Tom Harkin: “I have high hopes that in the days immediately ahead the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the Food and Drug…”

“I have high hopes that in the days immediately ahead the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012. I am pleased to report to my colleagues that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has produced an excellent bill, the product of nearly a full year of bipartisan collaboration and good- faith negotiation. The bill reauthorizes critically important FDA user- fee agreements and systematically modernizes FDA's medical product authority to help boost American innovation and ensure that patients have access to the therapies they need. In this era of often extreme partisanship and legislative gridlock, this bill is truly a refreshing exception. That is why I am hopeful and confident that there will be no objection on the Senate floor to moving to this bill next week. Frankly, all of us on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee are proud not only of the bill but of the remarkable bipartisan process that produced it. I am especially grateful to the committee's ranking member, Senator Mike Enzi, for his own insistence on a bipartisan process, and for his leadership in moving this very complex legislation forward. This afternoon I will review the bipartisan process--at every step marked by openness and transparency--that produced this legislation.…”