Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 27) to amend the Controlled Substances Act with respect to the scheduling of fentanyl-related substances, and for other purposes.

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. I rise in opposition to H.R. 27, the HALT Fentanyl Act.

Mr. Speaker, throughout this debate today, House Republicans will claim that they are committed to tackling fentanyl, but their actions show that simply is not true.

As the Trump administration illegally stole billions of dollars from Federal programs dedicated to helping people who are fighting a substance use disorder, House Republicans buried their heads in the sand.

Last week, the Trump administration froze virtually all Federal funding, stealing billions of dollars in funding for critical opioid prevention, treatment, and recovery programs. Clinicians have been left wondering if they would receive a paycheck for their work. Patients have been left worrying about whether their access to treatment and recovery had been cut off indefinitely.

Fortunately, several courts have already ruled in favor of parties seeking to put a stop to this unconstitutional power grab. Make no mistake, there are still real concerns about Federal funding not getting out the door to help us combat the drug overdose epidemic. Moreover, if this freeze is allowed to go forward, substance use and mental health clinicians who dedicate their lives to helping those experiencing substance use disorder would be forced to shut down, and millions of Americans would lose access to care. This is not the way to combat this epidemic.

House Republicans are now considering trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid so they can give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. Medicaid covers nearly 40 percent of all people with an opioid use disorder. Republican plans to cut Medicaid will further limit access to care for substance use disorders leading to more deaths.

Again, Mr. Speaker, when you hear Republicans talk about their commitment to fighting this epidemic, remember their actions over their words.

Let's go to the bill before us today. Two years ago, my Democratic colleagues and I shared deep concerns

with the partisan approach Republicans were taking with this legislation. Last Congress, Democrats offered a commonsense alternative to achieve a shared goal of tackling fentanyl and offered solutions to improve the HALT Fentanyl Act. Unfortunately, none of our priorities were included in the legislation, and, again, we find ourselves debating the same bill that stalled in the Senate and still exacerbates inequities in our criminal justice system.

In 2018, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, first issued a temporary class-wide scheduling order of fentanyl-related substances under schedule I, which is the strictest classification for drugs. Since that administrative action, Congress has voted to extend the temporary order numerous times, most recently in the American Relief Act where we voted to extend the scheduling until March 31 of this year.

House Republicans know we cannot 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. This is not just a criminal justice issue. We must combat this crisis through a multipronged public health approach.

That is exactly what we did in an end-of-year bipartisan deal that would have extended temporary fentanyl-related substances scheduling for 2 years. However, it also reauthorized a wide range of prevention and treatment programs to help address the opioid overdose crisis. The deal has bipartisan support, but it was squashed by Speaker Johnson so he could please Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire who is now illegally stealing Americans' personal private information from inside of Federal agencies.

Again, Mr. Speaker, actions speak louder than words, and Republicans are not serious about combating this fentanyl crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill. I encourage my colleagues to oppose it, as well, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his comments, but I want to inform him that the Trump administration's funding freeze could impact as much as $164 million in funding for substance abuse and mental health services and research in the Commonwealth of Virginia that his constituents rely on.

Cutting this vital funding will greatly hamper our response to the opioid epidemic and result in more overdose deaths in Virginia.

I urge my colleagues to work together with Democrats to ensure that the Trump administration end this illegal funding freeze and work together to pass bipartisan, evidence-based legislation to address this intractable crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), who is the chair and ranking member of our Energy Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta) but inform him that the Trump administration's funding freeze could impact as much as $304 million in funding for substance abuse and mental health services and research in the State of Ohio that his constituents rely on. Cutting this vital funding will greatly hamper our response to the opioid epidemic and result in more overdose deaths.

I urge my colleagues to work together with Democrats to ensure that the Trump administration ends this illegal funding freeze and work together to pass bipartisan, evidence-based legislation to address this intractable crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Gillen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter).

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

Mr. Speaker, I think you have heard many statements on the Democrat side of the aisle about how this legislation that is before us today only looks at one aspect of the fentanyl crisis and ignores funding, if you will, for treatment.

Right now, Medicaid cuts could and actually would seriously undermine our ability to address the opioid epidemic so they can give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.

What I want to emphasize is that not only is there nothing in this legislation to deal with treatment, but in addition to that, what we assume is going to happen, based on statements that have been put out by Republicans, is they are going to cut the Medicaid program in order to pay for their tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy.

Last week, in case anyone doubts it, the Trump administration temporarily suspended Federal Medicaid payments, and now we are hearing that congressional Republicans are considering up to $2.5 trillion in Medicaid cuts.

Keep in mind 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 supports for people with behavioral health needs, including services and supports that typically are not covered by other health programs.

As the opioid crisis continues, States can draw down Federal funds to cover medication-assisted treatment, MAT, medications and therapy, expand coverage of community-based benefits to support treatment and recovery, and to integrate behavioral health services into primary care and other settings. All that will stop with the Medicaid cuts that we are hearing that the Republicans want to implement.

Republican plans to cut Medicaid will further limit access to care for substance use disorders, jeopardize treatment for Medicaid beneficiaries, and lead to more deaths as a result of termination of treatment.

Again, I understand that the Republicans are talking today about law enforcement and penalties, but they are completely ignoring the fact that for many people this crisis is really dependent upon the fact that people continue to seek out fentanyl, and if they don't get treatment, then there are going to be more people that are doing the same.

Part of the reason that we are opposed to this bill today is because it doesn't say anything about treatment, which is one of the major aspects of this crisis. What we hear is cuts, cuts, cuts on all these treatment programs, which are totally unacceptable if you actually want to deal with this epidemic.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Iowa for her comments, but I want to inform her that the Trump administration's funding freeze can impact as much as $57 million in funding for substance abuse and mental health services and research in the State of Iowa that her constituents rely on. Cutting this vital funding will greatly hamper our response to the opioid epidemic and result in more overdose deaths.

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 the balance of my time to close.

Let me be clear, what the Trump funding freeze does is to pause any funding to go to opioid prevention, treatment, and recovery programs. Fortunately, several Federal courts have enjoined this funding freeze from going into immediate effect, but make no mistake, if this freeze is allowed to go forward, substance use and mental health clinicians who dedicate their lives to helping those experiencing substance use disorder would go without their paychecks and close their doors.

Clinics and programs such as certified community behavioral health clinics and the Drug-Free Communities Support Program funded by the CDC would be cut off from Federal funding.

We just learned yesterday of community health centers closing in the State of Virginia, so it is already happening that some of the community health centers are closing. The millions of Americans who depend on these programs will be losing access to their care across the country.

The HALT Fentanyl Act is a bill that is opposed by over 190 organizations. It is a box to check rather than having the hard, collaborative conversations that must be done to address a longstanding problem.

Let me be clear again: The fentanyl-related substances do, in fact, pose a danger to public health. There is no question about it. That is why the DEA enacted a temporary classwide scheduling order in 2018, and we have voted to extend it over nine times since, most recently in December of last year. We included and supported it as part of a bipartisan end-of-year agreement to continue the temporary status for actually another 2 years.

Don't be fooled by the majority's fear-mongering. The upcoming expiration of the temporary order on March 31 is a crisis of their own making. If they had adopted the bipartisan agreement at the end of the year, we wouldn't be facing this deadline.

I hope that we can all agree that the substance use and overdose crisis impacts all of our districts. Those who are suffering deserve bipartisan solutions that protect public safety, support public health, and don't perpetuate criminal justice bias.

As I said before, Democratic opposition is primarily based on the fact that there is nothing here to help with support and treatment. If anybody on the other side of the aisle thinks we are just going to criminalize ourselves out of this fentanyl crisis, they are just kidding themselves.

A larger part of this problem is the fact that we need a lot more funding for support and treatment, so that the demand, if you will, for fentanyl is significantly decreased. Right now, the demand is so great, and that is a big part of why we have such a crisis.

If we don't do something about treatment and behavioral health, we are never going to deal effectively with this crisis.

For all of those reasons, I oppose this bill, and I ask my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 93, I call up the bill (H.R. 27) to amend the Controlled Substances Act with respect to the scheduling of fentanyl-related substances, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material into the Record on H.R. 27.

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

Mr. Speaker, illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances remain one of the greatest health threats this Nation faces. That is why both Congress and the Trump administration are working to keep fentanyl out of our communities across the country.

What we know about these lethal substances is that they are largely created with chemicals sourced from China and trafficked into our country and communities by Mexican drug cartels.

Part of making this Nation safer and more secure is empowering law enforcement with the tools necessary to prosecute those who traffic this poison into our communities. The HALT Fentanyl Act plays an important role in that objective by permanently placing fentanyl- related substances into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act so law enforcement can crack down on drug traffickers. This will help save lives.

Last Congress, this bill passed the House with 289 votes, and I am hopeful for a robust vote today. I am confident this bill can pass the Senate and be signed into law.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to note that the bill before us today schedules illicit fentanyl. We had testimony to say this will save lives. That is the vote before us today. Hopefully my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will vote for it.

We can talk about criminal justice reform, but the people who are putting the poison into our cities and our children deserve to go to jail.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

Mr. Speaker, we are going to work on the SUPPORT Act, but the vote before us today that people are going to put their names to, a yes or no: Do we want to make illegal derivatives of fentanyl produced and conceived in China sent to Mexico and across our border to kill our people?

That is what the vote is going to be today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce), the vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments.

Mr. Speaker, I just will say that, if someone is trafficking in illicit fentanyl, they belong in jail. I understand the argument that people who are addicted need help and support, but if someone is trafficking in illicit fentanyl, they belong in jail. If someone is trafficking in a fentanyl derivative that is not scheduled, they don't go to jail. That is what we are here to do today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Evans), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, derivatives of illicit fentanyl have to be scheduled for traffickers to be prosecuted.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen), my good friend and member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from North Dakota (Mrs. Fedorchak), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Fitzgerald), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Fry), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McDowell), a new member of the Republican Conference, a new Member of Congress, and my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Crenshaw), my good friend and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Fong).

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

Mr. Speaker, speaking as the primary sponsor on the Republican side of the bipartisan bill, the SUPPORT Act, we do need treatment. We have worked on treatment. We have record treatment that has happened since the SUPPORT Act first passed, and we will work on it again this Congress.

We know it is going to expire by the end of March. What is happening is the scheduling of illicit fentanyl. What that means is, fentanyl is scheduled. What the people in China do who send their recipes for fentanyl to Mexico to be manufactured and sent across the border is if they could slightly change the molecule just enough that it is no longer fentanyl, it is no longer scheduled.

Our police officers have to find it and get it tested. Once they get it tested, they have to go back and say, okay, that is fentanyl. It is deadly. Let's go to Congress and get Congress to put that on the schedule. Then we put that on the schedule. Then they start to process and slightly change it again.

That is the reason we put this in an emergency order to begin with. That is why we want to put it in permanently because we know that it is effective.

We have had testimony to say that it is effective. We had my friend from New York (Ms. Gillen) come and say that she read that the DEA says this will save lives. Other groups say this will save lives. We have testimony that this will save lives. There is so much we need to do in helping people with their substance use disorders and struggles. There is no doubt there is a lot we need to do.

What we need to do today, what we are going to put our name on and record our vote on, yes or no, is: Do we believe that derivatives of fentanyl that are being trafficked from China to Mexico across our border, do we believe that should be schedule I and give the tools to our law enforcement officers to fight it?

That is what we are voting on today. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill. We had Mr. Cullen from Pennsylvania testify this morning in a hearing on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee for Health, who lost his son.

We all know people who suffer from this. We need to keep up the fight. This is important for us to do, and I encourage a ``yes'' vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, we know that if this emergency declaration expires, that illicit fentanyl will no longer be scheduled and individuals will no longer be subject to arrest and prosecution.

I don't believe we need to study this. That is why we have the emergency in place because of the problem. Putting this off until a study comes back, people are going to die. I don't think we need to certify that people are going to die. I think that is self-evident.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bresnahan).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Boebert).

Mr. Speaker, all I will say is that we know, and we have had testimony. We have had testimony from so many people who have come before our committee. We know that if we have illicit fentanyl that is no longer illegal, it is not going to save lives. It is going to cost lives.

We know this emergency order is expiring at the end of March. This needs to be done. It has to go to the Senate. Somebody mentioned earlier on the other side that it lingered in the Senate. We now have a Senate that will take this up. We have a President that will sign it.

We need to get this done so we can protect children and not delay this until we have another study when we know what is going on in our neighborhoods, our homes, our communities, and our country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the defeat of this amendment and support the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

THE SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended, and on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Mrs. Trahan).

The question is on the amendment by the gentlewoman from Massachusetts.