Frank Pallone: “I heard my colleague on the Republican side talk about the reduction in the number of pages in the bill. What I want to…”

“I heard my colleague on the Republican side talk about the reduction in the number of pages in the bill. What I want to point out is by reducing the number of pages, which is not the issue, they reduced the help for the American people that is in this bill. That is what the Republicans have done. At the beginning of the week, we had a bipartisan bill that provided critical relief for the American people. From my perspective on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, what we have done over the last year was hear from our constituents. We had hearings to hear about what was necessary to lower costs, to provide relief for people that, as you know, feel very strongly that prices are too high, that there are all kinds of problems with corporate interests and websites that are not protecting their interests, not protecting their privacy, and soliciting all kinds of things with misinformation. We are the committee that deals primarily with healthcare, with consumer protection, with environmental concern. What we did is worked on a bipartisan basis to put together in this legislation proposals that would really make a difference from what we heard from our constituents around the country. {time} 1715 Now, that is what has been taken out of this bill, and it has been taken out because one man, a billionaire, decided to tell my Republican colleagues that he did not want this bill.…”