Blake Farenthold: “I appreciate my colleague from Texas seeking to make this better, but I am going to have to oppose this amendment. It is…”

“I appreciate my colleague from Texas seeking to make this better, but I am going to have to oppose this amendment. It is confusing, unnecessary, and overly restrictive on agencies. This amendment would create a single definition of three different words: propaganda, publicity, and advocacy. Those are different words. Under this amendment, publicity, advocacy, and propaganda would mean making a statement not widely accepted by the scientific community. Are we going to create a test of two out of three dentists agree? It is going to be difficult to do. I mean, it could be anything. Is it propaganda for me to say I love my wife? I only know a couple of scientists, there is not going to be a broad, general consensus in the scientific community about that, but it is certainly not propaganda. It is a statement of my feeling. Publicity and propaganda and advocacy are different words. They don't mean the same thing, and they certainly don't have the definition my friend from Texas is suggesting. Check out the dictionary. You can do it on your smartphone. These definitions that are proposed in this amendment are unworkable. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.”