Combating Meth and Cocaine Act

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Drought Resiliency and Water Supply Improvement Act, which Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced today. I am the lead Democratic sponsor on the bill, and Senators Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) are also original cosponsors.

Drought--increasingly severe and prolonged drought--is a stark reality for California and the West. Climate change presents a triple threat to our water supply:

Higher temperatures causing a dwindling snowpack, increased evaporation and other effects that will reduce our natural storage and runoff. This could decrease flow in the Colorado River by 20% or more by mid-century and as much as 40% by the end of the century.

Longer and more severe droughts, including perhaps as much as an 80% chance of a megadrought of 20 to 50 years' duration in the Colorado Basin during this century.

Although this is more uncertain, the possibility of reduced overall precipitation, perhaps 10-15% less in California's Sierra Nevada mountains within the next 20-30 years.

We must respond to this challenge. The bill we are introducing today does so in three fundamental ways:

It significantly increases funding for an ``all-of-the above'' solution to improve our water supply, including surface and groundwater storage, conveyance, water recycling and desalination;

It reforms the Bureau of Reclamation's outdated project delivery system to more quickly approve and more cost-effectively fund new projects; and

It significantly invests not only in water supply projects, but also in environmental restoration to help imperiled species adapt to climate change as well.

Climate Change and Drought: I would like to say more about the effects of climate change on two critical areas for California: the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Colorado River Basin.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists project that climate change will cause a 54 percent drop in the Sierras' snowpack within the next 20 to 40 years and a 79 percent drop by the end of the century. This change alone could be devastating for California, because we absolutely depend on this snowpack. The Sierra snowpack provides 30% of our water supply and is our biggest reservoir. We need to start now to provide substitute ways for storing precipitation in the Sierras, whether through surface storage, groundwater storage, or improved infrastructure to transport floodwaters to the best recharge areas.

This enhanced storage in its many forms will be helpful not only for water users but also to maintain enough cold water for salmon. Cold water reserves are critical to prevent salmon runs from being wiped out during years of devastating droughts.

The outlook for the Colorado Basin is perhaps even more challenging. The Colorado River provides a critical part of the water supply for 19 million people in southern California, but that water supply is diminishing. Already in 2019 the water demands on the Colorado River exceed average inflows to the river by 1.2 million to 1.5 million acre feet each year.

That is a huge gap, and the Drought Contingency Plan that was just negotiated among the 7 Colorado River Basin states represents just the beginning of efforts needed to close even the existing gap. With climate change, far more needs to be done, especially with warmer temperatures and greatly increased evaporation in the Basin and with the considerable odds of a megadrought of 20 to 50 years' duration.

The bill we are introducing today provides the Colorado River Basin States with the tools to begin investing in a wide range of water supply projects to meet this challenge. I believe this bill will be critical for helping reach agreement in the next round of negotiations for Colorado River drought contingency plans due to be completed by 2026.

Funding Authorizations in the Bill: In response to the water supply challenges presented by climate change, the bill we are introducing today significantly increases funding authorizations for a wide variety of water supply and environmental restoration projects.

The proposed legislation builds on and doubles the 5-year funding authorizations in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act. The bill authorizes the following funding over the next 5 years:

$670 million for surface and groundwater storage projects, and supporting conveyance;

$100 million for water recycling projects; and

$60 million for desalination projects.

In addition, the bill authorizes $140 million for environmental restoration and compliance projects. These projects include forest, meadow and watershed restoration projects with water benefits and projects to help restore threatened and endangered species affected by Bureau of Reclamation water projects.

Low-Interest Loans for Water Supply Projects: The bill creates a new loan program at 30-year Treasury rates (currently about 2.6%) for water supply projects known as the Reclamation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (RIFIA). The loans would use existing criteria under the successful WIFIA program (the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act).

The Office of Management and the Budget (OMB) has approved loans of $2.3 billion for WIFIA in fiscal year 2018 backed by appropriations of just over 1% of that amount or $25 million in budget authority. OMB was able to approve loans backed by just 1% of the loan amount because there is a virtually non-existent default rate for water projects. Only 4 in a thousand water infrastructure projects default, based on a study conducted by the Fitch credit rating agency.

Given OMB's experience that Federal outlays need only cover 1% of the loan cost for water projects, the $125 million in authorized Federal spending in the draft bill likely could support $12.5 billion in water project lending authority.

Needless to say, $12.5 billion is a meaningful amount of Federal low- interest lending assistance for new water supply projects. And, because RIFIA is limited to no more than 49 percent of total project costs, that same $125 million in RIFIA budget authority will support no less than $25.5 billion in new water infrastructure investments throughout the west.

Need to Improve Reclamation's Project Delivery System: The bill not only increases funding for drought resiliency projects, it expedites their approvals and assists them more cost-effectively, stretching taxpayer dollars further.

The traditional Bureau of Reclamation model for approving and funding new water supply projects has involved the following:

Reclamation studies new projects in detail, which can take a decade or more for major projects:

Once Reclamation's studies are complete, Congress authorizes projects individually, which can take another 3-5 years or more in many cases; and

Congress then funds 100% of the project construction cost over many years of incremental appropriations, with project sponsors paying back the federal government over 50 years at little to no interest.

One can quickly see that this model can end up taking decades to construct significant new water supply projects. This is especially the case given the limitations of Federal budgets and the increasing cost of major projects in recent years. Given the tremendous challenge posed by climate change to Western water supply, we need a nimbler and more responsive model.

Mike Connor, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Obama Administration, testified in support of a new model during an October 8, 2015 hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Deputy Secretary Connor stated:

The traditional Reclamation business model, in which

feasibility studies, consistent with the 1983 Principles and

Guidelines for Water and Related Resources Development, are

first authorized, funded, and submitted to Congress, and then

construction is authorized and funded, does not always

address the needs of project sponsors at the State and local

levels. Moreover, given budget limitations and the

availability of other available financing mechanisms, the

historic federal role in financing water storage projects

through the Bureau of Reclamation must be revisited with a

greater emphasis on non-federal financing.

Changes to Traditional Model: In response to the concerns articulated by Deputy Secretary Connor and others, the bill we are introducing today, building on the WIIN Act, makes five significant changes to the traditional Reclamation model. These changes expedite project approvals and make more cost-effective use of available federal funding.

1) Congressional authorization no longer required:

First, the bill eliminates the need for Congress to authorize individual projects. It can take 3-5 years for projects to get legislatively approved or longer. In fact, zero new water recycling projects have been authorized since 2009 due to the Federal earmark ban.

While Congressional authorizations are no longer required, Congress retains full veto authority over which projects get built through the appropriations process. Unless Congress approves funding for the study and construction of individual projects, Reclamation cannot proceed with them.

The advantage of the appropriations process as an alternative mechanism for Congressional approval is that it occurs every year. So rather than waiting 3-5 years or longer for Congressional approval under the traditional model, Congress decides each year whether or not to fund proposed projects.

2) Non-Federal funding is required upfront:

Second, the bill no longer requires 100% federal funding upfront as was necessary under the traditional Reclamation model. Instead, the bill allows a maximum of 50% Federal funding for Federally-owned projects, and a maximum of 25% federal funding for non-federal projects that are built by States, water districts, or Indian tribes.

Federal dollars can be stretched further by the partnerships with States and water districts that will be fostered under the bill. For example, the proposed expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir in California would be funded 50% by the State of California, which has already conditionally awarded funding, in addition to potentially 10-25% by the federal government and the remaining 25-40% by water users.

Multi-partner projects like the Los Vaqueros expansion will frequently have multiple benefits. For example, much of the State and Federal funding for the Los Vaqueros expansion would go to augment the water supply of wildlife refuges that provide essential water for migratory birds on the Pacific flyway. These benefits would complement the project's water supply benefits for many Bay Area water districts.

3) Feasibility studies are expedited:

Third, for the non-Federal projects authorized by the bill, the federal study process would be significantly expedited, and it does so without waiving any environmental protection requirements. The bill makes clear that federal environmental laws must be fully and strictly followed.

Existing law, however, already addresses study procedures in parallel circumstances when the nonfederal entities are building a project and the federal government is only responsible for a minority of the project cost, no more than 25%. In these circumstances, the Federal government can and should expeditiously approve feasibility and other preliminary studies. There is existing precedent for such projects in the guidelines adopted by the Bureau of Reclamation for feasibility studies for water recycling projects under the Title XVI program. Like all the non-federal projects in this bill, these water recycling projects are built by non-federal entities with a maximum 25% federal cost-share.

The bill we are introducing today would direct Reclamation to model its feasibility study standards for all non-federal projects based on the Title XVI example. This will reduce delays in project approval and get these projects built faster.

4) The new loan program is cost-effective:

Fourth, the low-interest loan program created by the bill is an exceptionally cost-effective program. As I mentioned above, OMB has validated that low-interest water project loans need to be backed by Federal appropriations totaling only 1% of the project loan amount.

Federal funding of 1% of the loan amount will typically return 10-25% savings in the repayment cost of the loans for the water districts funding the projects. The total savings can be about 10% for AAA rated districts, and 20-25% for AA-rated districts.

For example, the water users who are supporting the proposed Sites Reservoir in northern California have estimated that the loans authorized by this bill would allow them to pay only $512/acre-foot for water delivered by the project instead of $682/acre-foot. This is a 25% reduction in their costs.

Thus, the Federal government can provide a loan at 1% of the loan amount and save the project sponsors 10-25% of the project cost. That is an exceptionally cost-effective federal investment.

There are at least three significant reasons that the loans are so beneficial for the project sponsors:

The sponsors pay about a 2.6% interest rate on their loans based on today's rates, versus 4% or greater rates for the alternative of municipal bond financing.

The districts would not need to start loan repayments until 5 years after substantial completion of the project, a substantial cost saver.

Loans are for 35 rather than 30 years, lowering annual debt service costs.

Significantly, the loans include all the taxpayer protections from the successful WIFIA and TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) programs. In particular, the RIFIA loans would be limited to 49% of the project cost, and the federal loans would have senior status in the event of any default. These provisions ensure the taxpayer won't be harmed in any default where the project retains at least 50% of its value, which is extremely likely for ratepayer backed water supply projects.

5) Federal grants and loans work together:

Fifth, the combination of low-interest loans and Federal grants of up to 25% of project costs for non-Federal projects can allow water users to make up the difference where the Federal government is no longer funding 100% of project costs up front. Many rural communities, and in particular agricultural communities, are not able to pay 100% of the cost of new water supply projects.

Under the bill we are introducing today, these communities will still have to provide a significant cost-share for improving their water supplies, and new water projects will have to be cost-effective enough to justify that investment. However, the Federal government can help build the best and most effective projects in increasing drought resiliency by providing assistance through both grants and loans.

Environmental Benefits: The longer and more severe droughts coming with climate change will adversely affect not just farms and cities, but also the natural environment. The bill includes provisions to improve species' drought resiliency as well.

The significant funding authorization of $140 million for environmental restoration can be used to benefit many different species, including fish, migratory birds, and forest species. Some of the authorized uses of this funding include:

Improved habitat for salmon, Delta smelt and other fish species adversely affected by the Bureau of Reclamation's water projects;

Additional water for wildlife refuges hosting migratory birds along the Pacific flyway;

Improved stream gauges, monitoring and science to better understand how to restore species and to operate Reclamation water projects with reduced environmental impacts;

Assistance in implementing water-related settlements with State agencies and state water quality laws; and

Forest, meadow and watershed restoration efforts that improve the quality, timing, or other attributes of runoff to reservoirs or groundwater storage facilities.

I want to say a little more about the new authorization for forest, meadow and watershed restoration projects with water benefits. Wildfire and drought are two of our biggest challenges in California, and we need new tools to respond to them.

There are national forest lands and meadows upstream of many reservoirs

in California that are at serious risk of catastrophic fire.

If treatments of these lands restore healthier ecological conditions, it will improve water runoff into the downstream reservoirs and reduce the risk of large sedimentation dumps into the reservoirs from catastrophic fires.

Restoration of these lands may not be a top priority for the Forest Service because that agency's mission does not emphasize water benefits.

The bill being introduced today would authorize the Bureau of Reclamation to contribute a portion of the cost of these projects. The new funding source will in turn make these multi-benefit projects more likely to be implemented.

I believe it is critical that we develop new tools like this one for reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and improving our drought resiliency.

I and the other cosponsors of today's bill are also looking for additional ways to increase the natural environment's resiliency to droughts in our states. We have circulated language for discussion and potential inclusion in the bill that would provide additional funding for ``natural water storage projects.''

These projects would help restore stream and river channels with natural materials like wetlands. Like many other projects prioritized by the bill, these projects could have multiple benefits, including increased groundwater recharge, improved flood protection, and increased floodplain habitat to benefit salmon and other species.

We look forward to receiving comments on ways to prioritize multi- benefit projects like natural water storage projects as we move forward with the bill.

In addition, the bill makes clear that it must be implemented consistently with all federal environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and all other environmental laws. All applicable state laws must also be followed.

Offsets: Finally, the bill includes two provisions offsetting the new spending authorizations within it:

It extends the existing WIIN Act provisions allowing water districts to prepay their outstanding capital debts and convert to indefinite length water supply contracts. These provisions are expected to bring in additional revenue within the 10-year scoring window.

It sets up a process to deauthorize inactive water recycling project authorizations.

Conclusion: California is home to more than 40 million people, but our major state-wide water infrastructure hasn't significantly changed in the past 50 years, when we had only 16 million people.

We must modernize the system or we risk becoming a desert state.

I believe that this bill will place California on a long-term path to drought resiliency. Critically, this means putting in place infrastructure to allow our cities, our farmers, and our natural communities to withstand the severe droughts that we are projected to face due to climate change.

I hope my Western colleagues will join me and the others who have introduced this bill, because drought is a serious threat for all of our states. Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

While the Senator from Oregon is here, I just want to say he mentioned we have a very fine planet, and God knows we do, but it is also the only planet we have, and I think for certainly everybody who serves in this body--and maybe some of these young pages will have the opportunity someday to live on another planet but probably not.

The President of France was just down the hall 2 years ago. I am sure Senator Merkley remembers it. President Macron addressed us on a variety of subjects, but one of those was the future of our plant.

He said these words. I will never forget them. He said: We only get one planet, planet Earth. There is no planet B. This is it.

He reminded us of our obligation, really a moral obligation, to take care of this gift from God that he has entrusted into our care.

It is in that spirit that I am pleased to rise today with Senator Merkley and other colleagues to speak out against the so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule that repeals and replaces the Clean Power Plan from the previous administration.

As I said when this rule was proposed in, I think, August of last year--and our colleague, given where he is from in America, maybe they say this in his State too--but we have a saying here that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.

I said at the time when this rule was introduced that the only thing that has changed from the proposal to the final rule is maybe a little more lipstick.

The Trump EPA rule promotes neither affordable energy nor clean energy. What it actually does is it attempts to scam the American people into believing that the EPA is doing something to stem the tide of climate change.

I think this poster probably speaks well to that thought, but this proposal, I think, is a failure of vision, and I think it is an abdication of leadership in our fight against climate change. We need to fight this problem head-on.

The fact that our climate is warming, the fact that we have this extreme weather, whether it happens to be in the Midwest with floods, the Northwest with wildfires the size of my State, whether it happens to be in the number of category 5 hurricanes that we are seeing, extreme weather--literally within an hour or so of here, Ellicott City, where they have had two 1,000-year floods in 18 months.

My wife and I were out in Palo Alto, CA, last weekend for the graduation of our oldest son from business school, and the week before we arrived there, he told us that the temperature in the Bay Area, where I used to be stationed in the Navy during the Vietnam war, he said that the temperature reached 104 degrees. I don't ever remember it ever reaching 94 degrees in the years I was stationed in Moffett Field Naval Air Station.

Something is going on here, and it is serious. I think we have a pretty good idea what is causing this, and we need to fight this challenge head-on.

The good news is this doesn't have to be something to divide us as a nation. It doesn't have to be something that divides us as Democrats and Republicans. It doesn't have to be something that divides us with respect to the rest of the world. This is something that should unite us.

There is an old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well, the enemy of a world that has all this crazy weather, extreme weather-- and maybe in a lot of places in the internal part of our country you don't see what we see. What we see is that my State is sinking. Delaware is the lowest lying State in America. We are sinking, and the seas around us are rising. That is not a very good combination.

Folks who don't happen to live on our coast--I was born in West Virginia, grew up in other parts of the country, but for us it is real. It is not just something that is esoteric. We see it every day.

The science behind climate change is, I believe, settled. Climate change is real. It is happening. It is a growing threat to our country, and it is getting worse every year.

Climate change is leading to rising global temperatures, rising sea levels, more frequent and severe weather events such as hurricanes, rainfall measured by the foot, not by the inch, and drought-fueled wildfires, as I said earlier, the size of my State.

The more I hear about these extreme weather events, the more I am reminded of the story in the Old Testament. I think it is in the book of Exodus, where you may recall that Moses gets a call from on high to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt where they are in bondage.

He tells God: God, I am not a very good public speaker, and I don't think you have the right guy to do this.

The Lord said to him: You have a brother, Aaron, who is a real good speaker, a real good talker. Why don't the two of you sort of lead this effort together?

So, urged by the Almighty, the two brothers visited the pharaoh who was running the show in Egypt. They called on him and said: We are here to ask you to let our people go. Set us free.

Pharaoh was stubborn. He rejected their plea, and there were consequences to that rejection. I think there were about 10 different plagues that were brought to bear on Egypt in an effort to try to convince the pharaoh to let the people go, like the hordes of locusts that covered the land.

Moses and Aaron would go back to see the pharaoh and would say: We

want you to let our people go. The pharaoh would say, basically: Get out of here.

Then, after that, snakes would come out and appear everywhere, all over the land.

They would go back and see the pharaoh, and he would say: Get out of here.

Lizards came out of the rivers and covered the land, and they went back to see the pharaoh, and he said: Get out of here.

Finally, the river was turned to blood, and they went back to see him, and he said: Get out of here.

Finally, after the 10th plague, he changed his tune. The 10th plague, as you may recall, if you remember the Old Testament--the 10th plague was the firstborn sons of every Egyptian family died.

That time when Moses and Aaron showed up to see the pharaoh, he said: Why don't you leave. Take all your people and your stuff and just leave, and they left--and they left.

Our President's dismissal of the extreme weather that is associated with the unrelenting worsening reality of climate change reminds me of the pharaoh's dismissal of the plagues unleashed on the people of Israel 2,000 years ago.

The pharaoh was dismissive. This President is dismissive. We have seen this movie before. In this movie version of it, our President is playing the role of pharaoh, and we need to make sure we don't succumb to that.

The Obama-Biden administration finalized the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution and try to stem the tide of climate change.

The Clean Power Plan established the very first Federal targets to reduce carbon emissions from our Nation's electric powerplants, which at the time were the largest source of carbon pollution in our country not that long ago.

The rule was not developed on a whim. The Clean Power Plan was finalized after a lengthy rulemaking process, which was 2 years or longer in the making. They considered over 3.5 million public comments, and I am told they responded to every one of them.

The Clean Power Plan set real carbon reduction targets for each State but gave flexibility and time for States to meet these individualized standards. EPA estimated the Clean Power Plan would have achieved over $54 billion--that is billion with a ``b''--in health and climate benefits if fully implemented. The Clean Power Plan provided long-term certainty for U.S. businesses, helping American companies make smart investments at home and compete in the global energy market around the world.

When finalized, critics of the Clean Power Plan--and there were plenty of them--argued the plan's carbon targets were too ambitious. That is only about 4 or 5 years ago. Critics swore that every American consumer who relies on electricity to keep the lights on would soon be in dire straits. Administrator Wheeler echoed these false claims just yesterday. Today, we know just how wrong the Clean Power Plan critics were.

Even though the Clean Power Plan was never fully implemented, States and utilities went ahead and started making investments in order to meet the plan's carbon standards. They began acting in a way that said: We believe this is the way we are actually going to go as a country, and we need to get onboard.

As with other clean air regulations, America's utilities have been able to find ways to meet the carbon reduction targets faster and much cheaper than originally estimated. When George Herbert Walker Bush was President, he pushed for a cap-and-trade approach to reducing acid rain in the northeastern part of our country. It was killing all of our forests, and he came up with a plan to reduce acid rain cap and trade. People said: It is going to cost too much; it is going to take too long. At the end of the day, it cost less than half of what it was supposed to cost, and I think it was accomplished in about one-third of the time.

Today, our Nation's utilities are already on track to meet and surpass the goals set by the Clean Power Plan way ahead of schedule-- not on schedule but way ahead of schedule--because even though the Clean Power Plan was held up in court, it sent clear signals to the utility industry of this country.

All the while, the vast majority of Americans are now enjoying lower utilities--let me say that again. They are enjoying lower utility bills, not higher, and more than 3 million Americans are now going to work in the clean energy sector every day, which includes jobs in renewable energy generation and energy efficiency.

Despite the revolutionary changes in our energy sector, leading climate scientists are now telling us that we need to do even more to protect American lives and our economy from the threats of climate change.

In the past year alone, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report that concluded that if the global community does not enact ``rapid and far-reaching'' carbon reduction policies in the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to our planet as soon as 2040.

Just 6 months ago, 13 Federal agencies under the Trump administration concluded unanimously that if this country does not take more drastic actions to address climate change, every major sector of our economy could be negatively affected by climate change by the turn of the century--every one. Some sectors are expected to see hundreds of billions of dollars of loss every year. My recollection is, in the last year alone, we have suffered damages from extreme weather in our country that add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in 1 year alone.

What a science-based agency like EPA should be doing is building off of Obama's forward-looking carbon reduction vision and strengthening the Clean Power Plan standards, not weakening them. But even though utilities are on track to meet carbon reduction targets and scientists are warning us to keep our foot on the gas pedal, the Trump administration, sadly, is hitting the brakes.

What this EPA has done fails to heed the warnings of climate scientists by weakening the Obama-Biden carbon standards put into place almost 4 years ago. The Clean Power Plan set clear targets for States to achieve a 32-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030. Let me say that again. The Clean Power Plan set clear targets for States to achieve an almost one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030.

In comparison, the Trump proposal fails to set any real carbon emission standards for the power sector. It fails to set any real carbon emission standards for the power sector.

This new proposed rule provides States with a menu of options for making coal-fired powerplants operate more efficiently, allowing States to decide whether to make coal plants implement those options. This means States could do nothing to clean up their powerplant emissions-- nothing.

Add it up, and the dirty power scam fails to drive down powerplant carbon emissions. According to EPA's own analysis, this rule is, at best, going to keep powerplant carbon emissions at status quo levels. At worst, there are credible reports that show the scam may well result in an increase in carbon emissions.

Like all climate change policies by President Trump, the dirty power scam also fails to advance the American clean energy economy. Instead, this rule tries to take our country back to a decade ago, when this country relied much more heavily on dirty coal generation. EPA Administrator Wheeler even touted the dirty power scam as a way to support more coal energy production in the United States. But ask any utility CEO or investor. America's future is not in dirty coal; it is in clean energy.

As a native of West Virginia whose family members once worked in coal mines, let me say this. There are 50,000 people who work in coal mines in this country today, and those jobs are going down. Today, there are 3 million people who work in sustainable energy and clean energy and conservation businesses, and for each of those 50,000 miners, we have an obligation to them and their families. If they lose their employment opportunities because we are moving to cleaner, carbon-free air, we have an obligation to help them in terms of transitioning and training for other jobs that are available. We have 3 million jobs today in this country that nobody showed up to do because they don't have the skills, the education, or the desire to do those jobs.

Coal miners could do a number of jobs. People who work in coal mines could build windmills. They could build solar fields. They can do all kinds of stuff. They can build clean corridors for our transportation, fueling electric-powered vehicles across the highways across America. They could build hydrogen fueling stations. They can do all kinds of stuff.

Today, our utilities are making investments that will last 40 to 60 years, if not longer. We should be providing the right market signals today for a clean energy economy tomorrow.

The dirty power scam doesn't do that. What it does is create business uncertainty for our Nation's utilities and States grappling with the effects of climate change.

To recap, if I could, the dirty power scam does three things, regrettably: It fails to heed the warnings of climate scientists; it fails to drive down powerplant carbon emissions; and it fails to advance a clean energy economy.

Referring again to the failure of vision and leadership, that is why the dirty power scam is a failure of vision and an abdication of leadership in our fight against climate change. Repealing the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with a rule as ill-conceived as the dirty power scam will have serious consequences for the health of the public, our economy, and our planet. It is also a clear retreat from the EPA's responsibility to tackle the greatest environmental crises we face on our planet today, and those are climate change and the extreme weather that flows from it.

The people of this country deserve a strong economy. They deserve more job creation. They deserve cleaner air. They deserve better environmental quality. The American people and our neighbors around the world deserve a healthy planet that we can call home. The American people deserve better than the dirty power scam, plain and simple.

My colleagues and I are going to do everything in our power to make sure that the people of this country ultimately get the climate protection they deserve.

The last thing I would say before yielding back to Senator Merkley is that the issue of climate change is not something that should divide us. Ultimately, this is something that should unite us, not just within this body, not just within this country, but around the world. That is my hope and prayer because, at the end of the day, we can clean our air, we can clean our water, we can combat climate change, and we can create a lot of jobs--a lot more than the 3 million jobs we have already seen created.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Ernest Hemingway said that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for, and I couldn't agree more. My colleague from Delaware and I are here on the floor to fight for that world, to fight for our planet.

If you breathe in a lung full of air right now--and I invite anybody following this to do so--hold it for a few seconds, and breathe it out, the air that you will have just taken into your body, into your lungs, will have had 33 percent more carbon than when I was born. That is a dramatic transformation of the atmosphere on this planet. It doesn't matter where you go. You could be doing this exercise here in DC, back home in Oregon, or in Japan. It is still 33 percent more carbon in a single lifetime. Because that extra carbon is blanketing our entire globe, it is having a huge impact--an impact we see in all kinds of ways.

Back home in Oregon, there has been a huge impact with the forest fires. We had forest fires this year that started in March. Perhaps you have seen some pictures of walls of flames and fires in Montana, in Washington, in Oregon, and in California in the last couple of years-- smoke that has blanketed our cities and our States for weeks on end.

This is not the norm. This is the result of changing climate chaos, and it is not good.

We see extreme weather across the country. We see more powerful hurricanes assaulting the Southeast. We see more Lyme disease in the Northeast and fewer moose because the ticks kill the moose and ticks carry Lyme disease to humans. We see the slowest planting season in four decades--too much rain, flooded farms.

As of June 3, the Department of Agriculture told us 40 million acres of corn that would normally have been planted haven't been planted.

Climate chaos is the greatest threat humans have ever seen on this planet, and it is happening for one simple reason: We discovered fossil fuels. We discovered that burning them could create a lot of energy, and we could transform the globe with that energy, but every single time you use those carbon sources, you put carbon in the air, and now we have started to really damage our own planet.

So what is the national response? Well, under President Obama, we had the Clean Power Plan--the CPP. The CPP laid out a pretty ambitious vision, an example for the world to follow, but, quite frankly, it wasn't enough. It doesn't accelerate enough our transition to renewable energy.

Just think about it this way: We have been gifted with a fabulous source of fusion energy. We don't have to recreate fusion reactors here on the planet because we have it safely stowed millions of miles away in the Sun. That is a fusion reactor. All we have to do is capture the energy that shines on planet Earth, and we are in pretty good

shape. That Sun heats up the air and creates wind, and we can capture that same energy by capturing the wind.

We have geothermal energy, potential wave energy. We have to transition to these sources and quit burning carbon, and we need an ambitious plan to do so. We need a turning point.

Future generations will either celebrate the moment when we committed ourselves to saving our planet or they will ask why we failed, and right now we are looking at failure. The rate of carbon pollution isn't going down; it is accelerating upward. We are accelerating into oblivion.

When I was born, it took about 2 to 3 years to increase a single point of carbon pollution, parts per million. You can see how this curve is now accelerating upward. Now we are at about 2.5 points per year. That is a huge difference.

We are kind of lulled into this false sense of comfort. Well, don't we have more insulation in our buildings? Aren't we blessed with cars that get greater mileage? We have appliances that use a little less energy. Well, yes, those things are true, but they are not enough. Even with that, the curve is accelerating upward. So we are in trouble, but we do have some blessings in this battle.

Solar and wind electricity have plunged in cost, and the result is they are now cheaper than or competitive with fossil fuels. That is before you take into account the massive subsidies granted by legislative action to fossil fuels. So they are actually cheaper, and that is before you take into account the externalities--the damage that fossil fuels are doing to our planet. So now we can really see that renewables are a complete win except for the greed manifested through our political campaigns to keep burning fossil fuels.

It means more dollars in a few corporations' pockets, pockets of a few really rich people who say that their generational need for wealth--which they can't take with them to the grave anyway--that generational need, they are willing to sacrifice our planet for all.

Now, they are not willing to bear the costs. They are not willing to pay for the damage to all the homes destroyed by those more powerful hurricanes. They are not willing to pay for all the forests destroyed by the forest fires in Oregon. They are not willing to pay for the structures destroyed by those fires. They are not willing to pay the farmers whose crop is going to produce less because they had to plant so late. In other words, they want the private profit while planet Earth and the rest of us bear the consequences of their greed.

So we need a strong plan, and we need it now. We need to have a clear, robust response to transition to renewable energy quickly. So let's build on the foundation of the Clean Power Plan. Let's make this the turning moment in history that future generations can celebrate because we really do have a very fine planet, and it is worth fighting for.

Mr. President, each year we have a debate on the National Defense Authorization Act. In the past, it was a real debate-- a debate for which people brought significant issues to the floor related to American national security. Their amendments were considered. We argued pro and con. We took votes. We lobbied our colleagues within our caucus or across the aisle with the wisdom of our viewpoint. That is a tradition; that is a practice; that is what this Chamber is all about--to take on the issues that we face as a Nation, wrestle with them, explore the pros and cons, find their strengths or weaknesses, sometimes come to compromises that take several viewpoints, and merge them together into an even stronger point of view. But I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. Senate is quickly losing the ability to consider the issues facing our Nation.

My colleague just spoke about the challenge of climate pollution, and I appreciate his doing so. But we have had few determined efforts to address the ideas different Members have for taking on that challenge, despite its devastation to so many ways and different parts of our country.

When it comes to the security of our country, no issue is more important than the question of going to war. Our Founders realized this is a decision that should never be vested in a single person, not even the President. They knew that a single individual might find political cause or corrupt purposes to make the decision to go to combat against a force and that such a decision should be debated in a Chamber like this and a Chamber like the House. That is why the Constitution gives to this body, the legislature of the United States of America, the power to go to war.

It is a question that came up early in our history. There was a challenge that we had off the Barbary Coast with corsairs, who are often referred to as pirates, taking charge of American brigs and holding them hostage.

Jefferson embraced the idea of going to war. He became President in 1801. Alexander Hamilton wanted to remind him what the Constitution said. As he said, ``It belongs to Congress only to go to war.'' Any one of us should be able to pull out our pocket Constitutions, read article I, section 8--that deliberate delegation to this Chamber and the House to make that decision.

Well, right now we are in the drumbeat of war with Iran. There has been a lot of animosity between our two countries for a long period of time. The United States mounted a campaign through the Central Intelligence Agency to take out the directly elected leadership of Iran in 1953--a CIA-staged coup--and to install a leader, the Shah of Iran, who operated with great, shall I say, violence against the people. He had a secret police that was as feared as any in the world.

There were other points of animosity when the people of Iran rose up against that Shah and took hostage Americans. They kept them hostage for a great length of time during the Carter administration. They did not release them until President Reagan came into office.

Then there was the Iraq-Iran war, a war in which hundreds of thousands of people in Iran died, and the United States assisted the Iraqis in that war against Iran. Well, we have had often no love lost between our two nations over this period of time.

I mention these few points of history to say that each side nurtures its grievances against the other, but something remarkable happened under the last administration. They worked to coordinate pressure from the entire world to strike a deal with Iran, to end their nuclear program, end the risk of Iran becoming a nuclear power. This agreement was something bought into by Russia and China, the European powers, and the United States. They did many concrete things, things that their rightwing did not like: dismantling their plutonium reactor, shipping enriched uranium out of their country, shutting down their centrifuges, allowing a massive amount of inspectors into their country to watch everything that they were doing.

In return, the deal was we would help them economically find a better standard of living. This is a moment of potential turning point in the relationship--this long animosity between the two countries-- potentially a win-win, but then comes in a new administration, the Trump administration, and they don't like this possibility, this deal. The President says it is the worst deal ever struck. We, the United States, pulled out of the deal on May 8, 2018--just over a year ago. Since then, we have heard the drumbeats of war echoing on Capitol Hill.

The administration designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and then proceeded to tighten the economic sanctions in order to pressure the economy of Iran.

So we had the end of the Uighurs, who are partners of ours, to be able to buy Iranian oil, greatly starving the economy of that nation. Then we deployed, in recent weeks, the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force to the Gulf. Then we deployed a B-52 squadron to the Gulf. Then we heard the advocates in the administration saying: If anything happens with a connection with Iran, we will show them the ferocity of our forces. We will respond and show them not to mess with the United States of America.

Different officials cited different examples, but one was: If an Iranian militia in Iraq should happen to harm an American, that could be a trigger or if Iran were to disrupt the movement of oil from the Gulf, that could be a trigger.

When you deploy forces and then start looking for triggers, you can find one for war, if you want, but I stand here today to quote the Constitution of the United States of America, and that Constitution says the power of war

rests with this body--not the Oval Office.

As we have pressured Iran, we have had incidents occur that have been highlighted in recent days. Some mines were put on the side of a couple ships--blew a hole through the side, didn't sink the ships. The administration is pretty sure, they say, that Iran did this. Well, I always exercise some caution. We all remember the Iraq war. We remember that the administration then--the Bush administration--built what they said was a powerful case of weapons of mass destruction being cultivated by Saddam Hussein and the Iraq Government. We went to war on that evidence, and we were wrong.

Here we are at this moment and an administration that has predeployed forces, is squeezing the Iranian people as powerfully as possible. What happens in this situation? What is the goal? Some in the administration say the goal is negotiations. Now, let me get this straight. The United States broke the deal, strengthening the far right in Iran which said don't trust the Americans. We strengthened the Revolutionary Guard because the Revolutionary Guard did not like the deal to begin with. Then we economically squeezed the people of Iran, creating great hardship throughout the land--meaning we have moved the entire population in the direction of supporting the far right in that country.

Now, take these two things. We have strengthened not the moderates who want to see the nation on a different course but the far right. Then we have alienated much of the country and increased their support for the far right, and we have shown that when we sign a deal, we don't stand behind the deal because this administration broke the deal. How is that a foundation for negotiation? We are saying to Iran: We negotiated. You agreed, but we are breaking the deal, and now we want to negotiate again.

People don't tend to want to negotiate with folks who have broken the previous deal. So we here see that we have a challenge in which we stand on the precipice of potential war.

My colleague from New Mexico has an amendment that restates the fundamentals of our Constitution, and he has teamed up with my colleague from Virginia who is here on the floor as well, and I am certainly completely supportive of their effort. They are saying that while we are on this bill, on security, on Defense authorization, this is a moment we should be debating whether the President has the authority to go to war, and their amendment says: No, he does not. He must follow the Constitution, and he must come to this body for authorization. That is an important message for us to send. We must not leave the debate on Defense authorization without debating the Udall- King amendment.

My colleagues are here to speak to it in greater detail. I so much appreciate their work. This is a moment that this Chamber must rise to the challenge of being a force that can wrestle with great issues before us, and there is no more important security issue at this moment than debating whether the President has the power to go to war. I stand with the Constitution. I hope my colleagues will all stand with the Constitution in this Chamber. Thank you.

Mr. President, today I am here to continue the important conversation we had on this floor about the ongoing addiction crisis we face in this country. Over the past 2 years, I have come to the floor 57 times to talk about addiction, and usually it has been about opioids and the impact opioids are having--tearing our families apart, devastating our communities. There is certainly an opioid epidemic in this country with prescription drugs, fentanyl, heroin--it is true--but we also have to focus on the fact that we have a broader problem. That is what I am going to talk about today, along with what we can do about it.

Congress has done a lot in the last several years. When looking at what was proposed and what was passed, we put new policies in place at the Federal level to promote better prevention, better treatment programs, and better long-term recovery. We passed legislation to stop some of these deadly drugs from coming into our country. That has helped somewhat. Those legislative initiatives, such as the CARA Act, the 21st Century Cures Act, and the STOP Act, are starting to work.

Over $3 billion of additional funds has been appropriated by this Congress just in the last 3 years alone to ensure that we have the ability to push back against this epidemic. In my home State of Ohio-- one of the States hardest hit by this epidemic--we received nearly $140 million from the CARA and Cures grants. It is going toward stuff that is working--evidence-based prevention, innovative approaches to treatment and getting people into treatment, and closing some of the gaps in the continuum of prevention, treatment, and recovery. A lot of people were falling between the cracks. Closing those gaps has a made a big difference in my State. We also equipped our first responders with what they need and the training they need to help push back.

The good news is, these programs are starting to work. Drug overdose deaths are still way too high, but for the first time in 8 years--8 years of increased overdose deaths every year--we are seeing a reduction in overdose deaths.

In my own State of Ohio, we have seen significant progress. We have had a 21-percent drop in our overdose deaths finally after 8 years of increases. This was the biggest drop in the Nation from July 2017 to June of 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control National Center of Health Statistics. Nationally, again after 8 years of annual increased deaths, we have seen a leveling out--in fact, a very modest downturn. Between 2017 and 2018, overdose deaths fell from 73,000 to 71,000. In all, the overdose rate dropped in 21 States. Overall, there has been only about a 1-percent drop, so it is very modest but a lot better than the alternative we have seen for 8 years, which is increased deaths.

As we begin to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, I am convinced that we would be doing even better if not for the influx of fentanyl. About 4 or 5 years ago, fentanyl came to our country in a big way-- almost entirely from China and almost always through our own U.S. Postal Service, believe it or not--and it has caused all kinds of havoc. It is the deadliest of all the drugs. When you look at overdose deaths, the primary cause now is fentanyl. It is a synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

We are beginning to push back again, including with our STOP Act, which has now been passed, which requires the post office to begin screening and stopping some of these packages from coming in. We will do a better job in working with China. We have commitments from them, and we hope they will follow through on them.

Even as this limited progress is being made on the opioid front, we have a new, growing danger. I have heard this over the past few years from law enforcement and from providers--from people on the frontlines of the drug epidemic. They are seeing a resurgence of what are called psychostimulants. Mostly it is pure, powerful methamphetamine from Mexico--crystal meth.

In the last couple of months, I have heard about this from the people in the trenches all over Ohio. I have talked to community leaders in Knox County; treatment providers in Southeast Ohio; service providers in Columbus; the ADAMHS Board in Adams, Lawrence, and Scioto Counties; the leadership of

the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition; and community leaders and law enforcement in Butler County and the Dayton area just last week. From all over the State, they all tell me the same thing: We are making some progress now on heroin, and that is good. We are making limited progress on keeping the fentanyl out. But we are spinning our wheels on combating particularly crystal meth, and they are also seeing a resurgence of cocaine--both of which are stimulants, and both of which are causing havoc in these communities, in part because, as a psychostimulant, it leads to more violent behavior.

They are having a devastating impact in my State. According to a 2018 report from Ohio University, these psychostimulants--including meth-- were found in just nine overdose deaths in 2010. That number rose to 556 overdose deaths in 2017, which is the most recent data we have. That is an increase of 6,000 percent. That same year, Ohio had more than 1,500 people die of cocaine overdose, which is an almost 140- percent increase from the year before.

This problem isn't isolated to Ohio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving cocaine, crystal meth, and other psychostimulants have increased nationwide. In the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than 23,000 or nearly one- third involved cocaine, meth, or both. Just from 2016 to 2017, in that 1 year, death rates involving cocaine and crystal meth increased by approximately 33 percent. Increases occurred across all demographic groups and in all ZIP Codes.

In the case of meth in particular, usage rates have gone up as opioid rates have gone down. I am told by experts that this is for a few reasons. Some meth users initially turned to this drug to manage the heavy crashes that followed prolonged usage of opioids--heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids--and then they became just as addicted to meth as they had been to opioids. Others turns to meth because the drug is stronger and cheaper than other options.

By the way, the days of home chemists and one-pot meth labs in America are largely gone. You probably can remember, 5, 10, 15 years ago, the meth labs in your community. You are not hearing about those now. That is the good thing, but the bad thing is that you are not hearing about them because the stuff coming from Mexico is more powerful and less expensive. The super-labs in Mexico run by the drug cartels are mass-producing this meth. It is powerful, deadly, and low cost. I am told by law enforcement in Columbus, OH, that crystal meth now costs less than marijuana on the streets of Columbus.

Most of this pure crystal meth enters the United States from Mexico in bulk at ports of entry along our southwest border, often hidden in cars and trucks. Our Customs and Border Protection officers, who are already stretched thin by the ongoing migration crisis, don't have the resources to identify these smuggled shipments. The INTERDICT Act, which we passed here, is beginning to help by providing some technology, but, frankly, we need research on better technology, and we need to provide more funding to ensure we can stop this deadly substance by identifying it at the border to keep it from coming in.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the amount of methamphetamine at our ports of entry has soared from about 14,000 pounds in 2012 to 56,000 pounds in 2018. We have also seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking along the southern border just in the 1 year from 2017 to 2018. One troubling measurement is that the number of crystal meth submissions to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation lab rose from 2,000 in 2015 to over 12,000 in 2018. That is a 500-percent increase in my home State. This is an indication of how much of this is being detained, being found by law enforcement and taken to these labs.

As I heard from folks all across Ohio, we are also seeing meth laced with other drugs, including fentanyl, heroin, and sometimes cocaine. I am told that sometimes the cartels mix these drugs into methamphetamine to lower the cost of the final product, meaning that the users may be consuming dangerous opioids without realizing it. Other traffickers do so because they know that fentanyl is incredibly addictive. You may think it is one thing, but it is really another. Any street drug you use is potentially deadly--remember that.

We still don't have the full picture of how these drugs are being mixed together and sold for consumption. Over the past 2 years, I have seen more reports of individuals in Ohio who used cocaine that, unknown to them, had been mixed with fentanyl. In the last month alone, at least 49 Ohioans in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, were killed by that deadly combination. It has been hitting our African-American communities particularly hard.

Again, this highlights how the drug cartels sometimes try to hook users by cutting stimulants with addictive, deadly fentanyl, often with lethal outcomes.

The bottom line is, we have to address the broader issue of addiction, not just the issue of individual drugs. We know that crystal meth and cocaine are increasing pretty dramatically. That is why we have to continue our fight against opioid use but also provide more flexibility to our communities. As a result, today I am introducing new legislation designed to address the resurgence of crystal meth and cocaine into our communities.

To date, the grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act--these are grants that go directly back to the States, and the States determine how they are used in local communities. These are called State opioid response grants. They have been used to increase access to naloxone--a miracle drug that reverses the overdose. They have also been used for longer term addiction treatment and support services for opioids.

For all the good they have done, these grants can't be used effectively to combat the drug crisis beyond opioids, which ignores the new on-the-ground reality of addiction in my State and many others. So the legislation I am introducing today will make a simple change to existing law. It will allow the State opioid response grants to be more flexible so they can be used for whatever the drug addiction problem is on the ground, which will be a little different for every State and, for that matter, every community. In particular, dollars would be able to be used in programs focused on methamphetamine and cocaine treatment and recovery.

We know these existing funds are making a difference. We have to be sure and keep this program going. That is why my legislation will also reauthorize the State opioid response grants program with this flexibility but reauthorize it for 5 years, providing $500 million annually to ensure there is stable funding.

A stable funding stream to these States is absolutely essential to having the predictability and the certainty we need to continue to make progress and to avoid these new drugs coming in and creating more devastation in our communities. It is a simple, commonsense change that will allow State and local organizations the flexibility they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on addiction.

The fact that we are continuing to see these new types of drugs pop up in Ohio and around the country highlights the reality that this is a fight against addiction. Addiction is a disease. Again, this Congress has done an unprecedented amount of work in this area in the last few years, and I commend us for that, but we have to do more. We have to provide this flexibility. We have to be sure we are focusing on the fight against addiction, not just on individual drugs.

While I am encouraged by the welcomed progress in preventing opioid overdose deaths, we cannot rest on our laurels. The cartels continue to pump new combinations of opioids and stimulants into vulnerable communities, hooking individuals on yet another toxic drug and perpetrating this cycle of addiction. Let's keep our unprecedented bipartisan efforts going in this body. Let's continue to partner with allies, local government and State governments, and with our nonprofits. Let's make sure the resources are there to continue to save lives and restore communities.

Mr. President, today I am here to continue the important conversation we had on this floor about the ongoing addiction crisis we face in this country. Over the past 2 years, I have come to the floor 57 times to talk about addiction, and usually it has been about opioids and the impact opioids are having--tearing our families apart, devastating our communities. There is certainly an opioid epidemic in this country with prescription drugs, fentanyl, heroin--it is true--but we also have to focus on the fact that we have a broader problem. That is what I am going to talk about today, along with what we can do about it.

Congress has done a lot in the last several years. When looking at what was proposed and what was passed, we put new policies in place at the Federal level to promote better prevention, better treatment programs, and better long-term recovery. We passed legislation to stop some of these deadly drugs from coming into our country. That has helped somewhat. Those legislative initiatives, such as the CARA Act, the 21st Century Cures Act, and the STOP Act, are starting to work.

Over $3 billion of additional funds has been appropriated by this Congress just in the last 3 years alone to ensure that we have the ability to push back against this epidemic. In my home State of Ohio-- one of the States hardest hit by this epidemic--we received nearly $140 million from the CARA and Cures grants. It is going toward stuff that is working--evidence-based prevention, innovative approaches to treatment and getting people into treatment, and closing some of the gaps in the continuum of prevention, treatment, and recovery. A lot of people were falling between the cracks. Closing those gaps has a made a big difference in my State. We also equipped our first responders with what they need and the training they need to help push back.

The good news is, these programs are starting to work. Drug overdose deaths are still way too high, but for the first time in 8 years--8 years of increased overdose deaths every year--we are seeing a reduction in overdose deaths.

In my own State of Ohio, we have seen significant progress. We have had a 21-percent drop in our overdose deaths finally after 8 years of increases. This was the biggest drop in the Nation from July 2017 to June of 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control National Center of Health Statistics. Nationally, again after 8 years of annual increased deaths, we have seen a leveling out--in fact, a very modest downturn. Between 2017 and 2018, overdose deaths fell from 73,000 to 71,000. In all, the overdose rate dropped in 21 States. Overall, there has been only about a 1-percent drop, so it is very modest but a lot better than the alternative we have seen for 8 years, which is increased deaths.

As we begin to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, I am convinced that we would be doing even better if not for the influx of fentanyl. About 4 or 5 years ago, fentanyl came to our country in a big way-- almost entirely from China and almost always through our own U.S. Postal Service, believe it or not--and it has caused all kinds of havoc. It is the deadliest of all the drugs. When you look at overdose deaths, the primary cause now is fentanyl. It is a synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

We are beginning to push back again, including with our STOP Act, which has now been passed, which requires the post office to begin screening and stopping some of these packages from coming in. We will do a better job in working with China. We have commitments from them, and we hope they will follow through on them.

Even as this limited progress is being made on the opioid front, we have a new, growing danger. I have heard this over the past few years from law enforcement and from providers--from people on the frontlines of the drug epidemic. They are seeing a resurgence of what are called psychostimulants. Mostly it is pure, powerful methamphetamine from Mexico--crystal meth.

In the last couple of months, I have heard about this from the people in the trenches all over Ohio. I have talked to community leaders in Knox County; treatment providers in Southeast Ohio; service providers in Columbus; the ADAMHS Board in Adams, Lawrence, and Scioto Counties; the leadership of

the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition; and community leaders and law enforcement in Butler County and the Dayton area just last week. From all over the State, they all tell me the same thing: We are making some progress now on heroin, and that is good. We are making limited progress on keeping the fentanyl out. But we are spinning our wheels on combating particularly crystal meth, and they are also seeing a resurgence of cocaine--both of which are stimulants, and both of which are causing havoc in these communities, in part because, as a psychostimulant, it leads to more violent behavior.

They are having a devastating impact in my State. According to a 2018 report from Ohio University, these psychostimulants--including meth-- were found in just nine overdose deaths in 2010. That number rose to 556 overdose deaths in 2017, which is the most recent data we have. That is an increase of 6,000 percent. That same year, Ohio had more than 1,500 people die of cocaine overdose, which is an almost 140- percent increase from the year before.

This problem isn't isolated to Ohio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving cocaine, crystal meth, and other psychostimulants have increased nationwide. In the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than 23,000 or nearly one- third involved cocaine, meth, or both. Just from 2016 to 2017, in that 1 year, death rates involving cocaine and crystal meth increased by approximately 33 percent. Increases occurred across all demographic groups and in all ZIP Codes.

In the case of meth in particular, usage rates have gone up as opioid rates have gone down. I am told by experts that this is for a few reasons. Some meth users initially turned to this drug to manage the heavy crashes that followed prolonged usage of opioids--heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids--and then they became just as addicted to meth as they had been to opioids. Others turns to meth because the drug is stronger and cheaper than other options.

By the way, the days of home chemists and one-pot meth labs in America are largely gone. You probably can remember, 5, 10, 15 years ago, the meth labs in your community. You are not hearing about those now. That is the good thing, but the bad thing is that you are not hearing about them because the stuff coming from Mexico is more powerful and less expensive. The super-labs in Mexico run by the drug cartels are mass-producing this meth. It is powerful, deadly, and low cost. I am told by law enforcement in Columbus, OH, that crystal meth now costs less than marijuana on the streets of Columbus.

Most of this pure crystal meth enters the United States from Mexico in bulk at ports of entry along our southwest border, often hidden in cars and trucks. Our Customs and Border Protection officers, who are already stretched thin by the ongoing migration crisis, don't have the resources to identify these smuggled shipments. The INTERDICT Act, which we passed here, is beginning to help by providing some technology, but, frankly, we need research on better technology, and we need to provide more funding to ensure we can stop this deadly substance by identifying it at the border to keep it from coming in.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the amount of methamphetamine at our ports of entry has soared from about 14,000 pounds in 2012 to 56,000 pounds in 2018. We have also seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking along the southern border just in the 1 year from 2017 to 2018. One troubling measurement is that the number of crystal meth submissions to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation lab rose from 2,000 in 2015 to over 12,000 in 2018. That is a 500-percent increase in my home State. This is an indication of how much of this is being detained, being found by law enforcement and taken to these labs.

As I heard from folks all across Ohio, we are also seeing meth laced with other drugs, including fentanyl, heroin, and sometimes cocaine. I am told that sometimes the cartels mix these drugs into methamphetamine to lower the cost of the final product, meaning that the users may be consuming dangerous opioids without realizing it. Other traffickers do so because they know that fentanyl is incredibly addictive. You may think it is one thing, but it is really another. Any street drug you use is potentially deadly--remember that.

We still don't have the full picture of how these drugs are being mixed together and sold for consumption. Over the past 2 years, I have seen more reports of individuals in Ohio who used cocaine that, unknown to them, had been mixed with fentanyl. In the last month alone, at least 49 Ohioans in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, were killed by that deadly combination. It has been hitting our African-American communities particularly hard.

Again, this highlights how the drug cartels sometimes try to hook users by cutting stimulants with addictive, deadly fentanyl, often with lethal outcomes.

The bottom line is, we have to address the broader issue of addiction, not just the issue of individual drugs. We know that crystal meth and cocaine are increasing pretty dramatically. That is why we have to continue our fight against opioid use but also provide more flexibility to our communities. As a result, today I am introducing new legislation designed to address the resurgence of crystal meth and cocaine into our communities.

To date, the grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act--these are grants that go directly back to the States, and the States determine how they are used in local communities. These are called State opioid response grants. They have been used to increase access to naloxone--a miracle drug that reverses the overdose. They have also been used for longer term addiction treatment and support services for opioids.

For all the good they have done, these grants can't be used effectively to combat the drug crisis beyond opioids, which ignores the new on-the-ground reality of addiction in my State and many others. So the legislation I am introducing today will make a simple change to existing law. It will allow the State opioid response grants to be more flexible so they can be used for whatever the drug addiction problem is on the ground, which will be a little different for every State and, for that matter, every community. In particular, dollars would be able to be used in programs focused on methamphetamine and cocaine treatment and recovery.

We know these existing funds are making a difference. We have to be sure and keep this program going. That is why my legislation will also reauthorize the State opioid response grants program with this flexibility but reauthorize it for 5 years, providing $500 million annually to ensure there is stable funding.

A stable funding stream to these States is absolutely essential to having the predictability and the certainty we need to continue to make progress and to avoid these new drugs coming in and creating more devastation in our communities. It is a simple, commonsense change that will allow State and local organizations the flexibility they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on addiction.

The fact that we are continuing to see these new types of drugs pop up in Ohio and around the country highlights the reality that this is a fight against addiction. Addiction is a disease. Again, this Congress has done an unprecedented amount of work in this area in the last few years, and I commend us for that, but we have to do more. We have to provide this flexibility. We have to be sure we are focusing on the fight against addiction, not just on individual drugs.

While I am encouraged by the welcomed progress in preventing opioid overdose deaths, we cannot rest on our laurels. The cartels continue to pump new combinations of opioids and stimulants into vulnerable communities, hooking individuals on yet another toxic drug and perpetrating this cycle of addiction. Let's keep our unprecedented bipartisan efforts going in this body. Let's continue to partner with allies, local government and State governments, and with our nonprofits. Let's make sure the resources are there to continue to save lives and restore communities.