House, Senate relaunch effort to create breast cancer commission

“Breast cancer continues to affect too many of our mothers, wives, sisters and friends,” Whitehouse said Tuesday. “This bill sets an ambitious goal of ending breast cancer by 2020, and will help drive our efforts to put an end to this tragic disease.”

{mosads}The legislation, S. 865 and H.R. 1830, authorizes $8 million for the commission in its first year, $12 million for the next two years, and “such sums as may be necessary” for each fiscal year thereafter.

A similar bill in the last Congress won 235 co-sponsors — a clear majority — although it never advanced in the House. The same bill had 26 Senate co-sponsors, but also failed to move in the Senate.

The bipartisan Senate bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).

The bipartisan House bill is sponsored by Reps. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Tom Latham (R-Iowa), David Loebsack (D-Iowa), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio).