerce Committee will have the opportunity to look at the policies, why we are no longer energy independent and how we can move forward.
I saw the President's Press Secretary, Ms. Psaki, talking on an interview show yesterday. They asked her was the President going to do something to relieve fossil fuels, and her answer was, well, this just shows why we shouldn't be dependent on fossil fuels. Well, the answer is this is why we shouldn't be dependent on foreign fossil fuels when we have them available to ourselves. Of course, the interviewer didn't ask the following question: Well, maybe that is the case, but what are we going to do in the next weeks, months, and through the summertime?
We all know, because we see it on the television, that it is a dire situation. But when you look them in the eyes and you see it in their faces--the Ukrainians were eligible to come to this meeting, but obviously, they weren't there. We did have Zoom meetings with them. But we looked at our European allies, and it is a tough situation.
We can make it better. We can make it better for ourselves. We can make it better for them. I think it is the right thing to do.
So, hopefully, we will have the opportunity to move forward. But the bills that we are talking about today in my subcommittee are important, and I recommend this bill be passed, as well.
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