Floor Statements

Mr. President, on another economic issue, I want to talk for a minute about the good news coming out of my State of Ohio with regard to the tax reform legislation. In just the past few weeks, I have visited eight separate businesses across the State talking about this issue, asking them what has been the impact of the tax reform bill, what are they doing with their savings.

There are three of these I want to talk about tonight, briefly. One is a small auto parts manufacturing business in Zanesville, OH. They have three auto parts stores. One is a multinational credit card processing company headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, and one is a premier medical center in Cleveland, OH. They are very different businesses in different sectors of our economy, but all are benefiting from the tax legislation.

GKM is the small auto parts store in Zanesville. They are reinstating healthcare benefits to their employees directly as a result of this tax reform bill. Under the Affordable Care Act, the company's healthcare costs increased dramatically--like so many other businesses--by double digits every year. They had a 22-percent increase in their costs in 2016, and the company went to its employees and said: We simply cannot afford to pay for this 22-percent increase on top of other double-digit increases. We don't know what to do. We are going to have to have you go out on your own and find healthcare, including in the exchanges.

Now, with the money GKM Auto Parts is saving as the result of this tax reform, all of their full-time employees are once again able to get healthcare through the company, and they are very grateful, having talked to some of the employees who had to go out to the exchanges, while others chose to pay the penalty. They are really happy to have their healthcare back.

These kinds of real, tangible benefits are exactly what we intended to accomplish in developing tax reform, but businesses small and large are benefiting from these pro-growth changes to the Tax Code.

The second company I want to talk about is a big C corporation-- Worldpay, Inc. It is the largest credit card processing company in the world now by volume. It has about 2,000 employees in Ohio at their headquarters. I recently went to their headquarters to talk about what they were doing, and when I was there, they announced cash bonuses of $1,000 and up to $2,000 for all of their hourly employees, higher wages for their frontline positions, an increased 401(k) match, greater company investment in employee wellness and recognition programs, and significantly more charitable giving. As Worldpay's executive chair said, tax reform is ``ensuring Ohio companies like Worldpay can remain competitive and recruit the region's top talent.''

They merged recently with a foreign company. Thank goodness they stayed in Ohio, but now they are rewarded for that because, although they were punished for being a U.S. company before, now with our Tax Code changes in place, they are actually benefiting from being an American company, where it is more beneficial to make the investment here rather than, in their case, in the United Kingdom.

A more competitive business tax code, an international tax code that encourages investments in this country rather than overseas, and incentives like immediate expensing that is in the Tax Code now are helping to create jobs in my home State of Ohio. It is helping Worldpay continue to be an American company and to be strong. It also is helping foreign direct investment in my home State because companies that are not American companies but foreign companies invested in Ohio are more likely to increase that investment rather than an investment somewhere else in the world because of the tax reform legislation. Immediate expensing and lower tax rates, this all helps to create good American jobs.

The most recent Federal jobs report shows strong job gains and the fastest wage growth since 2009. According to a recent National Federation of Independent Business survey, the NFIB, which represents a lot of small businesses in Ohio, 32 percent of their companies now say they are going to expand. By the way, that is the highest level in the survey's history, and it is the highest level of optimism also in their survey about the future among these small businesses. A lot of that is from the increased opportunity and the optimism that comes from this tax reform legislation.

One website I saw here in Washington tells us that across the country more than 400 businesses have now announced bonuses, higher wages, increased benefits, or a combination of these things as the result of the tax reform law. Four hundred is impressive, but I have to tell you it is a lot more businesses than that. I have been to small business roundtable discussions and individual businesses over the past several weeks in Ohio and talked to over two dozen individual companies--none of whom are on the list of 400 because they are not big companies that made a big public announcement--but every single one of them are taking this tax reform and the benefits they are getting from that, and they are reinvesting it into their people, their

workers, their company's plant, equipment, technology, making their workers more productive. So 400 is impressive, but I know it is much larger than that. Thousands of businesses are taking advantage of this and therefore their employers are and therefore you are seeing this increased optimism.

The final example I want to talk about is one that has to do with our communities. I recently visited the University Hospital Rainbow Center for Women and Children in Cleveland, OH--a really impressive new facility they are building. This is a new $26 million medical facility, and I learned during this visit that it was the new markets tax credit that was key to making this project possible. New markets is a tax incentive to spur economic growth and community redevelopment projects, and it helps to spur private investment, as it did in this case. In this Cleveland case, it spawned significant private investment from foundations and from individuals. This is something that has worked in the cities I represent in Ohio. We fought to preserve the new markets tax credit in the Senate version of the tax legislation, and the final agreement that became law has the new markets tax credit made permanent. That is critical for economic development opportunities like this new university hospital medical center I talked about.

So these benefits from tax reform are not abstract. They are very real. They are extra money in your paycheck, they are more affordable healthcare coverage, they are increased investments in emerging communities, and much more.

As the good news continues to roll in from tax reform, I will keep traveling Ohio, meeting with businesses, families, and workers to discuss ways tax reform can help them achieve a better economic future. A brighter future is really what our tax reform and tax cut legislation was all about.

Mr. President, finally, I want to talk about something else we were working on in Congress to create a brighter future for many Americans. I am talking about our efforts to provide justice for victims of sex trafficking and to hold accountable those online entities, those websites that knowingly facilitate these evil crimes. I am talking about this because, although this week we are focused on these reforms to Dodd-Frank to help our smaller banks make the economy stronger and help individuals and small companies, next week we hope to take up this issue of sex trafficking.

We are closer than ever to getting this legislation passed, and just recently we had some good news in our bipartisan effort. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA, a bill I introduced with 24 Senators back in August, is gaining momentum in Congress. Last week, the House of Representatives actually offered the SESTA legislation as an amendment on the floor to a broader bill, and it passed by an overwhelming vote--over 300 votes. Just a couple of days later, the White House expressed their support for this legislation.

It is now the Senate's turn to act on this critically important issue, and Leader McConnell--the leadership in the Senate--again has made a commitment to me and my colleagues that we will hold a vote on this sex trafficking legislation, the SESTA legislation, in the next couple of weeks. We now have 67 Senate cosponsors for SESTA. That is not typical around here.

It is a majority of Democrats; it is a majority of Republicans--two- thirds of the Senators in this body. By the way, this is a diverse group with wide-ranging political and ideological backgrounds. They have all signed on to this legislation because they want to be part of the solution. It is a commonsense solution to what is unfortunately a growing problem here in our country and in every State represented here in this body.

Unbelievably, sex trafficking is actually increasing in this country right now. In this century, in this country, sex trafficking is actually increasing. How can that be? What the experts tell us is that it is because of the online presence of these evil websites that are selling women and children online. The ruthless efficiency of social media--of the online presence of these websites--is what is causing this increase.

Victims of sex trafficking in Ohio have told me, as I have met with them: Rob, this has moved from the street corner to the smartphone. One website called backpage.com is the industry leader in online sex trafficking. They are involved in nearly 75 percent of all child trafficking reports that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children receives from the public. Seventy-five percent of the reports that this great organization receives to try to stop sex trafficking relate to this one site.

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations here in the Senate, which I chair, conducted an 18-month investigation into this issue. We looked at what the online presence was and why it was happening. We learned, of course, that backpage.com was by far the biggest problem. We found that backpage not only had the vast majority of the commercial sex traffic on their site, but they had knowingly facilitated and assisted criminal sex trafficking and covered up evidence of those crimes in order to increase their own profits.

For years, unbelievably, we have allowed them to get away with it. I think that is a stain on our national character. I think we need to address it, particularly because we have the opportunity here in the Senate to change a Federal law to help stop this.

Courts have consistently ruled that backpage.com and these other websites are protected by a Federal law--a law that we passed over two decades ago--called the Communications Decency Act that protects these websites from liability for crimes users commit through their site, no matter how complicit they are in those crimes. It was certainly not the intent of Congress to permit this, but that is how the courts have interpreted it.

Prosecutors and courts from across the country, including 50 State attorneys general, have called on Congress to fix this injustice. In one of the most direct calls that I have seen, a Sacramento judge last year dropped pimping charges against backpage.com, stating: ``If and until Congress sees fit to amend the immunity law, the broad reach of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act even applies to those alleged to support the exploitation of others by human trafficking.'' In other words, this judge is saying that there is now an immunity--a protection under Federal law--that allows these people, even when they are knowingly involved with sex trafficking, to continue to do what they are doing.

Our legislation makes two very simple changes to the Federal law that currently protects websites like backpage in an effort to restore justice.

First, SESTA says that if you are violating a Federal law, the Federal law on trafficking--and that is a law that was in existence long before we started this investigation. It is a law that is well established. If you are violating the Federal law on trafficking, assisting, supporting, or facilitating sex trafficking, and if you are doing it knowingly, which is a very high standard to prove, then you can be held liable and held to account. Again, this is very narrowly targeted legislation to deal with this specific problem.

Second, the legislation will allow State attorneys general--who cannot now but would be able under this legislation--to prosecute websites that violate Federal sex trafficking laws. It is very important because that is where you are going to see most of the action--at the State level, the State prosecutors.

We have tailored this legislation narrowly to ensure no threat to the freedom of the internet but ensure we are getting at this problem and actually dealing with immunity in Federal law.

Sex trafficking survivors, their families, and anti-trafficking advocates have shown great courage by sharing their tragic stories and personal accounts of injustice at the hands of online sex traffickers as we worked with them to develop this narrowly crafted legislation.

In testimony before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and in testimony before the Commerce Committee--which unanimously endorsed this legislation--we heard from victims and their families. We heard from moms who told us about their teenage daughters having been trafficked online.

One mom talked about her daughter who, at 14, was trafficked. She had been missing for 10 weeks. She finally found a photograph of her daughter on backpage. She called and said: I found my daughter. She is on your website. Thank you for taking her off your website. She is 14 years old.

The person at the other end of the line from backpage said: Did you pay for the ad?

The mom said: No, I didn't pay for the ad. That is my daughter.

They said: Then we can't take down the ad.

That is who these people are.

They have shown great courage by coming forward with their stories. Now it is our turn to show courage by coming together and voting on this bill, sending it to the President's desk, and fixing this problem, fixing the Federal law to allow justice for the trafficking victims and to finally hold accountable those who knowingly facilitate these crimes.

We have an opportunity to do something important here to create a better, safer, and more just society. I am hopeful that next week we will have that legislation before this body. We will have the debate. We will pass the legislation and begin to provide these victims of trafficking the justice they deserve and, most importantly, stop women and children from being exploited online.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield back my time.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, all postcloture time on the Branch nomination expire at 4 p.m. today and the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate. Finally, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess as under the previous order.

Mr. President, I would like to talk today about two

brave Ohioans who were tragically killed while serving their community and all of us.

On Saturday, February 10, Ohio lost two of its finest when Westerville Police Officers Anthony Morelli and Eric Joering were fatally shot responding to a 9-1-1 call. They rushed to the scene. When they arrived, they were under fire. Officer Joering was killed at the scene. Officer Morelli died in surgery later that day.

Officer Morelli was a 29-year veteran of the Westerville Police Department. He leaves behind his wife Linda, their daughter Beth, and son Chris. Officer Joering was a 16-year veteran of the Westerville Police Department, where he was a K-9 officer partnered with his dog Sam.

Eric loved working with Sam, but what he really loved were his kids and his wife. His most important job, he said, was being a husband and a father. He is survived by his wife Jami and his beautiful daughters Eva, Elena, and Ella.

Both men were loved and respected members of the Westerville community, and both will be sorely missed. I had a chance to talk to a number of their fellow officers, their colleagues, over the weekend and heard many stories about them, their bravery, and their commitment to service.

I also had the great honor to meet with the families of both of these fallen officers over this past weekend in Columbus, OH. Linda Morelli and Jami Joering are incredibly strong women and incredibly strong mothers. I expressed my thanks from all Ohioans for their husbands' service. I also had a chance to talk to four of the five children about their fathers' exemplary service; that they had fallen in service to all of us and how much we appreciated them.

The U.S. Capitol has flags that are flown for special occasions, and two flags were flown in honor of the sacrifices these two good men made protecting the people of Ohio.

Throughout this tragic situation, I will say the people of Central Ohio and, frankly, across the Nation have stepped up in big ways to support and assist these two families. I am encouraged by the kindness and generosity we have seen.

I want to take a moment to just say that these two brave officers, Tony Morelli and Eric Joering, were the best. They made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. Today, we hold their families up in prayer.

(The remarks of Mr. Portman pertaining to the introduction of S. 2456 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield back.

Mr. President, I want to address a critical issue today in Westerville, OH, and, frankly, every community I represent in my State and communities all over the country. Today, I want to talk about the opioid epidemic that is gripping our country.

Every State represented in this Chamber has had too many communities devastated, families broken apart, and lives taken by the opioid overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control now tells us more than 63,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016, the last year for which they have records. It also looks like it was worse in 2017. More Americans are dying from drug overdoses than the total number of casualties during the Vietnam war. Every year, more Americans are dying from drug overdoses than the total number of casualties from the Vietnam war. Think about that. It is a staggering statistic.

On average, more than 174 Americans died every single day from a drug overdose in 2016. That is up from 143 Americans in 2015 and 105 Americans in 2010. In other words, it is getting worse, and 2016 was the deadliest year on record. Initial estimates for 2017 suggest it is going to be even deadlier, including in my home State of Ohio.

Opioids--prescription drugs, heroin, and synthetic forms of heroin-- are increasingly the reason why. Opioids were involved in about two- thirds of all overdose deaths in 2016. Opioid overdose deaths were five times higher in 2016 than they were just back in 1999. In the past 17 years, we have seen a fivefold increase in these overdose deaths. It is a national epidemic.

It has unfolded in three different waves. It started with prescription drugs, overprescribing of prescription drugs--pain pills. The pill mills we saw in Southern Ohio and around our State exploded about 15 to 20 years ago. Next, there were the heroin deaths. Heroin moved in and spiked as people moved to less expensive and more accessible alternatives than prescription drugs. Now, I hate to tell you, there is a new danger and a threat, and it is deadlier than ever. It is these synthetic opioids--fentanyl, carfentanil--that have moved into our States, overcoming our law enforcement, and the results have been deadly.

By the way, it is a crisis that does not discriminate. Opioid addiction affects everybody, regardless of age, area code, class, or color. In Ohio, drug addiction and acts committed to support it have now become the No. 1 cause of crime in our communities--probably the same in your community.

Employers, of course, are increasingly pointing to the inability to find workers who can pass a drug test. They can't fill vacant positions. There is new data out with regard to people who are not showing up on the unemployment rolls but have given up looking for work altogether. There are probably 9 million men between 25 and 55 who are considered to be able-bodied who aren't even looking for work. Some really troubling statistics out there indicate that maybe as many as half--one study says 48 percent--of those individuals are taking opioids on a daily basis.

This is affecting all of us. Every aspect of our communities is affected. Everybody has a role to play overcoming this epidemic. There is an urgency coming up with better strategies to turn the tide on addiction. Although I believe progress has been made recently--and it is starting to be made in my State and other States--much more needs to be done and done urgently.

Part of that starts with understanding that addiction is a disease, and it is treatable. Too often it is not treated like that. The appropriate response should include much more aggressive prevention and education, absolutely, and more aggressive law enforcement keeping deadly fentanyl out of our communities through the STOP Act and other means, of course, but we also have to get more effective treatment strategies. We have a couple hundred thousand people in Ohio who are addicted. We need to get them into treatment, including more effective detox, medication-assisted treatment, and longer term recovery. We know, coupled with the right kind of therapy, the right kind of support and help, people can get into recovery and get back to their families, get back to work, and get back to being productive citizens.

We also know recovery results are a lot better with that kind of continuous support. Closing the gaps that occur is key to overcoming addiction. There is a gap between the crisis response, which is often a first responder--like the two brave officers I talked about earlier-- finding someone who has overdosed. Often it is firefighters as well providing Narcan, this miracle drug that reverses the effect of the overdose. That is incredibly important to saving lives.

Narcan alone is not sufficient. The key is to get those people into detox and into treatment and longer term recovery. The gaps we have out there between the crisis response and Narcan,

then going to detox, then going to treatment, and then going to recovery are creating a lot of the inability to solve this problem.

I have probably met a couple of thousand addicts or recovering addicts in the last few years. What they tell me is: I tried treatment, but it was for 6, 7, 8 weeks, and then there was nothing for me. It didn't work for me. Then there are people who overdosed, not once or twice but several times, and they had never been in detox and treatment.

One young man I spoke to last weekend has been an addict for 7 years. Finally, his brother convinced him to seek help. The last time he overdosed, he did go into detox. He did go into treatment, to a facility where those gaps were closed, where there was no waiting time, where he was able to get the help, rather than going back to his old community and his old friends and a situation that was going to lead him back into more use and more addiction.

The key, again, is to get those who have overdosed into the treatment they need. Overdose reversal provides a second chance at life. Let's face it. Some of these people who are overdosing come out of this after Narcan is administered. They have seen their life flash before their eyes, and they are ready for something. We have to be ready for them. Just as the overdose reversal provides a second chance at life, it is treatment and longer term recovery that provides that second chance to live addiction-free--again, to get back with your family, get back to work, and get back to a productive life. It takes a comprehensive solution because it is a comprehensive problem.

That is what led some of us in this body, including my colleague Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and me, to introduce the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, back in 2015. We developed that bill over time by relying on experts in the field and those most affected by addiction.

Beginning in 2014, when we were in the process of putting together the legislation, we hosted five national forums here in Washington, DC. We brought experts and practitioners in from around the country-- prevention, treatment, law enforcement, and recovery communities. We wanted to get the best practices to find out what was working, what wasn't working, and how we could improve the response. What role could the Federal Government play in all of this? We had forums focused on the science of addiction to understand it better, evidence-based prevention strategies that actually work; treating pregnant women who are addicted and babies at risk of being born drug-dependent. There is nothing more heartbreaking than going into the neonatal units in the hospitals in my home State and seeing these babies who were born dependent and watching them go through the painful withdrawal process as infants Every neonatal unit in our country has seen this. If you go to your own hospital, they will tell you this is an increasing problem.

We had veterans come in, and we had experts come in to help veterans make that transition because, sadly, the use of opioids among veterans is also increasing. They sometimes use opioids for injuries, for accidents, for PTSD, and they become addicted. How do you build support around those veterans? We also had people come in and talk about longer term recovery and housing and how, over time, you can get better results if you provide those kinds of services. Our goal was to leverage the expertise and perspectives of everyone involved in this epidemic, to find best practices, and to create an evidence-based education, treatment, and recovery bill that works.

With strong bipartisan support, we moved from hearings, to a unanimous committee markup, to Senate passage of this legislation. By the way, it passed with a vote of 92 to 2. That is not typical around here, certainly not for something so comprehensive. Yet everybody has experienced this back home and is desperate to figure out strategies to help. In July of 2016, President Obama signed CARA into law. It was the first comprehensive addiction reform in more than 20 years. It was the first time Congress had ever provided any support or help for this longer term recovery piece.

The CARA law targets prevention and education resources to prevent abuse before it even starts--the most effective way. It helps first responders reverse overdoses to save lives. It devotes resources to evidence-based treatment and recovery programs. It expands prescription drug take-back programs to get addictive pain pills off the bathroom shelves. More than $180 million was authorized to assist communities in these efforts to combat this epidemic. Frankly, because of this crisis, the appropriators decided: You know, we need this so badly, we are actually going to appropriate more than the $180 million. Last year, as an example, they appropriated $267 million--almost $100 million beyond our authorization.

Again, I think it is beginning to make a difference. I see it back home in Ohio. I see some of these strategies beginning to work. It is going to take some time, and we need to do more. In Ohio, we received about $4 million. When I say ``we,'' I mean groups, people who are in the trenches doing the hard work.

We have also made progress in this fight with separate opioid legislation that was part of the 21st Century Cures legislation. That legislation was for substance abuse and mental health. Many of us successfully fought to help secure a 2-year commitment there of $500 million a year, totaling $1 billion. It goes directly to the States. This money goes to States that are hardest hit, and States are allowed to decide how to spend that money. The first installment of funding from that legislation awarded my State of Ohio with $26 million, and we are using every penny of it.

I was at a facility over the weekend that gave me hope. It is called the Maryhaven Addiction Stabilization Center, and it is in Columbus, OH. They talked about the gaps, where people who overdose are provided Narcan, and then they go back to their community, and what first responders will tell you is that sometimes in the same week or even on the same day on some occasions, there is another overdose. The revolving door continues without any treatment and without any solution. Maryhaven Stabilization Center is a response to that. They used the Cures money we talked about, they used some CARA funding from the county--the county is a part of the broader strategy of where the CARA money went--and they said: Let's put together an institution where there is an emergency room that focuses on overdoses.

I have been to other emergency rooms in Columbus, OH, and I have seen what they do with the people who overdose. They save lives, and that is fantastic, but frankly these emergency rooms are equipped for everything, and they have to be--for gunshot wounds, car accidents, trauma.

This emergency room would be focused specifically on overdoses, which makes it more cost-effective but also more effective for those recovering addicts, those addicts who are coming in. But most importantly, in that same facility, there is a detox center. In that same facility, there are 50 treatment beds. Whereas in the typical case when somebody overdoses, they go to the emergency room and end up going back to their community, back home, back to the gang, back to the family, in this case, 103 people who have gone through in the last month--it has only been open a month--80 percent of them have gone into treatment. I had the opportunity to meet someone who had been through that process, and we talked about the difference this makes. You literally walk through the door into treatment, there is strong encouragement to do it, and it is working.

These are the kinds of things that are going to make a difference in our communities. It seems to be common sense, but frankly it is not happening in other places. Programs like these are what are going to help us overcome addiction and are examples of how Federal funds can be used more effectively to leverage, in this case, a lot of private dollars, some State dollars.

Both of these landmark laws--the CARA Act that we talked about and the Cures Act--are providing increased resources to local communities, but this problem is not getting better, it is getting worse.

One of the problems is the availability and the low cost of these highly addictive, even more dangerous drugs coming in. There are synthetic opioids. Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin on average. It is coming in through

the mail. We need to do more to stop it through law enforcement, but we also need to acknowledge that it has been sprinkled in other drugs and is creating a lot of these addiction overdoses and higher rates of death.

The degree of damage this is causing to our communities, our families, our local budgets, and our criminal justice system requires us to take a more aggressive stance, to do more to figure this out. We need to strengthen our resolve. We made progress recently with the bipartisan budget agreement President Trump signed into law just a few weeks ago. We included in there an additional amount of funding--$6 billion over 2 years--to help combat the opioid epidemic. So instead of the $500 million a year and the $260 million a year that I talked about, it would be $3 billion a year and then $3 billion the year after.

I believe that the evidence-based programs we set out in the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act provide a good framework as to how to spend that money effectively. That is why I am pleased to stand here today as we introduce the next stage of this--CARA 2.0--to help provide a framework for how these funds to combat opioid addiction can be spent wisely. It is a roadmap for Congress to build on CARA's successes since becoming law.

The bipartisan CARA 2.0 act is being introduced by Sheldon Whitehouse and me and also by six other colleagues--Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Amy Klobuchar, Dan Sullivan, Maggie Hassan, Bill Cassidy, and Maria Cantwell--a bipartisan group of four Republicans and four Democrats who are passionate about this issue. It authorizes $1 billion a year for specific evidence-based drug prevention, education, treatment, and recovery programs.

It is very important to have this $6 billion of funding over the next couple of years. We need it. But we have to be sure it is spent wisely. It is not a matter of just throwing money at a problem; it is a matter of being sure we are effectively addressing the real issues.

As I mentioned earlier, the longer term recovery programs are what really help those gripped by addiction to overcome this disease. That is evidence that we have. I have certainly seen a lot of evidence of that firsthand and countless examples of this, where this longer term recovery and the support networks are what get people back on track, back with their families, back to work. We need to expand access to them to those communities that are in need and give everyone a second chance of living up to their own God-given potential. That is why, in this new CARA 2.0, we increase funding for recovery.

In addition to expanding the reach of CARA's evidence-based programs, this bill puts in place new policy reforms to strengthen the government's response in so many ways. We take what some would consider a pretty dramatic step by limiting opioid prescriptions to 3 days for acute pain. Some will push back against that, but this is based on good evidence and good research. When someone goes in for a simple procedure--say, a wisdom tooth extraction--and that young person is given a bottle of opioids when he or she leaves, too often, that leads to addiction. I don't want more parents coming up to me and saying: My kid, when he or she was a teenager, was given these opioids by a doctor or a dentist, so we thought they were safe. Our child then turned to heroin because the pills became too expensive and less accessible and then turned to fentanyl and overdosed and died.

I have had two such parents from Ohio come to me and tell me their story. You probably know others. We need to ensure that these prescriptions are limited. For those who have chronic pain and those who have cancer, it wouldn't apply. And after those 3 days, you can go back to that doctor and tell them why you need it and explain it.

Experts say that about 80 percent of those who overdose from heroin started on prescription drugs. I am sure the same is true with regard to fentanyl. Four out of five heroin addicts in my State of Ohio who overdosed started on prescription drugs. We do need to deal with this overprescription problem.

By the way, the evidence is that after that fourth day, fifth day, sixth day--that is when you get into the bigger risk of becoming addicted to prescription drugs.

As I mentioned, this epidemic started with an explosion of pain pill use 15 to 20 years ago. We need to stop the addiction at the source, and for most people that begins with prescription drugs. By ensuring that clinicians prescribe the appropriate strength and supply of pain pills for non-life-threatening injuries, we can keep so many more people from becoming addicted.

The bill also includes legislation very similar to that which passed the Senate in 2015 but was dropped out in the House-Senate conference. It is very simple. It requires doctors and pharmacists to use the prescription drug monitoring programs to ensure that we are not overprescribing opioids for certain individuals. That helps us identify where the problems are and to get people into treatment. It also requires States to share data with other States to prevent people from crossing State lines to get prescriptions. One of our big problems in Ohio is people can cross the State lines in West Virginia, Kentucky, or other States and get their prescription filled even though it has already been filled once in Ohio. Across State lines, we need to have prescription drug monitoring programs that work.

CARA 2.0 is going to help turn the tide of this epidemic. The bill increases Federal funds for specific evidence-based programs to better protect vulnerable groups--including infants, young adults, pregnant and postpartum women, and veterans--as well as resources for community programs, medication-assisted treatment, and first responders.

As the title indicates, it is a comprehensive solution. Every aspect of our communities is affected, so every aspect of our communities needs assistance. The opioid epidemic is one of the most urgent challenges we face as a country.

By the way, ultimately, this crisis is not going to be solved here in Washington, DC. It is not going to be solved by legislation we pass here. We get that. It is going to be solved in our communities. It is going to be solved in our families. It is going to be solved in our hearts. But this is a national crisis, and the national government needs to be a much better partner with State government, local government, communities, and nonprofits--those who are out there doing the hard work.

The $6 billion commitment over the next 2 years is a real opportunity to help turn the tide--not by just throwing more money at the problem but by being sure that money is well spent on an epidemic that is taking too many lives and devastating too many communities.

CARA 2.0 will build on our accomplishments and continue to give communities the resources they need to address this issue. Yes, we have made some progress around here, and that is good, but we need to do much more. CARA 2.0 gives us that opportunity. It represents the next step toward helping our communities address this epidemic and helping our communities heal.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I want to address a critical issue today in Westerville, OH, and, frankly, every community I represent in my State and communities all over the country. Today, I want to talk about the opioid epidemic that is gripping our country.

Every State represented in this Chamber has had too many communities devastated, families broken apart, and lives taken by the opioid overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control now tells us more than 63,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016, the last year for which they have records. It also looks like it was worse in 2017. More Americans are dying from drug overdoses than the total number of casualties during the Vietnam war. Every year, more Americans are dying from drug overdoses than the total number of casualties from the Vietnam war. Think about that. It is a staggering statistic.

On average, more than 174 Americans died every single day from a drug overdose in 2016. That is up from 143 Americans in 2015 and 105 Americans in 2010. In other words, it is getting worse, and 2016 was the deadliest year on record. Initial estimates for 2017 suggest it is going to be even deadlier, including in my home State of Ohio.

Opioids--prescription drugs, heroin, and synthetic forms of heroin-- are increasingly the reason why. Opioids were involved in about two- thirds of all overdose deaths in 2016. Opioid overdose deaths were five times higher in 2016 than they were just back in 1999. In the past 17 years, we have seen a fivefold increase in these overdose deaths. It is a national epidemic.

It has unfolded in three different waves. It started with prescription drugs, overprescribing of prescription drugs--pain pills. The pill mills we saw in Southern Ohio and around our State exploded about 15 to 20 years ago. Next, there were the heroin deaths. Heroin moved in and spiked as people moved to less expensive and more accessible alternatives than prescription drugs. Now, I hate to tell you, there is a new danger and a threat, and it is deadlier than ever. It is these synthetic opioids--fentanyl, carfentanil--that have moved into our States, overcoming our law enforcement, and the results have been deadly.

By the way, it is a crisis that does not discriminate. Opioid addiction affects everybody, regardless of age, area code, class, or color. In Ohio, drug addiction and acts committed to support it have now become the No. 1 cause of crime in our communities--probably the same in your community.

Employers, of course, are increasingly pointing to the inability to find workers who can pass a drug test. They can't fill vacant positions. There is new data out with regard to people who are not showing up on the unemployment rolls but have given up looking for work altogether. There are probably 9 million men between 25 and 55 who are considered to be able-bodied who aren't even looking for work. Some really troubling statistics out there indicate that maybe as many as half--one study says 48 percent--of those individuals are taking opioids on a daily basis.

This is affecting all of us. Every aspect of our communities is affected. Everybody has a role to play overcoming this epidemic. There is an urgency coming up with better strategies to turn the tide on addiction. Although I believe progress has been made recently--and it is starting to be made in my State and other States--much more needs to be done and done urgently.

Part of that starts with understanding that addiction is a disease, and it is treatable. Too often it is not treated like that. The appropriate response should include much more aggressive prevention and education, absolutely, and more aggressive law enforcement keeping deadly fentanyl out of our communities through the STOP Act and other means, of course, but we also have to get more effective treatment strategies. We have a couple hundred thousand people in Ohio who are addicted. We need to get them into treatment, including more effective detox, medication-assisted treatment, and longer term recovery. We know, coupled with the right kind of therapy, the right kind of support and help, people can get into recovery and get back to their families, get back to work, and get back to being productive citizens.

We also know recovery results are a lot better with that kind of continuous support. Closing the gaps that occur is key to overcoming addiction. There is a gap between the crisis response, which is often a first responder--like the two brave officers I talked about earlier-- finding someone who has overdosed. Often it is firefighters as well providing Narcan, this miracle drug that reverses the effect of the overdose. That is incredibly important to saving lives.

Narcan alone is not sufficient. The key is to get those people into detox and into treatment and longer term recovery. The gaps we have out there between the crisis response and Narcan,

then going to detox, then going to treatment, and then going to recovery are creating a lot of the inability to solve this problem.

I have probably met a couple of thousand addicts or recovering addicts in the last few years. What they tell me is: I tried treatment, but it was for 6, 7, 8 weeks, and then there was nothing for me. It didn't work for me. Then there are people who overdosed, not once or twice but several times, and they had never been in detox and treatment.

One young man I spoke to last weekend has been an addict for 7 years. Finally, his brother convinced him to seek help. The last time he overdosed, he did go into detox. He did go into treatment, to a facility where those gaps were closed, where there was no waiting time, where he was able to get the help, rather than going back to his old community and his old friends and a situation that was going to lead him back into more use and more addiction.

The key, again, is to get those who have overdosed into the treatment they need. Overdose reversal provides a second chance at life. Let's face it. Some of these people who are overdosing come out of this after Narcan is administered. They have seen their life flash before their eyes, and they are ready for something. We have to be ready for them. Just as the overdose reversal provides a second chance at life, it is treatment and longer term recovery that provides that second chance to live addiction-free--again, to get back with your family, get back to work, and get back to a productive life. It takes a comprehensive solution because it is a comprehensive problem.

That is what led some of us in this body, including my colleague Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and me, to introduce the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, back in 2015. We developed that bill over time by relying on experts in the field and those most affected by addiction.

Beginning in 2014, when we were in the process of putting together the legislation, we hosted five national forums here in Washington, DC. We brought experts and practitioners in from around the country-- prevention, treatment, law enforcement, and recovery communities. We wanted to get the best practices to find out what was working, what wasn't working, and how we could improve the response. What role could the Federal Government play in all of this? We had forums focused on the science of addiction to understand it better, evidence-based prevention strategies that actually work; treating pregnant women who are addicted and babies at risk of being born drug-dependent. There is nothing more heartbreaking than going into the neonatal units in the hospitals in my home State and seeing these babies who were born dependent and watching them go through the painful withdrawal process as infants Every neonatal unit in our country has seen this. If you go to your own hospital, they will tell you this is an increasing problem.

We had veterans come in, and we had experts come in to help veterans make that transition because, sadly, the use of opioids among veterans is also increasing. They sometimes use opioids for injuries, for accidents, for PTSD, and they become addicted. How do you build support around those veterans? We also had people come in and talk about longer term recovery and housing and how, over time, you can get better results if you provide those kinds of services. Our goal was to leverage the expertise and perspectives of everyone involved in this epidemic, to find best practices, and to create an evidence-based education, treatment, and recovery bill that works.

With strong bipartisan support, we moved from hearings, to a unanimous committee markup, to Senate passage of this legislation. By the way, it passed with a vote of 92 to 2. That is not typical around here, certainly not for something so comprehensive. Yet everybody has experienced this back home and is desperate to figure out strategies to help. In July of 2016, President Obama signed CARA into law. It was the first comprehensive addiction reform in more than 20 years. It was the first time Congress had ever provided any support or help for this longer term recovery piece.

The CARA law targets prevention and education resources to prevent abuse before it even starts--the most effective way. It helps first responders reverse overdoses to save lives. It devotes resources to evidence-based treatment and recovery programs. It expands prescription drug take-back programs to get addictive pain pills off the bathroom shelves. More than $180 million was authorized to assist communities in these efforts to combat this epidemic. Frankly, because of this crisis, the appropriators decided: You know, we need this so badly, we are actually going to appropriate more than the $180 million. Last year, as an example, they appropriated $267 million--almost $100 million beyond our authorization.

Again, I think it is beginning to make a difference. I see it back home in Ohio. I see some of these strategies beginning to work. It is going to take some time, and we need to do more. In Ohio, we received about $4 million. When I say ``we,'' I mean groups, people who are in the trenches doing the hard work.

We have also made progress in this fight with separate opioid legislation that was part of the 21st Century Cures legislation. That legislation was for substance abuse and mental health. Many of us successfully fought to help secure a 2-year commitment there of $500 million a year, totaling $1 billion. It goes directly to the States. This money goes to States that are hardest hit, and States are allowed to decide how to spend that money. The first installment of funding from that legislation awarded my State of Ohio with $26 million, and we are using every penny of it.

I was at a facility over the weekend that gave me hope. It is called the Maryhaven Addiction Stabilization Center, and it is in Columbus, OH. They talked about the gaps, where people who overdose are provided Narcan, and then they go back to their community, and what first responders will tell you is that sometimes in the same week or even on the same day on some occasions, there is another overdose. The revolving door continues without any treatment and without any solution. Maryhaven Stabilization Center is a response to that. They used the Cures money we talked about, they used some CARA funding from the county--the county is a part of the broader strategy of where the CARA money went--and they said: Let's put together an institution where there is an emergency room that focuses on overdoses.

I have been to other emergency rooms in Columbus, OH, and I have seen what they do with the people who overdose. They save lives, and that is fantastic, but frankly these emergency rooms are equipped for everything, and they have to be--for gunshot wounds, car accidents, trauma.

This emergency room would be focused specifically on overdoses, which makes it more cost-effective but also more effective for those recovering addicts, those addicts who are coming in. But most importantly, in that same facility, there is a detox center. In that same facility, there are 50 treatment beds. Whereas in the typical case when somebody overdoses, they go to the emergency room and end up going back to their community, back home, back to the gang, back to the family, in this case, 103 people who have gone through in the last month--it has only been open a month--80 percent of them have gone into treatment. I had the opportunity to meet someone who had been through that process, and we talked about the difference this makes. You literally walk through the door into treatment, there is strong encouragement to do it, and it is working.

These are the kinds of things that are going to make a difference in our communities. It seems to be common sense, but frankly it is not happening in other places. Programs like these are what are going to help us overcome addiction and are examples of how Federal funds can be used more effectively to leverage, in this case, a lot of private dollars, some State dollars.

Both of these landmark laws--the CARA Act that we talked about and the Cures Act--are providing increased resources to local communities, but this problem is not getting better, it is getting worse.

One of the problems is the availability and the low cost of these highly addictive, even more dangerous drugs coming in. There are synthetic opioids. Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin on average. It is coming in through

the mail. We need to do more to stop it through law enforcement, but we also need to acknowledge that it has been sprinkled in other drugs and is creating a lot of these addiction overdoses and higher rates of death.

The degree of damage this is causing to our communities, our families, our local budgets, and our criminal justice system requires us to take a more aggressive stance, to do more to figure this out. We need to strengthen our resolve. We made progress recently with the bipartisan budget agreement President Trump signed into law just a few weeks ago. We included in there an additional amount of funding--$6 billion over 2 years--to help combat the opioid epidemic. So instead of the $500 million a year and the $260 million a year that I talked about, it would be $3 billion a year and then $3 billion the year after.

I believe that the evidence-based programs we set out in the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act provide a good framework as to how to spend that money effectively. That is why I am pleased to stand here today as we introduce the next stage of this--CARA 2.0--to help provide a framework for how these funds to combat opioid addiction can be spent wisely. It is a roadmap for Congress to build on CARA's successes since becoming law.

The bipartisan CARA 2.0 act is being introduced by Sheldon Whitehouse and me and also by six other colleagues--Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Amy Klobuchar, Dan Sullivan, Maggie Hassan, Bill Cassidy, and Maria Cantwell--a bipartisan group of four Republicans and four Democrats who are passionate about this issue. It authorizes $1 billion a year for specific evidence-based drug prevention, education, treatment, and recovery programs.

It is very important to have this $6 billion of funding over the next couple of years. We need it. But we have to be sure it is spent wisely. It is not a matter of just throwing money at a problem; it is a matter of being sure we are effectively addressing the real issues.

As I mentioned earlier, the longer term recovery programs are what really help those gripped by addiction to overcome this disease. That is evidence that we have. I have certainly seen a lot of evidence of that firsthand and countless examples of this, where this longer term recovery and the support networks are what get people back on track, back with their families, back to work. We need to expand access to them to those communities that are in need and give everyone a second chance of living up to their own God-given potential. That is why, in this new CARA 2.0, we increase funding for recovery.

In addition to expanding the reach of CARA's evidence-based programs, this bill puts in place new policy reforms to strengthen the government's response in so many ways. We take what some would consider a pretty dramatic step by limiting opioid prescriptions to 3 days for acute pain. Some will push back against that, but this is based on good evidence and good research. When someone goes in for a simple procedure--say, a wisdom tooth extraction--and that young person is given a bottle of opioids when he or she leaves, too often, that leads to addiction. I don't want more parents coming up to me and saying: My kid, when he or she was a teenager, was given these opioids by a doctor or a dentist, so we thought they were safe. Our child then turned to heroin because the pills became too expensive and less accessible and then turned to fentanyl and overdosed and died.

I have had two such parents from Ohio come to me and tell me their story. You probably know others. We need to ensure that these prescriptions are limited. For those who have chronic pain and those who have cancer, it wouldn't apply. And after those 3 days, you can go back to that doctor and tell them why you need it and explain it.

Experts say that about 80 percent of those who overdose from heroin started on prescription drugs. I am sure the same is true with regard to fentanyl. Four out of five heroin addicts in my State of Ohio who overdosed started on prescription drugs. We do need to deal with this overprescription problem.

By the way, the evidence is that after that fourth day, fifth day, sixth day--that is when you get into the bigger risk of becoming addicted to prescription drugs.

As I mentioned, this epidemic started with an explosion of pain pill use 15 to 20 years ago. We need to stop the addiction at the source, and for most people that begins with prescription drugs. By ensuring that clinicians prescribe the appropriate strength and supply of pain pills for non-life-threatening injuries, we can keep so many more people from becoming addicted.

The bill also includes legislation very similar to that which passed the Senate in 2015 but was dropped out in the House-Senate conference. It is very simple. It requires doctors and pharmacists to use the prescription drug monitoring programs to ensure that we are not overprescribing opioids for certain individuals. That helps us identify where the problems are and to get people into treatment. It also requires States to share data with other States to prevent people from crossing State lines to get prescriptions. One of our big problems in Ohio is people can cross the State lines in West Virginia, Kentucky, or other States and get their prescription filled even though it has already been filled once in Ohio. Across State lines, we need to have prescription drug monitoring programs that work.

CARA 2.0 is going to help turn the tide of this epidemic. The bill increases Federal funds for specific evidence-based programs to better protect vulnerable groups--including infants, young adults, pregnant and postpartum women, and veterans--as well as resources for community programs, medication-assisted treatment, and first responders.

As the title indicates, it is a comprehensive solution. Every aspect of our communities is affected, so every aspect of our communities needs assistance. The opioid epidemic is one of the most urgent challenges we face as a country.

By the way, ultimately, this crisis is not going to be solved here in Washington, DC. It is not going to be solved by legislation we pass here. We get that. It is going to be solved in our communities. It is going to be solved in our families. It is going to be solved in our hearts. But this is a national crisis, and the national government needs to be a much better partner with State government, local government, communities, and nonprofits--those who are out there doing the hard work.

The $6 billion commitment over the next 2 years is a real opportunity to help turn the tide--not by just throwing more money at the problem but by being sure that money is well spent on an epidemic that is taking too many lives and devastating too many communities.

CARA 2.0 will build on our accomplishments and continue to give communities the resources they need to address this issue. Yes, we have made some progress around here, and that is good, but we need to do much more. CARA 2.0 gives us that opportunity. It represents the next step toward helping our communities address this epidemic and helping our communities heal.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I have 5 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Armed Services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February, 27, 2018, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February, 27, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Opioid Crisis: The Role of Technology and Data in Preventing and Treating Addiction.''

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February, 27, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Kevin Edward Moley, of Arizona, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (International Organization Affairs), Josephine Olsen, of Maryland, to be Director of the Peace Corps, Erik Bethel, of Florida, to be United States Alternate Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Sean Cairncross, of Minnesota, to be Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February, 27, 2018, at 2 p.m., to conduct a joint hearing with the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February, 27, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I come before you today to talk about the historic tax reform legislation that was passed in the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President at the end of the year and talk about what we learned since then, even in the last week.

We created this legislation with two goals in mind. One was to provide middle-class tax relief to families. The other was to provide our businesses and our workers with a more competitive tax code. This is something that became very clear to all of us as we looked at it, that unfortunately we were asking our workers here in America to compete with one arm tied behind their backs because of our Tax Code. It has been a couple of months now since this legislation became law, and both of those two goals we set out

are being achieved. It is already happening.

In January, the Internal Revenue Service updated its tables for withholding. In other words, they went to employers and said: Because of the tax cuts, you should withhold less money in every paycheck.

That is happening. The Treasury Department tells us that 90 percent of American workers are having their withholding changed in a way that is positive for them, meaning that Uncle Sam is taking less out of their paychecks. People are already starting to see that. Tomorrow is Friday--another payday--and you are probably going to see that on your paycheck tomorrow or a week from tomorrow, if you haven't already seen it. That means that people are actually getting relief directly for themselves and their families. This is more take-home pay for folks and enables people to have a better family budget.

With higher healthcare costs and other costs for years and years and no salary increase, having a little more in the family budget is really important to folks, and it is making a difference. In Ohio, for a family of four at the median-income level, which is about $70,000 a year, this means about a $2,000-a-year savings. That is significant for people. I have talked to a lot of constituents who were beginning to see this, and they are realizing they have a little more money for retirement, maybe for healthcare, maybe to help their kids or their grandkids. That is good.

There is something else that is in the bill that hasn't gotten much attention; that is, the fact that there were 3 million Americans who were paying taxes previously, who had income tax liability, who do not now. Why? Because when you lower the tax rate, some of these people, who are typically the working poor--in other words, they are working, but they are not making much in income--now have the ability to get out from under taxes altogether. This also encourages more people to not be dependent on a government program but to go to work, if there is this lower tax rate at the lower end of the economic scale. So that is good too. That is in this tax legislation.

More than 3 million people do not have tax liability anymore. Part of it is because of the lower rates we talked about. Again, the proof is in the paycheck on that one. Part of it is because in this legislation, we double the standard deduction and also double the child credit and make it more refundable than it already is. That is happening, and it is working. That goal has already been achieved--not by this Congress but by the people we represent, the American people and families across this great country. We are happy to see that.

The second part of this is that a more competitive business code is benefiting workers very directly. This is something we are hearing about just about every day. Over 300 businesses have made announcements saying: You know what, we are going to give people a bonus because of the tax reform legislation. We are going to give our employees a little higher starting wage. We are going to put more in the 401(k)s or more in the defined benefit pension plan. Maybe we are going to give a little more to charity, or maybe we are going to invest more in equipment and tools so that people can be more productive, because productivity, as we know, is key to getting wages up and improving the economy. We are hearing this across the board all over the country.

I have seen this in Ohio. I have been to companies in my hometown of Cincinnati, in Columbus, OH, in Dayton, OH, and in Cleveland just in the last month. I have gone and visited with these companies while they have been making announcements and have talked to the employees in a townhall meeting setting, where they have had the opportunity to have a back-and-forth as to what this tax reform measure means to them. Yes, it means direct tax cuts for them, as it does for about 90 percent of American workers. On top of that, it means that because these businesses now have the ability to be more competitive, it makes them more competitive, and they are already getting some of the benefits from that.

Last week, I joined President Trump in Cincinnati at one of these companies. It is called the Sheffer Corporation. This is a small manufacturing business that has decided to make new investments in its plant and equipment. That is going to help make it more competitive and make its workers more productive. It competes globally. It is an incredible company. It makes pneumatic and hydraulic cylinders. It makes them this big, and it makes huge ones. It competes all around the world, and it is doing a great job. Frankly, this tax reform bill really helped them.

On top of that investment it is making, it is also making a direct investment in its employees. Every employee--all of the 126 people who work there--received a $1,000 bonus check after the tax legislation was signed into law. So it is helping them.

The company's president is a guy named Jeff Norris. Just before the visit we had earlier this week, he said that for some people in Washington, that is crumbs, referring to how some people have called getting this tax relief crumbs. He said: ``But for the Sheffer people, we consider that fine dining.'' Another way to put it is, this makes a difference for people in their lives and for their families.

This was all made possible by lowering the tax rate. Of the developed countries around the world, of the countries that are industrialized, we had the highest statutory tax rate of all of the countries. So our 35 percent rate was higher than in places in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and so on. We were getting higher than our competitors-- Canada, Mexico, and so on--and that is one reason people were choosing to shift overseas, to take, literally, the company and move it overseas. That is called an inversion.

Last year, we were told that three times as many American companies were bought by foreign companies as the other way around. Think about that. Three times as many American companies were bought by foreign companies, which was largely driven by this Tax Code.

We have also heard from Ernst & Young, which is a big accounting firm. It did an analysis, and it said that 4,700 American companies have become foreign companies over the past 10 years or so because of the Tax Code. If we had had the kind of Tax Code that we just put in place with this legislation that was passed here, those companies would still be American companies. Those are 4,700 companies. Those are a lot of people, and that is a lot of investment.

We studied this in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations--a bipartisan investigation--and looked at what happens when these companies go overseas. It is probably no surprise to you that they take their jobs and investments with them. So when a company pulls up stakes here and goes overseas, it is not just about moving one's corporate headquarters; we found it is also about having less employment here directly but also indirectly because companies that supply them-- contractors--have less employment, and they are also making their investments increasingly overseas.

As we studied this, we also found that companies were actually taking the money they had made overseas and were keeping it all overseas rather than bringing it back here and repatriating it, even though they were U.S. companies. This is something we studied as part of a bipartisan Finance Committee working group I cochaired with Senator Chuck Schumer. We found that unless you lowered this rate and went to a more competitive international system, you were not going to get that money back.

Part of what this will do is what we talked about in terms of improving the lives of workers here in America, but part of what it will also do is repatriate. It will bring back some of that money that has been stuck overseas, the so-called lockout effect. How much is that? Economists think it is somewhere around $3 trillion; some say more.

You might have seen recently that Apple announced that it was bringing hundreds of billions back here, repatriating that money back here. They are also going to pay I think about $38 billion in taxes to the U.S. Treasury, but that is worth it to them to bring back that money. We want them to bring that money here. Why? We don't want it invested overseas in a research and development facility there or in a

factory there; we want it invested here, right? That is what this tax reform does.

That is why, as exciting as it is for these workers and for these companies to make these decisions, and their helping people right now is very important, I think of the bigger investments we are going to hear of down the line. The next time a big American company that has a global business asks, ``Where am I going to put my factory? Where am I going to do my research and development?'' it is going to say, ``We are going to do it here in America.'' That is what is very exciting to me.

Let's get back to having wages that are going up consistently rather than the relatively flat wages we have seen really over the past couple of decades, and let's see a renewal of hope and opportunity here. I think this is exciting, and I think we will see more of it.

Just in the past week, by the way, we have seen seven more major companies announce higher compensation for their employees: CVS in the last week, Tyson in the last week, Chipotle, Best Buy, Charter Communications, Lowe's, FedEx. This is just in the last week. In total, these companies have 1.3 million employees who are now going to benefit on top of all of the other 300 announcements we talked about earlier. They are going to benefit from increased investments that these businesses will be able to make because of this new tax reform. This is good news, and it is good news for the people I represent.

In Ohio, some of our larger employers have already made their announcements. Fifth Third Bank, headquartered in Cincinnati, employs 8,800 Ohioans and announced it will raise its base wage for entry-level people and give $1,000 bonuses to all of its 13,500 employees.

Nationwide Insurance, headquartered in Columbus, employs 15,000 Ohioans. It is going to increase 401(k) matches, so the match that it gives to people's 401(k) contributions is going to increase. That is great for one's retirement savings. It is going to do that for 33,000 employees around the country. It is also going to give $1,000 bonuses to 29,000 of its employees.

JPMorgan is probably the third biggest employer in Ohio now of all the private sector employers. It employs about 21,000 Ohioans, mainly in the Columbus area. Some of you know that because it is a huge presence in Polaris North Columbus. It has announced it is going to add 4,000 new jobs. Its base wage is going to be raised for 22,000 employees. It is going to increase its charitable donations and its small business lending. It says it is all because of this tax reform legislation. That is good news.

Our biggest employer in Ohio is Walmart. It may be in your State too. There are 50,000 Ohioans who work for Walmart. It has announced it is going to raise its base wage for all hourly employees, distribute $1,000 bonuses, expand maternity and parental leave opportunities, and increase funds for employee adoption expenses. It is our largest employer.

Other Ohio employers that have announced something include Fiat Chrysler and the Jeep plant, up in Toledo, which we are so proud of, and Home Depot. We talked earlier about Lowe's and AT&T. They have all announced increased investments in their operations and their workers as a result of the tax reform.

I am excited about this. It is actually working in a way that many of us had hoped it would and said it would. Really, there have been more announcements even than I think the most optimistic tax reform advocates expected. I think we are going to see a lot more over time because ultimately this is about making the United States a better place to do business.

By the way, some of these companies are not American companies; they are foreign companies that choose to invest in America. Foreign direct investment is something we encourage because that brings more jobs here to this country. So if a company like Honda, which is a big auto employer in Ohio, chooses to invest more in Ohio rather than in Japan or China or Germany or elsewhere because of this tax reform legislation, that is also important. We are going to see more and more of that happening, in my view, because they are looking at the lower rates, and they are looking at the ability to expense what they have purchased more quickly in terms of plants and equipment. This immediate expensing is very important in this legislation for companies like that and manufacturers. So this is not just about American companies staying here rather than going overseas; it is also about foreign companies that are choosing to come here and to hire American workers, which is also good for us.

I am hoping that a combination of this tax reform and what is being done on the regulatory front to make regulations better--particularly for smaller businesses that were feeling a lot of that burden--and American hard work and ingenuity, as well as rewarding that ingenuity better, is going to help America compete in this global marketplace in ways we haven't done for many years.

The historic tax reform is basically putting America back in a position in which people are now going to look to us again and say: America is the kind of model that I want to follow.

The American free enterprise system and the system where, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead, where you can achieve your dream in life, was something some people were beginning to question. Now I think this helps to polish our image, which has become somewhat tarnished as wages had been flat and we were kind of stuck in low economic growth--1\1/2\ to 2 percent growth. Now I think we have the opportunity to break out more and to be that beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world and, most importantly, to give people the opportunity to achieve their American dreams, whatever they are.

Mr. President, I want to talk about another topic, and this is not a happy topic. It is also in the news these days, as are the growing economy and the increased jobs and the benefits of the tax reform. But this is news that you will also see on the front pages and on the nightly news of your local TV stations. It is unfortunate news, and that is the fact that we still have this growing epidemic of drug use in this country that is connected to opioids. This is something that has grown over time and kind of started with prescription drug use, which grew pretty dramatically back in the 2000s. Then it became heroin. Probably 3 or 4 years ago, one began to see people shift from heroin to other forms of opioids that are called synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl or carfentanil.

Unfortunately, this issue has gripped our country. In my State in particular--and Ohio is one of the States that have been hardest hit-- we have more people addicted, we have more people who are overdosing from these drugs, and we have more people who are dying because of the overdoses than ever before. Last year, in 2017, we had more overdose deaths than we had in 2016.

I think we have good ideas to begin to turn the tide. This Congress has started to work on that, and I applaud Congress for that. We are beginning to see some of those programs work, but we have a long way to go.

One reason that I think the legislation we are going to vote on later today is so important is that it provides more funding to be able to deal with the opioid crisis. We need it. I wish we didn't. We need it. We need it for better prevention and education to keep people from getting into the funnel of addiction in the first place. We also need it for treatment, and we need it for longer term recovery, which is sometimes quite expensive, but it requires us to look at this issue in different ways.

Historically, short-term treatment programs have not been very successful. A lot of people go through these treatment programs and come out the other end. They might be clean for a while, but typically there are a lot of people who go back to their addictions. The recidivism rate is very high.

What we want is for people to go through treatment and get clean at the other end and be able to get back on their feet and restore their ties to their families, their work, and their communities. This longer term recovery, in my view, after studying this issue for many years, is a very important part of that. It is providing, yes, the medically assisted drug treatment that is sometimes needed for one to be able to get through the addiction, and to get into

a good treatment program often is assisted through medically assisted treatment. Yet what is more important to me as I look at this and talk to a lot of people--I have talked to probably 1,000 addicts and recovering addicts just in the last couple of years in Ohio--is to surround these people with the right kind of counseling and the right kind of support, including peer support--others who have been through addiction and recovery and have gotten on their feet, those who are recovering addicts. There is a cost to that.

Some would ask: Well, is this really the Federal Government's role? I would say yes. It is a national epidemic, and it needs to be approached at every level--the national level, the State level, and the local level. Ultimately, it is not going to be solved here in Washington; it is going to be solved in our communities.

I will tell you that the degree of damage that this is causing to our communities, our families, our budgets locally, and our criminal justice system requires us to take a more aggressive role at the national level. Take best practices from around the States and local communities and spread those nationally as an example. Provide seed money, combined with local money, so they can actually get treatment programs up and going in areas where people cannot get treatment. Even though they are ready to deal with their addictions, they don't have beds and don't have places to go.

The Federal Government also plays a role already. With Medicaid reimbursement, for instance, if you have a treatment center and if you are providing MAT, or medically assisted treatment, and you have more than 16 beds, you cannot get Medicaid reimbursement. That doesn't make any sense. We have some very good treatment centers in Ohio that have 16 beds, but they could have twice that many or even three times that many and provide more help. Yet, because of the way the Federal Government chooses to reimburse, that is not practical. So there are issues with which the government has to be involved.

In my home State of Ohio, overdose deaths are the No. 1 cause of death in my State. Nationally, among those who are under 50, it is the No. 1 cause of death. In Ohio, we had more deaths from overdoses from synthetic opioids--the new drugs like fentanyl and carfentanil--than we did anything else. About 58 percent of our deaths were from the synthetic opioids. So it is changing from prescription drugs to heroin and now to these synthetic drugs.

We have a real crisis on our hands. It is the No. 1 cause of crime in my community and throughout my State. It probably is in yours too. If you think maybe you are not affected by it because you don't have a family member or friend or coworker who was affected, then you don't see it clearly. I would suggest we are all affected because we are all paying for it in additional healthcare costs, additional costs for prosecutions and incarcerations, additional costs in crime in our communities, in families being torn apart, and more kids in foster care under State supervision, in some way, because we have record numbers now in my home State because of their parents being addicted. This is a huge issue, and I think it is one we need to focus on at every level, including at the national level.

With regard to fentanyl, just a very little bit, a few flakes of it, can kill you. It is incredibly powerful. It is considered to be 50 times more powerful than heroin. It is cheap, it is easily accessible, and it can be spread to other drugs, which is increasingly happening. We are told by law enforcement that it is being used now with cocaine and even, in some cases, marijuana. Certainly it is packaged into pills to make it look like a prescription drug when it is really fentanyl- laced. This stuff can be just deadly.

This week I had some people come into my office talking about it, and I asked them whether they thought we were turning the tide, and their answer was no because of the fentanyl, this new drug that is inexpensive, this synthetic that is coming into our country, believe it or not, primarily from overseas through the U.S. mail system.

Just last week, in Logan County, OH, a 12-year-old girl brought a plastic bag containing fentanyl to her middle school. Thankfully, a teacher found the bag and called the police to safely remove the drug. Think about that. In that middle school, this drug could have killed numerous kids. While police are looking into how this possibly could have ended up in the hands of a 12-year-old, how fentanyl ends up in the United States is no mystery. We now know the answer to that. We have done studies on it.

We spent a yearlong investigation looking into this issue, and what we found out was pretty shocking, which is fentanyl, which is this growing drug killing more people in Ohio than any other drug now, doesn't come in the way you might think, maybe overland. It typically comes through the U.S. mail system. Primarily, it comes from China.

Does it come from other countries? Yes. Sometimes it is shipped from China to another country and then to the United States. Some other countries may now be making it but law enforcement tells me it is primarily through the mail system and primarily from China.

Now, you might ask, why is it coming through the mail system, and why are we letting that happen? Well, it is happening because if you try to send it through one of the private carriers like DHL or FedEx or UPS, you have to provide a lot of information on the package. You probably know this if you are shipping stuff. You have to provide what is in it, where it is from, and where it is going. You have to provide that in advance, and it is provided electronically in advance to law enforcement. In Ohio, the DHS and UPS can go to the facilities and target a package and say: Uh-huh. This is from a certain region. This has a certain suspicious address where it is going, maybe it is an abandoned warehouse and post office box where they know there have been drugs shipped before, maybe the contents don't add up and they can target that package and get that package offline and destroy it. By the way, when they do that, trust me, they are wearing gloves and masks in special rooms now where they can try to avoid being damaged by this drug because they are incredibly dangerous; whereas, in the U.S. mail system, there is not a requirement.

Now they are starting to require it more, and this year, thanks to the work of some of us who have been pushing this for a couple of years now, they are doing a better job than last year, but this last year only 38 percent of packages had electronic advanced data on it--only 38 percent--whereas, with these other carriers, it is 100 percent. Of that 38 percent, sadly, 20 percent of the time, when law enforcement said: OK, we hear this information about this package, we want to pull it off, 20 percent of the time the post office couldn't produce the package so it went to the post office box or abandoned warehouse. A package this big can have hundreds of thousands of people affected. Just think about it, just a few grams of this can kill you. So the post office needs to provide that same sort of data.

We also found, in our 1-year study of this, the data the post office did provide, origin often was indecipherable by security people because it wasn't information that was helpful, maybe a lot of numbers or characters that did not let people know what was in it, where it was going, where it was from.

It is good we are beginning to make progress on this, but I think we should have a requirement in law that says the post office has to do what these other private carriers do, which is require people who want to ship something into our communities to have this information so our law enforcement has a chance to find these packages and to stop this poison from coming into our neighborhoods.

Is this the only solution? No. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that I coauthored that passed this place over a year ago now is beginning to work on prevention, treatment, and recovery. We talked about that earlier.

We need to do more to help our first responders, to give them the Narcan they need to reverse the effects of these overdoses and to save lives. We need to get people into these programs rather than the revolving door of people being addicted, having an overdose, being saved, and then having an overdose again. That is all critical. In fact,

that is the most important part, but let's at least--at least--stop some of this poison that is coming in through our own U.S. Government Postal Service. By the way, postal employees totally agree. They don't want to be a conduit for this stuff. They certainly don't want to be exposed to it.

There are some horrible stories of people who were exposed because with these international packages coming in, sometimes there is some leakage.

One story that is probably one that would get the attention of every law enforcement official in America is, there is a guy in Ohio, a law enforcement officer. He pulled over two individuals. He went up to the car. He pulled them over for a traffic violation, but he noticed they spread some white powder around the car to try to hide it. Wisely, he realized this might be something dangerous. He put on his mask and gloves and found it was fentanyl.

He arrested these two individuals. They got booked. He went down to the police station. This officer was a big guy, by the way--6 feet 2 inches, over 200 pounds, in good shape. He looked down on his shirt when he was in the police station talking to his fellow officers, and he saw some flecks on his shirt of something. So he reached over and brushed it off with his hands like that. It was fentanyl.

Immediately he overdosed. He became unconscious, lying on the floor. Three times Narcan was administered to try to save his life. They had to rush him to the emergency room ultimately to save his life. As his police chief said: If we hadn't been right there, this police officer would not be with us today. Think if he had gone home and hugged his kids.

This stuff is dangerous. It is dangerous for our postal employees, it is dangerous for our Customs and Border Protection people who bravely are out there every day trying to stop this stuff. It is dangerous to the postal inspectors and dangerous for the Drug Enforcement Agency individuals. We need to give them every tool we can to let them know where the suspect packages are so they can stop this stuff. At a minimum, what will happen is there will be less supply, and there will be higher prices on the street. That is not a bad thing because the cost of this drug is one reason it has become so popular and so deadly.

Our legislation is called the STOP Act. It simply says: Let's do what we should have done many years ago and require this information. After 9/11, this Congress got together and said: We are worried about stuff being shipped into this country, and so we are going to require private carriers to provide this. In 2002, there was legislation passed. That was 15 years ago, almost 16 years ago now. That legislation said at the time: You have to do this if you are the FedExes or UPSes of the world, but for the post office, we recommend you do it. We want you to do a study on it.

The thought was, in Congress, that they would need some time but that they would be able to do it as well--again, it has been almost 16 years. Now we have this immediate problem, which is, in my view, a crisis, and it is a public health problem. It falls on us as the Federal Government to deal with it--this Congress to deal with it.

I know there are those in the Postal Service who are concerned about whether they can require other countries to provide this data. Do you know what? We provide it for all our packages going to them. Again, most countries in the world are now being asked to do it. The rest of the countries ought to be asked. Certainly, China ought to be required to do it for all their packages. They now say about half of the packages from China have some sort of information. It needs to be better information. We also need China to do more.

After our report came out last week, Chinese Government officials responded and said they were concerned. They wanted to do more to cooperate with the United States. That was good. I am glad to hear that, but, frankly, we have been hearing that for a while.

I was in China last year on a congressional delegation. I raised this information with Premier Li, the No. 2 ranking official in the government there. Again, we heard the right things. We want to help to be able to stop this at the source. We need more help.

We believe there are thousands of chemists or chemical companies in China that are producing this poison. Again, I am not suggesting it is exclusively China, but we are told by law enforcement it is still primarily from China. Let's shut them down.

They have made illegal some of the precursors, some of the drugs that go into making this fentanyl. Let's make sure that is being enforced. Let's make it an illegal activity to ship it. Let's do the prosecutions that are necessary and arrest people.

There were two individuals who were indicted here in the United States who were Chinese nationals. My understanding is, they have yet to be prosecuted, and they have been indicted for shipping poisons into our communities and killing our people.

Yes, there is a lot that has to be done here. We need to be sure we are doing a better job on prevention and education to keep people from falling into the addiction in the first place. We need to do much better on treatment and recovery. We talked about that earlier. At a minimum, let's protect this country. So I encourage my colleagues, if you haven't already cosponsored the STOP Act--Senator Amy Klobuchar and I introduced this legislation together last year. We want your help. We would love to have your cosponsorship. We have about 30 cosponsors now. It is bipartisan. We need to get 100 cosponsors. Everybody in this Chamber should be for this. We should be able to at least tell our own U.S. post office: Help law enforcement to stop this poison. That is part of the answer here, along with so many other things we need to do to keep the fentanyl off the streets, to keep the overdoses and the death toll from rising.

Again, I thank my colleagues for including in the legislation we are going to vote on later today additional funding over the next 2 years. I will say, with regard to that funding, which is significant--it is an unprecedented amount--we have increased the funding over this fiscal year from last fiscal year by $1.4 billion. That is through the so- called CURES Act and CARA legislation. Now we have additional funding, $3 billion this year and $3 billion next year. I do think there is a good framework for spending this money and that would be the programs in the CARA legislation, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. There are about a dozen different programs, including recovery programs, including helping pregnant women who are addicted to help them avoid having their addiction passed along to their kids. This is a big issue in our States right now. All of our neonatal units back home in our hospitals are dealing with this.

There is legislation to help our first responders with training and with Narcan, certainly to help them deal with this fentanyl danger they face, the risk they face every day.

We have the programs in place. There is not adequate funding in some of these programs to respond to the many requests coming in. So this is one place for us to provide some help.

The CURES legislation goes directly to the States. That legislation was passed as part of an appropriations process to help the States be able to identify where they had the highest priority. Some of that, frankly, is in training individuals who can be counselors.

We talked about the importance of not just providing medicine to help people get over their addiction but to also surround them with the kind of treatment they need, the kind of support they need. In other States, it was a matter of building those treatment facilities. One million dollars of this, or so, was used in Columbus, OH, for an innovative program, where there is now a new emergency room that is dedicated to people who overdose, which is better for the individual who overdoses and better for the taxpayer, rather than taking them to an emergency room that has the capability to handle gunshot wounds and trauma and so on. This is dedicated just to overdoses. Most significantly, in this same facility where the overdoses go, you have a 50-bed treatment center. So often what we find is that people are treated for the overdose, maybe in a detox unit, but then there is no treatment center. There is no treatment bed available, so that person goes back to

the community, back to the old neighborhood.

During that waiting period, even though they are ready for treatment as they come out of the overdose--because often they have kind of seen their life flash before their eyes--there is not the availability and, sure enough, that person gets back into the use of the drug--heroin, fentanyl, prescription drugs--and ends up overdosing again, sometimes again and again and again. You hear this from your first responders.

Go to your firehouse, and you will hear in every firehouse in America, I will guarantee you, about this issue. I will guarantee that in most firehouses--certainly all of them that I have been to in Ohio, and I have been to many--it is the No. 1 thing people are doing. In other words, there are more calls for overdoses than there are calls for fires. There are more calls for overdoses than there are calls for heart attacks.

This is an issue that, again, affects every one of us whether we feel it directly or not. So this is an opportunity for us to get these people into the emergency room setting to save their lives, using this miracle drug, Narcan, using the best help of our incredible medical professionals, who are doing an awesome job on the frontlines, but then to get them right into treatment, to say: By the way, here is an opportunity; come right now. We think that is going to close that gap and help to avoid this issue of people not getting the help you want them to get. Probably 8 out of 10 people in Ohio are not getting the treatment they should be getting.

So I am encouraging my colleagues to vote for the legislation this afternoon or this evening, whenever we vote on it, in part, because it does have that legislation in it regarding opioids. It does have this new funding--an unprecedented level of funding.

It is going to be left to the Appropriations Committees here to deal with how it is spent. Again, I know they have a lot of great ideas, including legislation that we have already passed called the CARA Act, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We spent 3 years putting together that legislation. We had five conferences here in Washington. We got best practices from around the country. This is all about sending funds out to programs that have been studied and that do have good results. It is not just a matter of throwing money after this problem. We have to be sure that it is done effectively and that, again, it leverages more money at the local level.

The million dollars I talked about that went into this treatment center in Columbus, OH--that was matched by county money, it was matched by State money, it was matched by private-sector money and individuals who were giving funds to this because they realized what a problem it is. That is how we should work together. Ultimately, this is not going to be solved here in Washington, DC. It is going to be solved in our communities. It is going to be solved in our families. It is going to be solved in our hearts. This is an issue that ultimately is going to require all of us getting engaged on.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for the time today.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, today I want to talk about the opioid epidemic that has gripped our country and my State of Ohio and talk a little about a report we issued last week with regard to synthetic opioids coming in through the U.S. mail system.

This tragedy has hit Ohio hard. We are not alone, though. Opioids affect every American regardless of age, area code, class, or color. Every State represented here in this body has experienced this--broken families, devastated communities, higher crime rates, friends lost, and, of course, lives taken through opioid overdoses.

The Centers for Disease Control recently reported that more than 63,600 Americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses. That is the last year for which they have statistics, but we all believe it was worse in 2017. With 63,600 Americans dying of overdoses, that means, on average, more than 174 Americans die every single day. That is up from approximately 143 Americans who died, on average, every day from drug overdoses a year earlier in 2015 and 105 Americans who died every day in 2010.

The problem is getting worse, not better. Drug overdoses, in fact, are now the No. 1 cause of death--not just accidental deaths but the No. 1 cause of death--in America for Americans under the age of 50. The reason for this increase in overdose deaths is the spread of heroin, prescription drugs, and now the synthetic opioids--fentanyl and carfentanil. Opioids were involved in more than 42,000--about two- thirds--of the overall deaths in 2016. Opioid deaths were five times higher in 2016 than they were just a few years ago.

This is a national epidemic. It has unfolded in three different waves.

The first wave was the prescription drug epidemic--pain pills--15 to 20 years ago. That started to increase dramatically.

Next, heroin deaths spiked. Heroin was turned to as a less expensive and more accessible way for people who were addicted to pain pills to continue to receive the high--in this case, from heroin coming mostly from Mexico.

Now synthetic forms of heroin are overtaking the illegal opioid market, and the results have been even more deadly. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin, has become the new scourge of the epidemic. Fentanyl is so deadly that 2 milligrams of it--as little as two flakes of it--can be lethal. It is cheap, easily accessible, and can be added to make any number of illegal drugs more potent--cocaine, heroin, pills.

In Ohio, fentanyl and its variations, such as carfentanil, were responsible for 60 percent of our State's more than 4,000 overdose deaths in 2016--the most recent year for which we have statistics. That 60 percent is a huge increase from just the previous year, 2015, when fentanyl was responsible for about 37 percent of the deaths. We have had more deaths from overdoses and a lot more deaths linked to fentanyl.

Sadly, again, this situation is getting worse, not better. Just last week in Ottawa County, OH, outside of Toledo, we had five overdoses in 1 single day. We had three people die of overdoses in 1 week. The suspected cause, of course, is fentanyl.

Earlier this month in Akron, a 57-year-old man--a board member of the Akron Public Schools system--was found unconscious in his car from a drug overdose. First responders were thankfully able to revive the man with Narcan--a miracle drug that reverses the effects of overdoses--and treat him at a local hospital. Again, fentanyl caused that overdose.

In July of last year, a 12-year-old Columbus boy encountered fentanyl while he was at his cousin's for a sleepover. He was rushed to the hospital but died days later from a lack of oxygen to his brain as a result of fentanyl.

These synthetic drugs have invaded communities across Ohio and across the country. Unbelievably, this deadly poison is primarily shipped into America from China through our U.S. Postal Service. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair along with ranking member Senator Tom Carper, recently held a hearing on this issue. It came on the heels of our yearlong bipartisan investigation that resulted in a 100-page investigative report that examined how these drug traffickers in China exploit vulnerabilities in our international mail system to ship these deadly synthetic drugs into our communities.

I encourage people to look at that report on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations website. The results of the report were shocking. We found that it was incredibly easy to buy fentanyl online. By simply searching ``fentanyl for sale'' on Google, our staff identified hundreds of websites, many affiliated with Chinese labs, all openly advertising this deadly drug. Online sellers were quick to respond, unafraid of being caught, and ready to make a deal. They even offered discounts for bulk purchases and tried to upsell us to carfentanil--fentanyl's even more powerful and deadly cousin.

This is an email from Chinese traffickers offering ``a hot sale'' for one fentanyl analogue before it is discontinued. Their preferred shipping method is the U.S. Postal Service because, as they told us, the chances of the drugs being seized were so insignificant that delivery was essentially guaranteed.

This chart shows a carfentanil advertisement and the online traffickers

suggesting ``USPS'' as their preferred shipping method. Why? Because USPS is the way in which the delivery is virtually guaranteed. ``DHL, UPS, FedEx, TNT are quicker, but not safe, and will be detained frequently.'' Instead, they say: ``We suggest USPS only.'' Wow.

It is inexcusable that these drugs are as easy to ship as a postcard and that traffickers' preferred shipment method for these deadly poisons is through a Federal agency. Our post office has become a conduit for these deadly drugs.

By the way, this is incredibly dangerous for the postal employees, the letter carriers, those who have to handle these packages.

I should note that our team never purchased any of these drugs online, but we did use the online sellers' payment information to determine if others were buying. Of course, we found out that they were. We narrowed our search to just six websites. From those six sites, we identified more than 500 payments to those six online sellers by more than 300 Americans in 43 States just in the last couple of years.

This map shows where the fentanyl went. As you can see, just from those six websites and those few hundred people, it went all over the country. The largest concentration of buyers was in my home State of Ohio, where you see the red. They were also in Pennsylvania and Florida. But, as I mentioned, it went to all 43 States. We were able to track hundreds of packages related to the online purchases.

By analyzing more than 2 million lines of shipment data obtained in our investigation, we located three individuals in the United States who seem to be distributing these drugs. We also identified two other individuals who purchased items to make pills, including pill presses, chemical bonding agents, and empty pill casings.

Our report also reinforced the risk associated with these deadly synthetic drugs. We identified seven individuals who died from fentanyl-related overdoses shortly after receiving packages from these online sellers. One of those seven individuals who died was a 49-year- old Ohioan from the Cleveland area who sent about $2,500 to an online seller and received 15 packages through the Postal Service over a 10- month period. His autopsy confirmed he died from ``acute fentanyl intoxication'' just a couple of weeks after receiving a package from this online seller.

We are already working with law enforcement authorities to make sure these drug dealers can be brought to justice. We recently released all our documents to the Department of Homeland Security for them to do their own investigation.

China has responded to our report. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said last week that China stands ``ready to work with the U.S. to enhance our coordination in this field.'' I welcome China's cooperation and coordination in this fight. But we need more than words. We need action. We need China to ban more of these deadly drugs and do it quicker. We need China to shut down these illegal fentanyl laboratories and arrest those responsible for shipping drugs into our country.

I had the opportunity last year to travel to China as part of a congressional delegation, and I was able to speak directly to some of the Chinese authorities, including Premier Li. We talked about these deadly poisons coming into our communities and how we needed more help to be able to shut down these labs and to arrest these individuals. I also made the point that there is evidence that some of this opioid material that is being synthetically produced in China is leaking into their communities and that they have a problem too. We need to work together to shut this down.

One way that we can assist law enforcement in this war on synthetic opioids is by simply providing them the tools they need to identify packages coming in that likely contain these drugs. Whether they are from China, whether they are shipped somewhere else, or whether they are from another country that begins to produce these drugs, we have to do a better job finding these packages and stopping them.

Because of the roughly 500 million packages that come in by mail every year, interdicting these small packages is very difficult. It can be like finding a needle in a haystack. So law enforcement has asked us to help them be able to get the information they need to target suspect packages.

That is why what is called advance electronic data is so very important. This is information that comes in advance--such as what is in the package, where it is from, where it is going--is information for packages entering the United States that can greatly assists our law enforcement.

Customs and Border Protection is responsible for this mail coming into our country, and they want to identify these suspicious packages and be able to trace them back to both the U.S. distributor and user but also, of course, to their overseas traffickers. When they have that information, they are able to stop packages but also then initiate investigations, prosecutions, and arrests.

As part of our investigation, we found that last year the Postal Service only received this advance electronic data on about 36 percent of the more than 498 million packages coming into our country. That means the United States received more than 318 million packages with no data. That means there was little to no screening at all.

We also found that the quality of the data that was provided was often inadequate and unhelpful to law enforcement. Even when the Postal Service conducted a pilot program to screen for these drugs through the use of this data, they only presented 80 percent of these packages targeted by Customs and Border Protection for inspection. In other words, about 20 percent of these suspect packages came into our communities without inspection, despite being suspect packages.

With these glaring holes in the screening process, it is no wonder these drug dealers choose the Postal Service as their preferred drug delivery system. It is a massive loophole that is undermining the safety and security of our country.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, collecting the advance electronic data was identified as a national security priority.

In 2002 Congress wrote legislation that required private carriers to collect this advance electronic data and authorized and encouraged the Postal Service to do it but left the implementation up to the Postal Service. That was 16 years ago.

Because of the 2002 law, private carriers like UPS, FedEx, DHL, and others, require useful data on every package entering the United States, while the Postal Service gets its data for less than 40 percent of the hundreds of millions of packages it receives every year. Again, the Postal Service data is sometimes not usable, and 20 percent of those packages targeted because of the data are never presented to law enforcement to be inspected. Folks, this is just wrong. We can and we must do better.

We talked earlier about the number of people dying from fentanyl overdoses and the fact that this is the new scourge. It is coming in our mail system. We have to be able to do better, and we can.

This is why I have introduced what is called the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, or STOP Act. This bipartisan bill will require the Postal Service to get that electronic data on all international packages entering the United States. The coauthor of the STOP Act is Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and we now have 29 Senate cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. The bipartisan House companion bill is now, I believe, cosponsored by a majority of the House of Representatives. Why? Because this is just a commonsense solution that people understand has to be done.

I urge all of my Senate colleagues to join us in doing what we can to stop some of this poison from coming into America and to at least raise the price on the street of this synthetic heroin that is cheap and accessible.

By holding the Postal Service, a Federal agency, to the same standard we have for private mail carriers, we can give law enforcement the necessary tools they are asking for to identify and stop these deadly poisons from reaching our communities.

I understand that this is just one part of the solution to deal with the opioid epidemic. Trust me; I get that. I have been working on this for over 20 years, focused mostly on the prevention side, treatment, and the recovery. Those are all important. We need to continue to do that because our States

are gripped by these opioids, and all of us need it. But there is clearly a need for a legislative solution to prevent these drugs from entering our country through our own mail system.

The STOP Act is a clear opportunity and responsibility for Congress to help turn the tide of addiction. I urge all of my colleagues to join us in supporting the STOP Act and, by doing so, in saving lives.

I yield back.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, tonight I wish to talk about our responsibility in the U.S. Senate to reopen the government, to get back to work solving real problems, and to fix the system around here so we aren't tempted to play political games with government shutdowns in the future.

We are now in the second day of what I think is kind of a senseless shutdown. It is not helping anybody. There is a lot of disruption, dislocation, and dysfunction for no reason. It is a situation which was perhaps best described by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in 2013 when he said: ``I believe in immigration reform. What if I persuaded my caucus to say I'm going to shut the government down, I'm not going to pay our bills unless I get my way. It's politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.''

I think Chuck Schumer was right. I think the lesson of 2013 in that shutdown is, they don't work. I think they are a bad idea. They are unnecessary disruptions. They hurt our economy. They hurt families. They hurt our troops. By the way, they ultimately also cost the taxpayers more money, not less. That has been the history.

That is why, for 6 years now, I have been fighting to pass legislation called the End Government Shutdowns Act. It is a very simple piece of legislation. By the way, my efforts in that have spanned Presidents of both parties and majorities in the Senate of both parties. It is not a political issue. We should end government shutdowns.

More on that in a minute, but let's take a look at the real-world impact of a shutdown. In my home State of Ohio, nearly 50,000 Federal workers are seeing their paychecks halted through no fault of their own. This includes rangers at parks across the State, like Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It includes 3,000 employees at NASA Glenn. It includes thousands of civilian employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and thousands of other employees around the Buckeye State who are going to be hurt. Why? Because of the shutdown here in Washington, DC. By the way, Federal contractors are being told they can't go to work. Yet they are going to get paid after the fact. How does that help taxpayers?

How did we get here? Well, spending goes through Congress. The Constitution says Congress alone has the power of the purse, so every dime that is appropriated for spending has to go through this Congress.

Unfortunately, since the fiscal year ended on September 30, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have been unable to agree on an overall budget plan that allows us to fund our 12 annual spending bills. Since then, we have passed three of these so-called continuing resolutions. They are also called CRs. They provide short-term funding for the government; basically, a continuation of the spending from last year, just to keep the government from shutting down. That is what CRs do. They don't include any policies, typically, or any spending levels for the next fiscal year. It is just to keep things going and keep government operating. Nobody likes them. I don't like continuing resolutions. Who would? But the alternative is either come to an agreement on these 12 annual spending bills we have talked about or have a government shutdown.

That was considered unthinkable over the last 4 months, when these continuing resolutions were passed by big bipartisan majorities of both the House and the Senate.

By the way, 8 of these 12 annual spending bills I was talking about actually passed out of committee with big bipartisan votes. So 8 of the 12 actually have been passed. They are ready to come to the Senate floor, but they haven't come to the Senate floor because they require 60 votes out of 100 to be brought up, and Democrats, not having a solution to what the overall spending levels will be, have not cooperated to bring those individual spending bills to the floor.

That is obviously the best way to do this; that is, to have the 12 spending bills come to the floor, have the debate, put the best policies in place, and have the right levels of spending for this fiscal year. That hasn't happened so we have these short-term continuing resolutions.

One might ask: How can the continuing resolutions pass? Because they don't seem to be very popular. Well, but they are better than a shutdown. By the way, they also require 60 votes, but, again, it is the one thing we have been able to pass over the past 4 months to avoid shutdowns while we negotiate our differences over the level of spending, over the policies that are going to be in place between now and the rest of the fiscal year. They have always passed, again, on a broad bipartisan basis.

Some Democrats have voted with us to keep our government open in the past because, as the Democratic leader has said, shutting down the government just doesn't make any sense. In order to pass a CR--a continuing resolution--only 39 Senators can vote no because, again, we have to get 60 votes. On Friday night, 44 Democrats chose to vote down the latest CR, even though almost nothing of substance has changed in the continuing resolution since the last continuing resolution that was voted on, again, by big majorities.

The only thing that has changed is, there was added a very popular and urgent extension of a healthcare program called the CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance Program. It is absolutely critical that we pass that because in the next couple of weeks we are told some States will begin to run out of money. CHIP actually expired back in September, and it has had short-term fixes since then, in this continuing resolution, the same as the last continuing resolutions, basically.

Nobody really objects to what is in the continuing resolution, but the addition has been this really important program; CHIP is reauthorized. By the way, it is reauthorized for its longest reauthorization ever in the history of

the program--a 6-year reauthorization. I strongly support it, and I think my colleagues do across the board. If we don't deal with CHIP, again, this is urgent enough that some States are actually going to run out of money.

Some are choosing to shut down the government, even though they can't point to anything in the short-term continuing resolution they disagree with and even though it endangers the healthcare of children and families around the country. That is where we are. The main reason we have heard from Democrats who oppose an otherwise acceptable continuing resolution--and we just heard here tonight from my colleagues on the other side, including colleagues I work with a lot on other issues, and I respect them, but they said this is about something else. It is not the spending bill, but it is about how we deal with DACA and broader immigration reform.

I want to resolve DACA, too, and I believe most of the Members of this body sincerely want to resolve DACA. It is an administrative program that is appropriate to being legislated. The President gave us until March to deal with it, and we must and should deal with it. There is an ongoing, good-faith effort to resolve the DACA issue as well as broader immigration issues, like border security, and to do all that before DACA expires on March 5, which is 6 weeks away.

There has been a lot of finger-pointing--and there is always plenty of room for that around here, let's face it--but the situation is clear: We are in day 2 of a shutdown because my Democratic colleagues are holding hostage the entire Federal Government and children in need of healthcare through CHIP for a nonspending issue that is being worked on. We all know it expires on March 5, and we need to deal with it.

Without a spending bill or a continuing resolution to keep the government open short term, while we come to an agreement on larger issues, there are a bunch of Federal workers who are going to wake up tomorrow morning and find themselves furloughed. Many will not be able to go to work because their offices are closed. Some will, I am told, have to report to work, but they are not going to get paid, at least until the government reopens. Again, the taxpayer always ends up getting the short end of the stick on this.

I just think it is crazy that we are allowing this to happen. It doesn't make any sense. I don't get it. Yes, there are some larger issues we have to come together on and solve in a bipartisan way, but we should agree to a short-term funding deal to just get the government up and running and then work to solve those problems. We are not working on them now, I can tell you, because everybody is distracted by this issue--a government shutdown.

My understanding is, we are going to vote on a new proposal tonight to reopen the government. It is shorter term. Why? Because a number of Democrats have said they think the previous continuing resolution, which was for 4 weeks, was too long, so this one will be just 2\1/2\ weeks, until February 8. That is fine with me. I think that gives us enough time to resolve these issues and enough time to actually put the changes into legislation--2\1/2\ weeks. That would be pretty fast by congressional time.

I understand the new CR proposal will also be coupled with these important CHIP funding proposals; in other words, the long-term extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is important, and a commitment to continue the negotiations to address all of the outstanding issues, including DACA, including defense spending, including disaster relief.

Let's support it. Let's get this behind us. Let's be sure people don't wake up on Monday morning to find they are furloughed, and then let's get back to these hard issues we were hired to resolve.

I know it is a lot harder dealing with those substantive issues than dealing with those political issues. It is easy to shut down government. That doesn't take any ingenuity or imagination. That is easy. It is harder to deal with these tough issues, but that is what we have to do. Shutdowns aren't the answer.

The situation tonight is a reminder that we should end government shutdowns for good. Again, that is why I have introduced the bipartisan legislation I mentioned earlier called the End Government Shutdowns Act, to avoid these types of unnecessary disruptions that are unproductive and unfair to our constituents. The bill would simply continue spending from the previous year for 120 days if any appropriations bill or any CR is not agreed to by the established deadline. Then it would gradually decline that funding by 1 percent, and then 1 percent, to give lawmakers the incentive that is needed around here to actually come together on a funding agreement. I think it is sensible. I think it is common sense. It has always been bipartisan in the past, so we can get it done.

By the way, I first introduced this bill in 2012 with my Democratic colleague Jon Tester from Montana, when a Democratic President, President Obama, was in the White House and Democrats controlled the Senate. So this is a commonsense solution that benefits the country, not one political party over another. It is what is best for our country.

If this bill were law, we wouldn't be in this situation. Instead, we would be talking about the substantive issues--how we resolve DACA, how we resolve defense spending. We have had 18 shutdowns in our country's history, and none of them would have happened if this was law.

There would be no last-minute political brinkmanship over issues unrelated to funding our government. Our constituents, including Federal employees, would not have their lives disrupted, taxpayers wouldn't get fleeced by shutdowns and the backpay that happens and the inefficiencies. Our legislation is bipartisan, but frankly we need a lot more Members to support it and help us put in place a long-term solution to make sure these shutdowns don't continue to happen.

I urge my colleagues tonight, and any staff who might be watching, please sign on to this legislation. We need your help. It is common sense. It is a time in which I hope we all realize these shutdowns don't make sense, and we have an alternative. A shutdown isn't helping anyone. It isn't helping Americans who need access to vital government services. It isn't helping Federal employees who instead should be working and not being furloughed, and it sure isn't helping the 9 million children who are facing losing needed healthcare services under

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 98, which was received from the House.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 165,

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each until 7 p.m., with the time equally divided, and that all quorum calls during that time also be equally divided.