Michael Bennet: “I came to the floor tonight to talk about the FDA reauthorization bill that is before the Senate. I was sorry we could…”

“I came to the floor tonight to talk about the FDA reauthorization bill that is before the Senate. I was sorry we could not get it to a vote today. I am hopeful that tomorrow we will be able to because from my perspective, as someone who has only been here for a few years, the process, the committee process that led to the creation of this bill, is a model for how this town ought to be working. The conversation we have had for so many months and even years has felt decoupled from the conversations I have been having in my townhall meetings and across the country about the challenges we need to address. This gap has been miles apart. But in this piece of legislation, I think we have actually found something responsive to patients, responsive to consumers, and responsive to the bioscience industry that is so important to my State and so many States across the country. Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Enzi deserve enormous credit for running an excellent process that has enabled this Senator and others on the committee to be responsive to what our constituents say they want, which is a modern FDA with improved patient safety and innovation. We have also had committee members who were interested in rolling up their sleeves and doing hard work together irrespective of which party they were in. We have been able to work through a markup with virtually no partisanship.…”