Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, there is a host of things wrong with bringing this bill to the floor. By bringing forth the Senate version of this bill, it completely ignores all of the work this subcommittee has done over the past year. It ignores Members' priorities, and all of the testimony that we received that served as the basis of the House version of the Agriculture bill. I will name a few examples of what this looks like. First, for the Food and Drug Administration, Madam Speaker, the House bill included $3.1 billion for the FDA. The Senate bill before us today includes $2.9 billion. The additional $149 million in the original House bill supported a number of medical product initiatives above the level in the Senate bill, including initiatives like the promotion of domestic manufacturing, the new domestic drug industry, and the new medical data enterprise initiative. Madam Speaker, the higher levels in the Republican bill are critical to helping industry advance medical products to the marketplace sooner, safer, and with greater efficiency. The ultimate beneficiary is the American consumer or patient. Lastly, an issue that is very important to my home State of Mississippi and the Nation at large: rural broadband. The House Republican bill made a major investment in a broadband pilot program for rural America. We included $550 million to expand broadband infrastructure for some of our country's most underserved communities.…”