Jim Sensenbrenner: “I support her amendment. The reason this amendment is before us today on the floor is the same reason why the previous…”

“I support her amendment. The reason this amendment is before us today on the floor is the same reason why the previous amendment was before us, and, that is that the NIH is not under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Science. Had we added this money in during the Committee on Science consideration of the bill, it would have delayed the bill's consideration through a sequential referral to the Committee on Commerce. What the gentlewoman from Maryland is doing is closing an important hole in this bill, and I am happy to note that the chairman, the members, and the staff of the Committee on Commerce support her efforts in doing so. So this has been worked out without any brouhaha over committee jurisdiction. This makes a good bill better; and it gets the NIH into developing better information technologies, to develop better ways of making sick people better and preventing them from getting sick in the first place.”