Sheldon Whitehouse

I associate myself with the questions and concerns of FDA's role in the opioid epidemic.

I do think to what you said very clearly before about not impugning the integrity of the FDA.

The other concern is that there are drugs--and opioids are an obvious example of this--where the issue of them being taken--safe when taken as directed doesn't really address the public health problem related to them because of the danger…

I worry that having the prescription drug industry fund through PDUFA and the medical device industry fund through MDUFA and nobody having a vested interest in the combined products could lead to a loss of interest in moving the combined…

For the Senate to act in a responsible way based on the appropriations that were passed last year and move through April without the drama of a government shutdown would be an important thing for us to achieve.

The value of U.S. taxpayer expenditures at the National Institutes of Health for medical research is very great and should not be cut.

I hope that the Committee will take into sincere consideration the home State concerns of Senator Harris and Senator Gillibrand.

We need to support it. We need to be a part of the innovation and leadership around the world on developing nuclear power.

No concessions are implied with respect to climate change on this, Mr. Chairman, but it will help.

We have been at loggerheads and have done nothing about it for years and years and years and years and years now.

At least speaking for Rhode Island, we are now calculating if that mess were to pass into law, we would lose $30 million in Medicaid.

This thing is coming out of the House at us. It looks like it is a complete mess.

If it does, I would like to recommend that we follow the model that you led, that I thought was extremely successful on the Elementary and Secondary Education bill.

The actual operation of getting Judge Gorsuch before us has been special interest, dark money politics.

I think Judge Gorsuch's dissent is Exhibit A for why we should have Chevron deference.

It was confusing, inaccurate, and had the effect of misleading those who were not knowledgeable about the program.

Stick with it because it is going away unless the judiciary breathes a little bit of life into it.

I was elected to the Senate in 2006. I was sworn in in 2007.

I think that he has handled these hearings in a very gracious way.

Tellingly, big special interests and their front groups are spending millions of dollars in a dark money campaign to push your confirmation.

I think these 5-to-4 decisions are a problem.

Once you let certain political interests achieve the kind of dominance that Citizens United has let them get, they can start to exert disproportionate control over Congress.

Congress can rewrite these laws. Congress can demand disclosure.

And public confidence has crashed in government since that decision.

As to transparency, this whole dark money problem belies their assumption of transparency.