Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a dirty, pro-polluter resolution, so I rise in strong opposition to S.J. Res. 31. It is going to increase hazardous air pollution across America. It is going to expose more Americans to cancer-causing toxins.

What is worse, it comes at a time when Republicans are ripping healthcare away from at least 13.7 million Americans in their billionaire boondoggle bill. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you talk to folks back home or in your townhalls, what they are talking about is the cost of living.

It is amazing that this is the priority of the GOP at a time when people are really being squeezed back home. Republicans have not brought one bill to the floor to lower the cost of living and tackle the everyday challenges of our neighbors back home. Instead, they are consumed by this tax giveaway for billionaires.

This is the priority, to gut the Clean Air Act, to give polluting industrial plants the right to pollute more, to pollute our air with toxins that cause cancer, neurological damage, and death.

As a result of this Republican bill, we will see about 1,800 industrial facilities able to increase their pollution output.

Back home in Florida, we anticipate that will apply to 72 more polluting facilities that will be allowed to escape regulation and emit cancer-causing air pollution.

These are the major sources of hazardous air pollution, the large industrial facilities like chemical plants, refineries, and pesticide manufacturers. It is especially troubling because--and I think Mr. Pallone would agree that this hasn't gotten a lot of play--in that billionaire boondoggle bill, the big tax giveaway package that is ruminating here in the Rules Committee right now, the American people need to know what else was included in that bill.

The Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans included a pay-to-play scheme to sell out the most vulnerable communities to the highest bidder. This is in addition to gutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

What they put in relating to their pay-to-play scheme would allow Big Oil polluters to pay a one-time $1 million fee to the Department of Energy to grease the skids to get polluting gas plants online faster.

Yes, we need more energy, but this comes at a time when they are, in doing so, going to raise electric bills across the country because they say it is only oil and gas. Forget about solar, wind, storage, all the energy that is ready to come onto the grid.

It is another example of sacrificing the people's interests for the special interests'. The special interests here are the chemical plants, refineries, and pesticide manufacturers.

This is especially troubling, too, because, for decades, Congress has recognized the clear health dangers of hazardous air pollutants from these large-scale industrial polluting plants. We know they cause cancer. We know they cause birth defects, developmental disorders, and neurological problems, even at low levels of exposure.

While Americans struggle with the high cost of living and watch this billionaire boondoggle bill try to get through the House, just know what else is going on at the same time.

They are gutting the Clean Air Act, the bipartisan piece of legislation that has stood us well for years and years. No Congress has ever stripped away protections against toxic air pollution, and we shouldn't start now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding the time, and I rise in opposition to this farcical bill.

I thought I would share what I am hearing from my neighbors across the Gulf Coast. They want policymakers in Washington, D.C., to tackle the cost of living. During this Republican-led Congress, there has not been one bill brought to the floor of the House--and here we are in May--to lower the cost of living for families along the Gulf Coast and all across America.

In fact, what the Republicans have been focusing on is a massive tax giveaway to billionaires like Elon Musk while they rip away healthcare from millions of Americans.

In Florida, we have about 4.6 million Floridians who rely on the Affordable Care Act for their healthcare and about 3.9 million Floridians who rely on Medicaid. These are the family members we love the most, kids with complex conditions, seniors in skilled nursing, seniors who want to live in dignity in their homes with a home health aide.

However, is their priority to make people's lives easier, to make people's lives better? No. It has been totally focused on how you rip that away and make people's lives more expensive.

It also means for the Gulf Coast we are still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, just like other parts of the country, in Georgia and North Carolina. We don't need Elon Musk creating turmoil and firing civil servants and public servants who are helping us rebuild. We do not need the Trump administration making people's lives harder to rebuild and harder to afford to stay in their homes.

We are preparing for another hurricane season. Folks along the Gulf Coast need a National Weather Service that is functional that can warn us about the threats ahead. We need the hurricane hunters out in the Gulf telling us how severe the storms are going to be, but the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress seem to be turning away from the people along the Gulf Coast and all across America to understand the threat of a warming climate.

You started this by saying that Gulf of America started as a joke. This is not a joke to the people I represent. They want help. They want help with the cost of living.

It seems like that is the last priority on Republicans' list. Instead, they want to give a massive tax giveaway to the wealthy and the well-connected while people really need help with their pocketbooks. They need help. They want to retain their healthcare. They want to make sure that the ocean waters are free of pollution.

Please vote ``no'' and focus on what is important.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Pallone for yielding the time, and I thank Chairman Bilirakis for his partnership in this endeavor, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1479, the Hotel Fees Transparency Act, to help families save money and to ensure that their hard-earned vacations go as planned. I thank Representatives Kim, Mullin, and Fry for partnering with me on this bipartisan legislation that will increase cost transparency for hotels, motels, and short-term rentals.

Mr. Speaker, have you ever planned a vacation and when you searched online, you thought you found a great deal at a hotel or a short-term rental, but then you were surprised at check-in or check-out that there were a lot of surprise fees added on?

This piece of legislation will prohibit that kind of unfair or misleading price advertising for hotels and rentals. It will require accurate price listings that must include all mandatory and resort fees.

I have to say that it is a privilege to represent the State of Florida in the Congress, and I know my friend, Mr. Bilirakis, will agree. We enjoy welcoming visitors from all across the Nation and all across the globe to Florida for their vacations.

Unfortunately--it is not just in Florida--but sometimes visitors arrive and are surprised by a lot of these resort fees and add-ons that were not part of the bargain.

That is not fair. Consumers deserve to see upfront prices when they plan their budgets and vacations. They shouldn't have to play a guessing game when planning a trip about what the final cost of their vacation will be. The cost of living right now is very high, and it is just not fair to allow this kind of unfair behavior to continue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues in the House to pass the Hotel Fees Transparency Act. It will be a win for families and consumers. It is about fairness, transparency, and allowing hardworking families to focus on making memories together and not worrying about surprise charges and costs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Dingell for yielding the time, and I thank Chairman Bilirakis for moving the bill forward to the floor today.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 906, the Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act. This bill would require the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, to publish a public list of entities with ties to foreign adversarial governments, such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, especially if they have a license or authorization that is tied to our communications networks.

Along with Representative Wittman, I serve on the bipartisan Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Last Congress, the committee released a bipartisan report on maintaining America's economic and national security interests. The report found that the widespread adoption of certain People's Republic of China-developed technologies in the United States poses a significant risk to national security and threatens long-term U.S. technological competitiveness.

Our committee report recommended that we enact the FACT Act to shine a light on companies connected to foreign adversarial governments like the CCP and to ensure greater accountability and transparency in our critical communications networks.

Our bill passed the House unanimously by voice vote in the last Congress, but it didn't quite get over the finish line. We really have no more time to wait, Mr. Speaker. Our adversaries continue to target our communications systems, so Congress must take steps now to protect our communications, telecommunications infrastructure and strengthen our national security to keep Americans safe. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this Republican bill that requires businessowners to spend more money and use more energy.

Mr. Speaker, here we are at the end of March. It is the 83rd day since the Congress convened under the Republican majority, and Republicans haven't brought one bill to the floor of the House to help lower costs or tackle the cost of living for our neighbors back home.

Instead, Republicans have been singularly focused on crafting a massive tax giveaway for billionaires like Elon Musk that is paid for by ripping away health coverage from the people we love the most: kids, our parents, our neighbors who rely on skilled nursing, and people with disabilities who especially rely on Medicaid. It is wrong, and it makes life harder for people back home. It makes their lives more expensive.

People want answers, but Republicans have refused to hold townhalls. Many of them will not even answer the phone. At my townhall last week in St. Petersburg, people wanted to know why the administration and Republicans want to make it more difficult to receive Social Security rather than strengthen Social Security.

Instead of a wasteful, time-consuming, silly bill like this, why don't we work together and bring to the floor a bill that will strengthen Social Security? That would be a help to our neighbors back home.

I think what it comes down to is Republicans in Congress are out of touch with hardworking people. They are out of touch with their struggles. They want lower costs. They don't want bills like this that say you will pay more and our Big Oil friends are going to make more on their bottom line.

People are tired of being ripped off by the special interests and politicians who all have too much power here in Washington, D.C. This bill is another example of that. Republicans want to make it harder for businessowners to save money through energy efficient appliances.

Energy efficiency saves people money. It is pretty straightforward. It cuts costs. It cuts pollution. It encourages innovation. Specifically, electric bills for walk-in refrigerators and freezers are a huge line item for restaurants and grocery stores. Taking those savings away will increase costs for businesses, and these are costs that will be passed on to consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I want you to think about that the next time you are in the

frozen food aisle of your grocery store. This is not right.

Overall, when the Department of Energy goes in and works with manufacturers and consumer advocates, they come up, they look at the latest technology, and then move forward on adopting a standard that will be in effect years from now. They look particularly at the cost savings overall, and the savings they estimate here are huge. It is $6.5 billion in utility bill savings over the next 30 years.

This also hits home in my community because many of the businesses and many of my neighbors are rebuilding from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. They were flooded out. They lost their appliances. Many businesses went on the fritz. It would be particularly helpful to know that they are going to save money over time as they make these major investments.

This is exactly what Congress intended when we passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. It was passed in 1975. We directed the Department of Energy to set and regularly update these standards.

Energy efficiency standards also incentivize innovation, and American manufacturers have traditionally led the way in innovation due to updated standards. By weakening these rules, we open our markets up to countries like China that manufacture low-efficiency products at the expense of American companies and American families.

The Department of Energy followed the law. They collaborated with manufacturers to ensure that the standards work. After all of this hard work, Republicans now want to swoop in and repeal these standards on coolers and freezers. They are, in essence, walking out on the cost savings at a time our neighbors really expect us to work together to lower the cost of living.

There is a larger issue here, and it is the fact that Republicans are ignoring the affordability squeeze. When Democrats were in charge, we did everything we could to help lower the cost of living. We passed a cap on insulin at $35 per month. We required Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. We gave help on health insurance bills. We provided tax rebates and savings for appliances on electric bills.

This has led to a major manufacturing boom across the country of over 750 clean-energy projects and over 400,000 new jobs created all across America, many in Republican districts.

Since the Trump administration came in and started these illegal shutdowns and threatened new taxes through tariffs, the economy has stalled. Has anyone looked at their 401(k) lately? People are very uncertain.

Let's get back to business, standing up for hardworking Americans, standing up for businesses. Let's make sure we guard their pocketbooks and tackle the affordability squeeze together, rather than serve the special interests that all have too much power. Republican billionaires and Big Oil companies are the real winners when resolutions like this are passed and savings are ripped away from American consumers.

Mr. Speaker, let's stand up for the people for a change and not the powerful special interests. Let's stand up for their pocketbooks and vote ``no'' on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 75, a bill to force small business owners to use more energy and spend more money.

Here we are at the end of March, and Republicans have not brought one bill to the floor to lower costs and tackle the cost of living for our neighbors back home. Instead, Republicans in Congress have stood idly by while American families and small business owners are left to twist in the wind, making life harder for people back home, more expensive, more difficult to receive the Social Security they rely on, adding taxes through tariffs.

It is just unconscionable because what people really want is for us to work together on solutions, and Republicans in Congress are missing in action. People want answers, but Republicans won't have townhalls. Some of them will not even answer the phone.

I also had a townhall back in St. Petersburg, Florida, last week when I was home, and people want answers. They want to know what you are doing to tackle the cost of living. Then, you come up here to the House of Representatives, and Republicans are making it more expensive because they don't want you to have an energy-efficient appliance.

This isn't something that happens overnight. This is something that manufacturers and consumer advocates worked on for years.

The previous speaker asked when the Department of Energy got into energy efficiency. It has been decades that they have been doing this, trying to help people save money through conservation.

I know that doesn't align with my Republican colleagues' Big Oil and Gas allies, but people want to save money. They want to cut pollution. They don't want us wasting their time with inane bills like this that are simply going to cost people more money.

It gets worse because Republicans in Congress are barreling toward a massive tax giveaway to billionaires paid

for by targeting the family members we love the most: our parents who rely on skilled nursing, children, pregnant women, and our neighbors with disabilities.

We know what this is. This is an attempt to distract from what is going on behind the scenes here in Washington, D.C. I have to say I think my Republican friends are out of touch with working people.

People are tired of being ripped off by special interests and politicians in Washington. This resolution is another example of that. This makes it harder for small business owners to save money through energy-efficient appliances. It essentially picks your pocket.

Mr. Speaker, have you ever been in a crowd where you are getting jostled, and then you reach back and your wallet is gone? That is exactly what is happening right here.

I hope that Republicans join Democrats in trying to reduce electric bills, but no. I hope that Republicans are going to stand up to Elon Musk as he takes a chain saw to Social Security, but no. Today, the Republicans don't even want to address the real challenges facing our neighbors, helping them with the cost of living, housing, healthcare, and electric bills. This bill will simply make matters worse.

These DOE standards are long overdue. It has been, I think, at least 6 or 7 years since they have had an update. The law says you update energy-efficient standards for appliances every few years. That is what happened under the Biden administration. They came together. Those kinds of standards also incentivize American innovation. Manufacturers in America have been the leaders.

By weakening these rules, we open our markets to companies in countries that manufacture low-efficiency products, like from China, at the expense of American companies and American families. It is not right.

I heard Mr. Pallone say that he had a townhall. A lot of the Democrats are having townhalls. I had a townhall back in the Tampa Bay area. They want help with hurricane recovery. Do you know what they are having to replace right now? Appliances. They want an appliance that is the most modern, the most efficient, the most affordable, and that is made in America, and that is what these appliance standards do. They help you save money over the long run.

They also want us to safeguard their healthcare. They want us to have an eye on Elon Musk as he takes his chain saw to all sorts of agencies.

Social Security was a topic of conversation in my townhall. Lo and behold, yesterday, there was a press report about the backdoor cuts to Social Security. It says: ``The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones in place of receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. Amid all this, the agency no longer has a system to monitor customer experience because that office was eliminated . . . by Elon Musk. And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.''

``The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants, and legal immigrants needing Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether.''

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the article titled: ``Long waits, waves of calls, website crisis: Social Security is breaking down.''

Long Waits, Waves of Calls, Website Crashes: Social Security is

Breaking Down

(By Lisa Rein and Hannah Natanson, Mar. 25, 2025)

A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk has sent the agency into

chaos as a new commissioner prepares to take charge.

The Social Security Administration website crashed four

times in 10 days this month because the servers were

overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled

Americans from logging in to their online accounts. In the

field, office managers have resorted to answering phones in

place of receptionists because so many employees have been

pushed out. Amid all this, the agency no longer has a system

to monitor customer experience because that office was

eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon

Musk.

And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.

The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in

earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their

survivors, and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in

crisis--further undermining the already struggling

organization's ability to provide reliable and quick service

to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and

more than two dozen current and former agency employees and

officials, customers and others who interact with Social

Security.

Financial services executive Frank Bisignano is scheduled

to face lawmakers Tuesday at a Senate confirmation hearing as

President Donald Trump's nominee to become the permanent

commissioner. For now, the agency is run by a caretaker

leader in his sixth week on the job who has raced to push out

more than 12 percent of the staff of 57,000. He has conceded

that the agency's phone service ``sucks'' and acknowledged

that Musk's U.S. DOGE Service is really in charge, pushing a

single-minded mission to find benefits fraud despite vast

evidence that the problem is overstated. The turmoil is

leaving many retirees, disabled claimants, and legal

immigrants needing Social Security cards with less access or

shut out of the system altogether, according to those

familiar with the problems.

``What's going on is the destruction of the agency from the

inside out, and it's accelerating,'' Sen. Angus King (I-

Maine) said in an interview. ``I have people approaching me

all the time in their 70s and 80s, and they're beside

themselves. They don't know what's coming.''

King's home state has the country's oldest population.

``What they're doing now is unconscionable,'' he said.

Leland Dudek, who became acting commissioner after he fed

data to Musk's team behind his bosses' backs, has issued a

series of rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos

for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk

team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of

expertise in running Social Security's complex benefit and

information technology systems. Others have left in disgust.

The moves have upended an agency that, despite the

popularity of its programs, has been underfunded for years,

faces potential insolvency in a decade and has been led by

four commissioners in five months--just one of them Senate-

confirmed. The latest controversy came last week when Dudek

threatened to shut down operations in response to a federal

judge's ruling against DOGE that he claimed would leave no

one in the agency with access to beneficiaries' personal

information.

Alarmed lawmakers are straining to answer questions back

home from angry constituents. Calls have flooded into

congressional offices. AARP announced Monday that more than

2,000 people a week have called the retiree organization

since early February--double the usual number--with concerns

about whether benefits they paid for during their working

careers will continue. Social Security is the primary source

of income for about 40 percent of older Americans.

Trump has said repeatedly that the administration ``won't

touch'' Social Security, a promise that aides say applies to

benefit levels that can be adjusted only by Congress. But in

just six weeks, the cuts to staffing and offices have already

taken a toll on access to benefits, officials and advocates

say.

`creating a fire'

With aging technology systems and a $15 billion budget that

has stayed relatively flat over a decade, Social Security was

already struggling to serve the public amid an explosion of

retiring baby boomers. The staff that reviews claims for two

disability programs was on life support following massive

pandemic turnover--and still takes 233 days on average to

review an initial claim.

But current and former officials, advocates and others who

interact with the agency--many of whom spoke on the condition

of anonymity for fear of retribution--said Social Security

has been damaged even further by the rapid cuts and chaos of

Trump's first two months in office. Many current and former

officials fear the push is part of a long-sought effort by

conservatives to privatize all or part of the agency.

``They're creating a fire to require them to come and put

it out,'' said one high-ranking official who took early

retirement this month.

Dudek, who was elevated from a mid-level data analyst in

the anti-fraud office, hurried to cut costs when he took over

in mid-February, canceling research contracts, offering

early-retirement incentives and buyouts across the agency,

and consolidating programs and regional offices. Entire

offices, including those handling civil rights and

modernization, were driven out. The 10 regional offices that

oversee field operations were slashed to four.

``I do not want to destroy the agency,'' he said in an

interview Monday. ``The president wants it to succeed by

cutting out the red tape to improve service while improving

security.''

Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team began

poring through Social Security's massive trove of private

data on millions of Americans, working in a fourth-floor

conference room at the Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters, with

blackout curtains on the windows and an armed security guard

posted outside.

At first, the DOGE team was obsessed by false claims that

millions of deceased people were receiving benefits. Then

came new

mandates designed to address alleged fraud: Direct-deposit

transactions and identity authentication, operations that

affect almost everyone receiving benefits, will no longer be

able to be done by phone. Customers with computers will go

through the process online; those without will wait in line

at their local field office. A change announced internally

last week will require legal immigrants with authorization to

work in the United States and newly naturalized citizens to

apply for or update their Social Security cards in person,

eliminating a long-standing practice that sent the cards

automatically through the mail.

``We realize this is a significant change and there will be

a significant impact to customers,'' Doris Diaz, deputy

commissioner of operations, told the field staff Monday

during a briefing on the changes, a recording of which was

obtained by The Washington Post. She said the agency was

``working on a process'' for homeless and homebound customers

who cannot use computers or come into an office--and

acknowledged that service levels will decline.

In the weeks before that briefing, phone calls to Social

Security surged--with questions from anxious customers

wondering whether their benefits had been or would be cut and

desperate to get an in-person field office appointment. That

is, if they could get through to a live person.

Depending on the time of day, a recorded message tells

callers their wait on hold will last more than 120 minutes or

180 minutes. Some callers report being on hold for four or

five hours. A callback function was available only three out

of 12 times a Post reporter called the toll-free line last

week, presumably because the queue that day was so long that

the call would not be returned by close of business.

The recording that 66-year-old Kathy Martinez heard when

she called the toll-free number two weeks ago from the San

Francisco Bay Area said her hold time would be more than

three hours--she was calling to ask what her retirement

benefits would come to if she filed for them now or waited

until she turned 70. She hung up and tried again last week at

7 a.m. Pacific time. The wait was more than 120 minutes, but

she was offered a callback option, and in two hours she spoke

with a ``phenomenally kind person who called me,'' she said.

Martinez said she wants to wait to file for benefits to

maximize her check. But ``I'm kind of thinking, I wonder if I

should take it now. When I apply, I will do it over the

phone. But will there still be a phone system?''

`not acceptable'

Aging, inefficient phone systems have dogged Social

Security for years. A modernization contract with Verizon

begun under the first Trump administration suffered multiple

delays, system crashes and other problems. As commissioner in

the last year of the Biden administration, former Maryland

governor Martin O'Malley moved the project to a new

contractor, Amazon Web Services, and data shows that the

average wait time for the toll-free line was down to 50

minutes, half of today's average. But O'Malley ran out of

time to switch the new system to field office phones, he

said.

Now a perfect storm has overtaken the system. Turnover

that's normally higher than 10 percent has worsened at the 24

call centers across the country. Some employees took early

retirement and buyout offers--a number that Dudek said was

``not huge'' but that current and former officials estimate

could be significant.

Shonda Johnson, a vice president at the American Federation

of Government Employees Council 220 who represents 5,000 call

center staffers, said low pay (starting salary is $32,000 a

year), anger at a return-to-office mandate after years of

telework, rapid policy changes, and frustration with how the

Trump administration is treating federal employees have hurt

morale to the point that people aren't giving their all to

the job.

``When you're facing threats yourself, it kind of prevents

you from being totally there for the public you're

servicing,'' she said.

Asked about worsening phone service, Dudek told reporters

in a call last week that ``a 24 percent answer rate is not

acceptable.''

``I want people who want to get to a person to get to a

person,'' he said, adding that ``all options are on the

table'' to improve phone service, including outsourcing some

call center work.

The new limits on phone transactions take effect at the end

of the month, but field offices have been deluged for weeks,

even as DOGE is targeting an unspecified number of field and

hearing offices for closure over the next three years.

In one office in central Indiana, the phone lines are

jammed by 9 a.m. with hundreds of retirees, further taxing a

staff of less than a dozen that is responsible for nearly

70,000 claimants across the state, according to one employee.

That worker, who like others spoke on the condition of

anonymity for fear of retribution, said the questions have

become predictable: What is the U.S. DOGE Service doing to

Social Security? Will the office close? Will my benefits

continue?

The employees, with no training yet on the impending

changes, have few answers. ``I hope we're going to be here,''

the employee tells caller after caller. ``But I can't

guarantee anything.''

Complicated benefits cases are falling by the wayside, the

employee said. Online claims, which are completed by field

staff, are piling up.

``There is just no time to breathe or get anything else

done,'' she said. ``We used to be efficient.''

Another employee in a regional office said the staff was

told at a recent briefing that field offices across the

country are seeing ``exponential growth'' in foot traffic.

The elderly are not only calling but showing up at bricks-

and-mortar buildings to ask about the DOGE-led changes.

In one Philadelphia office, the federal government's

return-to-office edict has left 1,200 staffers competing for

about 300 parking spots, according to an employee. Staffers

wake up as early as 4:30 a.m. to try to snag a space, and

some are buying backup spots for $200 a month nearby. As

morale has cratered, some employees have stopped wearing

business clothes and now come to work in jeans and a T-shirt

because, as they tell colleagues, they no longer take pride

in their work, the employee said.

`OFF THE CHARTS'

Scammers are already taking advantage of the chaotic

moment, according to internal emails obtained by The Post.

Last week, employees in several offices were warned that

seniors were reporting receiving emails from accounts

pretending to be linked to Social Security. The messages

asked recipients to verify their identity to keep receiving

benefits.

``Sounds like scammers are jumping on this press release to

trick the elderly,'' one Social Security staffer wrote to

colleagues Thursday, referring to the agency's announcement

of the in-person verification program.

In Baltimore, an employee who works on critical payment

systems said nearly a quarter of his team is already gone or

will soon be out the door as a result of resignations and

retirements. Talented software developers and analysts were

quick to secure high-paying jobs in the private sector, he

said--and the reduction in highly skilled staff is already

having consequences.

His office is supposed to complete several software updates

and modernization processes required by law within the next

few weeks and months, he said. But with the departures, it

seems increasingly likely that it will miss those deadlines.

His team is also called on to fix complicated technology

glitches that stop payments. But many of the experts who make

those fixes are exiting.

``That has to get cleaned up on a case-by-case basis, and

the experts in how to do that are leaving,'' the Baltimore

employee said. ``We will have cases that get stuck, and

they're not going to be able to get fixed. People could be

out of benefits for months.''

Meanwhile, a DOGE-imposed spending freeze has left many

field offices without paper, pens and phone headsets--at the

exact moment phone calls are spiking, the employee in Indiana

said.

The freeze drove all federal credit cards to a $1 1imit,

and purchasers for the agency were reduced to about a dozen

people for 1,300 offices, said one employee in the Northeast.

These purchasers must get a green light from higher-ups for

anything other than 12 specific preapproved transactions,

according to emails obtained by The Post. The list includes

``shipping costs,'' ``phone bills,'' ``Legionella testing''

and ``services to support fire safety and emergency

response.'' It does not include basic office supplies.

The field office in Portland, Oregon, is so slammed that

the claims staff has told advocates to send questions or

information by fax because they can't get to the phones,

according to Chase Stowell, case management supervisor for

Assist, a nonprofit that helps disabled people apply for

benefits. Many of them are homeless.

``The attrition rates in Portland are off the charts,''

Stowell said. ``They just don't pick up the phone. They were

already short-staffed. They've told us they just don't trust

that there's a reliable system to get ahold of them by

voicemail.''

The service issues keep bubbling up to members of Congress.

Hundreds of Maryland residents turned out for a town hall

meeting last week hosted by Baltimore County Council member

Pat Young about a mile from Social Security headquarters.

Asked by one retiree in the audience to provide ``a little

bit of hope'' that his Social Security benefits would not be

cut, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) conceded, ``The

truth of the matter is that we don't know what they intend.''

Mr. Speaker, this is a real cry for help, and we need Republicans and Congress focused on Americans' pocketbooks, not trying to distract from the massive tax giveaway to billionaires and special interests.

Mr. Pallone is absolutely right. They are out of touch. Let's send a message and vote ``no'' on this bill and get back to work on safeguarding the pocketbooks of our neighbors back home.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 42.

This is the latest Republican bill to raise costs on American families. In fact, Republicans in Congress have failed to bring any bill over the past couple of months since this new Congress started to help reduce the cost of living for our neighbors back home.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration's illegal shutdown of grants, loans,

and partnership funds to our local communities and nonprofits; the firing of public servants, like the inspector general at the Department of Energy, whose job it is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse; the firing of experts that oversee the nuclear enterprise and our nuclear weapons; and tariffs, which are, in essence, new taxes on American families and businesses, is really socking it to the pocketbooks of American families and businessowners, except for billionaires like Elon Musk, who stand to win big from the tax breaks for billionaires that Republicans are moving through the House.

Let's talk about what is going on right now with all of this chaos and confusion. The unemployment rate is up. Prices are up. If you haven't checked your 401(k), that is down. All of this has a real-world impact, and I really want to beseech my Republican colleagues to help us end the madness. Find your spines to stand up to the chaos and confusion that all of these illegal actions are having on our folks back home. I mean, right now laying people off, public servants who provide essential services, the illegal pause in funding--thank goodness the United States Supreme Court just announced this morning that they were turning back one of the illegal actions to, in essence, rob money that has been congressionally mandated to fund essential services.

It really is weighing on the entire economy. More importantly, people back home want to know what the Congress is going to do about it, and it is just silence from my friends on the other side of the aisle.

Let's talk about how ridiculous this is to target labeling on energy- efficient appliances, just plain information that you need to have when you go shopping. Energy efficiency is very important to Americans. It has been, as a matter of fact, for about 50 years. When the Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, we said to the Department of Energy: Work with manufacturers and advocates and do everything you can to help with innovation to help consumers save more money.

That is really smart policy. One of the innocuous things that goes along with it is the labeling so that customers understand what they are buying. They need to know about how energy efficient an appliance is and be able to comparison shop when they buy a dishwasher or some other appliance.

Republicans, I just don't understand why you want to keep families and businesses in the dark on this. It is a real head-scratcher until you understand that polluters and big oil and gas companies have all too much influence here on Capitol Hill.

Republicans keep sending these love letters to big oil and gas companies. In fact, it was on Valentine's Day, February 14, when the Trump administration announced it would halt cost savings for consumers through energy-efficient coolers and freezers, clothes washers, and air-conditioners. This labeling fiasco, I just don't understand why you think it is important for families to have less information just when they are trying to figure out what appliance to buy.

In contrast, the Democrats, over the past few years, have really been focused on lowering the cost of living and passed very significant cost savings for consumers. I am not talking about prescription drugs and the cap on insulin. I am talking about energy-efficient appliances, home energy tax credits, and rebates so that you can buy those energy- efficient appliances.

Right now, Floridians are waiting for about $350 million, which has now been put on hold because of the illegal shutdown of a lot of funds that are supposed to flow back home to the benefit of my neighbors.

I know that Republicans and polluters don't like energy efficiency, but today's resolution does nothing to even get at energy efficiency. In fact, it just creates more confusion. They are just talking about the labels.

It creates confusion for businesses. It is confusing for manufacturers. So many of them are grappling now with the twists and turns of new taxes through tariffs on their products. This is going to cost everyone money.

Americans are rightly asking why Republicans are wasting time repealing this until this week. Until this week, I would hazard to guess that most Members of Congress didn't even know that this was a rule.

American families are also asking why Republicans are turning a blind eye to their responsibility to look out for the pocketbooks of our families and small business owners back home.

I think it is because the Republicans are scared. They are scared of Elon Musk. They are scared to talk about the real problems facing working families across the country: affordability, the escalating costs of the overheating climate, what that is doing, higher insurance costs, and higher electric bills because their summers are longer and more intense. Back in the Tampa Bay area, we are trying to rebuild from the most devastating hurricane season that we have ever experienced.

The changing climate isn't just about the weather. It is about your wallets, and folks really need help. They need Republicans, in addition to Democrats, looking out for them, not just lipservice about lowering costs.

That is why it has been so disheartening to watch Elon Musk and the new administration. They have no plan, no interest in addressing the problems. Instead, they continue to double down on chaos and confusion.

Last night, we heard from the President. He continued his crusade of endless lies. It was difficult to listen to. It was very long because the President campaigned on reducing costs and making government more efficient, and instead, all he has proposed is a major tax giveaway to billionaires like Elon Musk, paid for by hardworking folks, children who rely on Medicaid, our neighbors with disabilities, and our older neighbors in skilled nursing, saying to Social Security recipients it is going to be harder for you to get your payment because we are going to slash the people who ensure that that happens, repealing affordable healthcare, repealing these initiatives that lower your electric bills, and other actions that make us less safe.

Congressional Republicans have a lot to say about today's resolution and their war against energy-efficient appliances. As Elon Musk and his lackeys really take a hammer--a chain saw, I guess--to what really matters in this country, it is very difficult to try to work together to say we are going to solve problems for the American people when one side has no spine and no answer and instead brings these ridiculous resolutions to the floor rather than working on really helping the American people.

The only labels we should be talking about today are the lies stickered across Trump's empty campaign promises. He continues these misleading claims and lies to the American people, and Democrats are not going to stand idly by while he loots the U.S. Government for his own benefit. There has to be an end to the chaos and corruption, and it needs to start right now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, here we are at the end of February, 2 months into the new congressional session, and House Republicans haven't offered one bill to lower the cost of living for our neighbors back home. Instead, they bring this silly bill to the floor, a bill to force to working families to spend more money, to use more energy, and to sell out American manufacturers.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have stood idly by while there has been an illegal shutdown of grants and loans to our local communities and nonprofits that help people save money and help families.

Plus, House Republicans didn't raise any concern when the new President illegally fired Inspectors General and prosecutors who are charged with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, and that includes in the Department of Energy.

It gets worse because Republicans now are barreling toward a massive tax giveaway to billionaires paid for on the backs of American families, children, our neighbors with disabilities, our older neighbors, and grandparents in nursing homes.

This is not business as usual. I know Republicans bring a bill here and they say: Okay. This is just like what we have always done.

This is not business as usual.

Where is the House Republicans' outrage that everything they have worked on congressionally mandated through appropriations is just illegally frozen?

It is not business as usual.

This resolution is the latest of a whole lot of nonsense. It is hard to explain, except when we realize that oil and gas companies often have their way here in Washington, D.C.

We wasted hours and hours over the past couple of years trying to demonize energy efficient appliances. These kinds of appliances are popular. There has been a law in place for decades that says that every few years we update these appliance standards. Manufacturers work on it, advocates work on it, and they come together and update it.

This actual residential water heater standard hasn't been updated since 2010. Here we are in 2025, and the standard we are discussing today effects less than 10 percent of all water heater sales and most, over 100, of these models already meet this standard.

Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, if you want to talk about cost savings, it was Democrats who put in place tax credits and rebates to help everyday Americans lower the cost of their energy bill on appliances.

This is one of the reasons why we are so angry.

Part of the illegal freeze on government initiatives also impacts the money that should be going into the pockets of our neighbors back home. This includes the home energy rebates. Those are the rebates that help consumers save money on select home improvement projects that can lower energy bills by providing up to $14,000 a year for homeowners as they update their homes.

Mr. Speaker, you had better believe this is important to my neighbors in Florida recovering from hurricanes Helene and Milton. They would love to be able to get these funds to help them repair their homes. Right now, frozen in Florida is $346 million that could be helping everyday Floridians recover from the storms as they repair their homes.

That is not the only one. Weatherization assistance, very smart, has often been bipartisan in the past. Elon Musk and this new administration have frozen it. They have frozen billions of dollars that go to working-class households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In Florida alone, $94 million that should be flowing to my neighbors to help them weatherize their homes and save money is frozen.

So what Republicans are doing by freezing this and by trying to roll back energy appliance standards is contributing to the rising cost of energy for families and businesses. It is a dereliction of duty. They are turning a blind eye to the peoples' pocketbook. Democrats are going to fight for the peoples' pocketbook.

Meanwhile, an unelected billionaire who has made his vast fortune on government contracts should not be able to unilaterally stop and take money out of the pockets of American families, of the Americans who need it most.

Here is the warning, because this major tax giveaway that House Republicans are hammering out says to our committee: Find $880 billion.

Republicans say: Oh, okay. Maybe there is enough waste, fraud, and abuse--even though they have taken the Inspectors General off the playing field to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. There is no way that you can say improper payments total up to $880 billion.

Republicans shouldn't gaslight us and Americans if the majority is concerned about a major tax giveaway so that billionaires can have more money and Americans are going to have less healthcare for their grandparents and their children. It is not right, and we are not going to stand for it.

Mr. Speaker, who really benefits here on these tankless gas water heaters? Let me pull the curtain back. As they build homes, big corporate housing developers often install a slightly cheaper, less- efficient model, and they pass on the costs of higher energy bills to that new homeowner for the next 20 years.

Foreign manufacturers are going to benefit here. The American manufacturers who have participated in these energy efficiency standards aren't going to benefit. It is the foreign manufacturers who will get to sell their inferior, less-efficient appliances and take away sales from U.S. manufacturers.

It is the American Gas Association who will get to sell more polluting fossil gas to power inefficient appliances and pass the costs on to working families.

Once my colleagues take a closer look, Members will see this resolution really doesn't hold water. It does nothing to lower costs for working families. It does nothing to support American companies. It does nothing to address the real challenges facing our families back home.

It is a warning. It is a warning shot across the bow that this is not business as usual. It is a hold-on-to-your-wallet moment because the unelected billionaires who are calling the shots, who are reaching into citizens' wallets, and who are going to take away our healthcare want to rule the day.

House Democrats are not going to stand for it. We are going to continue to hold Republicans accountable. We are going to hold this administration accountable. We are going to fight for our constituents' wallets and pocketbooks, and we are going to make sure that Republicans are not going to be able to say that this kind of ridiculous stuff is business as usual here in the House of Representatives.

It is not. We believe in checks and balances. We believe in the hardworking Americans. We do not countenance unfairness and trying to steal from our kids, loading them up with massive debt and saying that their health doesn't matter in this country. It does.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this resolution. It is not business as usual, and people need to know it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, your silence is deafening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Society of

Addiction Medicine,

February 3, 2025.

RE Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

Hon. Chuck Grassley,

Chairman, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Richard Durbin,

Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Buddy Carter,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Diana DeGette,

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Health Energy and Commerce

Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, Chairman

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

Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a national medical

specialty society representing more than 8,000 physicians and

associated health professionals who specialize in the

prevention and treatment of addiction, I write to urge

amendments to the Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act

to mitigate unintended negative consequences and encourage

further Congressional action to address the demand side of

our national addiction and overdose crisis.

Opioid overdose deaths are always tragic, especially

because they are preventable with evidence-based addiction

prevention, treatment, and overdose reversal medications.

Even through drug overdose deaths dropped last year, the

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

addiction and overdose crisis. We still rank highest in drug

overdose deaths per capita in the world.

Illicitly manufactured, high-potency synthetic opiods,

including fentanyl, are key drivers of overdose deaths in the

US. Therefore, policies aiming to decrease their illegal

importation and distribution are critically important.

However, we are concerned that some of the policies proposed

in the HALT Fentanyl Act may have unintended consequences.

Some minor adjustments may support a better return on

investment. Enacting smart legislation is critical to saving

more American lives.

Specifically, ASAM urges the following amendments to The

HALT Fentanyl Act:

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

consider potency and mu opioid receptor activity in the

brain, rather than simply specifying the precise structures

of drugs that would qualify for Schedule I. Strict structural

specification provides a blueprint for drug cartels and

chemists to modify substances to avoid detection or

conviction. Unfortunately, this can lead to more dangerous

substances being manufactured and distributed across the US--

resulting in higher potency substances on the streets and

more severe addictions involving substances for which

existing treatments may not work. Additionally, prosecutions

need to focus on the trafficking and distribution of

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

bill's current definition may include substances that do not

have ``abuse'' potential;

Expand the federal mandatory minimum safety valve across

all substances to end the practice of low-level drug

offenders with substance use disorders receiving excessive

and expensive sentences. Redirecting associated savings

toward evidence-based addiction treatments would be more

effective;

Refine the expedited research procedures to reference

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

clarify that researchers can submit one application for

multiple substances;

Amend the expedited research procedures to remove the

requirement to demonstrate that the researcher is authorized

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

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

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

approve the research until the researchers can demonstrate

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

until the researchers can demonstrate that it is approved at

the state level. We recommend deferring to the States to

include the requirement to demonstrate federal approval; and

Express a sense of Congress that, while the legislation may

facilitate prosecutions and seizures of fentanyl-related

substances, increased and sustained Congressional efforts are

needed to address the demand side of our national addiction

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

the halt lethal trafficking (halt) fentanyl act

ASAM agrees with the Drug Enforcement Administration

(DEA)'s assessment that the current scheduling framework

under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) does not offer

necessary flexibility to combat the threat posed by emerging

synthetic substances. Chemists can constantly adjust their

formulations to evade US scheduling, and law enforcement

faces significant challenges staying ahead of these threats.

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

scheduled fentanyl-related substances into Schedule I for two

years. Congress has extended this temporary class-wide

scheduling on several occasions. While this approach has had

success in reducing law enforcement encounters with new

fentanyl-related substances in the illicit market, it has

been unable to curb the overall flow of illicitly

manufactured fentanyl into the US. Drug cartels have

continued large-scale production and distribution of high-

potency synthetic opioids.

Between 2017 and 2023, the number of illicit fentanyl

seizures in the U.S. skyrocketed by

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

fentanyl seizures involving counterfeit prescription pills--

that further exacerbate the risk of overdose by misleading

Americans as to what substance they are ingesting--increased

fourfold. Sadly, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids

other than methadone (primarily illicitly manufactured

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

2022.

In short, the HALT Fentanyl Act merely preserves a deadly

status quo.

Additionally, the legislation would continue (1) imposing

mandatory minimum sentences for quantity-based offenses

involving fentanyl-related substances and (2) defining the

class by chemical structure, regardless of potency or actual

impact on opioid receptors and related risks. Unfortunately,

mandatory minimum sentences are a terrible return on

investment when used to punish low-level drug dealers.

These sentences are expensive, needlessly requiring

thousands of dollars per individual per year. Research has

shown that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter drug

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

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

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

research studies found that incarceration not only fails to

prevent drug use, it may even increase the likelihood of

reoffending.

The largest return on criminal justice costs may come from

targeting cartel leaders or high-level drug dealers. Unlike

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

large quantities of fentanyl-related substances at any given

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

11% of federal drug offenders across substances. In other

words, the US currently wastes a significant amount of money

incarcerating low-level drug offenders with lengthy

sentences.

a better ROI: investing in addiction medicine innovation and treatment

Carefully tailored drug scheduling decisions can play a

useful role in a supply-side approach to addressing an

overdose crisis, but increased and sustained efforts on the

demand side present an opportunity for greater progress.

While many people reduce or stop using drugs without

treatment, those who consume most drugs distributed by drug

cartels frequently have moderate to severe substance use

disorders that necessitate medical treatment. Threats of

punishment are unlikely to deter these Americans, because

their disorder has already negatively affected their

motivation and judgment regarding their drug use. Instead,

effective addiction treatment reduces drug use and improves

health and wellbeing.

Addiction treatment is an excellent return on investment,

including for low-level drug dealers who are distributing

drugs to support their own addiction. Every dollar spent on

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

other costs. Therefore, rather than inefficiently using

taxpayers' money incarcerating low-level dealers of fentanyl-

related or other substances, the government can realize

positive effects from treating substance use disorders of

low-level dealers, including through drug courts that utilize

evidence-based practices and other alternatives to

incarceration.

Congress can lead the way in promoting helpful addiction

treatments. While highly effective medications exist for

opioid use disorder, many people are using stimulants, like

cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as alcohol. No

medications have been approved for stimulant use disorder,

and new treatments are urgently needed for all substance use

disorders to increase their uptake by both prescribers and

patients. Unfortunately, innovation in the addiction field

has lagged other medical fields due to limited financial

investment and misunderstanding of addiction as a moral

rather than a medical condition. Congress could consider

establishing incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to

enter the under-tapped addiction medicine field. The recent

case of GLP-1 medications demonstrates how new medications

can change millions of lives, spur economic growth, and

provide renewed hope for people suffering from stigmatized

medical conditions.

While new treatments are being developed and tested, the US

must also quickly expand access to existing evidence-based

treatments--including methadone, buprenorphine, and

contingency management. Few clinicians offer these

treatments, and they are unlikely to do so without increased

reimbursement rates from insurers and less red tape around

methadone for the treatment of opioid use disorder. For

example, Congress could explicitly amend federal law to state

that contingency management--the most effective treatment for

stimulant use disorder--does not violate federal anti-

kickback laws and patient inducement laws. For too long,

contingency management has been underused by clinicians who

fear prosecution under federal statutes that were not created

to address contingency management. Similarly, many pharmacies

fear that stocking effective medications, like buprenorphine,

will lead to Department of Justice investigations.

Recognizing this, Congress could clarify federal statute to

ensure that pharmacies' stocking of addiction medications is

not an indicator of suspicious activity.

Additionally, Congress could close the dangerous Medicare

coverage gap for evidence-based residential addiction

treatment. At a minimum, Congress could reauthorize, and

update key programs first created by the SUPPORT for Patients

and Communities Act in 2018, after unfortunately letting them

lapse in 2024.

conclusion

Thank you for considering these recommendations. ASAM

remains committed to working with you to promote remission

and recovery from addiction, ensuring that all communities

are safe, and more Americans can lead healthy, productive

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

Corredor, ASAM's Chief Advocacy Officer.

Sincerely,

Brian Hurley, MD, MBA, FAPA, DFASAM,

President,

American Society of Addiction Medicine.

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

February 3, 2025.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Speaker Mike Johnson,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

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

Dear Majority Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, Minority

Leader Schumer, Minority Leader Jeffries, and Honorable

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

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

rights organizations write today to urge you to reject and

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

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

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

Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a flawed class

definition, imposes mandatory minimums, and fails to provide

an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the

drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling approach endorsed in the HALT

Fentanyl Act classifies all FRS as schedule I drugs, reserved

for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a

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

a radical departure from drug scheduling practices as it

relies exclusively on chemical structure without accounting

for pharmacological effect based on the unproven hypothesis

of chemical structure-function relationships. Contrary to

this hypothesis, structurally related substances can often

have complementary therapeutic values. In fact, the National

Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has already acknowledged that

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

antagonist that behaves like naloxone, which is itself an

opium derivative that counteracts the effects of opioid

drugs. Classifying all FRS in schedule I places undue

restrictions on research for therapeutic potential of FRS.

This means that researchers and scientists are not able to

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

experiencing unprecedented overdose deaths.

The HALT Fentanyl Act also enshrines mandatory minimums for

distribution of FRS under the Controlled Substances Act, an

inappropriate mandate that criminalizes possibly inert or

harmless substances. While some proponents of the HALT

Fentanyl Act claim that the bill is not intended to interact

with the criminal justice system and that mandatory minimums

are primarily a deterrent against foreign import of FRS, this

is simply inaccurate. The HALT Fentanyl Act expands mandatory

minimums for both foreign importation crimes and domestic

drug distribution offenses, including nonviolent drug

distribution involving small quantities of drugs. What's

more, by automatically scheduling a huge swathe of substances

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

real criminal justice consequences, posing an unacceptable

risk of unnecessary incarceration for substances that carry

no potential for abuse. Such miscarriages of justice have

already occurred. For instance, Todd Coleman was sentenced to

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

crime laboratory said was laced with three fentanyl

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

adulterants were not illegal fentanyl analogues and most were

not even controlled substances.

Our country is repeating past missteps when it comes to

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

policymakers enacted severe mandatory minimums for small

amounts of crack cocaine in response to media headlines and

law enforcement warnings that perpetuated mythology and fear.

These laws imposed harsher penalties for crack--a substance

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

associated with white people--even though the two substances

are chemically similar. In the ensuing decades, people of

color have been disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced

to mandatory minimum sentences for small amounts of crack.

This trend of racial disparity also can be seen in

prosecutions for offenses involving fentanyl and

fentanyl analogues, as Sentencing Commission data from fiscal

years 2021 to 2023 provides strong evidence that these

prosecutions disproportionately target people of color. Among

the 8,048 people convicted in trafficking cases where

fentanyl or fentanyl analogues were the primary drug type,

Black and Hispanic individuals comprised 78% of all

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

represent a massive disparity relative to demographic

patterns in the general population. Moreover, the emergence

of fentanyl-related substances in recent years has fueled

similar waves of alarmist media and law enforcement headlines

that are informed by mythology rather than science. Any

further extension of the classwide scheduling policy

threatens to repeat past missteps with crack cocaine that

policymakers are still working to rectify.

The classwide scheduling policy expands the application of

existing severe mandatory minimum sentencing laws enacted by

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

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

fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a combined weight of 10

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

mandatory minimum with no evidence needed that the seller

even knew it contained fentanyl. In addition, current laws

impose a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years for just a

trace amount of a fentanyl analogue in a mixture with a

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

matter is that lawmakers do not need to impose new mandatory

minimums in order to prosecute fentanyl analogue cases

because law enforcement officials already have the ability to

prosecute these cases pursuant to the Controlled Substance

Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986, which requires that

prosecutors show the substances in question are harmful.

Despite the threat of grave injustices in the criminal

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

indications that some FRS are harmless or hold therapeutic

potential, the HALT Fentanyl Act does not include an offramp

to reschedule or remove FRS that research has proven to be

pharmacologically inactive or do not meet schedule I

criteria. Though it includes some research reforms for

schedule I substances, the bill excludes the possibility of

such research impacting the criminalization of FRS. Without a

rescheduling process, the HALT Fentanyl Act may unjustly

promote criminalization of harmless or inert substances.

The HALT Fentanyl Act and other bills proposing the

permanent classwide scheduling of FRS are yet another

iteration of the drug war's ineffective and punitive

strategies. To prevent overdose, Congress must invest in

public health solutions to mitigate the harms of illicit

fentanyl. We urge Congress to support bills that increase

access to health services and substance use disorder

treatment, improve data collection, and provide funding for

FRS research, offering alternative, effective strategies to

simultaneously address the opioid epidemic while preventing

backsliding on criminal justice reform.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Please contact Maritza Perez Medina, Director of Federal

Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, for questions about

this letter or to further discuss this matter.

Sincerely,

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

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

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

Positive Health (NY), American Civil Liberties Union,

American Friends Service Committee, Appalachian Learning

Initiative (WV), Association of Black Social Workers

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

Network.

Battle Born Progress (NV), Beacon House Aftercare,

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

Jewish Action, Better Organizing to Win Legalization, BLM

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

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

Center for Criminal Justice Reform, University of Baltimore

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

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

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

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

Protection (CUSP).

Community Catalyst, Community Health Project Los Angeles

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

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

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

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

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

(NY), Exchanging Pathways (MS).

Fair and Just Prosecution, Faith in Harm Reduction, Family

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

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

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

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

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

(CT), FWD.us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice (IL), Illinois

Harm Reduction & Recovery Coalition (IL), Immigrant Legal

Resource Center, Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR)

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

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

Interfaith Action for Human Rights, Justice Strategies,

JustLeadershipUSA, Juvenile Law Center.

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

Action Partnership, Law Office of the Cook County Public

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

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

Reentry Fellowship (KY), Lighthouse Consultants Colorado, LLC

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

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

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

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

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

NASTAD, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,

National Coalition for the Homeless, National Council of

Churches, National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-

Maryland Chapter (MD), National Employment Law Project,

National Harm Reduction Coalition, National Health Law

Program, National Homelessness Law Center, National Immigrant

Justice Center, National Immigration Project (NIPNLG),

National Legal Aid & Defender Association, National

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

NC Harm Reduction Coalition (NC).

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

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, New Jersey

Organizing Project (NJ), New York State Harm Reduction

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

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

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

Parabola Center for Law and Policy, Parole Preparation

Project, Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network (PA), People

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

Leadership Alliance of Nevada (NV), Progressive Maryland

(MD), Psychotherapy Services DBA (KY).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louisville Community Ministries (KY), Southern Tier AIDS

Program (NY).

StoptheDrugWar.org, Students for Sensible Drug Policy,

Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative, Loyola Law

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

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

TCRC Community Healing Center (PA), Texas Harm Reduction

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

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

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

The Daniel Initiative.

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

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

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

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

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

Collective (NC), Transform Network, Treatment Action Group

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

Pharm Inc. (NY).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rises, Young People in Recovery.

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

The Leadership Conference

on Civil and Human Rights,

February 4, 2025.

Hon. Mike Johnson,

Speaker of the House,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,

House Minority Leader,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries: On

behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human

Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more

than 240 national organizations to promote and protect civil

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

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

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

reject this bill. The Leadership Conference will score the

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

This bill permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances

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

based on a flawed class definition. Additionally, it imposes

mandatory minimums and fails to provide an offramp for

removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule.

The classwide scheduling that this bill would impose would

exacerbate pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial

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

based, enforcement-first response to a public health

challenge.

Under the classwide control, any offense involving a

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

prosecution, even if the substance in question is helpful or

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

instructive. Mr. Coleman was sentenced to a mandatory minimum

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

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

with three illegal fentanyl analogues. But none of the

substances were illegal fentanyl analogues, and one was a

substance called ``Benzyl Fentanyl'' that the Drug

Enforcement Administration has long known is not dangerous or

illegal.

Moreover, the HALT Fentanyl Act enshrines mandatory

minimums for distribution of FRS under the Controlled

Substances Act, which could criminalize inert or harmless

substances. This bill expands mandatory minimums for both

foreign importation crimes and domestic drug distribution

offenses, including nonviolent drug distribution involving

small quantities of drugs. As mandatory minimums eliminate

judicial discretion, judges are prevented from tailoring

punishment to a particular defendant by taking into account

an individual's background and the circumstances of their

offenses when determining the sentence. Mandatory minimums

instead place more power in the hands of prosecutors and

their charging decisions, which is particularly concerning

given that prosecutors are more likely to charge Black people

with a crime that carries a mandatory minimum than a White

person. The HALT Fentanyl Act threats to replicate this

pattern and deepen these disparities.

This Congress should not repeat its past mistakes when it

comes to policy responses to fentanyl and its analogues.

Beginning in the 1980s, draconian drug laws with harsh

mandatory minimums and their resulting enforcement under the

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

populations. In the ensuing decades, Black people have been

disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced to mandatory

minimum sentences for small amounts of crack cocaine, despite

the fact that White people are more likely than Black people

to use crack cocaine in their lifetimes. Similar trends for

FRS are emerging: Between 2015 and 2019, prosecutions for

fentanyl-analogue offenses increased by more than 5,000

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

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

in fentanyl-analogue cases were Black. Any further extension

of the classwide scheduling policy threatens to repeat past

missteps with crack cocaine that policymakers are still

working to rectify.

Harsh federal drug laws and mandatory minimums have caused

the federal prison population to explode. The Urban Institute

has found that increases in expected time served for drug

offenses was the largest contributor to growth in the federal

prison population between 1998 and 2010. Currently, people

convicted of drug offenses make up 43.9 percent of the Bureau

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

overly punitive sentences or mass incarceration deter crime,

protect public safety, or decrease drug use or trafficking.

We share your concerns about fentanyl-related deaths and

support effective health-based approaches to mitigating this

public health crisis, but classwide scheduling and mandatory

minimums merely repeat the mistakes of the past by

exacerbating our incarceration problem. We welcome continued

dialogue with you about how to move forward on this important

topic. However, we must reiterate our firm opposition to

classwide emergency scheduling and to mandatory minimum

sentencing.

We strongly urge Congress to take bold steps on these

issues and transform our criminal-legal system into one that

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

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

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

please feel free to contact Chloe White, senior policy

counsel, justice.

Sincerely,

Jesselyn McCurdy,

Executive Vice President

of Government Affairs.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today during Black History month with gratitude for the life of Commander Eunice Butts, her service to our country and Tampa Bay community. Commander Butts volunteered to serve America and shattered glass ceilings as an African American woman in the U.S. Air Force and National Guard during the Vietnam War. She served with courage, empathy and a love of country that continues to drive her work with service members to this day.

Born and raised in Tampa, Ms. Butts graduated from Middleton High School and was the first student to sing opera. Exploring her talent for singing and performing, she continued her education at Gibbs Junior College with a scholarship for music.

Following the first deployment of United States ground troops in Vietnam in 1965, Ms. Butts describes walking down the street and seeing the infamous ``I want you'' war poster that would effectively change the course of her life and begin her service epoch. Ms. Butts always dreamed of helping and opening doors for others, aware of the oppression that came before her and continued during her early life. Immediately walking in the recruitment center and enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, Ms. Butts knew she was ready to patriotically serve her country and uphold the legacy of Black women in the military. Her instinct to serve rang true and 16 years later, Ms. Butts left active duty and settled in Montgomery, Alabama.

Ms. Butts is the proud mother of two sons and a daughter, Edward, Robert and Franjernera. She is also the grandmother of three children, Benjamin, Zori and Latrice.

As a true public servant, Ms. Butts sought other ways to serve her country and found that the Air Force Reserves were looking for Black women. She continued her service in the Air Force Reserves, Alabama National Guard and in the American Legion for an additional 25 years.

Ms. Butts' beliefs were rooted in the sentiment of giving and showing love to all, especially unsung heroes. In the 1970s, Ms. Butts returned to Tampa where she served in the American Legion with World War II Veteran Willie Mae Williams, where they evangelized the pivotal role that women played in the military. When Ms. Williams passed, Ms. Butts answered the call of letting the world know the untold story of female veterans. Ms. Butts moved through the ranks of the American Legion and is the first African American female to serve as the American Legion Department State of Florida Commander.

Continuing to heal the wounds of Vietnam veterans, Ms. Butts believes that every day, Americans should pray and take under their wings, all the veterans who have served in our military. She often reminded her peers that many have been wounded, if not mentally, then physically, or both. Ms. Butts gave the gift of compassion to her partners in veteran service organizations and preached that service members need our shoulders to lean on for support and love.

Commander Butts bravely volunteered to fight and defend a country that did not always protect and defend Black women, yet she never wavered in her full devotion to America and liberty and justice for all. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the patriotic Tampa Bay community, I thank Eunice Butts for her 39 and counting years of work to her fellow service members, veterans and their loved ones. Joining the legacy of women who inspired her, Ms. Butts life's work will be a foundation and benefaction for young, Black women everywhere, especially those who choose to defend and protect our Nation. She has effectively nurtured and opened doors for her fellow service members all while passing on the valiant stories of female veterans who our Nation will be forever grateful for.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today during Black History Month to celebrate a change agent, community leader and lifelong Tampa Bay advocate, Carrie Jean Lofton Hurst.

Mrs. Hurst was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, as the youngest of six children. She graduated from Tampa Bay Technical High School in 1977, where she met Robert Hurst, Sr. Afterwards, they became engaged but pursued different paths--Mrs. Hurst's mother had always championed education as a priority, so Mrs. Hurst attended Hillsborough Community College (HCC) and Mr. Hurst started his military career. She worked in the library as a student assistant while pursuing her associate's degree, which she earned in 1979.

Mrs. Hurst delayed completing her university studies to marry and join her husband on assignment.

Soon after relocating and starting a family, Mrs. Hurst started at the library on base at Fort Stewart, Georgia, where they were stationed. She fell in love with the library and learned the skills she needed. Her husband was then reassigned overseas, and she went home to Tampa to await his return.

Back in Tampa, she obtained employment again at HCC's library, where she remained for 18 years as a library technical assistant. During her time there, her love of the work rekindled her desire to further her education, so she worked full-time by day and attended classes by night. She completed her bachelor's degree in 1998 from St. Leo University and then earned her master's degree with honors in 2000 from the University of South Florida.

Mrs. Hurst started her career at Tampa Hillsborough Public Library in 2000 at the 78th Street Library then at the Ybor City Branch Library. In 2008, she became branch manager of the Seminole Heights Library and guided the modernization of the popular library. In 2015, Mrs. Hurst came back to the Ybor City location to now lead it as the new Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Library, named after a prominent Civil Rights leader.

Being selected to open and lead this library would become Mrs. Hurst's greatest professional challenge and role, as this is no ordinary library. The Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Public Library is one of only two African American research libraries in the entire state of Florida. This library is near historical Central Avenue that once served as the hub of Black businesses, Black entertainment and culture for more than 100 years. The library encompasses a visual focus and collection focused on African American life and history. Mrs. Hurst was instrumental in developing initiatives that support access to information and history of this culture and history. She developed community presentations and collaborations, and her efforts were supported by the Library Administration, the Ada T. Payne Friends of the Urban Libraries, the Robert Saunders Foundation and community partners and participants.

``Free and accessible information is a human right and a necessary part of the pathway to equality.'' Mrs. Hurst yearns to share her knowledge and experience with others. She admires the spirit of service and egalitarianism inherent in librarianship. Librarians seek challenges and continue learning for themselves, to promote and enable the acquisition of knowledge of others and uphold libraries as institutions for betterment, all the things that Mrs. Hurst dedicated herself to.

Libraries have continued to evolve in the age of technology and in the face of the rapid change in the way that information is collected, distributed and preserved. It was compelling to her that access to information and technology could help lay the cultural groundwork for creating social change. Mrs. Hurst embraced this change and mobilized within her community, bringing members of her community to the library for informational and cultural activities. Mrs. Hurst sought to work in urban libraries where she could identify, engage and motivate people wherever they were in their lives. Her desire to assist, encourage and inspire others to use the resources of the library to rise above their circumstances helped to create a strong network of partnerships to touch and transform lives of many.

Mrs. Hurst is also a Charter Member of the Tampa Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a Member of the NAACP Hillsborough County branch and the Beta Phi Mu, International Library Honor Society. In her retirement, she continues to assist in creating community initiatives and she motivates others by reminding them to: ``Keep striving, reach for your dreams. It's all attainable. Just put one foot in front of the other.''

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Tampa Bay community, I am honored to recognize the outstanding accomplishments, leadership and service of Mrs. Carrie Jean Lofton Hurst, who stands as a shining example of the tremendous impact of hard work, nurturing others and providing service to the community to encourage others to reach their highest potential.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to express my gratitude and good wishes to Tracie Pough for her years of service to this body, to the Congresswoman, to the State of Florida.

I also share that on behalf of the two chiefs of staff that I have had during my terms here, Clay Phillips and Lara Hopkins, they always consulted Tracie. They sought her counsel on how to run a congressional office, and how to do it in a proactive and positive way.

There are often twists and turns here on Capitol Hill, especially here in the people's House. Tracie has always had that steady hand. She has an open door. She is a good listener. She is the chief of staff to chiefs of staff. She is known as the consummate professional. She doesn't lose her temper. To the contrary, she is even-keeled and thoughtful in everything she does.

Let me say that sometimes that is not easy when you work for a Member of Congress who is a go-getter and is trying to accomplish a hundred things at a hundred miles per hour every single day.

I think it is that yin and the yang where Tracie has been able to provide that steady hand and leadership to Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz that has really demonstrated her unbelievable capacity for being able to get things accomplished.

The record out of her office is incredible. It is not just because of Debbie's senior seat on the Appropriations Committee. It is because of her knowledge of our beautiful State of Florida. I don't think we would have such massive investment in saving the Florida Everglades without Tracie standing firm and getting to know the Army Corps of Engineers probably on a first-name basis.

I think some of her expertise comes from her service back in the Florida Legislature. We will claim you from the Tampa Bay area, a little Tampa credit, because she reminded me that she worked for Jim Hargrett who is a statehouse member from Tampa, who went on to be a State Senator; the great Jim Davis who was my predecessor here in Congress but also served in the statehouse; and also Arthenia Joyner.

On behalf my neighbors across the Tampa Bay area, I want the world to know that Tracie Pough has made an incredible difference. She has made the lives of the people of the State of Florida and the United States better. It takes a lot to serve a Member over the course of 21 years in the United States House of Representatives.

Every day there is a new challenge, and Tracie has handled these challenges with intelligence. Because of her even-keeled nature, her sense of fairness, her love for this country and the State of Florida, her love for the Congresswoman and all of the interns and staffers that came through her office over the years, Tracie Pough will leave an incredible legacy of service. For that, I am extremely grateful.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the Senate amendment to H.R. 7213, the Autism CARES Act. This bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Representatives Smith and Cuellar, will reauthorize funding for a variety of programs that support autism education, research, and resources.

Mr. Speaker, in the United States, about 1 in 36 children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The prevalence of autism in children has been increasing every 2 years.

With these worrisome statistics in mind, it is important that we reauthorize the critical research and funding for the Autism CARES Act in order to continue this collaborative nationwide program.

In 2006, the original Autism CARES Act, which was then known as the Combating Autism Act, was signed into law. This law built a public health infrastructure that addresses autism on the Federal level directed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

From that point forward, over $5 billion has been invested in addressing autism through various programs related to autism research, autism support services, early detection training for medical providers, and autism education.

With this legislation, we renew and expand support for Federal autism programs, underscoring our commitment to addressing the growing needs of individuals with autism and their families. The legislation authorizes funding over the next 5 years for key programs under the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.

The legislation addresses challenges related to autism and aging, inclusivity in autism research, strengthening the developmental- behavioral pediatrician workforce, and mental health and communication supports, particularly for autistic individuals who may be unable or limited in their speech capabilities.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 7213, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of H.R. 7224, a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to reauthorize the Stop, Observe, Ask, and Respond to Health and Wellness Training Program.

This bipartisan legislation, introduced by Representative Cohen, would reauthorize the program administered by the Administration of Children and Families that trains healthcare and social service providers on human trafficking.

The SOAR program is designed to educate healthcare providers, social workers, public health professionals, and behavioral health professionals on how to identify and respond appropriately to individuals who either have experienced trafficking or are at risk of it.

This training is targeted at physicians, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, psychologists, social workers and case managers, school counselors, public health professionals, and allied health professionals, as well.

Human trafficking impacts thousands of people in the United States. According to the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, over 88 percent of human-trafficking victims seek medical care in various health settings. Ensuring that our health professionals who serve on the front lines of providing medical care for human-trafficking victims are appropriately trained and supported is essential.

In 2019, the original SOAR to Health and Wellness Act was signed into law, which established the SOAR to Health and Wellness Training Program. This program helps healthcare settings create a plan for treating human-trafficking victims and support victim recovery.

Since the establishment, over 90 percent of providers who received SOAR training reported high or very high confidence in identifying and responding to human trafficking.

With the passage of the reauthorization bill, we can continue to fund this important training initiative, as well as encourage collaboration between healthcare providers and law enforcement and social service providers in the fight against human trafficking.

I thank Representative Cohen for his leadership on this legislation, as well as Dr. Bucshon and my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee for working with us to bring this to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' to continue a well-rounded national effort to combat human trafficking, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 7224, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of S. 223, a bill that amends the Controlled Substances Act to fix a technical error in the definitions. This legislation, sponsored by Representatives Burchett and Cohen here in the House, would clarify the definitions of the different types of recidivist enhancements in the statute.

When the First Step Act was first signed into law in 2018, it created two new types of recidivist enhancements: serious drug felony and serious violent felony.

In the statute, however, both are numbered as paragraph 57, and this technical error has caused confusion between the two definitions. To prevent any further confusion with the interpretation of the statute, this bill corrects this technical error and properly numbers these definitions as different paragraphs.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation to prevent potential costly mistakes in Federal criminal court cases, and I yield back the balance of my time.