Joe Barton

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to appreciate you and Chairman Walden honoring your word at the markup where this bill was not marked up, but you promised to hold this hearing.

Part 2 regulations provide stronger protections for substance use disorder treatment records than do most other Federal and State health privacy laws.

But Part 2 provides stronger protections for individuals. Most Federal laws don't.

I am opposed to just unilaterally overriding the individual's right to privacy by requiring written consent.

Clean air to breathe and safe water to drink is not a privilege only for the rich and powerful but a right for everyone.

I think it enhances transparency and the confidence of the American people as we do rulemaking.

If you can't debate the policies in Washington, you attack the personality and that is what is happening to you.

If it is actually accepted, we will actually get to see what the science is behind the support for the regulation.

You got picked to be the EPA Administrator because of the service you provided for the great State of Oklahoma in fighting some of the Obama administration radical clean air policies.

You recommended and I support the recommendation that you made to the President that we withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement.

So do you deny now that fine particle pollution has these health impacts, and will these new regulations cause your Agency to disregard these sentinel studies?

Revealing that info is a clear ethical violation of any reputable research institutional review board in the United States.

I think it is an excellent idea and it is long overdue.

Administrator Pruitt's ethical violations as the head of an Agency with a mission to protect the public's health demonstrate a concerning lack of integrity.

Mr. Administrator, you're not the first person to be the victim for lack of a better term, Washington politics.

Nobody can say ethanol is a struggling startup industry anymore. So you don't really need all the protection, the mandates, the quotas that we have today.

I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Speaker, almost 34 years ago, in January 1995, I stood right over there, held up my right hand with my 2-year-old daughter, Kristin, took an oath to defend this country and this…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am here under protest. I don't do getaway hearings, and I darned sure don't do hearings that start at 9 in the morning.

If I were still chairman, I would be in a wrestling match with Chairman Shimkus because I would be repealing the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Facebook does tremendous good. ... That is a success story in anybody's book.

Is there any reason that we couldn't have just a no-data-sharing policy period until you are 18?

People need to know that you are here voluntarily. You are not here because you have been subpoenaed, so we appreciate that.

It is such an integral part of certainly young Americans' lives that you need to work with Congress and the community to ensure that it is a neutral, safe, and, to the largest extent possible, private platform.

According to the latest numbers that this committee staff has, 115 people a day are dying of opioid overdoses.