Full Committee Member Day

18:19 - 20:34

Speaker 2

Describing, again, their concerns with 340 b. Mister chair, right now, association of affiliated pharmacies and Apple Carries, which presents more than 500 independent pharmacies across the country, including 150 pharmacies in my district, are literally demanding that we do something about the PBMs. The actual cost of medication they dispense, driving many of them, driving the cost, many of them having to shut their doors. And these independent pharmacies, as you know, Mister Chair, are anchors in our community. They are trusted by many of our residents that, again, are experiencing some of the worst health challenges from cancer and so many other diseases.

Pharmacy deserts are growing, as we know, because of this, and patients are left without any options. So, again, community pharmacy is still going, are facing unstable losses, and we need to do more about it. We know that PBMs, and I like to name them because it's important, but CVS, CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptimumRx are reporting record profits because, again, they lack the transparency and accountability that is necessary. I hear about these harmful practices, almost monthly from different independent pharmacies that continue again to have these challenges. Mister chair, from one pharmacy in Jordan, the pharmacist explained to me how he can see 60 to 80,000 loss in a month.

And again, it's not sustainable. And some it's also a pharmacy that has been part of the community for so long. So, again, community health centers are also being impacted. But one of the things they continue to tell me is that as a result, PBMs are trying to make medical and financial decisions on behalf of providers and the patients, and that's unchecked power. It should stay with the person providing the care.

So Congress and this committee, we need to act now. It is something that, again, both, I think, size of the aisle have come and understand that something, again, action needs to take place. So the pharmacies fight-back act. Let's get that through this committee, and let's work, again, incredibly hard to make prescription drugs much more affordable and protect our independent pharmacies. With that, mister chair, I yield.

20:34 - 22:13

Speaker 1

The gentlelady yields back, and thank you for bringing this to the committee, the postal issue. My sincerest condolences to this family after such a horrific incident. We've been working with the postal service. Your staff and our staff have been communicating. We're trying to learn more about this and how to ensure that it will never happen again.

I pledge to work with you and our staff. We'll continue to work to try to figure out what we can do to prevent this and see if we get any answers as to how it happened. So, thanks for bringing this to the tension. And, again, this is a terrible thing, and we will work together to find some resolution on it. You have my promise to that.

And secondly, as you know, I'm a cosponsor of the Pharmacist Fight Back Act with you. This is something that is a huge priority for me. We've had three good bipartisan investigative hearings and published a very substantive report on the abuses of the PBM from this committee. So I wanna see legislation and more than self-governing oversight from the PBMs who I don't trust. So I pledge to work with you to try to get the support to get this to not only pass the house, but pass the senate and become law.

So, I'm with you on both issues and appreciate you coming here. Do any other members wish to speak or ask questions to mislead? Mhmm. Alright. Thank you.

I now recognize Representative David Taylor from Ohio.

22:15 - 26:21

Speaker 3

Thank you, chairman Coleman, ranking member Garcia, for giving me this opportunity to speak here today, and thank you for the very hard work this committee does. I represent a very rural Appalachian district in Southern Ohio, and I'm here today to talk about two issues that directly impact many throughout rural America: combating the fentanyl epidemic and out of control federal regulations. As you know, fentanyl is an extremely deadly substance that affects all our districts. While I applaud the Trump administration's diligent work to secure our southern border, Congress needs to pass legislation to protect our communities from illicit fentanyl that has already entered our country. Thankfully, there are programs such as the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program or HIDTA that assist federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in critical drug trafficking regions across the United States.

With 33 HAIDA programs spanning across all 50 states, this program works with communities to dismantle and disrupt drug trafficking organizations, saving countless lives across the United States. Last year alone, thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement officers and the training provided, the HIDA program seized over 7,000 kilograms of fentanyl. That amount of fentanyl could potentially kill 3.5 billion people, according to the DEA. The district I represent has been ground zero for the fentanyl epidemic, and this needs to change. With two Haida-designated counties in my district, I was proud to introduce the Fight Fentanyl Act to reauthorize and provide additional resources to the Haida program.

This bill would not only better equip our law enforcement officers with the tools they need to seize more illicit drugs, but it will also help keep our country and our communities safe. Additionally, my bill also allows the attorney general to allocate additional resources to investigate and take drug traffickers and dealers to trial, to remove these destructive criminals from our communities. I wanna thank our law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day for their work to combat fentanyl, and our Haida officers for the training and the work they do to keep our communities safe. I also wanna thank Congressman Levin for coleading the fight fentanyl act with me, and I would love to work with you, Mister Chairman and Ranking Member, provide our HIDA programs and law enforcement officers with the tools they need to keep our communities safe. Appreciate your consideration of that issue.

The other issue I came here to speak about, and I hear about from people across Southern Ohio, is the overwhelming amount of federal regulations that hurt businesses, farmers, and increase the cost of living for all of us. In my district, ridiculous red regulations led to the closing of several critical businesses, including the coal plants which provided affordable electricity to the entire region. As a small business owner myself, I know firsthand the impact that burdensome regulations can have on our economy. That's exactly why the first bill I introduced in Congress was the Regulation Decriminalization Act. This bill, which codifies an executive order from President Trump, would simply require agencies to find 10 regulations to repeal for every new one promulgated.

The harsh reality is that no one even knows how many federal regulations there are. The best guess we have to go off is the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, which had roughly 23,000 pages in 1960, but is now up to nearly 200,000, which is approximately a 769% increase. This is largely reflective of Congress slowly giving away all of its authority to unelected bureaucrats within federal agencies. And we saw the impact of this during the Biden administration with their de facto electric vehicle mandate and the WOTUS rule, which sought to punish nearly every business and farmer in the country. This needs to change.

We cannot continue allowing such important decisions to be made by those who can never be held accountable. I applaud President Trump in his 10 to 1 deregulatory agenda, and I'm happy the Supreme Court struck down the Chevron deference, but Congress needs to act. Mister chairman, I'm happy to collaborate with you on the best ways to cut regulations and restore responsibility to Congress to fulfill its constitutionally mandated duties. I appreciate you letting me share my perspective today, and I'm looking forward to working with you on my bill and this issue. Thank you, guys, and I yield back.

26:21 - 27:17

Speaker 1

Gentlemen, yields back. Thank you for your testimony today, and I was proud to sponsor the office of the reauthorization of the office of national drug control policy. Last congress, we passed the house in a bipartisan manner and went to the senate, and my junior senator from Kentucky held it up in the end, and it didn't become law even though I think there was overwhelming support in the senate. So that may be someone you need to talk to about that. And that's where the height of funding comes through the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

So it's a big issue in my district. My law enforcement officers support that as well. So we'll work with you to try to get that funded. But I think the problem is in the Senate with that. So, do any other members wish to seek recognition?

Seeing none, thank you, Representative Taylor. I now recognize Representative McCormick from Georgia.

27:18 - 32:12

Speaker 4

Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you, ranking member, for having me here today. This is an issue near and dear to my heart, something I've come to your office for. And I'm happy to come to the democrats for the same reason. I think this could be a bipartisan solution. We know what the problem is.

Everybody is now recognizing that paying a trillion dollars of interest payment on basically $38,000,000,000,000 of debt is unsustainable. As we continue to be downgraded as a currency, we're gonna end up being at about $2,000,000,000,000, especially when we see Medicare and Social Security objectively, predictably becoming bankrupt, probably in the next presidency. This is an unfortunate byproduct of not having the foresight to do something different than we normally do. My bill is very simple. We know that we've had a 50, almost a 52% increase in federal spending just since 2019.

We know that during that period, we've also had about an 86% increase in deficit spending. We can't continue doing this. My bill is very succinct, very simple. As a matter of fact, it's been reviewed by leadership as saying this sounds too good to be true, that why haven't we done this sooner? Typically, a budget and I came up with this idea about thirty years ago when I was a logistics officer for my squadron and realized at the end of my year when I have 10% in reserve for my emergency spending, then all of a sudden I have to spend a bunch of money.

And we see this in the military, but also through every bureaucracy in America where if we don't spend it, we lose it. Somebody else spends it anyway, and they'll actually reduce your budget because you obviously didn't need it. So we all got in the habit of doing something we know is wrong, we know is wasteful, and we know is built in by the American government to be wrong. We're spending money we don't need to spend. My bill says instead of use it or lose it, which is what we have now, a stick to not do the wrong thing.

Instead, whatever you don't spend for that year, 49% of that goes back towards debt and deficit, not to the Speaker, not to the president, not to higher headquarters. Debt and deficit, a real problem. 49% rolls forward to the next fiscal year. So instead of being penalized with a smaller budget, you actually get a larger budget. And then 2% goes back to reward the people who are being effective and efficient in that department with bonuses up to 10% of their salary as retention.

It's three carats to do the right thing instead of two sticks to do the wrong thing. I think this should be bipartisan, gentlemen. Bipartisan, that we can actually save. This is entirely voluntary and non-punitive. There is no downside to it.

There's no way the CBO can score it wrong. I'm a big critic of the CBO. How could you do anything other than save money on a voluntary basis? It gives you an option to not be penalized, but to be rewarded for saving the American taxpayer money, to save our children money on interest payments. Why wouldn't we do something so common sense?

Why wouldn't this be bipartisan? Why wouldn't this be a good solution? Can we not reinvent the way we look at government? I hope that everybody on both sides of the house can actually get behind this bill. It's called the Incentivized Savings Act.

I think it's going to be great for America. It's gonna be great in the way we approach the government. I think it'll be great for approaching debt and deficit and responsible thinking without having a boss stepping in and making the decision for you. You're in charge of your own self-determination of your department and what you save money on, and you get rewarded for doing the right thing. Please, I encourage you all to sign on to the incentivized savings act.

It's the right thing to do. It's common sense. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but it's not. My second piece of legislation, H.R. 6211, the Medical Professional Access Act, which just simply allows people during times of emergency, whether it be something catastrophic, a hurricane or whatever, when you cross boundaries and state lines, I'm a physician, and you have credentialing issues between states because that's what we do. But they're not that much different from one another.

And in times of emergency where there's need, it's basically a Good Samaritan law that says we don't have to go through another credentialing process, that you're allowed to practice there during that emergent time. There's a declaration of emergency by that governor or by the president. You're allowed to practice there without consequences, without review, because we don't have time. This is just a common sense approach to solving a very real problem when you need people to help others in the health care industry during an emergency. I highly encourage you also to sign on to HR6211 in order to help people in times of mercy.

And with that, gentlemen, I yield.

32:12 - 33:11

Speaker 1

Thank you again for coming by the office and explaining that. That sounds like common sense to me, and we appreciate it. Look forward to working with you in the next year. Does any other member seek recognition? We will suspend momentarily, as we move to the second panel.

Is Infume here? Is Infume here? Hey,

33:17 - 33:18

Speaker 4

Mark. So.

34:06 - 34:20

Speaker 1

We'll get him in. Alright. We'll now move to panel two. Mister Infume may be en route. When he gets here, we'll let him participate.

But I now recognize Representative Bill Foster from Illinois.

34:21 - 38:56

Speaker 5

Thank you, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Garcia, and members of the committee. I'm here today to request your support for HR 6571, the Responsible and Ethical AI Labeling Act, the REAL Act, which will require government agencies and officers to include a disclaimer on public-facing communications that are created or generated with artificial intelligence. I'm happy to introduce the common sense bipartisan bill with the support of the chairman of the government operations subcommittee, congressman Pete Sessions of Texas. I wanna start by thanking Congressman Sessions for his partnership on this important bill, to strengthen trust and accountability in government communications. In short, the real act will require federal agencies and officers from junior level staff to the very top to clearly label any official content distributed through official channels that it has been generated or manipulated using generative artificial intelligence.

Specifically, it would require federal agencies and officers to label AI-generated images, audio, videos, and any AI-generated text that is not reviewed by a human prior to publication. The office of management and budget would be tasked with developing uniform rules for labeling AI content across the agencies to ensure that labels are clear, prominently displayed, written in plain language, and easily understandable to the public. Each label would clearly inform the reader that the content was manipulated with AI and include a brief description of how the content was changed and which tools were used. This bill includes certain exemptions that are meant to protect the internal use of low-impact AI tools by federal agencies and to protect personal communications of federal officers that are unrelated to their official responsibilities. First, agencies will not be required to label AI content that is circulated internally and not intended for public release.

Secondly, content that's created for classified purposes will not require labeling. However, agencies will be required to label classified content and any unclass for any unclassified release of that content. Thirdly, the bill exempts basic graphics and visual elements such as text overlay or formatting, and minor visual adjustments such as brightness or cropping, if those adjustments do not materially alter the meaning or context of the underlying content. Fourth, the use of certain text drafting tools is exempt as long as the content is reviewed for accuracy by human agency staff prior to publication. This exemption is meant to preserve internal use of AI by agencies while ensuring a robust review of AI content, and requiring labeling for automated messaging systems like chatbots.

Importantly, this bill does not apply to any of the bill's requirements for public facing content that is not related to the official duties of a federal officer, as long as it is published using a personal non government social media account or other unofficial medium. This bill includes clear guidelines and corrects communications that fail to include the appropriate disclaimer. If an agency determines or is found to have issued a communication in violation of this act, that agency will be required to retract the communication and publish a corrected version of the communication on their website, and to the extent possible, to the same audience that received the initial communication. This bill also includes appropriate penalties for noncompliance by agencies and contractors, including the adoption of remediation plans or potential oversight by the JAO. In an age of disinformation, Americans should be able to trust that information coming from official government sources is legitimate and based on reality.

With the rapid proliferation of AI-generated content, there must be clear guidelines to ensure that our federal agencies are not using AI in a way that could purposefully or inadvertently mislead the American public. This legislation is about ensuring transparency and trust in federal communications. The REAL Act does not prohibit the use of AI or the distribution of AI content. It simply requires official channels to clearly indicate whether the content being shared has been created or altered using AI. Thank you for holding this member day hearing, and I thank, again, Congressman Sessions for co-leading this effort.

I encourage all members of this committee to support and advance the REAL Act to ensure that AI tools are responsibly used in government communications. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

38:56 - 39:32

Speaker 1

Thank you. Huge issue, and we certainly look forward to working with you in the future on this issue. Any other members seek recognition? Alright. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you. That concludes our member day. In closing, I wanna thank the members for their testimony. Would you like to add anything? No.

With that and without objection, all members have five legislative days within which to submit additional testimony. If there's no further business, without objection, the committee stands adjourned. I like it.