i'm joined by chairman fred upton, frank pallone, mr. dingell, and the former chairman joe barton and all other committee members who are here. we celebrated the 222nd anniversary of this committee last december. 222 years ago. think about that. the nation was just a few years old and so was john dingell. [laughter] that is why we call him the dean. you know i am just kidding, john, but we love your tweets. do you love the chairman's tweets? [applause] today is the oldest standing legislative committee in the united states congress with the broadest and best jurisdiction. we are part of the legacy that touches the lives of every single american. i say that based on what we are part of when you think about medical research, innovation and technology, we touch every person in the world. it is easy to become jaded or to shrug off the work that we do, but tonight i hope you will take a few moments to appreciate the amazing opportunity we have to serve. 20 years ago, we gathered in this very changer when newt gingrich hosted a dinner for the

fredso pleased to see our -- friend fred upton. and don't believe everything that pallone tells you. do understand that he has a story to tell. he is a good member. i am pleased to see you. i am particularly delighted to see the lovely deborah. wonderful picture from -- a picture committee room. frank, we say thank you for what you have done. observe theair to what we have here is a recognition of the modest jurisdictions. [laughter] [applause] i also see our delegations from the committee. if they tried they will probably be able to make it on to the commerce committee in good time. [laughter] i went to state the particular pleasure i have in seeing joe barton. joe is an honorable man with whom i worked for a long time. >> [inaudible] dingell: you learned well. [laughter] i see my other colleagues and i would like to acknowledge them all, including that fellow over there who was a member of the black panthers. lord put himhe together, he forgot to put in a nerve that would deal with fear. our buddy jake green. i see one of our col

under the leadership of fred upton and ms. degette and others we streamlined these programs. we prioritized access to evidence-based programs and best access to make them available to providers across the nation, granted states additional flexibility and mental health block grants to address needs of the patient population and increased oversight, transparency and accountability for these programs. there's been important progress in boosting resources for suicide prevention. too many of us have friends who lost loved ones to suicide. my dear friend and colleague, senator gordon smith from oregon, tragically lost his son garrett lee smith to suicide one day before his son's 22nd birthday. worked hard with senator smith to authorize the original garrett lee smith memorial act which provides information and training for suicide prevention and i was proud to see this important program reauthorized in cures. in a march funding bill which is now law, congress provided critical funding for nearly 30 sections of the provisions within cures and these programs include the national chil

we travel to japan together every year and for fred upton on this 21st century cures. they did yeoman's work. i want to give a shout-out to them. my daughter was diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma. and she's three years past the chemo. i want to thank everyone. dr. sharpless, we were happy to support the cancer moonshot finding the cures and are looking forward to hearing about progress for patients. can you tell us about the most exciting thing that is being supported in the cancer moonshot? >> well, that's really tough. i think this is a very meaningful bill, law for patients with cancer. i think it's impacting many many ways -- we talked about the response. maybe i'll talk about the rare tumor initiative which is an exciting initiative. we mentioned rare diseases. many rare cancers are hard to study for some of the reasons that came up. they're rare and hard to do clinical trials. we can have them come to the nci and this works and the moonshot is trying to build on that experience. for example, in a scanner is drug, different mew substitutions in ras, they generally

. >>> please welcome congressman, fred upton. [ applause ] >> uc berkeley, october 22, 1966.are content with today, apathetic toward common problems in their fellow man alike. timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and projects. rather, it is will that belongs to those who can blend, patch, and reason, encourage, and a personal commitment to the ideology and great enterprises of american society. it will belong to those that see that wisdom can only emerge from the clash of contending views. the passionate expression of deep and hostile beliefs. plato said, a life without criticism is not worth living. this is the spirit of american democracy. it is the spirit which can be found among many of you. it is this, which is the hope of our nation. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome country music legend, kenny chesney. thank you. the song was written by guthrie. and it is a promise of everything that is good that our country has to offer all of us. in the last year, i've gotten to know ethel, and gotten to know several of bobby and ethel's children, and their children's chi

this is fred upton who has long advocated for the yucca dump. hr 3053 passed the house on may 10th. it is now over on the senate side. it would increase the allowable amount to be buried at yucca would gut the licensing proceeding is nonconsent based in violation of the blue ribbon commission's final report and is adamantly opposed by the environmental movement of the united states. it's ironic that upton supports these ideas because barge shipments on lake michigan could put at risk the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream. in two countries and a large number of native american first nations, if just one of them goes down and leaks. again, the irony for the congressman is that thousands of shipments of high level waste from other states would pass through illinois including on the south and west sides of chicago, bound for the west. on the senate side, you've got senate energy and water appropriations alexander and feinstein that are more interested in centralized interim storage it is fair to say and the irony of that is what would that mean if san onofre's waste

especially my friend fred upton who really worked with us every day. a work product of the entire committed this the committee it shows the efforts in the community and what we can do to tackle this serious problem. mister chairman i would like to thank you for having this hearing. it's about a year and a half since the deal has been signed. it's almost exact the two years since we originally passed this community. we need to make sure everything we intended to do is happening and if the agency needs modifications or changes for additional resources, that we can give this all of our consideration and the only way to do this is to have hearings like this. i would like to say, i have lately been concerned, i've been reading some media accounts that say some of the money may be programmed for other purposes including issues for the kids of the board and you know, we should be able to sign the money to do that without taking -- find money to do that without taking money from important research. but i hope this is not the case and it this is, hope that the

kelly, when did i send the letter to bay, me and fred upton. i want to say it was 15. , 2015 in november. back then i said we've got to have, you, the commission has to have a focus on what's happening with resilience, reliability of the grid and i asked a series of questions, ultimately what happened, there is a technical conference the year end half later. i have been frustrated because i think you have a commission who is tasked with really, not only handling the oversight, the regulatory aspect of our energy generation and our power generation, but we also asked them to be picking up on those signals, though shifts into not get left behind in time, and i think this is where we kind of are now. the commissioner use the word a tectonic shift. in an earthquake you can't necessarily predict that but we are getting a whole lot better with our ability to understand that you've got two plates that are kind of coming like this, you can kinda predict that you can have to be doing something soon. i've been frustrated that the fpr k hasn't been workin