The history of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is the story
of American prosperity and opportunity.
Our Committee was born on December 14, 1795 as the Committee
on Commerce and Manufactures when the growing demands of the young nation
required that Congress establish a permanent panel to exercise its
constitutional authority to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and
among the several States."
The Committee on Energy and Commerce, the oldest standing
legislative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, remains today as the
body’s principal guide in the promotion of commerce, public health, energy and
technology.
The Committee is vested with the broadest jurisdiction of any
congressional authorizing committee. Today it has responsibility for the nation’s
telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, public health
research, environmental quality, the availability of affordable energy, and the
continuance of interstate and foreign commerce. It oversees multiple
cabinet-level departments and independent agencies, including the departments of
Energy, Health and Human Services, and Transportation, as well as the Federal
Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal
Communications Commission.
As the new United States grew and Congress created new
committees to deal with expanding policy concerns, this Committee asserted and
maintained its dominant central position as the House's monitor of commercial
progress. Its traditional role and changing focus is reflected in the evolution
of its name, jurisdiction and practices.
In 1819, we became the Committee on Commerce as Committee
responsibilities expanded beyond the creation of navigational aids and oversight
of the nascent federal health service to include foreign trade policy. The name
changed again in 1891, becoming the Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce. That durable title sufficed for 90 years, when the Committee assumed
its present name in 1981 to emphasize its leading role in the nation's energy
policy.
Today, the wide-ranging work accomplished by the Committee on
Energy and Commerce builds on a breathtaking record of achievement that began
with building lighthouses and supervising the federal government’s health
service for sick and disabled seaman, a function that developed into the Public
Health Service and National Institutes of Health. The Committee’s overarching
role in health, safety, and commerce can be traced to passage of the milestone
legislation like the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the Clean Air Act, and the
Federal Trade Commission Act.
Our Committee’s prominent place in Congress is the direct
consequence of the men and women who served here and who kept pace with the
changing world for more than two centuries. The essence of the work of ensuring
economic growth now encompasses responsibility for the technological advance of
a lifetime, the Internet.
From welcoming merchantmen home from treacherous seas and
caring for disabled sailors, to overseeing commerce by ship, rail and then
aircraft, to our work on drugs, food and advancing freedom in the burgeoning
digital marketplace, the House Energy and Commerce Committee continues to assure
the health and wealth of the richest nation in human history.
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