Programs to Prevent, Detect, and Treat Traumatic Brain Injuries

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1493, my bill to reauthorize the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 1996.

This bipartisan legislation reauthorizes through fiscal year 2030 the critical Federal programs dedicated to the prevention, detection, treatment, and surveillance of traumatic brain injuries. It also renames the national TBI surveillance program to honor the legacy of my dear friend, the late Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr., of New Jersey, who founded and led the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force for more than two decades after meeting his constituent Dennis Benigno of Clifton, New Jersey, whose son suffered a life-changing traumatic brain injury in a car crash.

The Traumatic Brain Injury Act was signed into law in 1996. At that time, our understanding of these injuries was so limited that public health experts called TBI the silent epidemic, and we did not know how many Americans were affected each year, who was most at risk, or how many people were left with a permanent, life-altering disability.

That first law authorized Federal support and programs to research TBI research and conduct surveillance, both directly and through grants to public and nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Speaker, this initial Federal investment has transformed what we know now and identified what we still need to do. Because Congress chose to invest, we now know that traumatic brain injury sends more than 214,000 Americans to the hospital in a single year and that it takes roughly 69,000 lives annually, nearly 190 deaths every single day.

We know that more than 5.3 million Americans are living today with a lifelong disability caused by a brain injury, and we know who is most at risk: older adults who fall, servicemembers and veterans, athletes on playing fields across the country, victims of domestic violence, and far, far too many children. There is also the economic toll of treating, rehabilitating, and caring for these individuals throughout their lives.

Mr. Speaker, Congress' investment gave us the tools to act on what the data revealed, from concussion guidelines to protect young athletes to targeted prevention for the older Americans who are most likely to be hospitalized. None of that existed before the Federal partnership and Representative Pascrell's leadership. All of that is at risk if we continue to allow this work to lapse.

Since the program's inception in 1996, Congress has reauthorized this act on a bipartisan basis time and again. However, despite bipartisan efforts by our committee to continue reauthorizing these programs, the Federal authorization lapsed in 2024. Without reauthorization, research slows, surveillance weakens, and the support services that patients and families depend on are put in jeopardy. We cannot afford to lose momentum on an issue that touches veterans, athletes, survivors of violence, older adults, and countless other Americans in every one of our districts.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1493 renews three proven programs. First, it reauthorizes the CDC's TBI program, which drives our national research, surveillance, and prevention efforts. Second, it reauthorizes the Administration for Community Living's State partnership grant programs, which helps States, Tribal organizations, and their partners connect survivors to rehabilitation and community-based services. Third, it reauthorizes the State Protection and Advocacy program, which safeguards the rights of Americans living with brain injury.

This is a modest Federal investment with an extraordinary reach. Since 1997, 48 States, 2 territories, and the District of Columbia have used these partnership grants to build the very systems that their residents now rely on.

This bill does not simply extend those programs but strengthens them. It requires the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study and report to Congress on traumatic brain injury, and it directs the CDC to publish information on the populations at highest risk and on the strategies to protect them so that Congress and our public health officials can respond to the growing needs of these communities with better data and clear priorities.

Mr. Speaker, this is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that benefits all Americans. It advanced out of committee without a single dissenting vote. This bill supports research. It strengthens care, and it helps ensure that Americans living with traumatic brain injuries are not left behind.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill on a bipartisan basis, in part because of how important it is but in part also because it honors my friend Congressman Bill Pascrell.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source