Fresh off his victory in the November election, Congressman Fred Upton stopped by Leader Publications last week for a discussion about several current issues facing Michigan and the nation.

Closing out our series with Fred Upton, the congressman discusses his predictions for the future of U.S. Congress.

 

What do you expect to see when the new Congress takes over?

I am excited. The frustration that the country has had is the inability to really get things done. From a shutdown a little more than a year ago to the finger pointing that’s been going on and the failure to progress the needs of the nation. The election is behind us so let’s flip ahead.

We have to show that we can govern. That means we have to work together. Last week I had a number of meetings with Senators about some of the agenda items I want to see us pursue from our Energy and Commerce Committee’s perspective. We had a chairman’s meeting with the majority leader and I made the point that I hope all my other colleagues here, other chairmen, are meeting with your counterparts to figure out what it is that you can do, particularly on a bi-partisan basis. We passed more than 380 bills in the House that were never taken up in the Senate. Eight energy efficiency bills we passed in the House, all with bi-partisan support, some by voice vote, never taken up in the Senate.

We are going to be in session the first six weeks without a break come January. That is an opportunity to turn the mindset around, focus on a lot of different things.

Our big initiative is 21st Century Cures. So our goal is by mid January or so we are going to release a discussion draft, meet with a number of different health stakeholders and see what we missed and what other ideas we didn’t capture with our yearlong listening session that we’ve done. Introduce the bill formally before the end of the month (January) and move it through our committee before the end of March, have it on the floor before Memorial Day. Our goal is to get it signed well before the end of the year.