Dental Emergency Responder Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 570, the Dental Emergency Responder Act of 2011. This is a bill that we passed on the House floor last fall with strong bipartisan support.

The bill amends the Public Health Service Act to include dentists in the National Health Security Strategy, which is the strategy HHS develops to respond to a public health emergency.

The bill also expands health and medical response training programs to include dental facilities. The bill will also amend the Homeland Security Act to include dental personnel in the definition of ``emergency response providers'' and will amend the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 to require Federal response plans to include dental resources.

This bill will help shore up the Nation's preparedness for disasters, including natural disasters like hurricanes and manmade disasters like a terrorist attack.

I want to thank Representative Burgess and Representative Towns for their outstanding work on this issue and also acknowledge the advocacy of our former

colleague Representative Stupak, who worked so hard on this bill in the last Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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