Marsha Blackburn: “I thank the chairman for the recognition, and I thank him for his efforts on this. Mr. Speaker, it really is a pleasure…”

“I thank the chairman for the recognition, and I thank him for his efforts on this. Mr. Speaker, it really is a pleasure to come here today to talk about the RAY BAUM'S Act. We have, for so long, talked about the need to push this through to completion, and Ray served as our staff director and really helped the committee and our subcommittee push this forward to the point that we could say: Yes, we have the FCC reauthorization done. As Mr. Pallone said, it has been 28 years since this agency has been reauthorized. It is certainly an honor to say we have done this in Ray's name, and we have done it in a bipartisan way. There are so many things that are included in this bill, and one of the provisions that is in here is Chairman Walden's FCC reform. Many times you will hear us talk about needing to bring sunlight to these agencies, bringing order, and the ability for constituents and citizens to know what is happening. We have that included in this bill. We also have provisions that our whip, Steve Scalise--the Consolidated Reporting Act--has included in this bill. We have provisions from Ms. Eshoo and from Representative Engel. These are all bipartisan provisions that you will see included in this legislation. Mr. Johnson has a provision that is included that will change the way the inspector general works in this agency so that he truly is an inspector general who is independent.…”