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Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record.
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in strong support of S. 3199, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act. Last year, the House passed the companion measure to this bill, and we are pleased to pass it again with minor modifications.
Every year, more than 12,000 babies are born with hearing loss. Often their condition goes undetected for years, and many of these children end up experiencing delays in speech, language, and cognitive development. However, if the hearing loss is detected early, many of these delays can be mitigated or even prevented, and for that reason, early detection is critical to improving outcomes for these children.
The bill, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act, would improve services for screening, diagnosing, and treating hearing loss in children by reauthorizing the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program, which was first enacted in 2000. The program provides grants and cooperative agreements for statewide newborn and infant hearing services. These programs focus on screening evaluation, diagnosis, and early intervention.
I want to particularly thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from California, Representative Capps, who is the vice chair of the Health Subcommittee, for her hard work on this issue and so many issues. She is a nurse by profession. I am sure you have noticed that many of the health care bills that have come out of the last 4 years during the Democratic majority have been from Mrs. Capps, and she is always, in particular, looking out for children and senior citizens. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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I just wanted to address the gentleman's point with regard to the underlying bill containing the language ``such sums.'' I mean, the bill doesn't change anything from the current law. The 2002 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act, which we are reauthorizing, had that language in it, and we are simply updating the authorization here. It is not changing the language. And the same is true for the bill that passed the House last year. There was a House version, sponsored by Mrs. Capps, and that didn't make any change either. So I just want to remind my colleagues that, you know, again, we passed this bill in March 2009 and then again on the floor I guess later that month, and there wasn't any issue raised by the Republicans at that time. So I just think to raise it now really makes no sense, and we should simply move to pass this. It is very commonsense legislation. It simply reauthorizes the current law.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just wanted to mention that the three bills today are just a small representation of many bipartisan public health bills that the majority and minority worked on together in the Health Subcommittee over the past 2 years. And I wanted to thank the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Shimkus, for his hard work and cooperation in these efforts. In the summer and fall alone, the House passed 25 bipartisan health bills that came from our Health Subcommittee.
And I also want to thank the staff that worked on these public health bills this past Congress. From the majority is Ruth Katz, Steve Cha, Sarah Despres, Emily, who's here with me, Emily Gibbons, Tiffany Guarascio, Anne Morris, Camille Sealy, Naomi Seiler, Tim Westmoreland, and Karen Nelson, of course. And from the minority, Ryan Long, Clay Alspach, Peter Kielty, and Chris Sarley.
Madam Speaker, I ask for passage of the legislation.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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