Chris Smith: “I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Goodlatte, for his enormous efforts and those of his staff to, out…”

“I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Goodlatte, for his enormous efforts and those of his staff to, out of an abundance of caution, address some of the issues that were raised by my friend from Texas. I don't think some of his concerns were included or at risk in the bill, but we clarified and made very clear about voluntary participation and the issue of noninvasiveness and nonpermanent, which is now clearly defined in the legislation. So it is an improvement. Mr. Goodlatte was the one who came up with that language. The language that deals with the collection, use, and retention of data is solely for the purpose of preventing injury or death to the patient. Mr. Speaker, in the year 2000, I cofounded two caucuses: the Autism Caucus and the Alzheimer's Caucus. I wrote three laws on autism, including the most recent Autism CARES Act, which not only provides $1.3 billion for autism and research at NIH, CDC, and HRSA, but also looks at the aging out issue. Law enforcement is not ready to deal with severely autistic children who, when you approach them, need a certain approach so that they don't react violently, especially if they have a sense of threat. As my good friend and colleague from Virginia, the distinguished chairman said, about 50 percent of autistic children wander. We know at least 100 children since 2011 have died. The bill is named after two of them who drowned.…”