To provide additional guidance to grantees seeking funding to treat or prevent mental health or substance use disorders.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the chairman for all of his work to help with this bill.

I speak today on behalf of myself and my colleague Mr. Engel in support of our evidence-based treatment for opioid addiction bill, H.R. 5272.

The opioid epidemic is hurting communities all across this country. In 2016, 174 Americans overdosed per day. Ohio had the second highest death rate in the Nation. Overdoses killed 4,329 people in Ohio, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

For the past 5 years, I have held a roundtable on drugs and opioids in my district with stakeholders, including law enforcement, treatment professionals, government officials, and community leaders from all around. A common concern I have heard in these roundtables and that I hear consistently in my district is that treatment programs exist, but many are not delivering on their promise.

Healthcare professionals and those on the front lines have continuously told me about the lack of evidence-based treatment for those suffering from addiction and substance use disorders, and that can lead to unsuccessful results.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, between 40 and 60 percent of individuals who suffer from drug addiction are known to relapse. It is often estimated that the rehabilitation programs are only about 30 percent effective, although nobody knows the true number. That is why Representative Eliot Engel and I have introduced bipartisan legislation to require grants from the Department of Health and Human Services to treat mental health and substance abuse be awarded to entities that are able to demonstrate that they use evidence-based practices.

Throughout the process of pushing for this, I had conversations with SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, about what they have been doing under the 21st Century Cures Act to promote and enhance evidence-based practices.

The 21st Century Cures Act created a National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory under SAMHSA and tasked it with promoting evidence-based practices through leadership and coordination, data collection, and reviews of current programs and activities. The policy lab has set out to begin this monumental task, and our legislation will make it even better.

Working with the majority and the minority committees' staffs on the Energy and Commerce Committee and working with SAMHSA, Representative Engel and I brought forward a bipartisan amendment to our original bill which, instead of placing a requirement on funds, requires SAMHSA to issue guidance to grantees that will help promote funding of evidence- based practices through the policy lab. I think this language will be positive.

It further requires SAMHSA to issue guidance on how to best replicate promising and effective treatments and programs so that future programs and grant applications can take advantage of the lessons learned and best practices.

More importantly, SAMHSA must issue guidance to grantees on how to articulate their rationale for why they should receive Federal funds. I think putting this responsibility on the shoulders of grantees will ensure that more local treatment programs are looking at medical journals and SAMHSA's own policy laboratory for evidence-based practices that will make our treatment more effective.

As I have talked to people affected by the opioid epidemic at our roundtables and people who have come into my office, too many of them have been let down by treatment programs that didn't work. People want their lives back. They want their jobs back. They want their families back. They want their future back. This bill that Representative Engel and I have put together will help them in that journey.

If we can take treatment programs and take them from 30 percent effective to even 50 percent effective, millions of Americans will get their lives back, get their families back, and get their jobs back.

This bill, I think, is a moral imperative, and I want to thank Congressman Engel. I want to thank the majority and minority staffs from the Energy and Commerce Committee for their work. I want to especially thank the chairman for his work. I also want to thank SAMHSA. They were a pleasure to work with through this effort.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this bill will make a big difference in the lives of Americans and help make sure that those impacted by the opioid epidemic and other drug addiction will get treatment that gives them their lives back.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my friend from New Jersey, for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5272, the RESULTS Act, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

This bill that I have coauthored with Congressman Steve Stivers will provide needed guidance to applicants seeking Federal funding to treat or prevent mental health or substance use disorders. I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers) for working with me in a bipartisan way, and it shows when we work in a bipartisan way good things come out of it.

This legislation builds on the important work we started with the 21st Century Cures Act. Cures created the National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory, often referred to as the Policy Lab, with the goal of promoting evidence-based activities to prevent and treat mental health and substance use disorders.

The RESULTS Act will help advance that goal. It directs the Policy Lab to issue new guidance to applicants seeking Federal funding to treat or prevent mental health or substance abuse disorders.

This guidance will ensure that those applying for Federal funds have the information they need to implement evidence-based solutions to the opioid crisis as well as the tools necessary to emulate successful approaches in their communities. I urge my colleagues to support this straightforward bill that will make it easier for those fighting the opioid epidemic in our communities to implement solutions that work.

All of us know how necessary these solutions are. Take my district in Westchester County, part of which I represent, 124 people died due to opioids in the year 2016. In the Bronx, part of which I also represent, more New Yorkers died of overdoses than in any other borough in New York City.

So I am pleased that the House is taking bipartisan action to address the opioid epidemic. But I am also concerned by the Trump administration's announcement last week that they will urge the courts to strike down the Affordable Care Act's provisions preventing insurance companies from denying coverage or charging more for preexisting conditions such as an opioid addiction.

This has to stop. This needs to stop. We can't have those proposals if we are going to really attack and win in this opioid crisis.

The bipartisan actions we take this week and that we will take this week are important, and I support all of them. But they will not occur in a vacuum.

I urge my friends on the other side of the aisle to speak out and end these kinds of attacks on affordable healthcare. Instead, let's work to ensure our communities have the resources they need to turn the tide of this epidemic and bring needed treatment to the men and women who are fighting--literally--fighting for their lives.

I want to, again, thank Congressman Stivers for his hard work on this bill, as well as Chairman Burgess, Ranking Member Green, Chairman Walden, and Ranking Member Pallone for their assistance in bringing it to the floor today.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the RESULTS Act.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5272) to ensure that programs and activities that are funded by a grant, cooperative agreement, loan, or loan guarantee from the Department of Health and Human Services, and whose purpose is to prevent or treat a mental health or substance use disorder, are evidence-based, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 5272. This is a bill that helps ensure that federally funded programs and activities that prevent or

treat health or substance use disorder are evidence-based. What a concept.

H.R. 5272 will enhance the work of the National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory by directing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, to provide guidance for entities applying for grants, including guidance on how best to explain the rationale for a given program or activity.

By encouraging the funding of evidence-based interventions and the replication of promising or effective practices, we believe we can help ensure that local organizations, health departments, nonprofits, and substance use disorder treatment providers have the tools and evidence necessary to implement solutions that work.

I would like to thank Representatives Steve Stivers and Eliot Engel for leading this important and, again, bipartisan initiative.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers), who has been a real advocate on these and other issues dealing with this opioid epidemic.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, H.R. 5272, and I want to thank Mr. Engel, the Democratic sponsor.

The purpose of this legislation is to promote the increased uptake of evidence-based treatment by individuals with mental health and substance use disorders.

We know that increasing the utilization of evidence-based treatment for behavioral health disorders results in improved outcomes. This is particularly important for individuals with opioid use disorder, as we know that MAT is the gold standard for treatment and is associated with improved retention in treatment, decreased relapse rates, and decreased fatal and nonfatal overdoses.

Expanding access to and uptake of MAT as well as other evidence-based behavioral health treatments, as promoted by this bill, is a critical piece to combating the tragic opioid epidemic, so I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I would ask support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.