Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 9598) to amend the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act to reauthorize such Office, 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 this measure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act.

We have a drug overdose crisis in this country. It is unacceptable and intolerable. In 2019, roughly 70,000 people in the United States died of an overdose. In 2021, that number rose to over 106,000, and in 2022, to over 111,000 deaths.

In 2023, overdose deaths remained over 100,000 with 107,000 Americans dying of an overdose. Overdose deaths remain near record highs. This is an ongoing, deadly national emergency that affects every community in our Nation.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, was established in the Executive Office of the President with the specific mission to coordinate the government-wide resources to combat the loss of life and human misery caused by illicit narcotics and overdoses.

This bill, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024, will reauthorize ONDCP and two critical grant programs the office administers at current spending levels for the next 7 years.

Specifically, the bill will reauthorize the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, which helps local law enforcement coordinate efforts to take down drug traffickers, and the Drug Free Communities Program, which works in communities across the country to prevent young people from ever trying drugs in the first place.

I commend the great Americans who work hard to get results through the Drug Free Communities coalitions. We listen to these coalitions and ensure that the grant limitation for local communities was increased from $125,000 to $150,000 and gave the ONDCP Director the ability to award up to two additional grants to eligible coalitions rather than the previous limit of one.

I thank Congressman John Duarte of California and Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan for their efforts to reauthorize HIDTA. Key elements of this bipartisan bill, H.R. 7185, have been incorporated into this reauthorization bill to ensure that HIDTA resources are used to combat fentanyl, including granting the Attorney General the authority to temporarily reassign U.S. attorneys to prioritize fentanyl trafficking.

I am sure that every single member of this committee and every Member of this Congress knows constituents and their families who have been tragically impacted by illicit narcotics, especially synthetic opioids like fentanyl. No drug has affected our communities more in recent years than fentanyl.

The DEA has assessed that virtually all of the deadly fentanyl found in the United States is mass-produced by transnational criminal organizations in Mexico using precursor chemicals sourced from China and then smuggled into the United States across the southwest border.

This bill requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to assess how an increase in encounters at the southwest border affects DHS' ability to prevent the unlawful entry of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States.

It also directs the ONDCP Director to coordinate with the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State to ensure that the appropriate agencies are properly resourced to ensure that traffickers of illicit drugs are held accountable under title 8 immigration authorities.

I thank Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon of Puerto Rico and Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands for their work on H.R. 920, and ensuring that the Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy is codified in this reauthorization package ensuring that ONDCP will properly assess the threat of drug trafficking into the United States through the Caribbean.

I thank Ranking Member Raskin and his staff for working with us to make this important bill a reality over the past year.

H.R. 9598 represents an important reauthorization effort in the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability's legislative jurisdiction. I also thank the chairs and ranking members of the Energy and Commerce Committee and House Judiciary Committee and their professional staff for closely coordinating on our shared jurisdiction within this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill so we can keep the U.S. Government's collective resources focused on addressing the national drug crisis in our great country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico (Mrs. Gonzalez-Colon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Duarte).

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this very important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 9598, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024, of which I am an original cosponsor.

I am pleased this legislation includes my bill, H.R. 920, the Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act, to combat drug trafficking from the Caribbean region into the United States with a particular focus on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The smuggling of illicit drugs across our Nation's borders poses a major threat to our communities, fueling both the overdose epidemic and drug-related violent crime. To tackle this, Congress has tasked the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, with overseeing and coordinating the Federal Government's counterdrug efforts.

This includes the development and implementation of the National Drug Control Strategy every 2 years. By law, this strategy must also include supplemental strategies to prevent drug trafficking across the southwest and the northern border.

In response to congressional directives placed in appropriations reports, ONDCP has also previously released strategies to combat the flow of illegal drugs coming through our third border in the Caribbean.

However, unlike the existing statutory requirement to issue the Southwest Border and the Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategies, there is currently no requirement in statute to develop this Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy despite the ongoing threats we face from drug traffickers operating in the region.

For instance, according to data shared by the U.S. Coast Guard with my office, the known maritime cocaine flow in the U.S. moving through the Caribbean grew from 652 metric tons in fiscal year 2020 to 950 metric tons in fiscal year 2023, an almost 46 percent increase in this 4-year period.

This proves that transnational criminal organizations continue to rely on Caribbean smuggling routes to transport illegal drugs and endanger communities across the Nation.

Nowhere is this risk more apparent than in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, home to 3.3 million Americans and where the illicit activities of drug traffickers contribute to violence and higher-than- average homicide rates.

Just in fiscal year 2023 alone, Federal law enforcement authorities seized over 80,000 kilograms of drugs in and around the two territories. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are also used as transshipment points to smuggle drugs into the mainland.

Law enforcement agencies estimate that anywhere between 70 and 80 percent of the drugs that enter Puerto Rico are then transported to the continental U.S. This underscores that the threats posed by Caribbean- based drug traffickers are national in scope and require that the Federal Government has the necessary strategy in place to strengthen interdiction operations in the region.

That is why we introduced H.R. 920, the Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act, which will codify the requirement for ONDCP to include a Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy in the National Drug Control Strategy, just as it is required by law to include a Southwest Border and a Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy.

Additionally, to crack down on the financing schemes and money laundering operations that support the illicit narcotics trade, H.R. 920 will amend the definition of supply reduction in ONDCP's authorization to ensure the National Drug Control Strategy and its supplemental border strategies explicitly include activities to track and disrupt the financial networks of drug trafficking organizations.

I thank Chairman Comer and his staff for working with us to incorporate my bill within H.R. 9598, the bipartisan Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024. I also recognize Ranking Member Raskin for his support, and I thank Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett who was my co-lead on the Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act, as well as Senator Rick Scott and Senator Alex Padilla who introduced the Senate companion bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 9598.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority for working together with us to bring this bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, to the floor.

The office has the critical responsibility to coordinate the whole- of-government response to the Nation's continuing brutal addiction and substance abuse crisis, which affects every community in the land.

In the face of this crisis, new data shows that opioid overdose deaths have decreased 14.5 percent over the 12-month period ending on June 30, 2024, due, in no small part, to the strong actions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

To understand the addiction and overdose crisis, the Biden-Harris administration sees the need to address the problem at both the levels of supply and demand. ONDCP has taken decisive action to intercept the flow of fentanyl and other illicit substances into the country.

This reauthorization will further bolster our efforts to block the supply of drugs, including by funding the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program providing more than $275 million in grant making to law enforcement entities that will help keep illicit and harmful drugs off of our streets.

The reauthorization also confronts the problem by countering the demand for illegal drugs. The Drug Free Communities Program, for example, brings together approximately 35,000 people across the country to help prevent and combat youth substance abuse.

I am proud this authorization would make sure that this successful grant program continues. Research shows also that harm-reduction strategies, programs that meet people where they are, work. Under the Biden-Harris administration, ONDCP has adopted harm-reduction strategies as part of the national campaign to address the addiction crisis and save lives.

The office has supported community access to naloxone, syringe service programs, and fentanyl test strip distribution. The legislation will allow the office to continue these harm-reduction programs and will direct an evidence-based examination of opioid reversal medications, like naloxone.

During last year's hearing examining reauthorization, we discussed the importance of empowering ONDCP to identify and respond to new and emerging illegal drug threats, including Xylazine, a street drug that is used by veterinarians as a tranquilizer for large animals. This legislation will enable the office to continue this work as new threats come to market and begin to besiege our communities.

I thank the chairman and his staff for working with us on this bipartisan legislation in a bipartisan way, and I am happy to support reauthorization through 2031.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from Puerto Rico for her kind words. We have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the commonsense bipartisan Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2024. I thank Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Raskin for including provisions from legislation I introduced, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Reauthorization Act, in this package to help combat the fentanyl and drug epidemic in California's central valley and across the United States.

The Federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, or the HIDTA Program, allows Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials to share intelligence and pool resources to help get these dangerous drugs off of our streets and out of our schools. They do this through 33 individual HIDTAs that have been designated around the country, including throughout my district.

In 2022, the Central Valley California HIDTA seized over 1.4 million dosages of fentanyl, 3,000 kilograms of methamphetamine, 355 kilograms of cocaine, and 101 kilograms of heroin. These seizures of illegal drugs are exponentially higher for the United States. However, the HIDTA Program expired in 2023.

The version of my HIDTA bill included in this larger package would authorize $298.5 million in funding for the HIDTA Program, a $18.5 million increase; renew this program through fiscal year 2031; and make $5 million available to individual HIDTAs across the country to further enhance their fentanyl seizure and interdiction activities.

In addition, I commend the local prosecutors and district attorneys in my community who work hard every day to put drug traffickers behind bars, but resources can be limited, and California's soft-on-crime and lenient bail policies don't help. These partnerships between Federal and local prosecutors are critical to putting these high-volume drug traffickers in prison for decades, not months. That is what Federal prosecution can do.

Included in this package are additional provisions for my bill that would empower the U.S. Attorney General to assign Federal prosecutors, known as assistant U.S. attorneys, to individual HIDTAs to investigate and prosecute organizations and individuals who are trafficking in fentanyl in the United States to the fullest extent of Federal law-- decades, not months.

I am proud to have worked with local sheriffs and DAs in the valley to develop my HIDTA bill, and I appreciate their support for this important legislation that will help our communities become safer.

I again thank Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Raskin for working with me on my HIDTA bill and including provisions on this program in the ONDCP package we are considering now. It is critical to ensure that law enforcement has the necessary tools and resources to continue to fight against fentanyl and the drug crisis across the United States. Protecting our communities and families is not a partisan issue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 9598.