Mike Doyle: “Mr. Speaker, in closing I just want to thank my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood)…”

“Mr. Speaker, in closing I just want to thank my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), who has really been one of the leaders in this Congress for the cause of autism, and my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). I think we all feel the same way. We do not want to take five steps forward and go 10 steps backward. We want to make sure that we fund and continue to fund the 10 existing centers as we put the five new ones online. This comes down to a matter of funding. We are blessed this year to be looking at surpluses in this budget. Surely, we want to make sure we are not robbing from Peter to pay Paul and that as we put these new centers online that we find the funding to do that, without taking any funding away from the research that needs to take place at the existing centers. Mr. Speaker, I hope we have a strong showing of votes in favor of this resolution for the 1.7 million individuals living with this disorder, of which 400,000 are children. In closing, I urge passage of House Concurrent Resolution 91, encourage my colleagues who have not yet joined the Coalition for Autism Research and Education Caucus to please do so.”