Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education. and Support Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) for yielding me the time. I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Smith from New Jersey. I have so much respect for his hard work in doing this. Anyone who knows Chris knows that when he wants something done, he is tenacious. Mike Doyle has been his really good partner. We all take pride in this legislation.

I rise to support the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support Act, or the Autism CARES Act. I am pleased that we have an opportunity to pass this today.

Autism, as my colleagues have said, affects more than 2 million individuals and their families across our country. The rate of diagnosis has climbed dramatically in recent years. Today, 1 out of every 68 American children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder by the age of 8. That is really shocking. These individuals and their families are counting on us to pass this bill.

The Autism CARES Act will extend and strengthen the efforts we established under the Combating Autism Act of 2006 and the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2011. I was proud to support both of these bills on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the full House. I am pleased to see that this legislation will give our autism programs the continued support they deserve.

With this bill, we will extend Federal autism programs for another 5 years, including vital autism research and prevalence monitoring, as well as training for medical professionals. This bill will also provide valuable updates to the law. It will increase coordination across Federal agencies and improve our understanding of the issues youth and young adults face as they transition out of school-based services.

These changes will advance our understanding of autism spectrum disorder and allow us to better assist the millions of Americans it impacts.

The programs provided for this in bill have traditionally enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the Energy and Commerce Committee. It enjoyed strong bipartisan support, as I guess it will as well here, because this is a strong bipartisan issue.

So I urge my colleagues to continue this commitment by voting for the Autism CARES Act today.

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