Newsroom

The excitement was palpable — as it is almost every summer Saturday along the upper Arkansas River — as the who's-who list of federal, state and area dignitaries arrived for the formal dedication ceremony of Browns Canyon National Monument. But nowhere was it more evident than on the bow of Gov. John Hickenlooper's whitewater raft.

There, the governor's son, Teddy, sat with tether in hand and an ear-to-ear smile across his face as he took in the whitewater action and the surreal scenery of Colorado's newest national monument.

Advances in biomedical and pharmaceutical research continue to occur at a dizzying pace. Yet the process of moving these discoveries out of the lab and into the real world where they can benefit people is frustratingly slow.

That could change very soon. In an encouraging show of bipartisanship, the House recently passed legislation — the 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) — designed to speed the process from scientific discovery to health treatments and cures for people who need them.

Last week, the House passed H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, with a bipartisan vote of 344-77. The 21st Century Cures Act contains some important provisions for the pediatric and rare disease community. This bipartisan effort was led by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Ranking Member Gene Green (D-Texas), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

The bacteria-tainted apple that probably killed Shirlee Frey traveled hundreds of miles from an orchard to a packinghouse and then to a factory that coated it in caramel. It never came anywhere close to being examined or tested by a food-safety inspector.

Throughout the intensely interesting and harrowing trial of James Holmes, there is one issue that has seemingly disappeared.

How did a man fantasizing of killing people have such easy access to guns and ammunition?

The issue was front and center after the July 20, 2012, massacre in an Aurora movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70.

Politicians, anti-gun advocates and opinion-shapers pounded the topic, outraged once again at the absurdity of American's lax gun laws.

WASHINGTON — By the standards of the modern Congress, Representatives Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, and Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, have no business writing health care legislation together.

Mr. Upton, the buttoned-up chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, is one of the House Republicans' go-to representatives on dismantling the Affordable Care Act. Ms. DeGette, a member of the Democratic leadership who leans decidedly left of center, counts herself among the central champions of the health care law.

With exquisite timing, House Republicans last week stepped into a public-relations debacle. The House was working to pass an appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, but the longstanding bipartisan process on spending bills has been shattered, meaning that there would be no Democratic votes for the highly partisan bill. That, in turn, meant that Republican leaders had to corral the vast majority of their own members, including many who reflexively vote against spending bills.