HALT Fentanyl Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 27. I am here to say this is not business as usual right now in Washington, D.C., or all across the country.

House Republicans are offering this bill as window dressing, Mr. Speaker, to a lot of the illegality that is going on across the agencies that is distracting from the White House's stop work orders and payment freeze orders that have been deemed illegal and have been restrained by Federal courts.

This is a window dressing bill to distract from what is happening to payments with our partner States and nonprofit agencies like Head Start centers, infrastructure projects, and medical research across the country.

This is window dressing to distract us from the incursion into Treasury and Medicare payment systems by an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, and based on some fake, made-up agency, a so-called Department of Government Efficiency. This is a distraction from the illegal and dangerous purge of law enforcement officers and intelligence agents in other agencies.

Mr. Speaker, this is a way to distract and spin your wheels at a time when Elon Musk has just decided to ride into a congressionally appropriated agency in USAID and just say that we are closed for business, which runs completely counter to the United States Constitution.

Where are the Republicans? The American people are demanding answers. Where are the House Republicans?

Mr. Speaker, your silence is deafening.

Federal courts have issued orders to stop this illegal and dangerous activity, and we are not going to allow these illegal operators to run amuck.

Instead, what are House Republicans doing here today? They are offering a flawed bill to address opioid addiction.

I would say to my good friends and colleagues: Your record does not match your rhetoric because there is a back story that belies what House Republicans are bringing here today. First of all, this bill doesn't get the job done. My providers back home say that this is overbroad and really fails to meet the moment of our opioid addiction crisis.

Here is the back story: The SUPPORT Act was adopted in a bipartisan fashion in 2018. It was the largest congressional investment in overdose prevention at the time, and it directed resources to communities that need it to save lives through community-based treatment and recovery. It required Medicaid to cover medications for opioid use disorder. The SUPPORT Act and everything was broadly successful and appreciated. It was working to help free people from fentanyl addiction.

We have to do so much more, however. That is why in the last Congress we worked together to pass a new and more robust SUPPORT Act to address the third wave of the opioid crisis. However, when it came to the year- end appropriations package that was crafted to include it, who shows up but Elon Musk to throw a wrench into our year-end compromise between Democrats

and Republicans to address the opioid crisis through reauthorizing the SUPPORT Act.

The Republicans let him do it. You are allowing it to happen again, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, why didn't Republicans bring the SUPPORT Act to the floor, something that really meaningfully helps families and communities address the opioid addiction crisis and the fentanyl crisis?

Second, by standing by and allowing the White House and the Justice Department to purge FBI agents and CIA personnel, Mr. Speaker, Republicans are taking the cops off the beat who are tracking the drug traffickers who are trying to break up the fentanyl cartels. So Republicans are making us less safe and are heaping a lot of costs on families that just don't need this chaos.

Third, Mr. Speaker, Republicans have this sneaky and chaotic halt to the flow of healthcare dollars back home, medical research and NIH. Medicaid, we know from all of the reporting, is on Republicans' chopping block. Medicaid is the backbone to providing healthcare and substance abuse treatment for people all across America. Mr. Speaker, Republicans have that in their sights, too.

Tell me whose record doesn't match their rhetoric. I would say it is the House Republicans. No one has the legal authority to turn Treasury payments into means of political retribution. No one in the executive branch has the authority to cancel or ignore congressional appropriations. That is a basic constitutional precept.

Why do Republicans serve in Congress if they want to be a royal subject to a king rather than a Representative of the Article I branch?

Mr. Speaker, this simply is not business as usual today. They bring a bill, H.R. 27, in an effort to paper over the crisis that is going on out there.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to ask my Republican colleagues, because we have so few opportunities to do it in public officially, where is your backbone? Where is your backbone to stand up for Article I and tell the executive branch they are not allowed to destroy agencies that have been constitutionally and congressionally funded?

The Republicans can't allow some made-up department to come in and steal away an agency that we have authorized. Where is your courage?

This bill is also such a diversion from what we should be doing, which is funding opioid-use addiction. They can bring H.R. 27 and say it is the be-all and end-all, but everyone has weighed in to say it doesn't get the job done.

Don't take it from me. Take it from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the doctors and counselors who treat our neighbors who suffer from addiction. They say, on behalf of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which is a national medical specialty representing more than 8,000 physicians and associated health professionals who specialize in the prevention and treatment of addiction, they write to urge that the amendments to mitigate the unintended negative consequences be added.

In the end, though, they said, if you are not going to allow us to offer real amendments to fix the bill, they recommend not passing the HALT Fentanyl Act. They say it just preserves the deadly status quo.

However, what do they say in the end? They say they support the SUPPORT Act for patients and communities. That was the agreement at year-end, which Republicans let Elon Musk pull out of the year-end appropriations package.

Republicans shouldn't come today and say, oh, we are solving this problem when they are now complicit in doing it.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

American Society of

Addiction Medicine,

February 3, 2025.

RE Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

Hon. Chuck Grassley,

Chairman, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Richard Durbin,

Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Buddy Carter,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Diana DeGette,

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, Chairman

Carter, and Ranking Member DeGette: On behalf of the American

Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a national medical

specialty society representing more than 8,000 physicians and

associated health professionals who specialize in the

prevention and treatment of addiction, I write to urge

amendments to the Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

to mitigate unintended negative consequences and encourage

further Congressional action to address the demand side of

our national addiction and overdose crisis.

Opioid overdose deaths are always tragic, especially

because they are preventable with evidence-based addiction

prevention, treatment, and overdose reversal medications.

Even through drug overdose deaths dropped last year, the

United States (US) has far to go in ending our national

addiction and overdose crisis. We still rank highest in drug

overdose deaths per capita in the world.

Illicitly manufactured, high-potency synthetic opiods,

including fentanyl, are key drivers of overdose deaths in the

US. Therefore, policies aiming to decrease their illegal

importation and distribution are critically important.

However, we are concerned that some of the policies proposed

in the HALT Fentanyl Act may have unintended consequences.

Some minor adjustments may support a better return on

investment. Enacting smart legislation is critical to saving

more American lives.

Specifically, ASAM urges the following amendments to The

HALT Fentanyl Act:

Revise its definition of ``fentanyl-related substances'' to

consider potency and mu opioid receptor activity in the

brain, rather than simply specifying the precise structures

of drugs that would qualify for Schedule I. Strict structural

specification provides a blueprint for drug cartels and

chemists to modify substances to avoid detection or

conviction. Unfortunately, this can lead to more dangerous

substances being manufactured and distributed across the US--

resulting in higher potency substances on the streets and

more severe addictions involving substances for which

existing treatments may not work. Additionally, prosecutions

need to focus on the trafficking and distribution of

fentanyl-related substances that pose a danger to humans; the

bill's current definition may include substances that do not

have ``abuse'' potential;

Expand the federal mandatory minimum safety valve across

all substances to end the practice of low-level drug

offenders with substance use disorders receiving excessive

and expensive sentences. Redirecting associated savings

toward evidence-based addiction treatments would be more

effective;

Refine the expedited research procedures to reference

``substance(s)'' instead of ``substance'' throughout to

clarify that researchers can submit one application for

multiple substances;

Amend the expedited research procedures to remove the

requirement to demonstrate that the researcher is authorized

to conduct research with respect to the substance(s) under

the laws of the State in which the research will take place.

This often creates a catch-22 for researchers. A State won't

approve the research until the researchers can demonstrate

that is approved federally, and the DEA won't approve it

until the researchers can demonstrate that it is approved at

the state level. We recommend deferring to the States to

include the requirement to demonstrate federal approval; and

Express a sense of Congress that, while the legislation may

facilitate prosecutions and seizures of fentanyl-related

substances, increased and sustained Congressional efforts are

needed to address the demand side of our national addiction

and overdose crisis if the primary goal is to save lives.

the halt lethal trafficking (halt) fentanyl act

ASAM agrees with the Drug Enforcement Administration

(DEA)'s assessment that the current scheduling framework

under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) does not offer

necessary flexibility to combat the threat posed by emerging

synthetic substances. Chemists can constantly adjust their

formulations to evade US scheduling, and law enforcement

faces significant challenges staying ahead of these threats.

In 2018, the DEA exercised its authority to place non-

scheduled fentanyl-related substances into Schedule I for two

years. Congress has extended this temporary class-wide

scheduling on several occasions. While this approach has had

success in reducing law enforcement encounters with new

fentanyl-related substances in the illicit market, it has

been unable to curb the overall flow of illicitly

manufactured fentanyl into the US. Drug cartels have

continued large-scale production and distribution of high-

potency synthetic opioids.

Between 2017 and 2023, the number of illicit fentanyl

seizures in the U.S. skyrocketed by

more than 1,700 percent. Concurrently, the proportion of

fentanyl seizures involving counterfeit prescription pills--

that further exacerbate the risk of overdose by misleading

Americans as to what substance they are ingesting--increased

fourfold. Sadly, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids

other than methadone (primarily illicitly manufactured

fentanyl) have climbed since 2018 to more than 73,000 in

2022.

In short, the HALT Fentanyl Act merely preserves a deadly

status quo.

Additionally, the legislation would continue (1) imposing

mandatory minimum sentences for quantity-based offenses

involving fentanyl-related substances and (2) defining the

class by chemical structure, regardless of potency or actual

impact on opioid receptors and related risks. Unfortunately,

mandatory minimum sentences are a terrible return on

investment when used to punish low-level drug dealers.

These sentences are expensive, needlessly requiring

thousands of dollars per individual per year. Research has

shown that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter drug

use--either before or after incarceration--and can spend tax

dollars with little to no impact on drug use, drug-related

arrests, or overdose rates. Moreover, a meta-analysis of

research studies found that incarceration not only fails to

prevent drug use, it may even increase the likelihood of

reoffending.

The largest return on criminal justice costs may come from

targeting cartel leaders or high-level drug dealers. Unlike

low-level dealers, they are responsible for the movement of

large quantities of fentanyl-related substances at any given

time. Yet, the highest-level drug traffickers represent only

11% of federal drug offenders across substances. In other

words, the US currently wastes a significant amount of money

incarcerating low-level drug offenders with lengthy

sentences.

a better ROI: investing in addiction medicine innovation and treatment

Carefully tailored drug scheduling decisions can play a

useful role in a supply-side approach to addressing an

overdose crisis, but increased and sustained efforts on the

demand side present an opportunity for greater progress.

While many people reduce or stop using drugs without

treatment, those who consume most drugs distributed by drug

cartels frequently have moderate to severe substance use

disorders that necessitate medical treatment. Threats of

punishment are unlikely to deter these Americans, because

their disorder has already negatively affected their

motivation and judgment regarding their drug use. Instead,

effective addiction treatment reduces drug use and improves

health and wellbeing.

Addiction treatment is an excellent return on investment,

including for low-level drug dealers who are distributing

drugs to support their own addiction. Every dollar spent on

addiction treatment saves $4 to $7 in criminal justice and

other costs. Therefore, rather than inefficiently using

taxpayers' money incarcerating low-level dealers of fentanyl-

related or other substances, the government can realize

positive effects from treating substance use disorders of

low-level dealers, including through drug courts that utilize

evidence-based practices and other alternatives to

incarceration.

Congress can lead the way in promoting helpful addiction

treatments. While highly effective medications exist for

opioid use disorder, many people are using stimulants, like

cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as alcohol. No

medications have been approved for stimulant use disorder,

and new treatments are urgently needed for all substance use

disorders to increase their uptake by both prescribers and

patients. Unfortunately, innovation in the addiction field

has lagged other medical fields due to limited financial

investment and misunderstanding of addiction as a moral

rather than a medical condition. Congress could consider

establishing incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to

enter the under-tapped addiction medicine field. The recent

case of GLP-1 medications demonstrates how new medications

can change millions of lives, spur economic growth, and

provide renewed hope for people suffering from stigmatized

medical conditions.

While new treatments are being developed and tested, the US

must also quickly expand access to existing evidence-based

treatments--including methadone, buprenorphine, and

contingency management. Few clinicians offer these

treatments, and they are unlikely to do so without increased

reimbursement rates from insurers and less red tape around

methadone for the treatment of opioid use disorder. For

example, Congress could explicitly amend federal law to state

that contingency management--the most effective treatment for

stimulant use disorder--does not violate federal anti-

kickback laws and patient inducement laws. For too long,

contingency management has been underused by clinicians who

fear prosecution under federal statutes that were not created

to address contingency management. Similarly, many pharmacies

fear that stocking effective medications, like buprenorphine,

will lead to Department of Justice investigations.

Recognizing this, Congress could clarify federal statute to

ensure that pharmacies' stocking of addiction medications is

not an indicator of suspicious activity.

Additionally, Congress could close the dangerous Medicare

coverage gap for evidence-based residential addiction

treatment. At a minimum, Congress could reauthorize, and

update key programs first created by the SUPPORT for Patients

and Communities Act in 2018, after unfortunately letting them

lapse in 2024.

conclusion

Thank you for considering these recommendations. ASAM

remains committed to working with you to promote remission

and recovery from addiction, ensuring that all communities

are safe, and more Americans can lead healthy, productive

lives. For any questions or to discuss, please contact Kelly

Corredor, ASAM's Chief Advocacy Officer.

Sincerely,

Brian Hurley, MD, MBA, FAPA, DFASAM,

President,

American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record another letter from 190 national, State, and local public health, criminal justice, and civil rights organizations that also write today to urge us to reject and vote ``no'' on the HALT Fentanyl Act.

February 3, 2025.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Speaker Mike Johnson,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

RE Vote NO on the HALT Fentanyl Act (H.R. 27/S. 331)

Dear Majority Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, Minority

Leader Schumer, Minority Leader Jeffries, and Honorable

Members of the U.S. Congress: The undersigned 190 national,

state, and local public health, criminal justice, and civil

rights organizations write today to urge you to reject and

vote NO on the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl (HALT)

Act (H.R. 27/S. 331). This bill permanently schedules

fentanyl-related substances (FRS) on schedule I of the

Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a flawed class

definition, imposes mandatory minimums, and fails to provide

an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the

drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling approach endorsed in the HALT

Fentanyl Act classifies all FRS as schedule I drugs, reserved

for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a

high potential for abuse. This class definition, however, is

a radical departure from drug scheduling practices as it

relies exclusively on chemical structure without accounting

for pharmacological effect based on the unproven hypothesis

of chemical structure-function relationships. Contrary to

this hypothesis, structurally related substances can often

have complementary therapeutic values. In fact, the National

Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has already acknowledged that

some FRS are inert and that at least one may be an opioid

antagonist that behaves like naloxone, which is itself an

opium derivative that counteracts the effects of opioid

drugs. Classifying all FRS in schedule I places undue

restrictions on research for therapeutic potential of FRS.

This means that researchers and scientists are not able to

study these substances at a time when the U.S. is

experiencing unprecedented overdose deaths.

The HALT Fentanyl Act also enshrines mandatory minimums for

distribution of FRS under the Controlled Substances Act, an

inappropriate mandate that criminalizes possibly inert or

harmless substances. While some proponents of the HALT

Fentanyl Act claim that the bill is not intended to interact

with the criminal justice system and that mandatory minimums

are primarily a deterrent against foreign import of FRS, this

is simply inaccurate. The HALT Fentanyl Act expands mandatory

minimums for both foreign importation crimes and domestic

drug distribution offenses, including nonviolent drug

distribution involving small quantities of drugs. What's

more, by automatically scheduling a huge swathe of substances

in one fell swoop, the HALT Fentanyl Act would lead to very

real criminal justice consequences, posing an unacceptable

risk of unnecessary incarceration for substances that carry

no potential for abuse. Such miscarriages of justice have

already occurred. For instance, Todd Coleman was sentenced to

a mandatory minimum of 10 years for sale of cocaine that a

crime laboratory said was laced with three fentanyl

analogues, only to discover, years later, that the detected

adulterants were not illegal fentanyl analogues and most were

not even controlled substances.

Our country is repeating past missteps when it comes to

policy responses to fentanyl and its analogues. In the 1980s,

policymakers enacted severe mandatory minimums for small

amounts of crack cocaine in response to media headlines and

law enforcement warnings that perpetuated mythology and fear.

These laws imposed harsher penalties for crack--a substance

associated with Black people--than for cocaine--a substance

associated with white people--even though the two substances

are chemically similar. In the ensuing decades, people of

color have been disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced

to mandatory minimum sentences for small amounts of crack.

This trend of racial disparity also can be seen in

prosecutions for offenses involving fentanyl and

fentanyl analogues, as Sentencing Commission data from fiscal

years 2021 to 2023 provides strong evidence that these

prosecutions disproportionately target people of color. Among

the 8,048 people convicted in trafficking cases where

fentanyl or fentanyl analogues were the primary drug type,

Black and Hispanic individuals comprised 78% of all

convictions (41% and 37%, respectively). These percentages

represent a massive disparity relative to demographic

patterns in the general population. Moreover, the emergence

of fentanyl-related substances in recent years has fueled

similar waves of alarmist media and law enforcement headlines

that are informed by mythology rather than science. Any

further extension of the classwide scheduling policy

threatens to repeat past missteps with crack cocaine that

policymakers are still working to rectify.

The classwide scheduling policy expands the application of

existing severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws enacted by

Congress in the 1980s to a newly scheduled class of fentanyl-

related compounds. For example, just a trace amount of a

fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a combined weight of 10

grams--10 paper clips--can translate into a five-year

mandatory minimum with no evidence needed that the seller

even knew it contained fentanyl. In addition, current laws

impose a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years for just a

trace amount of a fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a

combined weight of less than 10 grams. The truth of the

matter is that lawmakers do not need to impose new mandatory

minimums in order to prosecute fentanyl analogue cases

because law enforcement officials already have the ability to

prosecute these cases pursuant to the Controlled Substance

Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986, which requires that

prosecutors show the substances in question are harmful.

Despite the threat of grave injustices in the criminal

legal system, the current lack of research on FRS, and

indications that some FRS are harmless or hold therapeutic

potential, the HALT Fentanyl Act does not include an offramp

to reschedule or remove FRS that research has proven to be

pharmacologically inactive or do not meet schedule I

criteria. Though it includes some research reforms for

schedule I substances, the bill excludes the possibility of

such research impacting the criminalization of FRS. Without a

rescheduling process, the HALT Fentanyl Act may unjustly

promote criminalization of harmless or inert substances.

The HALT Fentanyl Act and other bills proposing the

permanent classwide scheduling of FRS are yet another

iteration of the drug war's ineffective and punitive

strategies. To prevent overdose, Congress must invest in

public health solutions to mitigate the harms of illicit

fentanyl. We urge Congress to support bills that increase

access to health services and substance use disorder

treatment, improve data collection, and provide funding for

FRS research, offering alternative, effective strategies to

simultaneously address the opioid epidemic while preventing

backsliding on criminal justice reform.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Please contact Maritza Perez Medina, Director of Federal

Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, for questions about

this letter or to further discuss this matter.

Sincerely,

ACLU of Nevada (NV), ACR Health (NY), AIDS Alabama (AL),

AIDS Foundation Chicago (IL), AIDS United, Alianza for

Opportunity, Alliance for Positive Change (NY), Alliance for

Positive Health (NY), American Civil Liberties Union,

American Friends Service Committee, Appalachian Learning

Initiative (WV), Association of Black Social Workers

(Virginia Union University) (VA), Autistic Self Advocacy

Network.

Battle Born Progress (NV), Beacon House Aftercare,

Louisville (KY), Beauty After the Bars (NC), Bend the Arc:

Jewish Action, Better Organizing to Win Legalization, BLM

Louisville (KY), Brave Technology Co-Op, Bronx Movil (NY).

C-UR Recovery Services, LLC (MI), Celebrate Recovery (KY),

Center for Criminal Justice Reform, University of Baltimore

(MD), Center for Disability Rights, Center for Housing &

Health (IL), Center for Popular Democracy, Citizen Action of

Wisconsin (WI), Clergy for a New Drug Policy, Coalition on

Human Needs, Color of Change, Communities United for Status &

Protection (CUSP).

Community Catalyst, Community Health Project Los Angeles

(CA), Cosmovisiones Ancestrales (CA), CURE (Citizens United

for Rehabilitation of Errants), Dream.org, Drug Policy

Alliance, Drug Policy Forum of Hawai`i (HI), Due Process

Institute, E5 Enterprise (NY/PA), Elephant Circle (CO),

EngageWell IPA (NY), Equal Justice USA, Evergreen Health

(NY), Exchanging Pathways (MS).

Fair and Just Prosecution, Faith in Harm Reduction, Family

Services Network of New York (NY), FAMM, Federal Public &

Community Defenders, Feed Louisville (KY), Filling The Gaps

Outreach, Inc. (GA), Florida Harm Reduction Collective (FL),

Freedom BLOC (OH), Fruit of Labor Action Research & Technical

Assistance, LLC (NC), Full Circle Youth Empowerment, Inc.

(CT), FWD.us.

G. Williams & Associates, Inc. (IL), Giving Others Dreams

G.O.D. Inc (IL), GLIDE (CA), Hawai`i Health & Harm Reduction

Center (HI), HEAL Ohio (OH), Hepatitis C Mentor and Support

Group (HCMSG) (NY), Hep Free Hawai`i (HI), Hey Joe Media

(AZ), Hip Hop Caucus, HIPS (DC), HomeRise (CA), Hoosier

Action (IN), Housing Works (NY), Human Rights Watch.

Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice (IL), Illinois

Harm Reduction & Recovery Coalition (IL), Immigrant Legal

Resource Center, Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR)

(DC) (MD) (VA), Indiana Recovery Alliance (IN), IOAD NC

Raleigh Memorial Event (NC), Isaiah House Inc (KY),

Interfaith Action for Human Rights, Justice Strategies,

JustLeadershipUSA, Juvenile Law Center.

Lacey's Legacy (KY), LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Law Enforcement

Action Partnership, Law Office of the Cook County Public

Defender (IL), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human

Rights, Legal Action Center, Life Coach Each One Teach One

Reentry Fellowship (KY), Lighthouse Consultants Colorado, LLC

(CO), Local Progress, Los Angeles Community Action Network

(CA), Michigan People's Campaign (MI), Minorities for Medical

Marijuana, Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition (MS), Moms for

All Paths to Recovery (CA), Monetwork (MO), My Brothers

Keeper NEO (OH), My Meta ReEntry Services, Inc. (NC).

NASTAD, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,

National Coalition for the Homeless, National Council of

Churches, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-

Maryland Chapter (MD), National Employment Law Project,

National Harm Reduction Coalition, National Health Law

Program, National Homelessness Law Center, National Immigrant

Justice Center, National Immigration Project (NIPNLG),

National Legal Aid & Defender Association, National

Organization for Women, National Pain Advocacy Center (CO),

NC Harm Reduction Coalition (NC).

Nelsonville Voices/Showing Up for Racial Justice (OH),

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, New Jersey

Organizing Project (NJ), New York State Harm Reduction

Association (NY), NEXT Distro, OhioCAN/Newark Homeless

Outreach (OH), On The Bright Side LLC (NC), ONE Northside

(IL), Overdose Crisis Response Fund, PA Stands Up (PA),

Parabola Center for Law and Policy, Parole Preparation

Project, Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network (PA), People

Advocating Recovery (KY), People's Action, Progressive

Leadership Alliance of Nevada (NV), Progressive Maryland

(MD), Psychotherapy Services DBA (KY).

QLatinx (FL), R Street Institute, REACH-NEO (OH), Reentry

Advocacy Project (TX), Reframe Health and Justice, Renew A

New, Inc (CA), Revolve Impact, Rights & Democracy (NH/VT),

River Valley Organizing (OH), Sana Healing Collective (IL),

Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction (NC), Sojourners, Source Corp

LLC (OH), South Carolina For Restorative Justice (SC), South

Louisville Community Ministries (KY), Southern Tier AIDS

Program (NY).

StoptheDrugWar.org, Students for Sensible Drug Policy,

Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative, Loyola Law

School, T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Tacoma

Healing Awareness Community (WA), TakeAction Minnesota (MN),

TCRC Community Healing Center (PA), Texas Harm Reduction

Alliance (TX), The Action Lab, Center for Health Policy and

Law, Northeastern University School of Law (MA), The

Advocates for Human Rights (MN), The AIDS Institute (TAI),

The Daniel Initiative.

The Festival Center, The Freedom BLOC (OH), The Gathering

for Justice, The Georgia Survivor Defense Project (GA), The

Gubbio Project (CA), The Hepatitis C Mentor and Support Group

(HCMSG) (NY), The Matrix Consulting, LLC, The Porchlight

Collective SAP (IL), The Sentencing Project, The Steady

Collective (NC), Transform Network, Treatment Action Group

(TAG) (NY), Treatment on Demand Coalition-SF (CA), Truth

Pharm Inc. (NY).

United Vision for Idaho (ID), Vera Institute of Justice,

Vilomah Foundation (PA), Vital Strategies, Vivent Health,

VOCAL-KY (KY), VOCAL-NY (NY), VOCAL-WA (WA), VT Citizens

United for the Rehabilitation of Errant(s) (VT), Washington

Office on Latin America, Why Not Prosper (PA), Wilkes

Recovery Revolution, Inc. (NC), Women on the Rise (GA), Worth

Rises, Young People in Recovery.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights on behalf of this large and diverse coalition of 240 national organizations.

The Leadership Conference

on Civil and Human Rights,

February 4, 2025.

Hon. Mike Johnson,

Speaker of the House,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,

House Minority Leader,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries: On

behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human

Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more

than 240 national organizations to promote and protect civil

and human rights in the United States, we write to express

our strong opposition to H.R. 27, the Halt All Lethal

Trafficking (HALT) of Fentanyl Act, and to urge the House to

reject this bill. The Leadership Conference will score the

House's vote in our Voting Record for the 119th Congress.

This bill permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances

(FRS) on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)

based on a flawed class definition. Additionally, it imposes

mandatory minimums and fails to provide an offramp for

removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling that this bill would impose would

exacerbate pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial

disparities in the prison system, doubling down on a fear-

based, enforcement-first response to a public health

challenge.

Under the classwide control, any offense involving a

``fentanyl-related substance'' is subject to federal criminal

prosecution, even if the substance in question is helpful or

has no potential for abuse. The case of Todd Coleman is

instructive. Mr. Coleman was sentenced to a mandatory minimum

of 10 years for selling 30 grams of cocaine--about two

tablespoons--because a local lab said that they were laced

with three illegal fentanyl analogues. But none of the

substances were illegal fentanyl analogues, and one was a

substance called ``Benzyl Fentanyl'' that the Drug

Enforcement Administration has long known is not dangerous or

illegal.

Moreover, the HALT Fentanyl Act enshrines mandatory

minimums for distribution of FRS under the Controlled

Substances Act, which could criminalize inert or harmless

substances. This bill expands mandatory minimums for both

foreign importation crimes and domestic drug distribution

offenses, including nonviolent drug distribution involving

small quantities of drugs. As mandatory minimums eliminate

judicial discretion, judges are prevented from tailoring

punishment to a particular defendant by taking into account

an individual's background and the circumstances of their

offenses when determining the sentence. Mandatory minimums

instead place more power in the hands of prosecutors and

their charging decisions, which is particularly concerning

given that prosecutors are more likely to charge Black people

with a crime that carries a mandatory minimum than a White

person. The HALT Fentanyl Act threats to replicate this

pattern and deepen these disparities.

This Congress should not repeat its past mistakes when it

comes to policy responses to fentanyl and its analogues.

Beginning in the 1980s, draconian drug laws with harsh

mandatory minimums and their resulting enforcement under the

banner of the ``war on drugs'' fueled skyrocketing prison

populations. In the ensuing decades, Black people have been

disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced to mandatory

minimum sentences for small amounts of crack cocaine, despite

the fact that White people are more likely than Black people

to use crack cocaine in their lifetimes. Similar trends for

FRS are emerging: Between 2015 and 2019, prosecutions for

fentanyl-analogue offenses increased by more than 5,000

percent, with no corresponding decrease in the use of FRS or

in overdose deaths. In 2019, 58.9 percent of those sentenced

in fentanyl-analogue cases were Black. Any further extension

of the classwide scheduling policy threatens to repeat past

missteps with crack cocaine that policymakers are still

working to rectify.

Harsh federal drug laws and mandatory minimums have caused

the federal prison population to explode. The Urban Institute

has found that increases in expected time served for drug

offenses was the largest contributor to growth in the federal

prison population between 1998 and 2010. Currently, people

convicted of drug offenses make up 43.9 percent of the Bureau

of Prisons (BOP) population. There is no indication that

overly punitive sentences or mass incarceration deter crime,

protect public safety, or decrease drug use or trafficking.

We share your concerns about fentanyl-related deaths and

support effective health-based approaches to mitigating this

public health crisis, but classwide scheduling and mandatory

minimums merely repeat the mistakes of the past by

exacerbating our incarceration problem. We welcome continued

dialogue with you about how to move forward on this important

topic. However, we must reiterate our firm opposition to

classwide emergency scheduling and to mandatory minimum

sentencing.

We strongly urge Congress to take bold steps on these

issues and transform our criminal-legal system into one that

delivers true justice and equality. For this reason, we ask

you to vote NO on the HALT Fentanyl Act. Thank you for your

time and attention to this matter. If you have any questions,

please feel free to contact Chloe White, senior policy

counsel, justice.

Sincerely,

Jesselyn McCurdy,

Executive Vice President

of Government Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, they are going to score this for voting records. The majority has to do something and stand up for their Article I constitutional duty and say: We are going to protect Medicaid; We are not going to listen to billionaires; We are going to bring the SUPPORT Act; and We are not going to pull the rug out from under the counselors and providers back home who are doing it.

Mr. Speaker, I just read online that community health centers are being forced to close in Virginia. All over this country, this is what is going on, and you can't paper over it with some fake legislation like this.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 93 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I further ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, last night the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule for one measure, H.R. 27, the HALT Fentanyl Act, under a structured rule.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees and provides for one motion to recommit.

As most Members know, unfortunately, we all know somebody who has been affected by the drug overdose epidemic plaguing our country.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, there were more than 107,000 overdose deaths that occurred in the United States. These staggering numbers are due in large part to the increased presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues or fentanyl- related substances, which are approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. The lethal dose of fentanyl is just 2 milligrams, or about 4 grains of sand.

A loophole the cartels use and have tried to use to traffic illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing just one component of fentanyl's chemical structure in order to create a fentanyl analogue or a fentanyl-related substance. The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws.

Right now, fentanyl analogues are considered schedule I substances but only because of a series of temporary scheduling orders, which is now set to expire on March 31, 2025.

Along with my colleague, Mr. Latta from Ohio, we decided to introduce H.R. 27, the HALT Fentanyl Act.

The bill aims to curb overdose deaths by permanently scheduling fentanyl analogues or fentanyl-related substances as schedule I substances. This will strengthen law enforcement's ability to prosecute fentanyl traffickers and act as a deterrent.

The HALT Fentanyl Act also promotes research by improving the registration process to eligible individuals so that they can conduct studies on schedule I substances with appropriate safeguards.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, we have heard testimony that there may be as many as 4,800 individual analogues or fentanyl-related substances. Our experts at the NIH, the FDA, and others have studied roughly 30 to 40 of those 4,800 analogues or fentanyl-related substances.

By encouraging research of schedule I substances like fentanyl analogues, we can better understand how these substances work and how we can prevent potentially harmful impacts in the future or even find a better use or a better opportunity than the current fentanyl that we use.

Because fentanyl has a proven medical use, it is considered a schedule II narcotic, as the Speaker knows, having practiced medicine for many years.

Illicit derivatives of fentanyl, also called fentanyl analogues, currently have not demonstrated a medical value.

Let me be clear. This bill will have no impact whatsoever on physicians' ability to administer fentanyl in medical settings.

The HALT Fentanyl Act deals specifically with fentanyl analogues or fentanyl-related substances, not medicinal fentanyl.

The Biden administration even released a statement when this bill passed through the House last Congress stating that they supported permanent scheduling and streamlined research for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances.

We must address this bipartisan issue immediately and not allow this temporary extension to expire.

Once fentanyl analogues are permanently scheduled in schedule I, Congress will continue to build off this work to continue to address the illicit fentanyl crisis.

According to a 2021 GAO report, there was a 90 percent decrease in these fentanyl analogues coming into our country the year they were first placed into schedule I.

This bill is a critical step in combating the opioid crisis in our country because China and Mexico are heavily involved in this business. China is sending the precursors of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues to the cartels in Mexico, who are then bringing it across our border.

By making these analogs permanently schedule I, it removes the incentive for the cartels to traffic these analogues or fentanyl- related substance drugs into our country. China even realized the risk of fentanyl analogues and permanently scheduled those analogues on their strictest schedule. Other countries have followed suit and done the same.

Last Congress, this bill cleared through the Energy and Commerce Committee on a bipartisan basis and then passed on the House floor with 74 Democrats voting in favor.

The bill has the support of many law enforcement agencies and other entities calling for the need to pass the bill as it is.

We must act quickly to make the scheduling order permanent before it expires again at the end of March.

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

Mr. Speaker, I understand there are all kinds of concerns on the other side of the aisle, but we are talking about the HALT Fentanyl Act.

I could stand here and talk about Burma. We heard today that the President has extended the emergency situation with Burma, that undemocratic country where they overthrew the democratically elected government and how Burma, also known as Myanmar, is the largest cultivator of opium products and the producer of heroin globally, second only to Afghanistan. That doesn't have anything to do with the HALT Fentanyl Act. The HALT Fentanyl Act is a good bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my good friend from New York (Mr. Langworthy), who will talk about the bill some more.

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

Mr. Speaker, I keep thinking I am here to talk about the HALT Fentanyl Act, but they keep talking about all kinds of other things.

My colleagues have acknowledged that the HALT Fentanyl Act passed in the last Congress with a large majority, yet here we are using this as a vehicle to talk about everything else they think is going wrong in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I have a little bill here. It does some good. We ought to pass it. If my colleagues want to talk about lots of other stuff, they are entitled to. That is their right. However, I don't want the focus taken off the HALT Fentanyl Act. It is a good bill. It helps law enforcement. It helps slow down the flood across the southern border. That is what we are here about today.

I know if the motion on the previous question fails, then they are going to introduce a different bill. However, my understanding is their bill completely eliminates and doesn't have anything in their language about halting fentanyl.

This is something a large majority of Congress wants to get done. Let's get it done. Let's stop all the rhetoric. Let's stop trying to point fingers at us and everybody else for other things. Let's just do our job. I think that is what the American people want us to do.

In fact, I hear a lot of times from my constituents back home that they are tired of seeing these gigantic bills. It sounds like what my colleagues on the other side want is some more gigantic bills that people vote on. It is kind of like what the former Speaker said: We have to vote for it so we can find out what is in it.

I would rather vote on bills that I know what is in it. That is why I read all the bills if I plan to vote for it.

I helped write this bill. I am the lead sponsor of this bill. It is an easy bill to read. It is pretty straightforward in what it does, what it is supposed to do, and what we are trying to do. President Biden thought it was okay. He issued a statement in favor of it last term. This term President Trump says that he is in favor of it.

This is a bipartisan approach to solve a problem.

Does it solve all the world's problems, Mr. Speaker?

Of course it does not, but it solves a problem that our law enforcement has that helps the bad guys, the people making the precursors in China, the people in the cartels in Mexico flooding across our southern border with these harmful fentanyl-related substances and analogues. It makes it easier for our law enforcement people to focus on illegal fentanyl.

Mr. Speaker, fentanyl is legal for medicinal purposes, and it will be even after this bill.

There is something else that Democrats haven't mentioned. I mentioned it briefly, but I will talk about it a little bit further, Mr. Speaker. That is the component in this bill that allows for research on the 4,800 other related substances or analogues that we believe are out there. It is a rough number. Nobody knows until they get in and start experimenting, but we heard that testimony in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

There might be some benefit to some other analogue. There might be some benefit, but we don't want it out there on our streets or being used for medicinal reasons until we know for sure that it does something positive for society.

Right now, all the analogues that we have seen are either inert or just as bad as the illegal use of fentanyl, so this bill needs to be passed.

I understand the minority doesn't want to talk about this. My Democratic colleagues want to talk about everything else, but that is not why we are here today.

When I came to Congress, I pledged to read the bills. I pledged to talk about what it is we are talking about today and not talk about everything else in the world that I think we might be able to fix someday or that we might ought to do someday. There is a process for that.

As my friend Terry Kilgore used to tell me all the time, somebody would come up with an idea, and then they would want to put on some kind of an amendment or change the bill around when we had a nice, little, simple bill. Mr. Kilgore is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and he was my seatmate. He came up with a famous phrase when people wanted to rearrange the bill in a way that he didn't think was proper or put an amendment on it that would completely change the bill or, in this case, defeat the motion of the previous question in order to defeat the HALT Fentanyl Act and put forward some other bill. He would say: Well, you might have some points to make. I would say to the gentleman: Get your own bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of interesting. I keep thinking we are talking about the HALT Fentanyl Act, and then I hear all this other stuff.

Earlier, one of my colleagues said that we were cooking up some kind of a plan to cut--I forget what the number was now--$2.5 trillion or $2.7 trillion out of Medicaid. I haven't heard of any such plan being cooked up. I think that is just hyperbole, but that is my opinion.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman keeps asking about a pardon or about somebody who was pardoned. Well, I don't know if he has noticed or not, but I am not the President of the United States. I don't have the power to pardon. I don't get the information put on my desk about various individual pardons.

I didn't make any comments about pardons by the previous President when many people were pardoned or were sitting on death row and had sentences commuted. That is not what we are here about today.

We can get down into that trap if we want to, but I am just telling you that we are here today to talk about a rule for a simple bill that the majority of this House supports. I believe it is an overwhelming majority. I don't know if my colleagues admitted it was exactly 74, but they admitted it was a big vote last year. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle admitted it was a part of a package that the minority wanted to see pass on the floor at the end of last year.

I thought we were here to talk about this. I recognize that it is a free-for-all on the floor, but I just hate to get into all those kinds of things and start talking about this or that and, whether crossing the line or not, somehow casting aspersions that Members over here don't have independent wills. We certainly do, and I think my colleagues might recognize that from some of the things I said last night when I was being questioned.

Do I support the President? Well, of course, I do. Do I agree with everything he does? No.

As the old saying goes, I don't agree with my wife all the time. She certainly doesn't agree with me most of the time.

The bottom line is that I think the President is moving us in the right direction. One of those right directions would be to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act. Another is closing down the border, shutting that border down.

If Democrats want to talk about drugs coming across our southern border and want to point to an individual who is thought to be primarily responsible for some of that, how about the hundreds and thousands of people who were used by the cartels to bring illicit substances, whether it be at ports of entry or other places, across our southern border?

The President is cracking down on that, too, but that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about making sure that when our law enforcement officers arrest somebody and their preliminary examination indicates that what they have is significant, or even a small amount but generally significant amounts of a fentanyl-related substance, that when they go to court, they don't have somebody arguing in court that, wait a minute, this is not the fentanyl on schedule II, that this is a fentanyl-related substance but it is a left-handed molecule instead of a right-handed molecule or a right-handed molecule instead of a left- handed molecule.

I can say that, as a former defense attorney, I loved those kinds of arguments. As a Congressman, it is our job to shut those arguments down. The HALT Fentanyl Act stops those arguments from being made in court, which are basically spurious attempts to help drug dealers.

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues are not trying to help drug dealers. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are just here to try to make some other points today. Let's talk about this bill and the good that this bill can do.

My Democratic colleagues brought up substituting this bill with the SUPPORT Act. I am a cosponsor of the SUPPORT Act, which is carried by the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Brett Guthrie. That bill has a very good chance of passing this body, so let's let that bill go through its process, and let's let this bill, the HALT Fentanyl Act, finish out this process, get across to the Senate, get signed into law by the President, and start doing good work.

The Speaker might be asking why we have to do this at this moment. The answer is that we have had a rolling series of temporary bills on making the fentanyl-related substances schedule I because we all recognize the danger that these present to the American public.

Let's make it permanent and give our scientists an opportunity to look at some of those other 4,800 analogues or fentanyl-related substances to see if there is anything there that might be beneficial to mankind, that might be a reversal of an overdose, that might be a better and less-addictive pain reliever. Let's let them do that research.

They can't do that research without the HALT Fentanyl Act, and the efforts of the defense attorneys for the cartels can't be crippled by constantly passing temporary bills because any day that it is not in effect is a day that lawyers will take advantage of.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, darn, I wish I had known 40 minutes ago we could talk about anything we wanted to, that this time was not really to talk about the rule present before us today or the underlying bill, but was to talk about whatever we wanted to, whatever is on our agenda, their agenda.

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, this is why the American people don't have confidence in Congress, because they can't follow the bouncing ball. We are here to talk about the HALT Fentanyl Act, and we are talking about everything including the kitchen sink.

If I had only known that 40 minutes ago, I could have brought over all my CRAs that I am interested in getting passed, all my bills that I think are fascinating and interesting that I can't seem to get out of committee, at least not in the past. I could have talked about all kinds of things.

I understand that may not be the practice of the Rules Committee. I am new. The gentleman is absolutely right to remind me of that. I have no problem with that. I just didn't know that we could talk about whatever we wanted to when the subject of the day is: Are we going to pass a rule that ultimately we hope will be put in place for the debate and passage of the HALT Fentanyl Act.

Then I heard, amongst a number of things today that I thought were just kind of odd, that my bill, the HALT Fentanyl Act, had been watered down.

Well, that is news to me because the bill, with the exception of changing a couple of paragraph numbers, the lettering on the paragraphs to make sure we were alphabetically correct, is exactly the way I introduced it. I don't think that is a watering down. A watering down is when you take a bill that is 20 or 30 pages long and you make it into a 2-page bill and you have it do half of what it was supposed to.

What this bill was supposed to do, Mr. Speaker, is exactly what this bill does. It takes and makes a permanent schedule I classification for all of the roughly 4,800 fentanyl-related substances or analogues. It provides for research on those fentanyl-related substances or analogues at our research institutions with certain safeguards to make sure we can continue to do research so that maybe we can find a better path forward, something that may help with our drug addiction issues, something that may be a better, less addictive pain reliever.

We want that research done, but until we have the evidence that one of those 4,800 analogues or fentanyl-related substances actually does good, we need to make them schedule I. They need to be on there so that the cartels can't use this as some trick in the courtroom to get out of trouble, to get a proverbial get-out-of-jail-free card.

My colleagues want to talk about everything else coming down the road, including an individual--and I haven't reviewed his file--who they claim was involved in the drug trade and who was pardoned.

I haven't heard them talk about Lairon Graham of Buffalo, convicted of heading a drug conspiracy and selling fentanyl, crack cocaine, and heroin, who was pardoned by the previous President, Mr. Biden.

I haven't heard them talk about Valentino Shine, convicted of narcotic sales, along with sex trafficking and

distribution of crack cocaine, who was pardoned by the previous President.

Now, I personally don't think any of that is relevant to today's discussion, and I recognize that that is apparently the practice of the Rules Committee. I find it surprising. I think it is a sloppy practice, but if that is the practice, then next time I will be sure to bring my wish list with me and we can talk about everything except the bill we are supposed to be talking about.

It does make you wonder and think that everybody at home watching this, both of them, are confused because we are not talking about the bill that we are supposed to be talking about. I hope Congress some day gets around to talking about the bill that it is supposed to talk about, whether it is my bill or somebody else's bill.

Today, I will try to make my remarks as much as I can about passage of the rule for the HALT Fentanyl Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I offer the gentleman from Massachusetts an opportunity for whatever comments he has remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that I am appalled. I understand they get the right to say whatever they want to during this time of debate on the rule for the HALT Fentanyl Act. I understand that, but they say you have to choose what side you are on, then bring up Elon Musk, and then say vote ``no.'' This bill has nothing to do with Elon Musk. This bill is about fentanyl-related substances and fentanyl analogues. It perplexes me, other than it is an attempt to confuse everybody on what this bill is about.

If they want to make all those statements, they can, but I would think they would be in favor of getting this bill done. If you are going to choose to say whose side you are on with this bill, you are making a choice. You are making a choice. We have an opportunity today, right here and now, to pass a rule and then tomorrow to pass a bill that will make a step forward in stopping the cartels, the Chinese precursors, and the folks who are doing the bad things in our country and in other countries from bringing their substances into this country and trying to use a gimmick, a chemical technique, saying that it is not really fentanyl, that it is a fentanyl analogue, and get around our laws.

That is what this bill is about. Every Member ought to be in favor of that. Why you wouldn't be in favor of at least bringing that bill to the floor and having a vote on it is beyond me. If we are choosing sides, I am going to choose to take a step forward. I am going to take a step forward to try to stop this scourge of fentanyl poisoning, fentanyl analogue poisoning, and fentanyl-related substances coming into our country. That is the side I am going to choose.

I understand they want to talk about all kinds of other things. I think it is a pretty darn good bill, and I think we should pass it.

Now, let me get to my script. I would like to reiterate the importance of the bill to permanently schedule fentanyl analogues as schedule I while still allowing for research into these substances.

This is one small step in fighting the opioid crisis our country faces. If we allow this temporary extension to expire in March--as it will if we take no action, if we choose the wrong side today and tomorrow--it will bring back the incentives for traffickers to bring these fentanyl analogues and fentanyl-related substances into our country.

I truly don't believe my colleagues on the other side want that. I understand they get fired up on the floor sometimes and say things that maybe later, in retrospect, they think maybe they shouldn't have gone that far.

If we are going to choose sides, I urge everybody to pass the rule and choose the side of stopping the fentanyl scourge in our country, the fentanyl analogue scourge in our country, and urge the passage of this rule and for final passage of the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the legislation at hand, the so-called HALT Fentanyl Act, all I can say is folks on the other side must be living on another freaking planet.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans want to come down here and lecture people about fentanyl. Let's talk about fentanyl.

President Donald J. Trump, during his very first week in office, pardoned a drug dealer who helped fentanyl pour into our country. Let me repeat that nice and slowly so it sinks in.

As one of his first acts in office, Donald J. Trump pardoned a drug dealer who was sentenced to life in Federal prison who let fentanyl into America.

I just have a simple question for my friends on the other side: Why? Why? Why isn't this guy still in jail?

Why would Donald Trump let out a drug dealer like this?

The guy is sentenced to life in Federal prison. I wish I had an answer. Maybe they can explain it to us. They like to talk so much about pardons, but they are silent on this one. We hear crickets from the other side. It makes you wonder, Mr. Speaker, what is going on here.

Let me read the ICE press release for when this guy was arrested.

Are you ready for this, Mr. Speaker?

ICE says that the guy Donald Trump pardoned helped ``thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions.''

It goes on to explain how he distributed narcotics that were linked to overdose deaths across the country.

People died as a result of this criminality.

This is a guy who made the cartels rich, who made it easier for China to mail fentanyl into our country. This is a guy who let the drugs pour into our communities, tearing families apart, getting people sick, exposing people to danger, and causing numerous deaths.

He was pardoned. He was pardoned by Donald Trump.

It takes a lot of nerve, Mr. Speaker, to let out the fentanyl guy and then come down here with a straight face and tell people that we are all about stopping drugs coming into America.

Let's not get started about the funding freeze that Trump is trying to put into place. Trump wants to block hundreds of billions of dollars in bipartisan

funding for law enforcement, including blocking money going after fentanyl. He wants to block State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program. Republicans are in court right now fighting to gut it all.

Why are they doing this?

The answer is very simple, actually. They are stealing. They are stealing taxpayer dollars. Republicans want to steal from you, the American people, to give Elon and Trump more tax breaks and more tax write-offs for their private jets, their mansions, islands, and yachts. It is corruption: good, old-fashioned, plain and simple corruption.

Then they will come down here to the floor and pretend to care about fentanyl while they pardon the drug dealers who profit off of people's pain and gut the programs that keep drugs off our streets.

Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? Let's talk about those tariffs, yes, the tariffs that Trump kept bragging about that he promised he was going to slap on our allies Canada and Mexico. If he was successful, they would have sent domestic costs on food, gas, and household goods spiraling out of control. Then, when people started paying attention, when we stood up for the workers and when the public fought back, Trump folded. He lost. He rescinded his funding freeze. He walked back his tariffs, and he got nothing in exchange.

Trump wants to give us this impression that he has power and strength. He really has none. He backed down on his funding freeze. He backed down on his tariffs. The courts are rejecting his executive orders because guess what, Mr. Speaker? He is not king, and we are fighting back.

I can promise you this, Mr. Speaker: We are going to fight back with every single ounce of strength we have to prevent this President and his billionaire sidekick from undermining the rule of law and stealing from the people we were elected to protect.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, there has been no response from either of the gentlemen about why it was okay for Trump to pardon the guy who let the fentanyl into this country and who made hundreds of millions of dollars off of fentanyl. He was sentenced to life in prison, and he let him out.

You are okay with that, yet you are coming down here saying that you really care about fighting fentanyl in our country. There has been not a peep from the other side justifying what Trump did.

One of his first acts as President was to pardon this guy who received life in prison for his crime. He received life in prison.

Mr. Speaker, I urge we defeat the previous question. If we do, then I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4531, the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, the SUPPORT Act reauthorization would permanently place xylazine in schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. However, unlike the bill before us today, it doesn't stop at scheduling.

The bill reauthorizes resources for residential substance use disorder treatment for pregnant and postpartum women. It provides resources for training and education related to fentanyl and other illicit substances for first responders, and it ensures that Medicaid beneficiaries have access to medication-assisted treatment.

Here is the best part, Mr. Speaker. This bill already passed last Congress with 386 votes. One hundred ninety Republicans voted for it, and it was included in the end-of-year spending package.

Guess what happened, Mr. Speaker?

Elon Musk tanked that deal for reasons that no one seems to be able to explain to me, and this good bill was never signed into law.

Mr. Speaker, passing this bill would mean, to quote the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce who helped lead this bill in the last Congress, that this bill could help save lives by preventing overdoses and providing access to immediate and long-term care recovery services.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) to introduce that proposal.

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

Mr. Speaker, what would help end the illegal fentanyl problem here would be Donald Trump not pardoning a drug kingpin, essentially, who brought illegal fentanyl into our country and who was sentenced to life in prison in a Federal court. What would have been a strong signal would have been not to pardon somebody like that.

Mr. Speaker, I get why my friends don't want to talk about that. Republicans don't want to get on the bad side of the President because then Republican Members may get a primary or then Elon might send all kinds of money into their primary. I get all of that.

If we are serious here about dealing with fentanyl, we should at least all be able to say what the President did was wrong.

Maybe the gentleman wasn't listening to the debate on the previous question, but the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) talked for 3 minutes about an alternative bill that would help deal with this problem.

This was a bill that got 386 votes in this House in the last Congress. The bill received 386 votes. It was in the final package that we were all going to vote on, by the way, that Republican leadership agreed with and our leadership agreed with and the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate agreed with. It was in that bill, but then Elon Musk sabotaged that bill.

Mr. Speaker, I get it. I have been here for a while. Before I was a Member, I worked here as a staffer for George McGovern, no relation, and for Congressman Joe Moakley. Let me tell you, Republicans today do not hold the same values as Republicans from back then.

Republicans used to be for backing the blue. Trump pardoned people who beat police officers. Right now, he is gutting the FBI, which the Republicans

used to believe was the citadel of law and order.

Republicans used to stand for cutting the deficit. Now, the majority is spending night and day planning to jam through a tax cut for the ultrarich without pay-fors, which will blow up the deficit by trillions of dollars. It is what my Republican colleagues did in 2017 for their billionaire tax cuts.

Republicans spent decades claiming my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were the champions of free trade. Just this past week, Trump and the Republican Party started a trade war with our neighbors, not to mention the majority spoke nonstop about inflation for the past 2 years but seem to be fine with slapping this tariff tax on their constituents that is going to make prices across the board in this country go sky high.

Is there any principle today's version of the Republican Party won't abandon? Is there anything Trump could do that Republicans wouldn't support or would even question?

It would be almost comical to see how much my Republican colleagues are willing to bend down and kiss the ring if we didn't currently find ourselves in multiple constitutional crises at the hands of Trump and his cronies.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that we can't even get Republicans to say that it was wrong for the President of the United States to pardon this individual who was serving life in prison for bringing fentanyl into our communities and killing our constituents, the fact that the majority can't even raise the question of whether it was the wrong thing to do, tells you everything you need to know.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the gentleman is new to the Rules Committee, and I think this may be his first time on the floor handling a rule.

I will remind the gentleman that this is the rule debate. We are not having general debate on the underlying bill. The rule debates are about the majority's agenda, what Republicans are bringing to the floor and what Republicans are not bringing to the floor.

The majority could have brought to the floor the bill that we want to bring to the floor, that we talked about in the previous question debate, that passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan vote in the last Congress, and that my Republican friends allowed to get blown up at the last minute.

Basically, I am going to take my time during the rule debate to talk about the Republicans' unpopular, crummy agenda for the American people: raising prices on consumers and ignoring all the concerns that everyday people have.

We are also going to talk about the fact that, when it comes to fentanyl, one of Donald Trump's first acts was to pardon a criminal who brought fentanyl into this country and who was sentenced to life in Federal prison.

Mr. Speaker, I get it that the gentleman doesn't want to have an opinion

on that or voice an opinion on that, but, really, is it that hard? I don't know what is so difficult to condemn there.

Mr. Speaker, speaking of the agenda, I am looking at The New York Times: ``Trump Proposing Takeover of Gaza as U.S. Territory.'' Do Republicans' constituents want to have their sons or daughters sent to Gaza to be in the middle of that violence?

This is the guy who also now wants to invade Greenland. He wants to take over Panama. He wants to annex Canada. He wants to now occupy Gaza.

Mr. Speaker, we have 42 million people in this country who are hungry. Whatever happened to America First? Whatever happened to helping people in this country? Whatever happened to lowering prices?

Instead, we get this. This is like a warmonger here. I mean, come on.

Again, we had an agreement on a bipartisan bill that would address the underlying concerns that the gentleman raises here, yet it was blown up at the last minute.

Mr. Speaker, the rule debate is about the Republican agenda. It is about the crappy agenda of this majority in the House of Representatives, which is not fighting for regular people and not fighting for the people who I represent but instead is doing the bidding for billionaires like Elon Musk and others.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), the distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

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

Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman really think that people dislike Congress because we are debating issues, because we are debating what is on their mind? No. I think people dislike Congress because politicians say one thing and do another.

They are on the floor today talking about the need to combat fentanyl and then are silent when the President of the United States pardons a criminal sentenced to life in prison for flooding our streets with fentanyl.

That is what people get frustrated with. People are frustrated that we had a deal on a bill at the end of last Congress that everybody signed off on. It was fine. At the last minute, Elon Musk comes in and blows it up, and now we can't bring the bill up again. That is what people are frustrated with.

My Republican friends like to talk about America First. Look at the front page of The New York Times today: ``Trump Proposing Takeover of Gaza as U.S. Territory.''

I have to tell you, people voted for lower egg prices, not for a Middle East Mar-a-Lago. People did not vote to send their sons and daughters into the tunnels of Gaza so that Jared Kushner and Donald Trump can build Trump Tower Gaza. That is not what they voted for.

People want to talk about issues. They want us to deal with issues that will impact everyday life and lower the cost of living. In the first weeks, we have seen nothing from this President or the Republican majority here to deal with that.

Don't tell me that people don't like Congress because we debate issues. I am sorry. We are debating your agenda, even though it is unpopular.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the Associated Press titled: ``Elon Musk's DOGE commission gains access to sensitive Treasury payment systems.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an article from The New Republic titled: ``25-year-old Elon Musk Crony Has Total Control Over Treasury Payments.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from Wired titled: ``Federal Workers Sue to Disconnect DOGE Server.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an opinion article from The Washington Post titled: ``Elon Musk has your Social Security number. It's as scary as it sounds.''

Mr. Speaker, it is being reported that Elon Musk has sent his creepy minions to illegally install a private server that is stealing people's information. They are using it to skirt laws about sensitive and possibly even classified information, giving them access to people's Social Security numbers, home addresses, and more.

What is happening is a crime, plain and simple. It is a crime. It violates the Privacy Act of 1974, the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

Elon says it is a crime to expose who he has put in charge of the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, I say to Elon that it is a crime to hide that from the American people. I, for one, am not going to stand by while he gets his grubby little billionaire hands all over our parents' and grandparents' Social Security checks. He better believe that he is going to be held accountable for all of this.

The truth is coming out. He is stealing from the American people, and we are not going to let him do it.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to close yet, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman brought up some pardons. A few minutes ago, I talked about how Trump pardoned a drug trafficker who let fentanyl pour into our country. Let's not forget he also pardoned over 1,000 people who beat cops and tried to kill them on January 6.

The last time I was on the floor, I went through some of the worst offenders he pardoned. Since then, we have learned even more about these convicted felons, these violent criminals, who are now roaming free in our communities thanks to Donald Trump and the Republicans.

Matthew Huttle is a man with 12 prior criminal convictions, including a shocking case where he pled guilty to brutally hitting his 3-year-old son, leaving bruises all over the child's backside and neck. After he was pardoned by Trump, Huttle went back to Indiana where he was killed during a violent confrontation with law enforcement. Huttle was a child abuser with a history of violence who put law enforcement in danger again after he was pardoned by Donald Trump.

Theodore Middendorf, accused of sexually assaulting a 7-year-old child, pled guilty to this horrific crime in 2024 and was sentenced to 19 years in prison, but that wasn't all. He also pled guilty to destroying government property using a flagpole as a weapon during the Capitol riot, and for that he was pardoned by Donald Trump.

Peter Schwartz is a man with 30 prior criminal convictions, including assaulting his wife, biting her and repeatedly punching her. The same man attacked police officers on January 6 with pepper spray. He is a repeat offender pardoned by Donald Trump.

Andrew Taake was arrested in 2016 for soliciting a minor online for sex, but his criminal history didn't stop there. He assaulted police officers with bear spray and a metal whip on January 6. He is another repeat offender pardoned by Donald Trump.

Kasey Hopkins has a criminal history so disturbing, it is hard to stomach. In 2002, he was convicted of forcible rape, where he choked his victim to the point of impairing her vision. This is the same man who has prior convictions for assaulting law enforcement and possessing controlled substances. He was here on January 6, and he was pardoned by Donald Trump.

David Daniel is facing charges for producing and possessing child pornography, disturbingly involving two young girls in his own family. Police officers found evidence of child sexual abuse while they searched his home in connection with his arrest for assaulting police officers on January 6. He may have his sexual charges thrown out thanks to the fact that he was pardoned by Donald Trump.

Because of Donald Trump and the Republicans, we have child sex predators, domestic abusers, and violent criminals unleashed back onto our streets. I have to ask, how many American parents are sleeping easier tonight knowing these criminals are out there walking free thanks to Donald Trump? This is stomach churning.

It doesn't even stop there. We also have January 6 perpetrators who have been rearrested--yes, rearrested--on new charges even after being pardoned.

Daniel Ball, a convicted felon because of his involvement in the Capitol insurrection, was pardoned by Donald Trump on January 20 only to be rearrested 2 days later on gun charges.

Now, Trump is going after the law enforcement officers who helped put these criminals away.

America, your President is purging the police of anyone not loyal to him. Think about that. Let that sink in because these are the actions of a fascist.

More than half a dozen senior FBI executives have been ordered to retire or be fired by Monday. The Acting Director of the FBI said that the list of names of those involved in the Capitol riot investigations could number in the thousands.

How many police officers will Trump fire? How does any of this make any of us more safe?

My colleagues need to wake up. I mean, purging the police of anyone who goes after criminals, we know how this ends. We know what the message this sends is. Trump is telling America that violence is fine as long as his people do it.

Republicans are releasing violent child predators, domestic abusers, and sexual offenders back into our communities and, at the same time, investigating and firing the real law enforcement officers, the heroes who are actually upholding the rule of law.

Guess what. I won't be complicit. They are about to run into a massive wall of resistance, and that wall is us.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have so much more I want to say, but this all really boils down to one question: Whose side are you on, Mr. Speaker? Whose side are you on?

Are you on the side of the American people or the billionaires who are stealing from them?

Are you on the side of law enforcement or the guy who pardoned the drug dealer who let in all the fentanyl?

Are you on the side of workers or the robber barons who want to fleece people out of their paychecks and rob them of their hard-earned benefits?

Are you on the side of the American taxpayers or Elon Musk, a nepo baby who sucks up government subsidies and uses tax money to enrich himself while spreading hate and lies on his broken website?

Democrats know what side we are on. We are on the side of the people. We are going to continue to show up, and we are going to continue to fight back.

Mr. Speaker, I urge everybody to vote ``no'' on this rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 331, the HALT Fentanyl Act. The House approved this bill in February, and since that time, the Trump administration has set its sights on dismantling our Nation's public health infrastructure, including the agency directly responsible for addressing mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Republicans are going to claim today that they are addressing the opioid overdose crisis with this bill, but this is nothing but a distraction from the fact that Republicans continue to silently stand by and allow the Trump administration to gut our public health agencies.

Republicans are also attempting to distract from the fact that last month they passed the largest cuts to healthcare in American history as part of their big, ugly bill. Republicans are stripping healthcare away from 16 million Americans so they can give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, two groups that don't need any help right now.

Now, Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of years, we have made significant progress in addressing the opioid overdose crisis. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a 24 percent decline in drug overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in September of 2024, compared to the previous year. This is encouraging news, but I am deeply concerned that the Trump administration's attacks on public health, coupled with the Republicans' attacks on Americans' healthcare will seriously threaten the improvements we have made.

The bill before us today permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. This is based on a class definition disputed by scientists. I oppose this bill because it is a permanent extension instead of a temporary one that we agreed on for 2 years in the end-of-the-year appropriations package.

Now, that bipartisan package was pushed aside by Speaker Johnson after Elon Musk voiced his opposition to the overall package. The temporary option would have left the door open for an off-ramp to substances found to have potential medical applications. However, this Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing. S. 331 also does not provide additional resources for prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction.

So this bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge. That is because Republicans don't want to talk about this as a public health challenge. Instead, President Trump and House Republicans want to focus on piecemeal policies in the hopes it will distract from their efforts to gut Medicaid and drug treatment programs.

Now Republicans are sabotaging Medicaid, which will be devastating to people who struggle with mental health and substance use issues. Medicaid is the single largest payer in the country for behavioral health services, covering 40 percent of all Americans with opioid use disorder.

Americans with substance use and mental health issues will face new barriers and red tape in signing up for and staying enrolled in their health insurance. House Republicans are setting up new barriers and roadblocks to care that will, unfortunately, result in our mental health and substance abuse crises only worsening.

Republicans are silently standing by as the Trump administration is moving forward with an unauthorized and illegal plan to eliminate the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, better known as SAMHSA. SAMHSA is the very agency responsible for preventing substance use disorder, increasing access to treatment, and promoting recovery.

It will be combined with other agencies that the Trump administration doesn't care about under the banner of a larger make America healthy again office. Now, these critical programs to treat mental health and substance abuse will be deprioritized or eliminated in favor of Secretary RFK, Jr.'s, pet projects, like destroying Americans' access to vaccines. He is going to prioritize that, and not SAMHSA and substance abuse treatment.

Congress has received zero information from the Trump administration about how this new office will work and how the work of SAMHSA to address the mental health and substance use treatment needs of our community will be prioritized.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Nation's leading mental health and substance use treatment organizations. It is called the Mental Health Liaison Group.

Mr. Speaker, this letter is in strong opposition to the Trump administration's efforts to eliminate SAMHSA, as well as their reference to drastically cut funding and eliminate critical SAMHSA programs.

As they write in this letter: These proposals ``would have devastating consequences for the 84.5 million Americans with a mental health and/or a substance use disorder, many of whom rely on SAMHSA's programs, research, oversight, and leadership to address critical mental health and substance use disorder needs.''

Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration is also rescinding more than $1 billion in essential funding that States rely on through block grants. This rescission is wreaking havoc on States' efforts to support prevention, treatment, and recovery. That is because States, counties, and towns are the main places where these treatment programs are.

My Republican colleagues refuse to hold this administration to account for these devastating and illegal cuts. Instead, they are trying to distract with this bill. This bill is opposed by nearly 190 national, State, and local public health, criminal justice, and civil rights organizations.

So, Mr. Speaker, I oppose the bill, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose it as well.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand. What I am saying is that if we don't treat mental health and substance abuse as a public health crisis and, instead, we just say that we are going to have mandatory sentences and throw everybody in jail, lock the door, and throw away the key, then I don't think that is going to solve the problem.

I will continue to highlight that while Republicans propose these mandatory sentences and want to put fentanyl permanently on the schedule, that is not the answer to this mental health crisis. It is not the answer. The answer is to provide adequate treatment, and education. It is also to prevent the drugs from coming into the country but not just to put people in jail and throw away the key.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think House Republicans know that we can't simply schedule our way out of this crisis, but they have refused to pass bipartisan solutions that address prevention, treatment, and recovery to help stop overdose deaths.

I know that they passed reauthorizing the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act last week, but the bottom line is that all of the programs under the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act that have helped with treatment, helped with education, caused the number of overdose deaths to decline are being gutted. The staff that administer them and SAMHSA, the program that they are under, all of these things are being either eliminated, gutted, or the funding frozen by the Trump administration.

My point today is this is not just a criminal justice issue. We must combat this opioid crisis through a multipronged public health approach.

Nearly half of all people in Federal prison today have been convicted of a drug-related offense, with a racial and ethnic disparity among those convictions.

Access to treatment remains a challenge today. In 2023, according to SAMHSA, approximately one-quarter of the people who are classified as needing substance use treatment received it in the last year. People with a substance use disorder who are untreated are eight times more likely to die of an overdose compared to those who receive medication treatment.

Just putting people away and throwing away the key is not the answer. Cutting back on the treatment programs, and the education programs under SAMHSA, is certainly going to make things worse.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the chairman of our committee knows I have great respect for him, but the bottom line is that this bill does not consider individual circumstances. It is not just people that are selling drugs.

Look, I totally agree that if someone is selling fentanyl, it is a totally different situation from someone who is arrested for possessing it. The fact of the matter is this bill covers both those who possess it, using it for themselves, and those who are selling it--maybe those who have a huge ring of selling it.

My point is that when there are mandatory minimums, all those people come under the same rubric. The legislation, because it now makes permanent fentanyl on the schedule I, the mandatory minimums apply, and the harsh penalties do not consider individual circumstances.

I don't want to keep repeating, but I will, about how the legislation has no resources for prevention or treatment and just simply locks people up. The point is that there are going to be families and communities, because of the minimum mandatory sentencing and the inability of the judge to look at the individual circumstances, that we are going to repeat the same mistakes that were made for many years responding to other drugs.

Right now we know that people of color have been disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced to mandatory minimum sentences. The trend of racial disparity also can be seen in prosecutions for offenses involving fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

The Sentencing Commission data from fiscal years 2021 to 2023 provides strong evidence that these prosecutions disproportionately target people of color.

I would like to get beyond the point here when we debate these bills of saying that mandatory sentencing is a good thing, regardless of whether they are charged with possession or selling or how much they are selling, but that is not what this bill does. They get locked up. There are no individual circumstances considered. We know the consequences of that for people in many cases who, in my opinion, if I was the judge, would not impose these harsh mandatory penalties.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what the chairman of our Health Subcommittee said, and I am not arguing with him that we have to look at the fentanyl crisis in many ways, particularly at the border, and prevent it from coming into the country from China and other places that flood this country with it. Yet, my point is that what we are hearing from the Trump administration and from the Secretary of HHS, Robert Kennedy, Jr., is that we are going to defund substance use disorder programs, mental health programs, and treatment.

The fact of the matter is that about 58 percent of the people in prison right now have a substance use disorder. People with these disorders have challenges in getting appropriate treatment, and incarceration often exacerbates their symptoms. By having these mandatory penalties and putting more people in prison, who are, in many cases, only there because of mandatory sentences for possession of fentanyl and analogues, it only exacerbates their condition. It leads to individuals staying incarcerated longer, and they don't get treatment.

In the congressional justification for the Trump administration for a healthy America, the HHS agency proposes to cut various substance use and mental health programs that are helping State and local health departments combat the opioid crisis.

For fiscal year 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services proposes to zero out State opioid response grants, the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant, first responder training, youth prevention and recovery programs, and many, many more. I talked about this recently.

The bottom line is that if you zero out all of these programs--I think it is over $1 billion that has already been frozen--you are going to have no opportunity locally to actually help people with treatment and education. All you are going to do now is just throw them in prison, which only exacerbates the problem.

In the President's budget, they propose to cut SAMHSA programs that assist with harm reduction strategies to help those in need, as well as programs to help prevent Americans from using controlled substances. The President's budget also calls for reducing opioid overdose prevention and surveillance by $29 million.

I think that every dollar that is cut for prevention, treatment, and education is a life that is left unprotected. Terminating these critical programs and offices just puts millions of lives battling substance abuse in jeopardy.

Mr. Speaker, I wish my colleagues would spend time on these issues of protecting public health and coming up with solutions instead of retreading a bill that prioritizes this criminal justice approach, which I think doesn't work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), who is our assistant minority leader.

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

Mr. Speaker, we had this bill in the House back in February, and then it went to the Senate. Essentially, what came back today for final approval or final passage is the same bill.

As was mentioned by my Republican colleagues, if it passes today, it goes straight to the President's desk. At the time in February, when we were discussing this bill, I had pointed out that President Trump had just pushed a scheme, really, straight out of Project 2025 to choke off virtually all Federal funding, including halting over $8.6 billion in grant funding for the Federal programs to combat the opioid crisis. At the time, congressional Republicans just stood by silently as it happened.

Trump halted over $6.5 billion in funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, which supports treatment programs and prevention efforts. He also halted nearly $1.5 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health drug abuse and addiction research programs, which conduct and support research on substance abuse and addiction, basically to better understand the causes of addiction and identify treatments and interventions that reduce overdoses.

Trump also halted all federally funded programs that provide critical opioid-related services, including federally qualified health centers, which serve a high proportion of patients disproportionately impacted by the opioid crisis.

The Department of Health and Human Services also eliminated the workforce training programs, including the Integrated Substance Use Disorder Training Program, which trains professionals to provide opioid use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

Mr. Speaker, we went to court over a lot of these things, and many of them were overturned. Yet, I don't want anyone to think that the President is giving up. He is going to continue his efforts to illegally cut these programs, and I mentioned some of them before. Again, House Republicans are doing nothing to halt any of this.

In addition to that, I have to say that the big, ugly bill passed a couple of weeks ago by the Republicans, I think, altogether, between Medicaid, the ACA, and Medicare, because of sequestration, cuts, I don't know, I would say $1.7 trillion or so.

Understand that Medicaid is the single largest payer for behavioral health services in the United States and covers nearly 40 percent of all individuals with opioid use disorder. Medicaid covers a full array of services and support for people with behavioral health needs, including services and supports that typically are not covered by other health programs.

This is an assault on every effort for prevention and treatment of opioid disorders, whether it is cutting Medicaid, eliminating SAMHSA's programs, or cutting the money that goes back to States and towns to help people with treatment.

Mr. Speaker, again, this bill is a distraction because it gives the impression that if you lock somebody up with a mandatory penalty, even if it is just for possession, and throw away the key, that is going to solve your problem. It is not.

Everything that the President is doing and the Republicans are doing to support him completely eliminates or significantly cuts back on the treatment and the education that are going to be much more important in terms of trying to save people's lives.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, the bill before us today is the Senate companion to H.R. 27, which we voted on here in the House on February 6 of this year. The two bills are identical, other than a couple of minor punctuation differences. This bill would go to the President's desk, and he said he would sign it.

However, since that vote in February here in the House, the Trump administration has seriously threatened our Nation's ability to confront the ongoing opioid overdose crisis by attempting to dismantle the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, as I mentioned, firing hundreds of workers, including senior key officials, and rescinding over $1 billion from State and local behavioral health programs.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to oppose this bill because it is a permanent extension of fentanyl-related substances as schedule I drugs instead of the temporary one that we agreed on for 2 years in the end of the year 2024 appropriations package.

The temporary option would have left the door open for an off-ramp to substances found to have potential medical applications. This bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing. Furthermore, S. 331 also does not provide additional resources, as I have mentioned, for prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction.

For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I would like to speak about DOGE.

The verdict is in: It has been a colossal failure. It has done immense damage to many of our institutions and inflicted immense pain on innocent people. Also, it is not going to be successful in its stated goal of reducing spending and wasteful spending.

But before I go on, let me just say what all of us know. Every single person in this U.S. Senate is all in when it comes to attacking waste, fraud, and abuse. Every single one of us knows that we should kick the tires on every program we have in the Federal Government and look to see how we can make it be more efficient. And there may even be some programs where we say: You know what, its purpose has been served; it is time to move on.

So those of us who are being critical of DOGE are just looking at what DOGE is doing but not at all quarrelling with the notion that every one of us, Republican and Democrat and Independent, has a responsibility to be the best stewards of taxpayer money that we can be.

But here is my problem with DOGE: They are not looking in the right places. There is so much rip-off that is going on. Let's just talk about a couple of examples in our healthcare system. United Healthcare is rigging the system on Medicare Advantage Programs. Our seniors--we want them to have the healthcare they need. But they have set up these billing systems where they have paid nurses and forced doctors essentially to overanalyze and overprescribe and overstate what medical conditions were. This was not to help the senior on a Medicare Advantage Program; this was to pad their bottom line and make billions of dollars.

Of course, I am referring to the series of articles that was in the Wall Street Journal that documented the rip-offs and what I think were corrupt practices by United Healthcare.

Where is DOGE? All that money is just wasted. It has gone into the pockets of executives at United Healthcare. It has gone into shareholder payouts and dividends, but it hasn't gone into improving healthcare for seniors.

Another one: the pharmacy benefit managers. They are ripping us off so badly. We had a bipartisan bill with enormous Republican support and Democratic support to curb the rip-offs in the PBM industry. That was in our final budget deal last year. It got derailed. Why? Elon Musk. He was against it, and he gave the word that this has got to go down. The thing blew up, and we don't have the PBM reform that both sides of the aisle knew was necessary--something that was going to save hundreds of billions of dollars for American taxpayers and allow us to reinvest in healthcare and make things better.

So my first question with DOGE is, Why don't you look where the money is, where the rip-offs are, instead of just sending out emails overnight telling people they are fired whose performance has been absolutely exemplary?

So that is the core question I have about DOGE. Why are you leaving these practices that we know are really corrupt and a rip-off untouched, unexamined, and allowing them to continue when it is hammering taxpayers and citizens?

We have work to do on saving money, and we have places where it is absolutely essential that we act. DOGE is blind to all of those, all of those situations, and that is disgraceful, especially when you have Elon Musk as the person who sabotaged our effort for PBM reform.

The second thing is, there is a basic question if you are going to go about examining a program. You can ask hard questions. You can look under the hood. How is it working? How is it not working? Where do we have too many personnel? Where can we actually improve the practices and the performance by some reforms?

DOGE is not doing that. It literally is not doing that. It has not even taken a day, an hour, to come up with a plan on how to examine the various programs they are engaging with. What they are doing is firing people. People are waking up in the morning, and they are getting an email that says: Due to your poor performance, you are gone.

Now, this is a situation that obviously is incredibly cruel. You are working at the Department of Agriculture, you are working at the NIH, you are working on a USAID program, and life is going on, and suddenly you get this email out of the blue that clearly is a mass email but has a very specific impact on you, your life, your livelihood, and your hopes and dreams. That is just a savage, savage way to treat people who have been working in our various governmental Agencies, and it has enormous impact on our communities.

By the way, DOGE is picking on veterans. Literally thousands of veterans have been fired. The VA has announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees. That includes researchers working on cancer treatments, opioid addictions, prosthetics, and burn pit exposure.

So the issue here was not ``How do we help them do that job better? Where are there ways we can economize?'' The procedure is ``You are gone; that is it.''

President Trump and Elon Musk fired around 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration. These are folks who safeguard nuclear weapons. Now, it was so embarrassing that even Musk had to acknowledge it was a mistake, and those people are now back on their job.

But what it does I think very clearly is show how there is nothing about a plan to execute a thoughtful way to save taxpayer money. It is just shoot first and aim later. And 4,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By the way, this is incredibly important: These are all things that affect red States and blue States. This has no political orientation on one side or the other because the impacts of these are going to be felt by the farmers in Indiana just as they are going to be felt by the farmers in Vermont.

Another example that is really pretty cruel, and I just don't understand this: We have farmers across the country that I have spoken to--farmers in Vermont--who entered into contracts with the Federal Government under the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. What the deal was is the farmer agreed, say, to install solar panels or create a buffer zone between cattle grazing in a streambed or change the tillage practices to try to improve the soil.

I get it that President Trump and Mr. Musk are against the Inflation Reduction Act, and they have a right to do everything they possibly can to try to reverse that policy. So this is not about their right to use Executive authority. But here is what I don't understand: How do you stiff farmers who went out and borrowed money because they had a contract, they agreed to do certain things around their farm, and then they get an email saying: Just kidding. We, the Federal Government, are not going to honor our contract.

I am thinking of one farm in my own town of Norwich, VT, where folks did borrow the money and they did the work, and it was in anticipation of the Federal Government keeping its part of the bargain and coming through with the cash that it had agreed to, and they are told: No, we are not doing it anymore.

I know that the Presiding Officer is like me when it comes to keeping your word. You give your word; you keep your word. The folks you represent, the folks I represent, that is what they do, that is what they expect. But we have DOGE saying: Well, that doesn't apply to us because we want to ``save money.'' That is just flat out disgraceful and unacceptable.

FEMA. FEMA is absolutely essential to help folks respond to a catastrophic event. We need reform in FEMA, and I

want to work with colleagues in order to do that. But when that disaster comes--you know, a fire in Hawaii or California, floods in Vermont or North Carolina, hurricanes down south, or drought--the response from FEMA is essential because the local community doesn't have the infrastructure in place to provide that immediate emergency assistance that folks need for saving lives and keeping themselves together during that immediate storm event.

We are hearing that DOGE and the President want to just abolish FEMA. We have to be there for one another when it is our community that is affected by a catastrophic event where our citizens, the folks we represent, to whom we have a real duty--it is no fault of their own-- they are on the receiving end of Mother Nature. It has always been the tradition in the Senate that we help one another on that. That is not a partisan deal. DOGE is hammering us on that.

The people who get hurt--it is the everyday people whom we represent that are working hard, who are struggling each month to pay their bills. They are anxious about the safety of their kids, they are anxious about inflation, they are anxious about meeting the challenges of daily life, and they want to make a contribution to strengthening their community as well as their family, and they are getting hammered.

I mentioned, too, that among them are the 6,000 veterans who have been fired by DOGE across the Federal workforce. I mean, that just astonishes me. How do we say to a veteran who showed up to serve us and protect our country and to whom we claim we have great respect and allegiance--how do we send them an email that says ``You are fired,'' with no explanation, no sitdown, no face-to-face, just contempt for the value of what they contribute and how hard they are working? I do not understand that. I just don't.

Even in a tough business environment where some of our employers have to make tough decisions because they just know their business can't handle the workforce they have and they may have to make, against their desires, some reductions in force, our employers will sit down with folks face to face: Here is what we can do. Let's work out a plan. We know you need healthcare.

DOGE just dispenses with that when it has no plan. So the cruelty-- the cruelty of this is so abhorrent to me.

We as a society, really, despite whatever our differences are, have to have some mutual respect, and is it so essential to people that they have meaningful work. If we are going to make adjustments, we have to have a plan to include them, where DOGE says: We don't have to do that.

This isn't just about Elon Musk being a multibillionaire. No matter what happens, it is not really going to affect him. It is about Elon Musk treating people with what I think is the utmost cruelty. You are gone--you are gone--such disrespect for people who work hard at the VA, work hard in the NIH, work hard in the Department of Agriculture, work hard in the Department of the Treasury. So that element of this, we should all be shocked at.

You know, I can give a few examples of people in Vermont, but I know I am like every single Member of the U.S. Senate: We can give examples of people in the States we represent.

Our Small Business Administration Office has been a real help to Vermonters--very effective. One employee there got a performance review that--this is shortly after the performance review:

In a very short period of time, you established yourself as

an invaluable asset.

That was the performance review. The next day, February 7, she was fired because the email said:

Your performance has not been adequate to justify further

employment at the Agency.

So arbitrary, so unfair, so Elon Musk-like. We have a scientist at the Department of Agriculture, Caitlin Morgan. She studies sustainable agriculture and food systems at the ag services Food Systems Research Center. She was fired despite glowing performance reviews.

So what we have with DOGE is an assertion that they are seeking to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Who is to argue? There is not a person here that wants to vote in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse, but the reality is they do have a plan. It is not to look at each Agency and then make adjustments so that the Agency, at the end of the operation, will be fit for purpose and better able to do its job.

They have a very simple plan: Kill the headcount, reduce the headcount, fire people. That is it. That is the plan.

So we are going to be left with a decimated FEMA, a decimated Department of Agriculture, a decimated National Institutes of Health, and then who is going to put it back together? This brings me back to the cruelty of a guy like Musk. He doesn't have to worry about that. That is not his concern. Tesla is doing fine. SpaceX is doing fine. You know, things are great for him.

But they won't be great--not just for the people whose jobs have been savagely terminated, it will be bad for the cancer research that scientists are doing. It will be bad for our Vermont farmers who now find themselves deeply in debt because the Federal Government stiffed them. It will be bad for our FEMA response to the next community in our country that gets hit hard by a natural disaster.

So we have got to wake up here and be honest about what is going on with DOGE. We do agree--we do agree, I believe, Republicans and Democrats--that we have got to kick the tires on programs in government, and it is everything from food programs to commodity programs to the Defense Department. And we may have some fierce debates about what the priorities are and what we think is important and what we don't think is important, but that has got to be an on-the-level debate.

What Musk has done is just said: Hey, leave it to me. Let me send out a bunch of emails. Let me fire a lot of people in a lot of Agencies. Let's move fast and break things, and it will come back together.

It doesn't work that way. You know, you destroy the foundation of your house just like you destroy the foundation of a government program like FEMA or the National Institutes of Health, it just doesn't come back overnight because the organizations that we are trying to build, institutions that are essential to the well-being of our own country, those often take generations to create. It takes the commitment, the service, the dedication, and hard work of Americans of all kinds in all States.

This guy Musk is just destroying it all and cavalier about it and contemptuous to the rest of America about what he is doing. We can pay the price.

It is wrong what they are doing and how they are doing it. My view is that we do, in fact, have an opportunity here because both sides are quite willing to come to the table and ask these questions: How can we do it better?

But you know, if we came to the table and we asked how can we do it better, we would be looking at the long-term function: How do we have FEMA work better; how do we have our NIH work better; how do we assess grants better; how do we help our Small Business Administration be more effective in helping our young entrepreneurs? We would be asking those questions.

The other thing we would be doing--and I believe this because I have such respect for all of my colleagues here--we care about how it affects the people. We might have to make some tough decisions because this program could be cut; this one might have to be expanded. But we wouldn't just send off an email telling people to get lost. We wouldn't just be sending off an email to a farmer who just went to the bank and got a loan based on the credit of the United States of America promising to contribute a grant.

We would be considering that. DOGE isn't. In my view, we should all be outraged at the cruelty with which DOGE is operating. It is cruel to the institutions that are important for each of our States, and it is cruel to the people who have been doing this work in good faith for so long.

We have got to speak up and acknowledge that DOGE is destructive. We can embrace the effort to address waste, fraud, and abuse. We can embrace the opportunity to streamline and save money, make things work better, but we can never abandon our commitment to the people of this country who work so hard. We can

never abandon, in a cavalier way, the veterans to whom we have an immense debt of obligation.

Mr. President, DOGE is pretty dumb and pretty cruel and pretty destructive the way that it has operated under Elon Musk.

I yield the floor.