[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3167-S3168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Opioid Crisis

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in speaking about 
the opioid crisis that has devastated families in States across the 
country.
  I thank my colleague, Senator Manchin, for organizing the speeches 
today.
  In my State, deaths from prescription drug abuse have now claimed the 
lives of more Minnesotans than have homicides or car crashes. We lost 
our beloved Prince because of an opioid overdose, which is still being 
investigated. Just as importantly, we lost a student in Duluth and a 
mom in Rochester, MN--over 400 people in just the last year. We 
continue to see dangerous synthetic opioids shipped across our borders 
in increasing amounts--a trend that the U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection expects to continue, as we heard in a Judiciary Committee 
hearing last week.
  Today, I joined Senator Portman in his subcommittee on Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs, and we talked about what is going on 
from that perspective as well.
  While there is more work to do to combat this epidemic, first, I 
recognize that we have made some meaningful progress on a bipartisan 
basis. We passed the CARA Act, which is something that was led by 
Senators Portman, Whitehouse, Ayotte, and me. We set a framework up for 
the Nation, and I look at it in three ways.
  The first way is that we have to do everything we can to prevent 
addiction. That means changing some of our prescription practices 
across the country. Do you really need 30 pills when you get your 
wisdom teeth out? It is about asking those questions and changing those 
practices.
  The second thing would be to look at prescription drug monitoring. 
Senator Portman and I have a bill that would make it mandatory for 
States to share their data across State borders. I found a guy in 
Moorhead, MN, through his rehab counselor, who had 108 different 
prescriptions for opioids from something like 80 different doctors in 
50 different cities. He went from North Dakota to South Dakota, to 
Minnesota, to Wisconsin. That is why sharing that data would greatly 
reduce that doctor shopping.
  I see here the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn. Senator Cornyn and I 
led a bill years ago to make it easier for people to throw away their 
leftover prescription drugs so they would not get in the hands of those 
who should not be taking them. Those are ideas for reducing that 
demand.
  Then you go to the next area, which, of course, is that of trying to 
reduce the illegal drugs from coming in, like with the STOP Act, which 
Senator Portman and I introduced, making it harder to get these drugs 
in through the Postal Service, and doing more with law enforcement. By 
passing the SALTS Act, which is a bill that Senator Graham and I 
introduced, it will make it easier for prosecutors--the Presiding 
Officer is a former prosecutor--to prove up cases with analogue drugs, 
which is when perpetrators basically take a substance, change it a 
little, and then say: Hey, it is a new drug. Then it makes it harder 
for the Feds to go after it, and you have to prove it up in court.
  So we are making some changes to our law to make it easier, 
especially in rural areas, where they are not going to be able to get a 
medical doctor in to prove up what the substance is in order to make it 
easier to prove these cases.
  These are all very good ideas, but what we are here to talk about 
today is the issue of the funding and what will happen if we do not 
have the funding for treatment. We did a good job with the Cures Act 
last December, in which we made $1 billion available over 2 years, as 
well as the work that was done on a bipartisan basis with the budget 
for the rest of the year. I consider those good signs.
  Unfortunately, the budget and the CBO score of the healthcare repeal 
bill that was released this week--the bill that came over from the 
House--shows us that we are at risk of working backwards on this issue.
  According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, mental 
health and substance abuse benefits could be cut under the healthcare 
bill, which would increase out-of-pocket costs by thousands of dollars 
for those who need these vital services. This is on top of the $839 
billion in cuts to Medicaid under the bill and additional cuts in the 
President's budget of more than $600 billion to Medicaid and the 
Children's Health Insurance Program, even though these programs cover 3 
out of every 10 people who have an opioid addiction. This would be 
devastating for so many, if these budget cuts took effect.
  I would like to do more. I would, actually, like to pass the LifeBOAT 
Act, which Senator Manchin introduced and I am a cosponsor. That would 
simply put an extra fee on some of these opioids so that the people who 
have been reaping the profits from these drugs would be helping to pay 
for the treatment. I think that is a great idea. Unfortunately, this 
budget takes us the other way.
  It eliminates programs that help rural communities build hospitals 
and get access to vital telemedicine services. It cuts critical medical 
research that is happening at the NIH--just when, at the end of last 
year, we added that money to the NIH's funding. It was shown just in 
the last month that, with the budget for the rest of the year, we have 
continued that positive trend. The budget also doubles down on other 
cuts that would hurt small towns and rural communities, which would 
impact jobs and opportunities. It eliminates rural business programs, 
which have helped to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It cuts 
rural housing programs and infrastructure grants and loan programs.

[[Page S3168]]

  Altogether, these cuts not only threaten the progress we have made in 
fighting against the opioid crisis, but they also threaten the 
prosperity of the rural communities, which have been the hardest hit. 
We need a budget that helps and not hurts rural America.
  We have a lot of work to do. I appreciate, again, the work of our 
Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate. As we have shown 
with the budget--from last month through the rest of this year--we have 
put some common sense in there and have done a good job and have gotten 
a lot of bipartisan support. My hope is that we will do the same thing 
here and make a smart budget and reject the one that has been proposed 
by this administration and come up with something much better that 
helps and not hurts the people of our States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.