Tim Murphy

The National Institutes of Health is in hot water again with the House Energy and Commerce Committee over a scandal that occurred nearly two years ago at one of the agency’s main research institutions.

On Thursday, the panel broadened its probe into safety and compliance issues at the NIH Clinical Center, a research hospital located on the agency’s campus in Bethesda, Maryland. In a letter sent to Director Francis Collins and obtained by Roll Call, the committee requested a larger swath of documents not yet provided by the agency.

By ERIN MERSHON, JOE WILLIAMS and LINDSEY McPHERSON 
CQ Roll Call

House leadership secured the support of a few moderate holdouts for their health care bill during a late-night meeting Wednesday.

Over the course of this week, CQ Roll Call is taking a look at 17 Rising Stars of 2017 — people who will now wield power and influence in a Washington that has been turned upside down by the presidency of Donald Trump.

Some of the names are familiar, others have recently burst on the scene. They include members of Congress, congressional and administration staffers, and advocates.

Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps and Adam Nelson gave heartfelt pleas for Congress to help with the effort to eliminate doping in sports.

The athletes were witnesses on Tuesday at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing entitled “Ways to Improve and Strengthen the Anti-Doping System.”

A bill to improve the country’s mental health care system could be undermined by more widespread changes to health coverage that will likely occur next year, supporters of the effort fear.

The Senate is expected this week to clear the “21st Century Cures” package, a medical innovation bill that also includes provisions designed to make it easier for patients to access mental health treatment.

This afternoon, presidential candidate Donald Trump is addressing the 11^th annual Values Voter Summit in the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. On Saturday, vice presidential candidate Mike Pence will speak. This is the first time a Republican presidential ticket has addressed the event.

Senators Tim Scott, R-S.C., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are also slated to speak along with Reps. John Fleming, R-La., Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.

The House will vote on a counterterrorism package that will include a provision to prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns, Speaker Paul D. Ryan told Republicans on a conference call Thursday, according to a source on the call.  

The House, when it returns next week from its July Fourth recess, will also vote on a mental health bill , sponsored by Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, Ryan told his House colleagues.  

House lawmakers are launching a renewed attempt to get bipartisan support behind a long-stalled mental health reform bill, with a draft that strips several contentious provisions and borrows heavily from a version that has already been marked up in the Senate.  

Democrats strongly opposed the initial legislation, sponsored by Rep. Tim Murphy , R-Pa., arguing that it weakened patient privacy protections and would have made changes to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that they felt would have undermined the agency.