Carolyn B. Maloney

Madam Speaker and my dear friend, Nydia Velazquez, from the great State of New York, I rise today to recognize the outgoing staff director of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Russell Anello.

Russ became my trusted adviser and leader of our committee staff in May 2021. Before his promotion to staff director, Russ served under three of our distinguished colleagues: Chairman Henry Waxman, Chairman Jim Clyburn, and Chairman Elijah Cummings.

Russ is a tireless leader who defended democracy when democracy needed defending the most. Under his leadership, the committee passed landmark legislation, held high-profile hearings, and skillfully navigated complex investigations to hold government and private actors to account.

Russ' sharp legal skills and political instincts have helped to make our government more effective and efficient and have improved the lives of Americans.

On behalf of the members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and on behalf of the American people, I thank Russ for his selfless, dedicated service to our Nation.

Madam Speaker, to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it has been a privilege to have had this extraordinary opportunity to serve with you for the past 30 years in the House of Representatives.

A special thank you to our tremendous Democratic House leadership. Thank you, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, for being a great strategist, mentor, and friend; and, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, for what you have taught me and all that you have done for this great Nation.

Thank you to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a trailblazer who was the first female Speaker of the House in history and is rightfully being called the most effective Speaker in modern times. A very special mention to the new minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. New York is so proud of you.

Like Speaker Pelosi, my career has been a series of firsts. I was the first woman to represent my district on the city council and to represent my district in Congress and the first in history to give birth while on the city council. Many men became fathers, but I was the first one to become a mother while serving on the city council.

I was also the first woman to serve as chair of the Joint Economic Committee, as well as the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

I remember almost as if it were yesterday, walking toward the Capitol as a newly elected Member. I had just defeated a 14-year incumbent Republican, who outspent me 4 to 1. No one thought I could win. Yet, I did, and I had such a feeling of hope and optimism for what could be done to help people.

I will never forget walking down the aisle, not to get married but to be sworn into the United States Congress. I said it then, and it is still true today, that serving in the United States Congress is the thrill, honor, and extraordinary opportunity of a lifetime.

The first time I ever walked onto the floor of this historic Chamber was 1992. It was called the Year of the Woman.

I announced my run for Congress on the day of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey Supreme Court decision, which placed restrictions on Roe to a woman's right to choose.

Along with great New York leaders like Bella Abzug, Geraldine Ferraro, and Elizabeth Holtzman, they expressed their outrage, and I announced my run for Congress to fight to reverse this situation and to bring other changes.

It is really hard to believe that, years later, in 2022, the Supreme Court didn't just chip away at abortion. They bulldozed our rights into the ground, depriving 33 million American women of access to abortion.

When I first entered Congress, about 10 percent of Congress were women. Back then, the entire Women's Caucus

could meet in an elevator. Our numbers have now moved to 149, or nearly 28 percent.

As the great New Yorker Shirley Chisholm once said: ``You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.''

There is no better place in the world to implement new ideas than the United States Congress, and that is just what I did.

In the last 30 years, I have authored and passed more than 80 bills and had 12 Presidential bill signings with five of our Presidents, which are usually reserved for transformational legislation.

President Clinton signed my Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and the Standby Guardianship Act for children. President Bush signed my Debbie Smith Act, which has been called the most important antirape legislation ever passed, as well as many sex trafficking prevention laws, and CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to protect our infrastructure and country.

In 2009, President Obama signed my Credit Card Bill of Rights, which, according to the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has saved consumers over $16 billion each year since 2009.

Even President Trump signed my Never Again Education Act to support Holocaust education, as well as the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which is part of the reason why my coat is hanging here.

I wore this coat for well over a year, every single day, until we approved the necessary funding for this vital program to help our heroes and heroines.

They were there for us. We need to be there for them, and they still need more help. More legislation needs to be passed this year to help them.

Just this past April, President Biden signed my bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act. Thanks to Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer, we proved that bipartisanship can prevail over partisan bickering in the best interests of America.

All of these achievements would not have been possible without my fellow Members of Congress, who have proven to me that if you work hard enough, our government can provide for the people.

I truly believe that the best legislation is always bipartisan, and I hope our Congress can come together more for more meaningful legislation as we did after 9/11, as we did after natural and financial disasters, as we came together during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as we came together in our bipartisan infrastructure bill and so much more.

Believe me, there is no Nation that is better, stronger, or more innovative than the United States when we work together.

I also recognize those who have worked in my office over the years, including my district office staff, my D.C. staff, and the staff of the Oversight Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

Our work truly would not have been possible without your hours of dedication, your intelligence, and your selfless dedication to public service.

To each and every one of my friends and constituents, thank you for your continued support and inspiration. It has been the honor of my life to represent the people of New York's 12th Congressional District.

I also thank my wonderful family, my two amazing daughters, Christina and Virginia; my son-in-law, Peter; and baby Leland. You are the joy and meaning of my life.

Thank you to the love of my life, Cliff Maloney, who is with me in spirit and whose support always meant the world to me.

As I speak today, I am thinking of the important work that lies ahead. Rest assured, I will continue to keep fighting for the issues that are near and dear to my heart, including the Equal Rights Amendment. Let's get it ratified and in our Constitution.

There can be no time limit on equal rights, and the ERA is needed now more than ever to stop any more bulldozing over women's rights.

We need Senator Schumer, and over 150 of my colleagues have joined me in writing to him and requesting him to put the time limit bill on the floor for a vote so that the American people can see who is for equal rights and who is against it.

Infrastructure is in my DNA, especially in these times when modernization and new systems for transportation are so vital to our future.

I am proud that the two largest federally funded construction projects--not in New York City, not in New York State, but in the entire country--are in the district I am privileged to represent, the Second Avenue Subway and the East Side Connector.

I am proud to have brought more than $10 billion in infrastructure funding to my district alone, and as I part, I will continue to work toward building high-speed rail between New York and Boston. Nothing would build our economy stronger or better.

My dear colleagues, together we have bent the moral arc of this Nation in the direction of justice and fairness, but we mustn't rest until equal means just that--equal.

Finally, I have always regarded public service as a loan, one that I must repay each and every day I am in office. Thanks to your tireless efforts, wisdom, and support, I feel like I leave office debt-free.

The best is yet to come.

It has been an honor to work and serve with all of my colleagues.

It has been a privilege to be inspired and to work with you, and thank you for being arrested with me--

--as we protested for the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies. I would say there is no democracy if you cannot make your own healthcare decisions.

It was an honor to work with you. I will miss all of my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I feel very strongly about this bill. It is one that came out of a research project that we had on contracting, where we found a major consulting firm was working for the FDA and the manufacturer at the same time. They didn't even have different people. It was the same people working for the FDA on regulation and for the manufacturer, which wanted easy regulations on the product they were putting out--in this case, opioids, which have killed more Americans than any other drug, probably, in history.

I thank my colleagues in the Senate for introducing it and the staff of the

Oversight and Reform Committee for introducing it here in the House.

It is absolutely outrageous. I think it should be a crime, actually, that a contractor would be allowed to advise government regulators and not tell them that, at the same time, they are advising the industry that is benefiting from weaker regulation.

If we do not take steps to prevent conflicts of interest and thereby safeguard the integrity of government decisionmaking and operations, then we risk potentially serious breaches in the public trust.

I think it is even more serious. You risk having unsafe drugs going into the marketplace, which has happened before.

Most government contractors take this responsibility to disclose conflicts of interest seriously, but many do not. It is even the business model of some consulting firms to go after both the regulator and the manufacturer at the same time, and they have repeatedly done it.

These contractors would benefit from uniformity in rules. Right now, they are patchwork. We need uniform rules. We need clear rules, and the clear rules should be that a consulting firm can only work for a regulator but cannot work for the manufacturer, or they can work for the manufacturer but not the regulator. Too often, they are working for the same positions with the same person, believe it or not.

I think that this bill will save lives. It will make our industries fair and safer. It should be bipartisan, as it is in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to strongly support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, I would say it is a very necessary bill because it is happening. If it is against the law, then the Department of Justice should come in and prosecute people. But they have not, and they are busy prosecuting a lot of other things.

So it is life and death when it comes to healthcare.

We know that the FDA originally wrote rules about the opioids saying they were not addictive. They wrote it right into the regulations: not addictive. They are one of the most addictive drugs of all times. They have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and we are spending billions of dollars in treatment trying to save the lives of people who have become addicted when the inscription used to be that it was safe. It was safe.

So there are times when laws are abused. This is not about an individual drug company or an individual contractor or an individual consulting firm. It is about a uniformity of rules. We are looking at legislation. We want to stop that abuse.

In a lot of our investigations the Department of Justice has come in and taken action. Maybe they should in this case, too. But if it is illegal, then it is not being enforced; and it is, I would say, dangerous if we don't make it clear--and ironclad clear--that you cannot work for the regulator and the manufacturer at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.