HALT Fentanyl Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, your silence is deafening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Society of

Addiction Medicine,

February 3, 2025.

RE Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

Hon. Chuck Grassley,

Chairman, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Richard Durbin,

Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Buddy Carter,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Diana DeGette,

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, Chairman

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

Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a national medical

specialty society representing more than 8,000 physicians and

associated health professionals who specialize in the

prevention and treatment of addiction, I write to urge

amendments to the Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

to mitigate unintended negative consequences and encourage

further Congressional action to address the demand side of

our national addiction and overdose crisis.

Opioid overdose deaths are always tragic, especially

because they are preventable with evidence-based addiction

prevention, treatment, and overdose reversal medications.

Even through drug overdose deaths dropped last year, the

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

addiction and overdose crisis. We still rank highest in drug

overdose deaths per capita in the world.

Illicitly manufactured, high-potency synthetic opiods,

including fentanyl, are key drivers of overdose deaths in the

US. Therefore, policies aiming to decrease their illegal

importation and distribution are critically important.

However, we are concerned that some of the policies proposed

in the HALT Fentanyl Act may have unintended consequences.

Some minor adjustments may support a better return on

investment. Enacting smart legislation is critical to saving

more American lives.

Specifically, ASAM urges the following amendments to The

HALT Fentanyl Act:

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

consider potency and mu opioid receptor activity in the

brain, rather than simply specifying the precise structures

of drugs that would qualify for Schedule I. Strict structural

specification provides a blueprint for drug cartels and

chemists to modify substances to avoid detection or

conviction. Unfortunately, this can lead to more dangerous

substances being manufactured and distributed across the US--

resulting in higher potency substances on the streets and

more severe addictions involving substances for which

existing treatments may not work. Additionally, prosecutions

need to focus on the trafficking and distribution of

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

bill's current definition may include substances that do not

have ``abuse'' potential;

Expand the federal mandatory minimum safety valve across

all substances to end the practice of low-level drug

offenders with substance use disorders receiving excessive

and expensive sentences. Redirecting associated savings

toward evidence-based addiction treatments would be more

effective;

Refine the expedited research procedures to reference

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

clarify that researchers can submit one application for

multiple substances;

Amend the expedited research procedures to remove the

requirement to demonstrate that the researcher is authorized

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

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

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

approve the research until the researchers can demonstrate

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

until the researchers can demonstrate that it is approved at

the state level. We recommend deferring to the States to

include the requirement to demonstrate federal approval; and

Express a sense of Congress that, while the legislation may

facilitate prosecutions and seizures of fentanyl-related

substances, increased and sustained Congressional efforts are

needed to address the demand side of our national addiction

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

the halt lethal trafficking (halt) fentanyl act

ASAM agrees with the Drug Enforcement Administration

(DEA)'s assessment that the current scheduling framework

under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) does not offer

necessary flexibility to combat the threat posed by emerging

synthetic substances. Chemists can constantly adjust their

formulations to evade US scheduling, and law enforcement

faces significant challenges staying ahead of these threats.

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

scheduled fentanyl-related substances into Schedule I for two

years. Congress has extended this temporary class-wide

scheduling on several occasions. While this approach has had

success in reducing law enforcement encounters with new

fentanyl-related substances in the illicit market, it has

been unable to curb the overall flow of illicitly

manufactured fentanyl into the US. Drug cartels have

continued large-scale production and distribution of high-

potency synthetic opioids.

Between 2017 and 2023, the number of illicit fentanyl

seizures in the U.S. skyrocketed by

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

fentanyl seizures involving counterfeit prescription pills--

that further exacerbate the risk of overdose by misleading

Americans as to what substance they are ingesting--increased

fourfold. Sadly, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids

other than methadone (primarily illicitly manufactured

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

2022.

In short, the HALT Fentanyl Act merely preserves a deadly

status quo.

Additionally, the legislation would continue (1) imposing

mandatory minimum sentences for quantity-based offenses

involving fentanyl-related substances and (2) defining the

class by chemical structure, regardless of potency or actual

impact on opioid receptors and related risks. Unfortunately,

mandatory minimum sentences are a terrible return on

investment when used to punish low-level drug dealers.

These sentences are expensive, needlessly requiring

thousands of dollars per individual per year. Research has

shown that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter drug

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

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

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

research studies found that incarceration not only fails to

prevent drug use, it may even increase the likelihood of

reoffending.

The largest return on criminal justice costs may come from

targeting cartel leaders or high-level drug dealers. Unlike

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

large quantities of fentanyl-related substances at any given

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

11% of federal drug offenders across substances. In other

words, the US currently wastes a significant amount of money

incarcerating low-level drug offenders with lengthy

sentences.

a better ROI: investing in addiction medicine innovation and treatment

Carefully tailored drug scheduling decisions can play a

useful role in a supply-side approach to addressing an

overdose crisis, but increased and sustained efforts on the

demand side present an opportunity for greater progress.

While many people reduce or stop using drugs without

treatment, those who consume most drugs distributed by drug

cartels frequently have moderate to severe substance use

disorders that necessitate medical treatment. Threats of

punishment are unlikely to deter these Americans, because

their disorder has already negatively affected their

motivation and judgment regarding their drug use. Instead,

effective addiction treatment reduces drug use and improves

health and wellbeing.

Addiction treatment is an excellent return on investment,

including for low-level drug dealers who are distributing

drugs to support their own addiction. Every dollar spent on

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

other costs. Therefore, rather than inefficiently using

taxpayers' money incarcerating low-level dealers of fentanyl-

related or other substances, the government can realize

positive effects from treating substance use disorders of

low-level dealers, including through drug courts that utilize

evidence-based practices and other alternatives to

incarceration.

Congress can lead the way in promoting helpful addiction

treatments. While highly effective medications exist for

opioid use disorder, many people are using stimulants, like

cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as alcohol. No

medications have been approved for stimulant use disorder,

and new treatments are urgently needed for all substance use

disorders to increase their uptake by both prescribers and

patients. Unfortunately, innovation in the addiction field

has lagged other medical fields due to limited financial

investment and misunderstanding of addiction as a moral

rather than a medical condition. Congress could consider

establishing incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to

enter the under-tapped addiction medicine field. The recent

case of GLP-1 medications demonstrates how new medications

can change millions of lives, spur economic growth, and

provide renewed hope for people suffering from stigmatized

medical conditions.

While new treatments are being developed and tested, the US

must also quickly expand access to existing evidence-based

treatments--including methadone, buprenorphine, and

contingency management. Few clinicians offer these

treatments, and they are unlikely to do so without increased

reimbursement rates from insurers and less red tape around

methadone for the treatment of opioid use disorder. For

example, Congress could explicitly amend federal law to state

that contingency management--the most effective treatment for

stimulant use disorder--does not violate federal anti-

kickback laws and patient inducement laws. For too long,

contingency management has been underused by clinicians who

fear prosecution under federal statutes that were not created

to address contingency management. Similarly, many pharmacies

fear that stocking effective medications, like buprenorphine,

will lead to Department of Justice investigations.

Recognizing this, Congress could clarify federal statute to

ensure that pharmacies' stocking of addiction medications is

not an indicator of suspicious activity.

Additionally, Congress could close the dangerous Medicare

coverage gap for evidence-based residential addiction

treatment. At a minimum, Congress could reauthorize, and

update key programs first created by the SUPPORT for Patients

and Communities Act in 2018, after unfortunately letting them

lapse in 2024.

conclusion

Thank you for considering these recommendations. ASAM

remains committed to working with you to promote remission

and recovery from addiction, ensuring that all communities

are safe, and more Americans can lead healthy, productive

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

Corredor, ASAM's Chief Advocacy Officer.

Sincerely,

Brian Hurley, MD, MBA, FAPA, DFASAM,

President,

American Society of Addiction Medicine.

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

February 3, 2025.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Speaker Mike Johnson,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

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

Dear Majority Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, Minority

Leader Schumer, Minority Leader Jeffries, and Honorable

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

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

rights organizations write today to urge you to reject and

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

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

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

Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a flawed class

definition, imposes mandatory minimums, and fails to provide

an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the

drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling approach endorsed in the HALT

Fentanyl Act classifies all FRS as schedule I drugs, reserved

for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a

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

a radical departure from drug scheduling practices as it

relies exclusively on chemical structure without accounting

for pharmacological effect based on the unproven hypothesis

of chemical structure-function relationships. Contrary to

this hypothesis, structurally related substances can often

have complementary therapeutic values. In fact, the National

Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has already acknowledged that

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

antagonist that behaves like naloxone, which is itself an

opium derivative that counteracts the effects of opioid

drugs. Classifying all FRS in schedule I places undue

restrictions on research for therapeutic potential of FRS.

This means that researchers and scientists are not able to

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

experiencing unprecedented overdose deaths.

The HALT Fentanyl Act also enshrines mandatory minimums for

distribution of FRS under the Controlled Substances Act, an

inappropriate mandate that criminalizes possibly inert or

harmless substances. While some proponents of the HALT

Fentanyl Act claim that the bill is not intended to interact

with the criminal justice system and that mandatory minimums

are primarily a deterrent against foreign import of FRS, this

is simply inaccurate. The HALT Fentanyl Act expands mandatory

minimums for both foreign importation crimes and domestic

drug distribution offenses, including nonviolent drug

distribution involving small quantities of drugs. What's

more, by automatically scheduling a huge swathe of substances

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

real criminal justice consequences, posing an unacceptable

risk of unnecessary incarceration for substances that carry

no potential for abuse. Such miscarriages of justice have

already occurred. For instance, Todd Coleman was sentenced to

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

crime laboratory said was laced with three fentanyl

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

adulterants were not illegal fentanyl analogues and most were

not even controlled substances.

Our country is repeating past missteps when it comes to

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

policymakers enacted severe mandatory minimums for small

amounts of crack cocaine in response to media headlines and

law enforcement warnings that perpetuated mythology and fear.

These laws imposed harsher penalties for crack--a substance

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

associated with white people--even though the two substances

are chemically similar. In the ensuing decades, people of

color have been disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced

to mandatory minimum sentences for small amounts of crack.

This trend of racial disparity also can be seen in

prosecutions for offenses involving fentanyl and

fentanyl analogues, as Sentencing Commission data from fiscal

years 2021 to 2023 provides strong evidence that these

prosecutions disproportionately target people of color. Among

the 8,048 people convicted in trafficking cases where

fentanyl or fentanyl analogues were the primary drug type,

Black and Hispanic individuals comprised 78% of all

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

represent a massive disparity relative to demographic

patterns in the general population. Moreover, the emergence

of fentanyl-related substances in recent years has fueled

similar waves of alarmist media and law enforcement headlines

that are informed by mythology rather than science. Any

further extension of the classwide scheduling policy

threatens to repeat past missteps with crack cocaine that

policymakers are still working to rectify.

The classwide scheduling policy expands the application of

existing severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws enacted by

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

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

fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a combined weight of 10

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

mandatory minimum with no evidence needed that the seller

even knew it contained fentanyl. In addition, current laws

impose a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years for just a

trace amount of a fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a

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

matter is that lawmakers do not need to impose new mandatory

minimums in order to prosecute fentanyl analogue cases

because law enforcement officials already have the ability to

prosecute these cases pursuant to the Controlled Substance

Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986, which requires that

prosecutors show the substances in question are harmful.

Despite the threat of grave injustices in the criminal

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

indications that some FRS are harmless or hold therapeutic

potential, the HALT Fentanyl Act does not include an offramp

to reschedule or remove FRS that research has proven to be

pharmacologically inactive or do not meet schedule I

criteria. Though it includes some research reforms for

schedule I substances, the bill excludes the possibility of

such research impacting the criminalization of FRS. Without a

rescheduling process, the HALT Fentanyl Act may unjustly

promote criminalization of harmless or inert substances.

The HALT Fentanyl Act and other bills proposing the

permanent classwide scheduling of FRS are yet another

iteration of the drug war's ineffective and punitive

strategies. To prevent overdose, Congress must invest in

public health solutions to mitigate the harms of illicit

fentanyl. We urge Congress to support bills that increase

access to health services and substance use disorder

treatment, improve data collection, and provide funding for

FRS research, offering alternative, effective strategies to

simultaneously address the opioid epidemic while preventing

backsliding on criminal justice reform.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Please contact Maritza Perez Medina, Director of Federal

Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, for questions about

this letter or to further discuss this matter.

Sincerely,

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

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

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

Positive Health (NY), American Civil Liberties Union,

American Friends Service Committee, Appalachian Learning

Initiative (WV), Association of Black Social Workers

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

Network.

Battle Born Progress (NV), Beacon House Aftercare,

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

Jewish Action, Better Organizing to Win Legalization, BLM

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

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

Center for Criminal Justice Reform, University of Baltimore

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

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

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

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

Protection (CUSP).

Community Catalyst, Community Health Project Los Angeles

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

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

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

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

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

(NY), Exchanging Pathways (MS).

Fair and Just Prosecution, Faith in Harm Reduction, Family

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

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

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

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

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

(CT), FWD.us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice (IL), Illinois

Harm Reduction & Recovery Coalition (IL), Immigrant Legal

Resource Center, Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR)

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

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

Interfaith Action for Human Rights, Justice Strategies,

JustLeadershipUSA, Juvenile Law Center.

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

Action Partnership, Law Office of the Cook County Public

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

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

Reentry Fellowship (KY), Lighthouse Consultants Colorado, LLC

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

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

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

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

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

NASTAD, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,

National Coalition for the Homeless, National Council of

Churches, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-

Maryland Chapter (MD), National Employment Law Project,

National Harm Reduction Coalition, National Health Law

Program, National Homelessness Law Center, National Immigrant

Justice Center, National Immigration Project (NIPNLG),

National Legal Aid & Defender Association, National

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

NC Harm Reduction Coalition (NC).

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

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, New Jersey

Organizing Project (NJ), New York State Harm Reduction

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

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

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

Parabola Center for Law and Policy, Parole Preparation

Project, Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network (PA), People

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

Leadership Alliance of Nevada (NV), Progressive Maryland

(MD), Psychotherapy Services DBA (KY).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louisville Community Ministries (KY), Southern Tier AIDS

Program (NY).

StoptheDrugWar.org, Students for Sensible Drug Policy,

Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative, Loyola Law

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

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

TCRC Community Healing Center (PA), Texas Harm Reduction

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

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

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

The Daniel Initiative.

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

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

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

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

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

Collective (NC), Transform Network, Treatment Action Group

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

Pharm Inc. (NY).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rises, Young People in Recovery.

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

The Leadership Conference

on Civil and Human Rights,

February 4, 2025.

Hon. Mike Johnson,

Speaker of the House,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,

House Minority Leader,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries: On

behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human

Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more

than 240 national organizations to promote and protect civil

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

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

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

reject this bill. The Leadership Conference will score the

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

This bill permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances

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

based on a flawed class definition. Additionally, it imposes

mandatory minimums and fails to provide an offramp for

removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling that this bill would impose would

exacerbate pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial

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

based, enforcement-first response to a public health

challenge.

Under the classwide control, any offense involving a

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

prosecution, even if the substance in question is helpful or

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

instructive. Mr. Coleman was sentenced to a mandatory minimum

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

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

with three illegal fentanyl analogues. But none of the

substances were illegal fentanyl analogues, and one was a

substance called ``Benzyl Fentanyl'' that the Drug

Enforcement Administration has long known is not dangerous or

illegal.

Moreover, the HALT Fentanyl Act enshrines mandatory

minimums for distribution of FRS under the Controlled

Substances Act, which could criminalize inert or harmless

substances. This bill expands mandatory minimums for both

foreign importation crimes and domestic drug distribution

offenses, including nonviolent drug distribution involving

small quantities of drugs. As mandatory minimums eliminate

judicial discretion, judges are prevented from tailoring

punishment to a particular defendant by taking into account

an individual's background and the circumstances of their

offenses when determining the sentence. Mandatory minimums

instead place more power in the hands of prosecutors and

their charging decisions, which is particularly concerning

given that prosecutors are more likely to charge Black people

with a crime that carries a mandatory minimum than a White

person. The HALT Fentanyl Act threats to replicate this

pattern and deepen these disparities.

This Congress should not repeat its past mistakes when it

comes to policy responses to fentanyl and its analogues.

Beginning in the 1980s, draconian drug laws with harsh

mandatory minimums and their resulting enforcement under the

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

populations. In the ensuing decades, Black people have been

disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced to mandatory

minimum sentences for small amounts of crack cocaine, despite

the fact that White people are more likely than Black people

to use crack cocaine in their lifetimes. Similar trends for

FRS are emerging: Between 2015 and 2019, prosecutions for

fentanyl-analogue offenses increased by more than 5,000

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

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

in fentanyl-analogue cases were Black. Any further extension

of the classwide scheduling policy threatens to repeat past

missteps with crack cocaine that policymakers are still

working to rectify.

Harsh federal drug laws and mandatory minimums have caused

the federal prison population to explode. The Urban Institute

has found that increases in expected time served for drug

offenses was the largest contributor to growth in the federal

prison population between 1998 and 2010. Currently, people

convicted of drug offenses make up 43.9 percent of the Bureau

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

overly punitive sentences or mass incarceration deter crime,

protect public safety, or decrease drug use or trafficking.

We share your concerns about fentanyl-related deaths and

support effective health-based approaches to mitigating this

public health crisis, but classwide scheduling and mandatory

minimums merely repeat the mistakes of the past by

exacerbating our incarceration problem. We welcome continued

dialogue with you about how to move forward on this important

topic. However, we must reiterate our firm opposition to

classwide emergency scheduling and to mandatory minimum

sentencing.

We strongly urge Congress to take bold steps on these

issues and transform our criminal-legal system into one that

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

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

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

please feel free to contact Chloe White, senior policy

counsel, justice.

Sincerely,

Jesselyn McCurdy,

Executive Vice President

of Government Affairs.

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

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

Mr. President, I am a big Boston Red Sox fan, and one of the most famous players in Red Sox recent history is Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez was a good baseball player, but he had a habit of doing some pretty ridiculous things on the field and off the field that were really detrimental to the team, some really bizarre on-field behavior-- cutting off throws from other outfielders before they got to the infield--and bizarre off-the-field behavior. It disrupted the team.

It became so regular that a phrase was adopted amongst the Red Sox fans: ``That is just Manny being Manny.'' And over the years, it just was accepted that every year, Manny Ramirez was going to do a whole bunch of stuff that was really detrimental to the team, and over time, it just kind of became accepted that that was a fact of life, a way of life with Manny Ramirez. As time went on, people reacted with less hostility. It barely got noticed in some cases when he was engaged in these detrimental forms of conduct.

I tell that story because it stands for kind of a universal concept. When bad behavior gets normalized, it no longer feels like bad behavior even if that behavior is hurting people.

Today, the world is littered with corrupt governments, governments where the leaders and the really rich men who surround the leaders--the oligarchs--they steal from people. That is what they do. The leaders and the leaders' friends just keep a hand constantly in the government treasury, and they steal taxpayer dollars. They rig the rules of the economy in order to make themselves fabulously rich. They hurt the citizens of those countries.

Vladimir Putin, for instance, has never had a job outside of government, but he is reportedly worth $200 billion. One of his many houses cost $1.4 billion to build. Supposedly, the landscaping costs on an annual basis for that house are $2 million alone. That $1.4 billion house was paid for by money he stole from the Russian treasury. In other words, he stole it from the Russian people.

Putin and his friends have been doing it for so long and doing it so openly and brazenly--Putin, for instance, wears a watch that retails for half a million dollars even though his official

salary is only $140,000. They have been doing this so openly and brazenly, they are so public in their corruption in Russia, that it is just accepted; it is just mainstream, the fact that Putin and his cronies steal from the Russian people.

That is what is happening in America today. It is heartbreaking for me to say this, but in the first 6 months of the Trump Presidency, Trump and Elon Musk and their billionaire friends have engaged in a stunning rampage of open public corruption. It is not fundamentally different than what happens in Russia. These are efforts to steal from the American people to enrich themselves.

Their strategy is to do it all out in the open, to do it at such a dizzying pace that the country just gets overwhelmed or anesthetized or dulled into a sense that we just all have to accept the corruption or, maybe more charitably, that this is just how government works; that government is just corrupt. So the fact that it is happening out in the open instead of happening secretly--well, it is really nothing new.

But this is not how government works. The things that have happened over the last 6 weeks are unprecedented. The President and his billionaire friends are not supposed to steal from us. They are not supposed to use their power and their access to power, their access to government levers, to rig the rules to enrich themselves. That has always been wrong, it is still wrong, and we do not have to accept this.

So in the next few minutes, I want to try out an exercise. I want to try to lay out for you as quickly as I can just some of the most significant instances of blatantly corrupt activity that have happened in just the first 6 weeks of Trump's Presidency. When you see it all together, there is no way to avoid a simple conclusion: This White House is on its way to being the most corrupt in the history of the country. And just because they are doing it out in the open for everybody to see doesn't mean it is not corrupt.

My hope is that if you see it all in one place, the gravity of this moment may hit you. My hope is that my colleagues and the public choose not to normalize a President or his advisers using the Oval Office as a blunt mechanism to make themselves even wealthier.

It is our decision--our decision--to have zero tolerance for corruption. It is also our decision to just decide to become a place like Russia where our leaders are allowed to routinely steal from us.

So this is a heartbreakingly long list. This is just 20 or so examples of corrupt behavior in the first 6 weeks of the Trump Presidency.

Here it goes. We are going to start on January 17. On January 17, Trump launches the meme coin. This is maybe the most corrupt of all of the acts because--what is the meme coin?--the meme coin is essentially a mechanism by which Russian oligarchs or corporate CEOs can literally send money privately directly to Donald Trump. Nobody knows who buys the meme coin, but Trump makes money when people buy it. So it is just an open sewer valve that allows for anybody who is trying to influence the Trump administration to be able to secretly funnel money to Donald Trump.

He reserves 80 percent of the coin. He waits to release that coin until the price jumps back up again, which essentially means he is waiting for people who want favors from him to buy a bunch of the coins to inflate the value so that he releases more and makes more money.

It is a disgusting kind of corruption because this is essentially Trump just posting his Venmo for anybody secretly to wire him as much money as they want. We have never seen something like this before, where anybody who has anything to gain from the Trump administration, through a manipulation of the value of Trump's meme coin, can funnel money directly to the President, whisper in his ear: That was me. That was me that purchased all that coin that jumped up the value that allowed you to release new coin. Hey, take care of me on the back end.

On January 20, when he is sworn in, he institutes his new energy agenda. Now, open reporting suggested that during the campaign, he met with the oil and gas industry, and they cut a deal in which the oil and gas industry would give him a billion dollars of campaign contributions in order to receive favorable treatment when Trump was sworn in.

Guess what happens on January 20. Trump unveils his energy strategy. What does it do? It preferences oil and gas, and it punishes oil and gas's competitors. It, for instance, freezes all permits on wind projects, both for the land and the sea. It undercuts permitting processes, not for oil and gas, but for oil and gas's competitors.

Oil and gas got exactly what they asked for. They gave a campaign contribution, and they got the favorable treatment.

Five days later, Trump fires 17 inspectors general. What do inspectors general do? They look for corruption inside of these Agencies. What do you do if you are trying to engage in corruption, if you are trying to steal from the American people, you fire the inspectors general.

Two days later, on January 27, Trump fires Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB. This is the National Labor Relations Board. When she is fired, the National Labor Relations Board cannot function any longer. Why does this matter? Because the person that has been put in charge of reviewing the hirings and firings of these Agencies is Elon Musk who, by the way, has lots of cases before the NLRB--so do the people that are standing behind Trump during the inauguration. Almost all of them have active cases before the NLRB. The billionaires supporting Donald Trump now don't have to worry about the NLRB because, on January 27, the NLRB is rendered powerless.

Three days later, on January 30, Trump awards more than $800,000 worth of stock to several of the board members of the Trump Media & Technology Group. This is the publicly traded company behind his social media platforms.

So now, his Cabinet members, people like Kash Patel and Linda McMahon, are owning equity in Trump's media platform--equity that can be cashed out, sold to people who want to buy them out of their interest at any time. Those people who might want to buy them out-- Cabinet members--could be individuals with issues before the Department of Education, before the FBI--yet another avenue in which people who have influence, who want to gain influence inside the Trump administration have a conduit to be able to move cash from their pocketbooks, from their treasury, from their bank accounts into the bank accounts of Trump Cabinet members.

Shortly thereafter, we start to see the weaponization of the DOJ. On February 23, a civil complaint from DOJ that had been pending against SpaceX, Elon Musk's signature company, is dropped. Eight days later, the DOJ drops a case against a Republican Congressman.

On February 19, 2 or 3 weeks later, the DOJ opens up something called Operation Whirlwind, which seeks to target anyone who dares to try to obstruct or criticize the work of Elon Musk and DOGE.

Over the course of the first few weeks, the DOJ has turned into an entity that drops cases against those who are loyal to Donald Trump and pursues aggressively investigations against those who are trying to criticize Donald Trump.

On February 1, Trump fires the Director of the CFPB and announces plans to shut down--to shutter--the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Again, very much like the NLRB, this is an Agency that was, at the moment that it was rendered powerless, investigating Elon Musk and many of the biggest financial backers of Donald Trump. So, once again, those that have access to Donald Trump, the billionaires that are close to him, now don't have to worry about labor violations being investigated by the NLRB. Now, they don't have to worry about consumer actions being taken against them by the CFPB.

On February 4, there is the first of two extraordinary meetings in the White House in which Donald Trump convenes his business partners-- his business partners--the Saudi golf league and the PGA, to try to negotiate a solution to the dispute between those two golf leagues. Why? Because Trump has a business interest in that

dispute being resolved. The Saudi golf league plays tournaments at Trump's courses in the United States. And so, if the White House, using its official power, can try to negotiate a settlement between those two groups, Trump stands to make money.

On February 6, something absolutely stunning happens. Pam Bondi, the AG, issues a memorandum in which she proposes to dull the criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

If you are representing a foreign government before the United States, you have to register so that we know if you are acting on behalf of American interests or you are acting on behalf of foreign interests.

In the prior Trump administration, Trump officials got in big trouble for secretly working for and getting paid by foreign governments without registering.

Well, what has Trump announced? That they are going to limit the applicability of the enforcement of that statute, making it much easier for Trump's friends, for his MAGA crowd, for the people who show up to Mar-a-Lago to get paid quietly by foreign governments in order to influence Donald Trump.

On February 10, maybe aside from the meme coin, the most stunning act of corruption--the Eric Adams quid pro quo, in which Eric Adams, indicted for corruption, is let off the hook. His charges are dismissed in exchange for the mayor's pledge of political loyalty to Donald Trump. They literally went on TV and announced the deal--that they were getting rid of the charges against Eric Adams as long as the mayor pledges political loyalty to the President.

That was so corrupt that six or seven DOJ officials resigned because they refused to withdraw those charges. But the deal went through because the seventh or the eighth or the ninth official finally filed the withdrawal.

And now, in America, it is 100 percent clear, if you want to get away with corruption, if you want to steal from your constituents and you are an elected official in this country, all you have to do is just sign up for political loyalty to Donald Trump, and he will instruct the Department of Justice to let you get away with it.

On February 10, Donald Trump directs the DOJ to pause enforcement of U.S. laws that prohibit companies from paying bribes overseas. Come on--like come on. He instructs the DOJ to pause enforcement of U.S. laws that prohibit companies from paying bribes overseas.

Here is an example. Goldman Sachs was engaged in outright bribery. They were paying bribes to Malaysian officials so that they could get a contract to manage the resources of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

American companies should not be overseas bribing foreign governments. That compromises America's reputation and America's national security. But now, you are going to pause enforcement of the laws that stop American companies from bribing foreign governments because corruption is now being normalized.

This is what you do if you want to normalize corruption; it is that you make it legal for American companies to engage in corruption overseas. That makes it easier for Trump to get away with corruption here.

Two days later, on February 12, the announcement comes out that the State Department is going to buy $400 million in armored Teslas.

OK, so now it is getting even more blatant. It is getting even more brazen. The State Department is just going to buy a whole bunch of product from Elon Musk--product that they were not previously scheduled to buy.

It is true that the Biden administration had a blueprint that it was going to buy some electric vehicles, but it was around $483,000 worth of vehicles. Trump revises that blueprint of spending so that now the Federal Government is going to spend $400 million on armored Teslas from Elon Musk.

Let's see. That is February 12. That same day, Elon Musk's people infiltrate the Department of Labor, and reporting suggests that, during that infiltration, Elon Musk's personal representatives get access to enforcement information at OSHA, not only against Elon Musk's companies--and, by the way, SpaceX has an employee injury rate that is nine times higher than the industry average--but, also, workplace safety violations against Elon Musk's competitors.

Here is the message: If you are close to Donald Trump personally, if you support him politically, you can get secret access to enforcement data against your companies and your companies' competitors. That is what happens on February 12.

Three days later, there is some suspicious firings at the FDA--again, related to Elon Musk's personal financial interests. Elon Musk owns a medical device company called Neuralink. It is currently being reviewed by the FDA. And guess what. On February 15 and 16, all over a weekend, there are 20 people fired from the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices--fired by DOGE, run by Elon Musk.

Clear message: You are going to get fired if you aren't on the right side of Elon Musk's application.

Now, whether that was explicit or not, if the guy who is firing you has a pending application before your Department, aren't you going to think twice? Aren't you going to think twice about ruling against his interests?

This is why this is unprecedented. It feels normal because it has been happening every day. But never before in American history have we allowed someone who has a pending application for approval of a medicine or a medical device to be able to personally decide who gets hired and who gets fired at the regulatory Agency making the decision over that medical device.

But, now, this stuff is happening every day because, on February 15, as well, that same weekend, there is an announcement that the FDA cuts are going to be even deeper, perhaps as big as 50 percent. That means that hundreds of drugs and devices won't get approved at the FDA.

And you know who benefits from that? The folks that are selling the snake oil products.

And guess who is selling the snake oil products? The people who work for Donald Trump selling ``vita gummy scams.'' The Director of FBI is selling vaccine reversal pills. When the FDA gets gutted, it is the people who sell those unregulated products who stand to gain.

On February 19, 4 days later, we find out that the IRS is going to be cut by 7,000 people, and the biggest chunk of the folks who are going to be laid off are the people who do the audits of the billionaires and the millionaires and the corporations.

So, once again, Elon Musk and the people standing behind Donald Trump on inauguration day are going to get off because the IRS just had its enforcement powers--its audit powers--absolutely gutted.

That same day, on February 19, we start to receive word that advertising on Elon Musk's platform is starting to grow again. And the reporting on February 19 indicates that American companies have come to the collective decision that they need to keep advertising on Elon Musk's platform because Elon Musk has so much regulatory power inside the Federal Government that they need to make sure that they are paying Musk through Twitter and through X, so that if they ultimately need something from the Federal Government, they can get it.

This, again, is why we have never, ever in the history of this country allowed for the richest man in the world, somebody who controls major companies, to also have an official position inside the government, because, of course--of course--it opens up these clear avenues where people are going to do business with him privately to try to curry favor with him publicly.

I am not done. It just keeps going. The next day, on February 20, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices' monthly meeting is canceled and not rescheduled.

So we were very worried that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who makes money off of his attacks on vaccines, would continue those attacks when he took over HHS because, if faith in vaccines continues to plummet, it is very likely that RFK, Jr., will make money. Why? Because the not-for- profit that he will likely return to--the company that he will return to after he leaves--makes money as vaccine misinformation spreads, and he also continues to collect fees for referring cases to a company that handles claims of personal injury due to vaccines.

And so when the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is canceled, it is a clear indication that, yes, this campaign of assault on vaccines is going to continue, which--not surprisingly--is likely to make RFK, Jr., even more money.

On February 26, we see Trump's MAGA hats that are for sale on his website displayed in the Oval Office. And it is just a reminder that so many people inside Trump's universe continue to sell merchandise on the side in order to make money.

Donald Trump has always done this, and we have just kind of accepted it, even though it is a kind of corruption in and of itself. But Kash Patel, the Director of the FBI, is still selling Kash-branded merchandise, even while he is going to run the FBI. Elon Musk and others are selling DOGE merchandise.

So as they trumpet their brand inside the government, they are making money off their brand outside of the government. On February 26, maybe the third most significant brazen corruption happens. News breaks that Elon Musk is just going to have the FAA cancel a contract with Verizon that has been in the works for years and instead just substitute in Starlink for Verizon. Just extraordinary that this is happening in plain view of everybody.

Elon Musk takes his private company, uses his access to government to just shove out of the way his competitors and instead insert himself and his company. Again, we have never seen this ever before in American history, and now it is happening on a daily basis.

And now we get to this week. This week, Wired reports that guests are paying millions of dollars to dine with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and business leaders are being targeted with advertisements that sell access to a one-on-one meeting with the President of the United States for $5 million.

Come on, like seriously, there are advertisements that say if you are a business CEO and you pay $5 million to Donald Trump, you can get a meeting with him. Like, this isn't OK. And yet because it happens every single day, every single day, they are asking for us to pretend that this is normal.

This is just 6 weeks. It is just 6 weeks, and the last thing on the list is an offer to meet with the President for a million dollars or $5 million. If any previous President had sent out an advertisement suggesting that you could meet with them for a payment to them of a million to $5 million, in and of itself, we would deem that to be unacceptable.

But Donald Trump and Elon Musk believe that because they have arranged this dizzying pace of corruption in which not a day goes by in which something doesn't happen inside our government in which Elon Musk or Donald Trump use their power in order to rig the rules to enrich themselves, that we are all going to feel that it is normal.

This is how democracies die. Democracies die when the very powerful people steal from us so regularly, so openly, so unapologetically that we come to believe that it is normal.

And listen, I understand that many Americans may think that all of this stuff just used to happen quietly, and the only difference is that Trump and Musk are just putting it all out in the open. And I am not saying that there haven't been instances of corruption. Democrats and Republicans in this body have been accused of and convicted of acts of corruption.

It has been a fact of life in American politics for a long time, but never before has the corruption happened this openly or this frequently. And so I lay it all out for you this afternoon in the hopes that it is not too late for us to decide to stand up as a body and as a nation to say that this isn't OK.

The Trump meme coin is not OK. It is not OK for people who have interests before the Federal Government to be able to anonymously funnel money to the President of the United States. It is not OK for Elon Musk to have access to the Department of Labor enforcement data against him or his competitors that nobody else gets access to.

It is not OK to just cancel contracts that were going to Musk's competitors and substituting his own business just because he has the ability to do it as a friend of Donald Trump. The rule of law matters. Doing things by the rules matter.

This level of corruption was not occurring behind the scenes prior. It is not just that the cover got pulled off of it all, and it is our decision as a body and as a country to decide not to normalize this scale of corruption.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Houchin) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the bills in this rule today are nothing more than a cheap distraction and another smokescreen from House Republicans, who are desperate to change the subject. I get why. After all, it was just 2 weeks ago that nearly every single Republican in this Chamber voted for what may be the most shameful piece of legislation that this body has produced in years, the GOP tax scam.

Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough that it gives massive tax breaks to billionaires and wealthy donors, but it does that by literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry seniors and children and ripping healthcare away from more than 16 million Americans.

In case it wasn't clear, Republicans are gutting Medicaid and even targeting Medicare, programs that millions of families depend on. It is not because they have to but because they want to.

Mr. Speaker, I know my friends across the aisle hate to hear us say the truth out loud. It makes them uncomfortable because they know what they are doing is wrong. Yet, that is just the cold, hard truth, Mr. Speaker.

In the process, Republicans are adding trillions of dollars to the very national debt that the majority loves to complain about when it is politically convenient. That is also the cold, hard truth.

Numbers don't lie. Look at the Congressional Budget Office's analysis. The Republicans' math does not add up. Again, this adds trillions of dollars to the debt.

Since the backlash has been swift and deserved, Republicans are scrambling to do everything they can to sweep it under the rug and change the narrative. That is what these bills are about--political misdirection, not meaningful solutions.

Let's be clear. Three of the bills this week meddle in D.C.'s local governance. It is not because there is some urgent crisis but because Republicans want to score cheap political points and take power away from a local government that they weren't elected to make decisions for.

In fact, Republicans referred to the District of Columbia as ``property'' in last night's Rules Committee hearing. Who talks like that? I thought I was watching ``Gone with the Wind.''

This is so incredibly offensive. The people who live in D.C. are not the Republicans' property. Their land is not Republicans' property. Their money is not the property of the Republicans. The majority should keep their hands off of it and keep their hands off of them.

Republicans, Mr. Speaker, are on a power trip. These bills either chase problems that don't exist or duplicate efforts already underway. That is not legislating. That is performative politics.

Here is the real kicker: If my Republican colleagues were serious about public safety in D.C., as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim, then the first thing to do is restore the $1 billion in the city's funding that they slashed earlier this year.

I want to be clear. This is not Federal money. We are literally talking about the city being able to spend their own money that D.C. residents have paid in taxes for the District. That money, taken from D.C.'s budget and paid by D.C. taxpayers, goes toward supporting public safety, social services, and critical infrastructure that residents and tourists alike rely on.

The Senate already passed the fix. The bill is ready for us to vote on. Even Donald Trump says he supports it. I can't believe it, but he says that he supports it.

Mr. Speaker, why is it that House Republicans here in Congress are dragging their feet? I thought they did everything Trump directed them to do, Mr. Speaker. Why are Republicans willing to stand strong against Trump on this, but when it comes to taking away healthcare and food assistance from their constituents, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle suddenly have no backbone and go along with Trump on that? Give me a damn break.

The fourth bill this week makes formatting changes to the HALT Fentanyl Act, a bill that we have debated before.

I will be very clear. The fentanyl crisis is real. It is deadly, and it demands serious action. Yet, that action must be more than slogans and symbolism. You can't say that you are serious about fighting fentanyl while slashing funding for mental health services, addiction treatment, and Medicaid. That is hypocrisy, and that is dangerous.

Yet, this is the Republican playbook. Republicans pay lipservice to real problems, undercut the solutions that actually work, and shovel more tax breaks to the ultrawealthy--rinse and repeat.

Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve a hell of a lot better. They deserve better than a party taking away their healthcare in the middle of the night. America's hardworking moms and dads, who may work multiple jobs but still don't make enough to afford groceries under this administration, deserve to know that they can rely on SNAP during rocky times so that their 7- and 8-year-old kids have something to eat.

Seniors deserve to have full fridges and access to healthcare that they have paid into so that they can live out their remaining years with dignity.

If seniors are paying their fair share in taxes, billionaires, hedge fund managers, and people who can afford to dump millions into political campaigns should pay their fair share, too.

People are tired of all of these giveaways to multibillionaires while hardworking, middle-class families or those struggling to get into the middle class get screwed over.

What we saw from Republicans in the last week of May, Mr. Speaker, is reprehensible. It is not what the American people deserve. We must do better, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hate to be the one to have to inform the gentlewoman of this fact, but the head of CBO, according to The Wall Street Journal, is a registered Republican.

Now, we are being told by the Republicans that we can't trust the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to give us correct numbers on how much things are going to cost or how much the tax cuts are going to cost. Who do we rely on for that? Is it Elon Musk? Maybe not anymore because Elon and Trump are fighting.

The bottom line is that CBO has been kind of the gold standard that both parties have pointed to in various debates on budgetary bills over the years.

I should also point out, because I think I want it to be very clear, there is no Federal funding in Medicaid that goes to provide support for undocumented immigrants. CBO also states that, so that little red herring out there is just, again, to distract. It is just not truthful. That is not truthful. I think everybody in this Chamber knows that. Enough of that.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 2753, the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act of 2025, which would block the Republican budget from cutting Medicaid or SNAP benefits and kicking people off of these lifesaving programs.

Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago, House Republicans jammed through their multitrillion-dollar budget scam by a one-vote margin. Some Republicans didn't even know what was in the bill. They rushed it through so fast that we are reportedly going to have to revote on it later this week to fix all the errors in the bill.

While we stand here debating three bills to micromanage the affairs of the District of Columbia, which has its own Mayor and city council, who are perfectly capable of representing their constituents, Republicans are moving forward with more tax breaks for billionaires and corporations while lower

income Americans are made worse off through their largest cuts to healthcare and food assistance in our Nation's history.

We live in the richest country in the history of the world. I will inform the gentlewoman and those in this Chamber that we have 46 million people in the United States of America who are hungry or food insecure. We should all be ashamed of that. Rather than trying to address that problem, by the way, which is a costly problem, the Republicans instead chose to cut $300 billion out of the SNAP program.

They have also cut funding out of a whole range of other nutritional benefit programs, as well. Before they have a chance to vote again on their big bill later this week, I urge my Republican colleagues to correct their mistakes and to vote to protect healthcare. Don't throw American citizens off of healthcare. We should be protecting their healthcare and protecting SNAP for millions of Americans.

This is not about undocumented immigrants. Stop that nonsense. This is about American citizens. Stop these cuts by voting to bring up the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act.

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 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Simon) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the gentlewoman when she wants to know why the numbers keep on going up in terms of the number of uninsured. The reason is the Republicans continuously changed their bill and made it worse. That is why. The majority has made it worse.

The bill that we voted on throws more people off of healthcare. Boy, that is something to be proud of. There is no denying the fact that their big, ugly bill cuts SNAP by $300 billion. They cut SNAP by $300 billion.

This is a benefit that, on average, is about $2 per person per meal, and they cut $300 billion. They want us to believe there will be no adverse impacts. Everything will just be beautiful. Really? I mean, come on.

They cut $300 billion out of the SNAP program. That is going to impact senior citizens, veterans, and children. Let me tell you, the savings that is going to be garnered from the $300 billion cut that the Republicans are using to offset the cost of tax cuts for billionaires, that is going to be very costly because hungry kids don't learn when they go to school. Senior citizens who take their medication on an empty stomach end up in an emergency room. People who don't have access to decent nutrition end up with chronic illnesses that last a lifetime. Workers who are hungry are less productive in the workforce. That is what my friends are doing.

Don't give me this garbage about undocumented immigrants. CBO made it clear that there is no Medicaid funding going to undocumented immigrants in this country. It is clear. That is a smoke screen so that people don't focus in on how their big, ugly bill is going to hurt regular people in this country.

It really is astounding to me. I thought we all came here, no matter what our politics might be, to help people.

They are pushing forward a bill that is going to hurt people. It is going to hurt almost everybody in this country except if you are well- off and well-connected. If you are a billionaire, if you are a big donor, if you hang out at Mar-a-Lago, you are doing fine, but not everybody else.

The other thing that Republicans are doing is cutting medical research, cutting NIH. If you want to talk about lifesaving investments, let's find a cure for cancer. Let's find a cure for diabetes. Let's find a cure for Alzheimer's. Instead the Republicans are cutting that research.

Mr. Speaker, I will just take a couple minutes here to talk about something else because this is a rules debate, and this is something that I find particularly annoying at this moment.

I will take a moment to talk about process. Perhaps the only noteworthy thing the Republican majority achieved last Congress was shattering their own record for the most closed Congress ever. That is not something you want to be known for.

To be clear, they made history for running the most closed, antidebate Congress we have ever seen. In total, Republicans issued 115 totally closed rules, meaning 115 times where the House could not debate a single amendment on the House floor. Republicans basically told us: nope, no debate, no amendments, no input to make these bills better. Just do whatever we tell you to do.

This wasn't an accident. It was the whole game plan, a legislative lockdown that delivered the most unproductive, dysfunctional Congress in modern American history.

Did they learn anything from it? No, they did not learn a thing. This Congress they have taken that broken model and somehow made it worse.

As of last night, they have racked up over 50 closed rules in just 5 months. More than 90 percent of the bills they bring up have no amendments, no discussion, no democracy. It is just take it or leave it.

At this rate, Republicans are on track to issue over 200 closed rules this Congress. What are we even doing here?

In just 5 months, we have seen Republican leadership block over 800 amendments. These are amendments that our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, have submitted to make bills better. Only 14 amendments were selected by Republican leadership to be debated across just four bills. That is a 98 percent rejection rate. They block 98 out of every 100 ideas they receive.

What does this look like in practice? It looks like a complete destruction of the deliberative process. Republicans have blocked--get this--debate on amendments that would protect SNAP and Medicaid for millions of Americans and debate on amendments to protect access to the ballot box, the foundation of our democracy.

They even blocked debate on bipartisan amendments which would provide a permanent pay fix for Federal wildland firefighters and allow grants to help with fentanyl prevention and education efforts.

No wonder nobody likes Congress. The issues that are important to the American people are not even allowed to be debated. As we see here today, Republicans are okay with debating trivial issues passionately but important ones not at all.

Mr. Speaker, when I chaired this committee, back when we gave a damn, we welcomed ideas. We let the House work the way it is supposed to work. In our first 5 months, Democrats allowed over 25 percent of all amendments, more than 200 thoughtful proposals to be debated.

Here is the kicker: We gave Republicans more chances to debate their ideas than their own leaders do. In 5 months, only 6 of the 220 Republicans, over 97 percent of Republicans in this Chamber, have had an amendment made in order. That is not by mistake. That is a design flaw; a big one.

I don't understand how my Republican colleagues, some of which were so excited about having a bigger, better, open process, can say with a straight face that this is what they wanted. They have no voice in improving legislation. Amendments that we offered last night were blocked.

At this point in the 117th Congress, Mr. Speaker, under Democratic governance, over half of all bipartisan amendments were made in order. This Congress, we have yet to see a single bipartisan amendment make it to the House floor this year. Not even one.

Mr. Speaker, this Republican leadership seemed to have forgotten that this institution is a democratic legislative assembly. Instead, they are running it like a wannabe authoritarian dictatorship.

I know that Donald Trump speaks admiringly of Vladimir Putin all the time, but this place is becoming like Russia.

Come on. Have some respect for the House of Representatives. Let's open this place up a little bit more. This process right now is a disgrace and the American people deserve so much better than this.

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

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

Wow, the gentlewoman is defending this process.

I just want to repeat, when I was chairman, I made one out of every four amendments in order. My Republican friends are making 1 out of every 50 amendments in order, and 0 bipartisan amendments.

Again, I don't quite know--well, I guess I do know. I mean, again, the way the Republican leadership is operating here is that, again, we don't debate serious proposals on the House floor. They don't want to have votes. They don't want to have debates. They just want to bring things to the floor under a closed process and tell people to take it or leave it. Then they do this other thing of sneaking things in the rules so we can't even have a vote up or down on major changes. However, that is not the way this place is supposed to run.

In terms of, again, the Congressional Budget Office, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, according to The Wall Street Journal, is a registered Republican. If we are not going to rely on the Congressional Budget Office for analyses, who are we supposed to rely on? What, Stephen Miller? I mean, who? I mean, I am just trying to figure out who. Are we supposed to take your word for it or just take the President's word for it? I mean, this is a guy who doesn't read anything. He says he watches everything on TV.

I don't even understand. This new position of the Republican Party is that there is no such thing as objective analysis unless it always agrees with them. Well, that is just not the way it is.

In terms of fear-mongering, I mean, your big, ugly bill that you passed a couple of weeks ago is going to throw millions of people off of healthcare. It is going to throw--millions of people

are going to lose their SNAP benefits, their nutritional benefits, and the reason why is because you are making major cuts. It has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants. You can say that all you want.

The gentlewoman knows that Medicare does not provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants. She knows that. Republicans know that. They keep on repeating it anyway because they don't want people to focus in on the reality. I think the American people are beginning to see through all of this. Again, they don't like what they see.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that it is not just CBO saying that your big, ugly bill costs trillions of dollars, it is the Joint Committee on Taxation, Budget Lab at Yale, Penn Wharton Budget Model, and the right-leaning Tax Foundation. All of them, all of them say that your big, ugly bill is going to add trillions to the deficit, will explode the deficit, add to the debt, and that is--I mean, it is just everybody.

The only people who are saying this is not going to explode the deficit are my Republican friends here in the House. I think they think if they keep on saying that it is not going to cost anything, then people will believe that. That is just not the case.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I hate to tell the gentlewoman this, but every one of the organizations that I mentioned actually do account for growth. I have the charts here. I am happy to share them with you. From the Tax Foundation to the Penn Wharton Budget Model to Budget Lab at Yale to the Joint Committee on Taxation, here is the graph. I am happy to share that with you so you can see. If your leadership is telling you that they don't, then they are not being honest with you about the extent of this. Mr. Massie, a member of the Republican Party, has also talked about how your big, ugly bill is going to add trillions to the deficit and the debt.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentlewoman, how many more speakers she has on her side?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, the truth is that these bills are nothing more than window dressing to cover up a truly grotesque set of priorities. Let's not forget, Republicans just voted to rip healthcare away from 16 million people, not undocumented immigrants, but 16 million American citizens. They voted to deny food assistance to children, seniors, and veterans. They are set to explode the deficit by trillions--trillions-- just to reward their wealthy donors.

Now, with even their own Members having second thoughts and regrets about that vote, as The New York Times reported last week, they are desperate to change the conversation. However, these bills, these distractions won't work because the American people are paying attention. They see what is happening. They see the cruelty behind these choices, and they are not fooled. This isn't about policy. This is about morality, about what kind of country we want to be, about whether we stand with working families or with billionaires; whether we choose compassion or cruelty.

I know Democrats will keep fighting. We will keep speaking truth to power, and we will make damn sure that the public knows exactly who is responsible when services disappear, when costs go up as a result of these crazy tariffs, and when families are left behind.

I urge my colleagues to reject these bills, to reject the politics of distraction, and start doing the hard work the American people sent us here to do. People want us to fight for them. They want us to be focused on their priorities, on making their lives better; not on the priorities of the Elon Musk-wing of the Republican Party, the billionaire class. They want us to focus in on what matters to them.

Prices are going up, life is hard, and life is challenging. Rather than dealing with bills that might make their life better, we are dealing with this stuff. This is crazy. The American people want us to rise to the occasion, to be about something more than just politics as usual. This is about people's lives.

I will tell you: We owe the American people much better than this Congress is delivering. Really, it is shameful that week after week after week we come up with these distractions that mean nothing in people's lives. Even worse, we pass this big, ugly bill that we did 2 weeks ago that is going to hurt my constituents and the gentlewoman's constituents, as well. There is no denying that people will lose their food benefits and their healthcare benefits in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. It is grotesque.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule. If the rule passes, I urge ``no'' votes on all these damned bills, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 489 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 ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

Last night, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 489, providing for the House's consideration of several pieces of legislation.

House Resolution 489 provides for closed rules for S. 331, H.R. 884, H.R. 2056, and H.R. 2096.

The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided by the chair and ranking member for the Committee on Energy and Commerce, or their respective designees, for consideration of S. 331.

Additionally, the rule provides for 1 hour of debate each for H.R. 884, H.R. 2056, and H.R. 2096, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform or their respective designees.

Mr. Speaker, starting with S. 331, the HALT Fentanyl Act, important legislation that the House considered back in February when 98 Democrats supported it, this bill would permanently classify all fentanyl-related substances as illegal and give our law enforcement officers more tools to combat the crisis. The bill also ensures that medical professionals can research fentanyl-related substances so that we can better understand their effects on human health.

In 2023, more than 100,000 people nationwide, including 2,190 from my home State of Indiana, died from a drug overdose. National numbers from the same year indicate that approximately 75,000 people died an overdose death related to synthetic opioids. Fentanyl deaths account for as much as 77 percent of adolescent overdose deaths, and it is the leading cause of death in the 18- to 49-year-old age bracket.

We cannot stand by and do nothing while this scourge exists. The bottom line is that this overwhelmingly bipartisan bill is necessary to assist our law enforcement officers in combating fentanyl.

Mr. Speaker, I will transition to the issue of free and fair elections and H.R. 884.

In 2022, Washington, D.C., enacted a dangerous law: the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, D.C. Act 24-640, which allows noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, foreign agents, and diplomats, to vote in local elections.

We should not allow foreign entities who are hostile to the United States to vote in our elections, period. We should not allow illegal immigrants to vote in our elections. This is a direct assault on the value of American citizenship, and it undermines the voices of lawful voters.

Worse, it is part of a broader effort by the left to chip away at Congress' constitutional authority over our Nation's Capital. The Constitution is clear: Congress has the power to legislate in all cases whatsoever concerning Washington, D.C. Under the Home Rule Act, we have the duty to review and reject laws that threaten the integrity of our elections and our constitutional system.

Even Mayor Bowser withheld her signature from those actions, and I thank her for that.

Of all places, we must not let the Nation's Capital become a model for illegal voting.

Additionally, this rule provides for H.R. 2096, the Protecting Our Nation's Capital Emergency Act.

In 2023, the D.C. Council passed the so-called Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, a bill that singles out the Metropolitan Police Department, making it the only union in the District stripped of its ability to collectively bargain on disciplinary matters.

H.R. 2096 puts an end to this antipolice policy and restores fairness to the bargaining process for D.C.'s law enforcement officers.

Finally, this rule includes H.R. 2056, the District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which simply ensures that D.C. follows Federal immigration law. That is because no city, especially not our Capital, should get a free pass to ignore the laws of the land.

In 2019, D.C. Mayor Bowser approved the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act of 2019, which, according to the Mayor's Office, ``limits the District's cooperation with Federal immigration agencies, including by complying with detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (``ICE'') absent a judicial warrant or order issued by a Federal judge or by providing to Federal immigration agencies information about when or where someone will be released.''

This is ludicrous. In other words, D.C. will make it harder for ICE to detain dangerous criminals and otherwise impede their ability to do their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, you can't make this stuff up. While my colleagues continue to double down on their America-last policies, House Republicans are charging forward and standing up for hardworking families and vulnerable Americans.

The legislation before us is common sense, pro-law enforcement, and necessary.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the consideration of these important pieces of legislation. I urge the passage of this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have said this again and again. The rhetoric from our Democratic colleagues on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is just not true.

In fact, we are preserving benefits for those who need it most by preventing people who are illegal and ineligible from accessing Medicaid. We are also ensuring that able-bodied adults have a mandatory work requirement of just less than 20 hours per week. It includes the ability for participating in education, job search, and community engagement to all count toward that work requirement.

What we were trying to do in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is ensure that limited resources are protected for pregnant women, children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities. That is the truth.

With reference to the CBO, the CBO has been wrong again and again. It is on record as being wrong by more than $1 trillion. We cannot count on the CBO's score alone as a measure of how well or what savings this bill will have or not have.

In fact, the Democratic-led CBO has overestimated the cost of Trump's tax cuts, underestimated the cost of the Affordable Care Act, and overestimated the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act.

I will note something about this being political misdirection, as my colleague noted. He said that this is not an urgent crisis. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues may want to take a look at the lawlessness that is happening in California. That is not a crisis? I think it is, and it is certainly something that we don't want to see in our Nation's Capital, in Washington, D.C., which is exactly the type of thing that we are trying to prevent by passing this legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that my colleague mentioned was the people who are food insecure. I note something that we should be ashamed of is the inflationary policies of the Biden administration that drove up food costs leading to more people being food insecure.

I am glad to hear that my colleague on the other side of the aisle is interested in preserving healthcare for those who need it most. I hope that means he will vote for H.R. 1.

One of the things we heard just in the last few minutes is that children with cancer and the mother of a child with cancer will not be covered. That is just not true. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act protects benefits for those children.

Democrats are fighting to protect healthcare for 1.4 million illegal immigrants. They are fighting to protect billions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse.

The number that they keep referencing just keeps going up. It has been 13.7 million, 14 million, and now it is 16 million. That is just not true. Even The New York Times said that the numbers that the Democrats have been saying about people who will ``lose their healthcare'' is not true.

If you are illegal, if you are ineligible, if you are able-bodied and could work, those are the people that this bill will target.

Finally, I will say that, once again, taking it back to the issues at hand, we are here to do the important work of safeguarding our elections in the United States, supporting the police, and ensuring that local jurisdictions aren't obstructing immigration enforcement.

Similar bills on these topics have gained support from some Democrats. Instead of trying to belittle these issues or endlessly debate H.R. 1 at every possible turn, they can stop and reflect about their opposition to these commonsense bills, bills supported by the agenda that voters backed months ago.

Democrats just can't seem to help themselves. President Trump's multifaceted approach to immigration enforcement is working. Illegal border crossings are down 95 percent. Daily border encounters are down by 93 percent. Got-aways are down by 99 percent. Fentanyl flows are down 54 percent. Mr. Speaker, there were 2,000 ICE arrests every day recently. ICE is finally cleaning up the open-border policy of the Biden administration. Yes, they were open-border policies.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that our colleagues will support the underlying rule and the bills that we have considered before us today because we need to secure our elections and stand up for our police and the rule of law.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, fear-mongering is not a solution to the problems that we face today. If we are not going to find savings across all agencies by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, we are not going to safeguard these programs for the future.

Unfortunately, my colleagues are against rooting out even waste, fraud, and abuse. By doing so, they are not protecting the very programs they claim that they are fighting to protect.

Again, with the CBO, according to the White House press secretary, there hasn't been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000, but guess what? Many of the staffers within the CBO have contributed to Democratic candidates and politicians in every single cycle since.

Unfortunately, it is not an institution in our country that is bipartisan. It has become partisan and political, which is why conservatives and Republicans on our side are skeptical of the CBO and what they report.

My colleague referred to closed measures, so I just want to note that it is true, there have been 53 closed measures, but the number needs context. Twelve were in the rules package, which passed 2 weeks before the 119th Rules Committee even organized to begin meeting. An additional 21 measures were either CRAs or received no amendments, making them closed by definition, so only 17 measures have been closed by discretion of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, again, I would like to make the emphasis what it should be today, which is on safeguarding our elections, supporting local law enforcement, and trying to eliminate the deadly scourge of fentanyl across the United States.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, many of the entities that my colleague on the other side of the aisle mentioned do not account for growth. The growth measure is significant in reducing the deficit, and I believe that under President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, we will have record amounts of growth.

Our version of the bill only accounts for about 2.6 percent of growth. Some of these agencies are accounting for only 1.8 percent growth counting toward the calculations in this bill. If we are not accounting for robust growth, which I think we will get, then we will have an unclear picture, which is why I am leaning into OMB Director Russ Vought's assessment of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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

I have got just a couple of things I would like to note in my closing, and this is reasons why the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the best chance in a generation to pass critical reforms that the American people voted for:

It delivers tax relief, the largest tax cut in American history, meaning an extra $5,000 in Americans' pockets with double-digit percent decrease to their tax bills.

It makes the Trump tax cuts permanent, preventing the largest tax increase ever.

It raises Americans' take-home pay by as much as $13,300 and wages by as much as $11,600.

It reverses the spending curse plaguing Washington, D.C.

The bill delivers the largest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years, with $1.6 trillion in mandatory savings, the largest single reduction in mandatory spending in our country's history.

It delivers no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.

It provides historic tax relief for seniors.

It finishes President Trump's border wall. It boosts Border Patrol and ICE agents on the front line, with the largest border security investment in history.

It increases the child tax credit to $2,500 per family.

It protects Medicaid for Americans who truly need it.

It implements popular work requirements for able-bodied Americans receiving taxpayer-funded benefits.

It eliminates hundreds of billions of dollars in green new scam tax credits. It reverses electric vehicle mandates that let radical climate activists set the standards in American energy.

It ends Biden's war on American energy.

It streamlines onerous permitting processes so America can get building again.

It refills the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to safeguard America's energy security.

It repeals and rescinds every green corporate welfare subsidy.

It stops illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits and tax remittances sent to foreign countries.

It supports small businesses by increasing the section 199A deduction to 23 percent.

It incentivizes made in America.

It creates new Trump savings accounts for newborns. It expands access to childcare for hardworking families.

It provides historic increases in funding for the U.S. Coast Guard.

It supports building new factories to grow domestic business operations.

It helps American farmers, producers, and ranchers compete and sell products in foreign markets.

It holds woke elitist universities accountable by increasing the endowment tax on large universities.

It protects hardworking taxpayers by canceling Biden's illegal and unfair student loan bailouts.

It ends taxpayer-funded gender transition procedures.

It is a once-in-a-generation chance to revolutionize our Nation's defense capabilities and protect the homeland against new threats by funding President Trump's Golden Dome.

It enhances the capacity of America's naval fleet.

It modernizes air traffic control.

It strengthens SNAP benefits.

It implements critical program integrity and cost-containment provisions in Medicaid to strengthen it for future generations.

It safeguards the Second Amendment by removing tax and registration requirements for firearm silencers and eliminating silencers from the National Firearms Act.

It provides critical disaster recovery funding to farmers, producers, and ranchers.

It provides funding to rebuild America's military.

It expands health savings accounts to give Americans greater choice and flexibility in how to spend their money.

It gives $10,000 bonuses annually over the next 4 years to Border Patrol and ICE agents on the front lines.

It incentivizes scholarships that empower American families and students to choose the education that best fits their needs.

It repeals Democrats' insane attack on the gig economy.

It reforms and streamlines the Federal student loan program to drive down tuition costs and simplify repayment plans.

It strengthens accountability for students and taxpayers on Federal student loans and implements critical reforms to Pell grants to make sure they prioritize students who truly need financial assistance while promoting completion.

It increases timber sales on Federal lands.

It authorizes the sale of expanded spectrum megahertz to strengthen rural broadband and secure America's technological dominance in AI and other emerging technology.

It creates permanent fees that illegal immigrants must pay for their applications so American taxpayers aren't saddled with covering these costs.

It protects family farmers.

It ends abusive financing practices in Medicaid by freezing provider taxes and prohibiting new provider taxes.

It reins in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it rolls back harmful Biden-era regulations that increase costs and administrative burdens with limited flexibility for States.

Mr. Speaker, we are not here today to talk about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We are here today to talk about the many provisions that are important to the safety and security of the United States. We are talking about a rule that includes provisions to secure American elections, protect and support our police, and target the deadly scourge of fentanyl across the United States.

Despite what my colleagues on the left may say, that this is a distraction, we say it is necessary and that we can multitask by doing these things and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The American people understand the importance of immigration enforcement and the need to provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to stop the deadly flow of fentanyl. That is why 77 million Americans voted to end the Biden-Harris administration's reckless handling of the border and their disregard for the rule of law.

Today's measures crack down on fentanyl, safeguard our elections, and back the blue. It is about law, order, and protecting the American people.

I look forward to moving these bills out of the House this week, and I ask my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.

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