Diana DeGette

Today, the Subcommittee continues to focus on its top priority: aggressively exploring how to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end.

We all want an end to COVID-19 in our classrooms and in our communities, and I will work with the ranking member to make sure that's exactly what we do.

Frankly, that approval cannot come soon enough.

Experts agree the best place for children is in the classroom--but only if steps are taken to make schools a safe place.

Curbing COVID-19 has been and, unfortunately, still remains this subcommittee's top priority until we bring the pandemic to an end.

Now, last week I introduced the BENEFIT Act. It is legislation to ensure that patient experience and patient-focused drug development data can be considered as part of FDA's benefit/risk framework for drug approval.

We have to find new ways for us to all get to know each other on a personal basis.

I feel really strongly about this.

I am working very closely with my ranking member, Morgan Griffith, and we have decided that we are going to try to work together as much as we can for bipartisanship.

Maybe we should do more all-Member events.

We want to try to pass this bill this year----

Here is what we did. We asked everybody that we met with to submit their ideas.

I think it is important that we are here, but we ought to also take advantage of the technology stuff.

That might have been the hardest part of it.

There is nothing more satisfying than, believe you me, than standing next to the President while he signs your bill that is going to help fix biomedical research that will help millions of patients.

It does diminish the time you can actually work on substantive legislation.

I agree with Fred. It is important to be here and that is how you get a lot done, but I think you have to balance that against people's need to be with their families in their districts.

If it only does this and this, then we are going consider this to be a failure.

You really do have to incentivize bipartisanship.

We had an agreement that we wouldn't move a bill forward that had provisions that we couldn't agree on.

I think during the orientation, there should be many more--I don't--I don't know if some of--maybe some of the newer Members could say, but when I went through orientation in 1997, many of the orientation events were bipartisan events.

We really actually wanted to restructure the way we do biomedical research at the NIH, drug and device approval at the FDA.

I really try to do all of my legislation on a bipartisan basis, if I can.

But Mr. Reiner has a good suggestion, though, which is to tie it to government grants.

We simply cannot leave victim organizations on their own when figuring out how to defend against and respond to these cyber criminals.