senator merkley, the ranking member is in route and his proxy, at least describe itself as senator merkley'sproxy is here and will begin. i will give my opening statement and perhaps by then senator merkley will be and then will go to testimony and the senator from montana has a scheduling issue and will try to get him very quickly. we are pleased to have with us today and i think dr. janet woodcock for joining us. she is at the fda center for drug evaluation and research, and their mission, that agency's mission is to make certain that the public has access to safe and effective drugs. earlier this summer, kansans and american families discovered that, particularly those families that have allergies, their children have allergies, they have allergies that interface with a dramatic increase in the cost of epinephrine injectors, or epipens. and in my view, that raises issues for us as appropriators for the food and drug administration in this sense. the food and drug administration doesn't have jurisdiction over the cost or price of drugs. they are not regulated in that regard but their role

>> thank you, senator moran and merkley. dr. it seems like every few months we hear about another pharmaceutical company raising the cost of a drug or device to a new ast nom cal price. the epipen is the most recent to draw attention. the epipen is so expensive families in my home state of new mexico are struggling to afford it. their doctors say they must carry it in the event of an allergic reaction. mylan, the manufacture increased the price by over 480% since 2009. i have received messages from my constituents in new mexico who are directly impacted. i have heard from worried parents across the state. one of them, like a woman named paige from truth or consequences, new mexico, her daughter has a severe peanut and nut allergy. paige wrote to me about her families struggles to pay for the medication. she had to change jobs to get insurance that would help cover the cost. change jobs in order to get the medication for her child. i'm also worried about the impact the price increases will have on families who can no longer affor

merkley's questions. senator merkley's questions. you know, one of the things that we need to do is get a process for generics where we give advice to complicated generics before they come in and send in an application. that's what we negotiate under the prescription drug user fee act for the new drugs. and that's something that there's great interest in. and having a program so that for these complicated things, it isn't just a pill, we can interact with companies and give them advice and tell them what to do. so both this workload -- let's not call it a backload, but our large workload we have now, part of which is inherited from the things that are cycling multiple times, is on everyone's mind. and it's definitely part of our discussions is how to deal with that. >> can you report anything about the status of those negotiations, or is that beyond your -- >> i can say, with the industry, they've concluded, and, obviously, there are many other steps. we'd have to have a public meeting as described in a statute and, of course, we'll

us senators widen and merkley to a town hall in oregon every year, our governors do not as if elected, would you commit to doing an annual town hall meeting in oregon? >> absolutely. in medford i wasn't noticed because of a high profile candidate, i committed to spending three month out of every year in the rural communities living a week at a time, that is key to give the governor all of oregon, and participating in a range of events that you have a different feel and make government come alive. i think that is key. it gets people to have confidence in the government again, government officials have to get out of their hiding places and engage citizens in their place of life and work and lead to greater confidence in government. >> i will continue to reach out and be in all the communities throughout the state of oregon. i have been in the valley a number of times touring different facilities. we have a wonderful opportunity, governor and secretary of state and do town halls there, and the sustainability board, we came down twice, one of our meetings was held at the fabulous cheese f