I think about 80 to 85 percent of what the previous administration wanted to accomplish could have been accomplished if they hadn't done sloppy legal work.

I appreciate all of the work that Chairman Burgess has done on this issue. It is important that he has highlighted it and made it one of the priorities of our committee--not only our subcommittee, but our full committee. Earlier this…

I have a bill and it's been so frustrating that Senator Tim Kaine and I--we don't generally agree on a lot of things--we both have bills in.

But the RFS I considered was a failure, because here we are 13 years later.

I would like to reform the RFS, but I am not so sure this is the way it needs to be reformed.

I was on the committee in 2005, and I want to thank our former chairman, Joe Barton, who was here a minute ago.

I share the privacy concerns that you have heard from a lot of us.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate you being here this afternoon.

If more physicians and pharmacists were checking the PDMP, would you expect the number of opioid prescriptions to decrease? I would.

I think we do need to discuss it, because one of the things that it also says is is that if there is a patient in hospice or palliative care, they would be exempt from the requirement to consult the PDMP.

Wouldn't you agree that this evidence demonstrates the critical role of the PDMPs in addressing the opioid epidemic, saving both lives and dollars?

I was excited to hear that you were excited about that and passionate about it.

I have heard people say that they don't want to support a bill that makes things worse. We have people who are terminal, whose life expectancy is measured in months, not in decades, and how do you make things worse? I said last week, and I…

the problems would be very similar. It would be reasonable to make that conclusion, would it not?

That is a pretty cheap fix for a serious problem.

we are trying to figure out what is both right for the patient and right for society as a whole.

the PDMP discussion draft from Representative Griffith and Ranking Member Pallone would incentivize States to continue to improve their PDMPs

Rep. Griffith's bill would realign PDMPs under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to coordinate efforts that will improve data collection and integration into physician workflow.

I would love to know if we can get everybody on the same page.

I think I can speak for the whole committee to say this needs to stop, it needs to stop now, and we need to figure out how we are going to protect our constituents and our citizens.

It would take some time for the DEA field to find a medical expert, wouldn't you agree?

I thank Chairman Walden for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I have heard people say that this bill gives folks a false hope. There is no false hope. They know it is a Hail Mary pass. They know it is unlikely to succeed, but they are willing to make…

I recognize it's not necessarily your field, but it's something we might want to look at at some point.

I represent the part of Virginia that has Virginia Tech, where a lot of research is being done.

So I can tell Paster Jones that you all are not against it?