CODE RED Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5925) to codify provisions relating to the Office of National Drug Control, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5925, introduced by the gentleman from South Carolina, Chairman Gowdy.

The Coordinated Response through Interagency Strategy and Information Sharing, or CRISIS, Act is a bill to reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control. This relatively small office plays an important role in coordinating the Nation's drug control efforts. The office has become increasingly important as we look to engage governmentwide initiatives to combat the opioid epidemic.

Over the past 2 weeks, we have passed many good bills to help combat the opioid epidemic. Each will move us closer to ending the opioid crisis.

This bill is a critical piece of the puzzle. It ensures Federal, State, and local governments work with each other and other nongovernmental entities to achieve the results we are seeking. Congress needs to provide the Office of National Drug Control the authorities it needs to lead the effort to combat the opioid crisis. The CRISIS Act does just that.

The CRISIS Act updates and reaffirms the office's important role. That includes strengthening certain authorities to empower the office in the midst of this devastating epidemic.

The opioid epidemic has impacted nearly every community across the Nation. One person dies about every 4 hours from an opioid overdose. One of the most important aspects of this bill is a comprehensive response plan. It is not enough to simply have a plan. We need action and follow-through to end the opioid crisis.

The CRISIS Act requires measurable objectives so we know whether the programs we are funding are working.

Accountability is at the heart of this bill. The CRISIS Act requires the Office of National Drug Control to develop a national strategy to be carried out by a wide array of agencies. It then requires the office to oversee and coordinate implementation of that strategy each year. It requires the office to measure whether the agencies are meeting the specific goals of that strategy.

Our colleagues in the House and Senate are advancing a number of bills to address the opioid epidemic, and new initiatives are being announced daily. I offered an amendment in committee markup, with the support of Congressman Raskin, which brings in requirements from the CODE RED Act, sponsored by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

The CODE RED Act and the amendment require a coordinated tracking system of the Federal funding to be put toward drug control efforts throughout the country. This system includes a central repository of grants related to substance abuse treatment, prevention, and enforcement, and to identify those which are duplicative.

The government needs to know exactly what it is spending, where it is going, and if it is working. This is not the time to invest in ineffective strategies. We need to identify resources that work and apply Federal resources accordingly.

I would like to thank my fellow committee members for accepting the amendment, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) for offering it with me, and, of course, Mr. Rothfus for all the work he has done in finding an effective approach to tackle the opioid crisis.

There are many bills and proposals that seek to end the opioid crisis, but it will only be possible with commitment to a coordinated strategy and a unified approach. This bill, through the reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control, will provide the coordination, strategy, and unified approach we need.

This is an important and timely bill. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform,

Washington, DC, June 5, 2018.

Hon. Edward Royce,

Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: On May 23, 2018, the Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform ordered reported H.R. 5925,

the ``Coordinated Response through Interagency Strategy and

Information Sharing Act,'' with an amendment, by voice vote.

The bill was referred primarily to the Committee on Oversight

and Government Reform, with additional referrals to the

Committees on Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, the

Judiciary, Intelligence, and Appropriations.

I ask you allow the Committee on Foreign Affairs to be

discharged from further consideration of the bill so it may

be scheduled for floor consideration by the Majority Leader.

This discharge in no way affects your jurisdiction over the

subject matter of the bill, and it will not serve as

precedent for future referrals. In addition, should a

conference on the bill be necessary, I would support your

request to have the Committee on Foreign Affairs represented

on the conference committee. Finally, I would be pleased to

include this letter and any response in the bill report filed

by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as well

as in the Congressional Record during floor consideration, to

memorialize our understanding.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,

Trey Gowdy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the support of my colleague for this bipartisan effort to address the opioid crisis in this country. I also appreciate his emphasis on effectively and efficiently addressing that crisis.

I will note that in the last appropriation cycle, we increased funding for opioid treatment by almost $4 billion in this year alone. There is much work to be done; it is a crisis; and we will work together to address that crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows), the cosponsor of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the support of my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for this bipartisan effort. I certainly hope the American people have the opportunity to see this effort as we address this crisis on a bipartisan basis. Far too frequently, they see conflict and disagreement put forth by media and other sources, but there is a great deal we work together on, and I think we need to stress that as we talk to people about this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, in a moment, I will yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), but first let me give him credit, because he is the sponsor of legislation on which my amendment was based, H.R. 5980, the CODE RED Act.

The CODE RED Act, like the amendment I offered with Mr. Raskin in committee, requires a coordinated tracking system of Federal funding put towards drug control efforts throughout our country. It is a smart idea, especially given the opioid epidemic in our Nation and the costs of it, and I strongly supported it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. Speaker, I want to make the gentleman from Maryland aware that I have no further speakers and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's support of the bill. In my brief time here, a year and a half, it has become abundantly clear to me that rarely do we get to dust off our hands and say we are done around here.

It has also become clear to me that the debate of the bill rarely stays on the topic of the bill or solely on the topic of the bill. You see, the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, is not the sole approach to addressing healthcare issues in this country, preexisting conditions, or the preexisting conditions that are affected by drug abuse.

I believe when we passed the American Health Care Act in this House, that that addressed preexisting conditions, treatment for substance abuse, and, using the words of my colleague, did so more effectively and efficiently than the Affordable Care Act does now.

We clearly disagree on that. I respect that, and will continue to work on it.

Today, we are dealing with this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support passage of this bill, because I believe that H.R. 5925 is an important step not only in reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control, but also in providing additional resources to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Gowdy for his leadership and for working together to craft this legislation. I thank Chairman Meadows and Ranking Member Connolly for helping us reach the compromises that made this legislation possible.

In 1988, Mr. Speaker, Congress created the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This is the office that should be coordinating our Nation's drug control efforts and leading our response to the drug crisis, which is now,

by the way, killing 175 people per day. Let me repeat that: killing 175 people per day.

However, ONDCP is failing, just when we need it the most. In fact, an article published this week described the office this way: ``empty desks, squabbles, inexperienced staff.''

The failure is glaring. For example, the office is required to produce a national drug control strategy by February 1 of each year. Two February 1sts have now come and two have gone since President Trump took office, but the Trump administration still has not come up with a solution to this most glaring and painful problem. This is simply unacceptable.

Life expectancy in this Nation is falling because we are failing to respond appropriately to this drug crisis. We urgently need to revitalize and strengthen ONDCP.

H.R. 5925, the CRISIS Act, would make changes we need and would improve our drug control efforts if it is fully funded and implemented--fully funded and implemented.

It would expand the office's authority to direct resources where they are most needed. It would strengthen data collection and analysis to help us develop the real-time monitoring we need to understand the rapidly changing dimensions of the opioid crisis.

The bill incorporates several proposals I have offered to give ONDCP new authorities to coordinate critical aspects of our response to the crisis.

I have often said that we must go about the business of being effective and efficient in what we do. These are examples of things that will make ONDCP more effective and efficient in addressing this problem.

For example, for the first time ever, it would create a treatment coordinator within the office responsible for coordinating efforts to expand the availability and quality of evidence-based treatment.

It would also require the office to develop and promulgate model standards for treatment facilities. Right now, too many so-called treatment facilities are taking advantage of desperate families, charging them outlandish prices, bilking insurance companies, but failing to help those in need. As a matter of fact, many people are going into these places seeking to get treatment and come out worse off because they are not being properly treated.

Remember what I said: We want to be effective and efficient in what we do, and we want to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are spent appropriately.

I believe that if H.R. 5925 is enacted and fully implemented, it will improve our drug control efforts, and, for that reason, I am supporting the measure.

However, I want to be real clear about something. Even if this bill is enacted and fully implemented, the drug crisis we are facing will likely get worse. That is because this bill does not provide the resources we need to treat millions of Americans who have the disease of addiction. According to the President's own commission on opioids, only 10 percent of individuals who need treatment for substance abuse disorders are getting it.

No one believes that we can fight cancer, or heart disease, or Alzheimer's if we don't treat people who have these diseases. The same is true here.

Imagine someone going into a doctor's office and the doctor says: Well, you are the 10th person, and you are lucky to get treatment. But the other nine who came before you won't get any treatment.

We will not stand for that. If we don't treat people who are addicted, we will not solve the drug crisis.

We may pass this bill today, celebrate the passage, and say we did a great job. We may work with the Senate to send it to the President. The President might even sign it. But then, next year's overdose fatality numbers will come out. They will show that deaths are continuing to rise. They will show emergency room visits increasing again. They will show the economic effects of a crisis that is already costing us $500 billion a year continuing to grow.

It doesn't have to be this way. No, it doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to just nibble at the edges or rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I have introduced legislation called the CARE Act with Senator Elizabeth Warren, modeled directly on the highly successful Ryan White Act, which Congress passed with bipartisan support in 1990 to address the AIDS crisis.

The CARE Act would provide $10 billion a year in stable, predictable Federal funding to States, counties, and other frontline responders. The CARE Act would provide funds for research to train health professionals to diagnose and treat addiction. It would also provide half a billion dollars per year to purchase the lifesaving drug naloxone at discounted prices and distribute it to first responders, public health agencies, and the public.

I offered the CARE Act as an amendment to this measure considered this week. My amendment was paid for by rolling back just a portion of the tax cuts given by the Republican-controlled Congress to the Nation's largest corporations, including the drug companies who have used their tax breaks to buy back billions of dollars' worth of stock rather than lower drug prices. By the way, there is something wrong with that picture.

But the Republican leadership did not make my amendment in order. The House never considered it.

I support H.R. 5925 and our critical efforts to ensure that we have an office that will effectively and efficiently coordinate our drug control efforts. However, what our Nation truly needs is for us to show the political courage to choose to save the lives of our fellow Americans by adequately funding treatment.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment, before I yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. Connolly, to echo what my good friend just said about our staffs.

I, too, thank our staffs for all that they have done. So often they are unseen, unnoticed, and feel, I am sure, unappreciated and unapplauded. But our staffs worked very, very hard on this, and I, too, give the ultimate applause to them. I want to thank you for recognizing them.

Mr. Speaker, I also thank Mr. Meadows for working so hard to bring all this together.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a man who has just been tireless on this issue and so many others, but who has done such a phenomenal job.

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I must point out that my Republican colleagues say they want to address the opioid crisis, yet they are standing silent as the Trump administration actively tries to destroy the Affordable Care Act protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which, by the way, includes substance use disorders.

If we aren't going to take available steps to expand access to addiction treatment, at least we should all agree that we shouldn't roll back protections that prevent insurance companies from discriminating against people with substance use disorders. Therefore, we should all be working to protect the Affordable Care Act from the Trump administration's effort to destroy the essential protections it provides.

Again, I remind all of us that ONDCP is a very important entity and it has a job to do, and it must be properly funded.

A lot of people, when they give statistics about opioids and drugs, Mr. Speaker, they find themselves speaking about the dead. Well, I am here to tell you that there are pipelines to death, and those are the people who are addicted now. Those are the ones who are thinking about it, about to start using those drugs. So we must address not only the deaths and the statistics, but we must address treatment that is effective and efficient.

Mr. Speaker, again, I am urging my colleagues to vote for this bill, but I want it to be clear that we should not dust our hands off and say it is done.

It is not done. There is so much more to do.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to vote for this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell) and my good friend from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows) for their leadership. But I particularly want to thank my good friend from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Cummings is not only a legislative expert, but he is also a moral voice. He speaks with clarity and eloquence, as he did yesterday, about innocent children being detained at the southern border as an un- American activity, something that does not reflect our values. And today, he is lending that same moral voice to the crisis that afflicts so many communities in America: the opioid addiction crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Coordinated Response through Interagency Strategy and Information Sharing Act, or the CRISIS Act, to reauthorize and revamp the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The chairman and ranking member of our full committee worked closely together and with committee members to produce a bipartisan bill that was reported out of the committee unanimously.

I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the CRISIS Act, which not only reauthorizes ONDCP, but also strengthens that office so that it has the resources it needs to coordinate an effective response to the opioid crisis. And that is something Mr. Cummings stressed. It is not good enough to do something symbolic. We have to ensure it is effective. ONDCP's responsibilities are to produce a national drug control strategy.

Congress created it in 1988 at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic to oversee Federal drug control efforts and to advise the President and the administration on drug control policies and strategies.

It was designed to oversee the National Drug Control Budget to carry out the goals and policies of that strategy, and to evaluate the effectiveness of programs across the Federal Government in implementing the strategy, and to oversee the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas and Drug Free Communities initiatives.

Congress last authorized the ONDCP in 2006. The authorization expired in 2010. That is 8 years ago. Since then, we have developed an opioid crisis the magnitude of which we have never seen in America.

While ONDCP has continued to receive annual appropriations, it is important that Congress reauthorize this program and reflect the crisis we are in.

The opioid epidemic that is currently ravaging communities has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and shows no signs of abating. Every day, 115 Americans die from an opioid overdose.

The epidemic is destroying families, overwhelming first responders, straining public health, criminal justice, and child welfare resources.

This epidemic doesn't care where you live or what political party you belong to. The crisis has touched every community and every corner of our country.

In my State, the Commonwealth of Virginia, opioid overdose deaths spiked by 40 percent to 1,133 from 2015 to 2016, and deaths from synthetic opioids rose from 263 to 692 during that time period.

Northern Virginia, where I represent the good people of Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Fairfax County, for example, reported an increase from 67 to 97 opioid-related deaths from 2015 to 2016. And Prince William County, the other county I represent, increased from 26 to 59 deaths in this time period.

Last month, Dr. Rahul Gupta, Commissioner of the West Virginia Bureau of Public Health, testified before our committee, and he said that the crisis will get worse before it gets better. That was not welcome news.

Yet despite the President's pledges and his own Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis recommendation that he declare an opioid crisis national emergency, the President, President Trump, took the lesser step of declaring a public health emergency last October.

Seventeen months into this administration, ONDCP is still without a confirmed director and the administration has failed to produce a National Drug Control Strategy.

Instead, the President, President Trump, proposed cutting ONDCP's budget by more than 90 percent. Thank goodness Congress, on a bipartisan basis, did not heed that recommendation.

Just earlier this week, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency announced he is going to be retiring at the end of the month, stating that running that agency in an acting capacity for so long had become increasingly challenging.

As this administration continues to fail to address the opioid epidemic, it is imperative that we take immediate and decisive action on a bipartisan basis.

Reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy with enhanced authorities will improve the coordination and effectiveness of Federal Government drug control efforts. It is one of the many steps we can take to address the opioid epidemic. It won't solve everything, but it is a very important first step.

I hope the administration will join us in fighting this crisis with real solutions and not empty rhetoric.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join us in supporting this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this particular initiative in managing this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5925, the CRISIS Act, a bill I cosponsored with Chairman Gowdy; my good friend, the ranking member, Mr. Cummings; as well as the ranking member of the Government Operations Subcommittee and good friend, Mr. Connolly.

I want to begin by thanking my colleagues for coming together on this bipartisan bill. H.R. 5925 reauthorizes the Office of National Drug Control Policy and gives the office greater responsibility by enhancing the office's authority to coordinate and oversee the national drug control program at the national, State, and local levels.

It provides communities with a process for sharing information and best practices, and implements recommendations from the President's opioid commission.

It requires an opioid response plan to coordinate with the private sector the implementation of the commission's recommendations and to facilitate the development of treatment and abuse-deterrent products.

Finally, this bill designates the United States Postal Service as a national drug control program agency and requires the office to coordinate actions to reduce the flow of illicit drugs entering the country through the mail.

The ongoing opioid epidemic has taken countless lives, touching literally every community in the country. The national response to this epidemic involves Federal, State, and local governments. It involves the treatment community, the medical community, the law enforcement community, and places of worship.

As we mobilize a national response, we must ensure that every effort to combat this epidemic works and works well. We have all heard too many tragic, life-changing, and, far too often, life-ending stories of opioid addiction.

There is no easy way to end this epidemic. By establishing an effective national response to this epidemic, this bill will support the people and the communities struggling with this addiction.

Mr. Speaker, it is the very lives of our friends, our neighbors, and our family members that depend on us.

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

I would also like to go a little bit further, though, because so many times, when we come together in a bipartisan way, it is Members of Congress who are up here taking the credit for the hard work of a group that actually, behind the scenes, are doing the work. I thank all of the majority staff--Katy Rother, Richard Burkard, Betsy Ferguson, and Sarah Vance; and to Ranking Member Cummings' staff, for all of their work and dedication as well. And I also thank Sally Walker from the Office of Legislative Counsel. Many times, they do the work on the bills behind the scene and nobody ever sees them or thanks them. So, on this day, I want to make sure that we acknowledge their effort, that it doesn't go unnoticed.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Mitchell for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5925, the Coordinated Response through Interagency Strategy and Information Sharing Act, or the CRISIS Act.

This bill reauthorizes the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which has not been reauthorized in a very long time. It makes needed overhauls and updates to the office and even streamlines the name of the office to the Office of National Drug Control, or ONDC.

Mr. Speaker, I commend Chairman Gowdy and Ranking Member Cummings for working in a bipartisan manner. I also thank Representative Mitchell and Representative Raskin for working with me to incorporate the first two recommendations of the President's opioid commission into the CRISIS Act.

I introduced a separate bill, the Coordinated Overdose and Drug Epidemic Response to the Emergency Declaration Act, or CODE RED Act, that authorizes ONDC to address those commission recommendations.

ONDC will now be authorized to implement a coordinated tracking system of all federally-funded initiatives and grants. This will help identify barriers and gaps in Federal efforts responding to the opioid crisis and it identifies places where efforts are being duplicated and potentially wasted. This legislation improves the grant application process by standardizing and streamlining it.

The mission here is to deploy Federal resources to localities that need them quickly and efficiently instead of localities wasting valuable time and resources filling out various agency applications.

More broadly, the CRISIS Act will foster better government coordination and strategic planning. ONDC has cross-agency jurisdiction to coordinate the efforts among different agencies, like HHS and DOJ. When agencies work together, the force-multiplying effect can make a huge difference.

We are making progress on the opioid crisis. Bipartisan bills like the CRISIS Act will help win this fight and help the people engage in the fight, like the North Hills of Pittsburgh's Tracy Lawless.

Tracy participated in the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and continues to help find solutions back in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, I thank her and everyone else who is making a difference.