WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, delivered remarks during today’s executive session on four Biden administration nominees. The nominees include Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to be Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Charlotte Burrows to be Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Erika McEntarfer to be Commissioner of Labor Statistics, and Amanda Wood Laihow to be a Member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Click here to watch the hearing live.
Cassidy’s speech as prepared for delivery can be found below:
Thank you, Chair Sanders.
Today we are considering four nominees. I will speak on two in particular.
First, I appreciate Dr. Bertagnolli for making herself available throughout this process.
The NIH needs leadership to move the agency forward.
Dr. Bertagnolli has extensive experience as a clinical researcher, practicing surgeon and in positions of leadership at NCI and Harvard Medical School.
She has been strongly endorsed by the scientific community. I also called researchers I know for their opinion. They spoke of her integrity, fighting for the underdog and commitment to intellectual honesty.
It is difficult to judge candidates as they present themselves to this committee. They are coached to say nothing that could possibly offend either party. But we can parse through the coaching to take away important meaning.
I appreciate her refusal to commit to extreme and counterproductive drug pricing policies like march-in rights and reasonable pricing clauses. When pressed, she committed to following the law. As I pointed out in her confirmation hearing, the law is clear and so is history.
These are policies that even Biden administration officials have admitted to this committee could risk future partnerships to develop lifesaving cures.
In fact, we have already seen this exact scenario during the Clinton administration.
Former NIH Director Harold Varmus stated, when rescinding the reasonable pricing clause policy, “extensive review indicates that the pricing clause has driven industry away from potentially beneficial scientific collaborations and eliminating the clause promotes research that enhances the health of the American people.”
Research America an alliance of hundreds of organizations advocating for biomedical research expresses concerns about the policies that would, “discourage the uptake of breakthrough discoveries by the private sector this would be detrimental to patients.”
We cannot repeat our past mistakes doing things that ultimately harms future patients. If confirmed, I expect Dr. Bertagnolli to listen to the NIH experts who have consistently concluded it is not the NIH’s role to weigh in on drug pricing. I will be watching her work closely to ensure she does not bow to political pressure from progressives.
I will also hold Dr. Bertagnolli accountable for her positions on fetal tissue research and informed consent. It is a basic expectation that she, and all nominees, follow the law as she committed to during her hearing. I remind her, and this administration, that fetal tissue research has failed to demonstrate significant scientific value, and that our lead science agency bow to political pressure or ignore basic bioethics principles because this fact may be unpopular. We can and must find better, more ethical ways.
I also want to reemphasize that if confirmed, we will hold Dr. Bertagnolli to her word that she will respect the oversight authority of Congress and not bow to political pressure from progressives.
This administration has developed a pattern of circumventing congressional authority and then stonewalling oversight to avoid accountability. This is unacceptable and needs to end.
We need the next NIH director to engage with all parties and demonstrate clear leadership if we have hope to rebuild the trust the NIH has lost with the American public and Congress. If she is confirmed, I plan to work with her and hold her to that challenge.
The NIH is desperate for leadership. Dr. Bertagnolli is qualified. She said she will respect congressional authority. For those reasons I will support her nomination.
Dr. Bertagnolli is not the only nominee receiving a vote today.
The Committee will also consider the Renomination of Charlotte Burrows to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She has not had a hearing in this Committee since 2014.
Since President Biden made her chair in 2021, there has been a troubling pattern of partisanship, mismanagement, and a lack of transparency at the EEOC.
Last week, I sent a letter to Chair Sanders expressing my disappointment over his decision to hold a committee vote without a hearing on her nomination and requested that he reconsider.
Unfortunately, the Committee is moving forward to vote today on a problematic nominee without any accountability for many concerns held by members of this Committee.
These concerns should be bipartisan on a committee which has responsibility of oversight of this Commission.
For example, Ms. Burrows’ leadership, the Commission has failed to produce a regulatory agenda or update annual reports from its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) E-Library as Recommended by the Justice Department.
Additionally, there have been multiple instances where EEOC has opted to issue technical assistance instead of guidance subject to comments by outside stakeholders. There is no reason the EEOC should refuse to listen to the stakeholders whom their guidance is impacting. This is a basic principle of good governance.
This concern should not be partisan. I ask my Democratic colleagues to imagine if it were a Republican Chair of the EEOC doing the same thing. What would they think?
Perhaps most troubling, the Commission has established a pattern of ignoring congressional intent and clear statutory language to insert their own political agenda.
Again, to my Democratic colleagues, imagine if it was a Republican doing this. You should be concerned.
In EEOC’s proposed Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) regulations, it illegally categorizes an abortion as a “related medical procedure,” disregarding legislative text and congressional intent that abortion would not be included. This includes floor statements by my colleague, Senator Bob Casey.
It is unacceptable EEOC would inject abortion politics into a law with such strong bipartisan support. The EEOC is responsible to implement and enforce laws as written by Congress, not how some of the Commission members wish it were written.
By the way, the law is written such that if they attempt to do this, they’re going to lose in court. This injects uncertainty in something which we were quite certain in Congress as to how to implement.
Burrows also unilaterally withdrew rulemaking that had advanced out of the EEOC by a majority vote and provided wellness guidelines for businesses wanting to set up voluntary programs to benefit their employees and encourage healthy lifestyles. Since the EEOC has taken no new action on this topic employers are now unable to move forward on these programs or have dropped them entirely.
Addressing concerns like these is exactly why committees should hold hearings for controversial nominees that will lead agencies over which they have oversight.
Again, it is disappointing we did not, especially with a nominee who has substantial influence over our nation’s employment discrimination laws. I will be voting no on her nomination and encourage colleagues to do the same.
Thank you.
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