Political Quotes

“Mr. President, after many months of bipartisan negotiation, the Senate will proceed this evening to vote on the motion to proceed to consideration of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012. I hope it will receive an overwhelming vote so we can move ahead with it and dispense with the bill on the floor this week. This bill is the product of excellent bipartisan collaboration on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee which I chair. All Senators on the committee have been involved. Going back almost a year, we set up working groups. Different Senators had different interests in different parts of the bill. They and their staffs on both sides were invited, Republican and Democrat, to be involved in those working groups to put this bill together. The bill passed overwhelmingly out of our committee--actually by voice vote, with only two reserving their ``no'' votes. So it had overwhelming support on both sides in our committee. This bill, of course, reauthorizes important FDA user fee agreements. It modernizes the FDA's medical product authority to help boost American innovation and ensure patients have access to the therapies they need. The backbone of this legislation is the user fee agreements that FDA has negotiated with industry.…”