[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 13, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5127-H5129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMPROVING THE FEDERAL RESPONSE TO FAMILIES IMPACTED BY SUBSTANCE USE
DISORDER ACT
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 5891) to establish an interagency task force to improve the
Federal response to families impacted by substance abuse disorders.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 5891
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Improving the Federal
Response to Families Impacted by Substance Use Disorder
Act''.
SEC. 2. INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE TO IMPROVE THE FEDERAL
RESPONSE TO FAMILIES IMPACTED BY SUBSTANCE USE
DISORDERS.
(a) Establishment.--There is established a task force, to
be known as the ``Interagency Task Force to Improve the
Federal Response to Families Impacted by Substance Use
Disorders'' (in this section referred to as ``Task Force'').
(b) Responsibilities.--The Task Force--
(1) shall identify, evaluate, and recommend ways in which
Federal agencies can better coordinate responses to substance
use disorders and the opioid crisis; and
(2) shall carry out the additional duties described in
subsection (d).
(c) Membership.--
(1) Number and appointment.--The Task Force shall be
composed of 12 Federal officials having responsibility for,
or administering programs related to, the duties of the Task
Force. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, the
Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the
Secretary of Labor shall each appoint two members to the Task
Force from among the Federal officials employed by the
Department of which they are the head. Additional Federal
agency officials appointed by the Secretary of Health and
Human Services shall fill the remaining positions of the Task
Force.
(2) Chairperson.--The Secretary of Health and Human
Services shall designate a Federal official employed by the
Department of Health and Human Services to serve as the
chairperson of the Task Force.
(3) Deadline for appointment.--Each member shall be
appointed to the Task Force not later than 60 days after the
date of the enactment of this Act.
(4) Additional agency input.--The Task Force may seek input
from other Federal agencies and offices with experience,
expertise, or information relevant in responding to the
opioid crisis.
(5) Vacancies.--A vacancy in the Task Force shall be filled
in the manner in which the original appointment was made.
(6) Prohibition of compensation.--Members of the Task Force
may not receive pay, allowances, or benefits by reason of
their service on the Task Force.
(d) Duties.--The Task Force shall carry out the following
duties:
(1) Solicit input from stakeholders, including frontline
service providers, medical professionals, educators, mental
health professionals, researchers, experts in infant, child,
and youth trauma, child welfare professionals, and the
public, in order to inform the activities of the Task Force.
(2) Develop a strategy on how the Task Force and
participating Federal agencies will collaborate, prioritize,
and implement a coordinated Federal approach with regard to
responding to substance use disorders, including opioid
misuse, that shall include--
(A) identifying options for the coordination of existing
grants that support infants, children, and youth, and their
families as appropriate, who have experienced, or are at risk
of experiencing, exposure to substance abuse disorders,
including opioid misuse; and
(B) other ways to improve coordination, planning, and
communication within and across Federal agencies, offices,
and programs, to better serve children and families impacted
by substance use disorders, including opioid misuse.
(3) Based off the strategy developed under paragraph (2),
evaluate and recommend opportunities for local- and State-
level partnerships, professional development, or best
practices that--
(A) are designed to quickly identify and refer children and
families, as appropriate, who have experienced or are at risk
of experiencing exposure to substance abuse;
(B) utilize and develop partnerships with early childhood
education programs, local social services organizations, and
health care services aimed at preventing or mitigating the
effects of exposure to substance use disorders, including
opioid misuse;
(C) offer community-based prevention activities, including
educating families and children on the effects of exposure to
substance use disorders, including opioid misuse, and how to
build resilience and coping skills to mitigate those effects;
(D) in accordance with Federal privacy protections, utilize
non-personally identifiable data from screenings, referrals,
or the provision of services and supports to evaluate and
improve processes addressing exposure to substance use
disorders, including opioid misuse; and
(E) are designed to prevent separation and support
reunification of families if in the best interest of the
child.
(4) In fulfilling the requirements of paragraphs (2) and
(3), consider evidence-based, evidence-informed, and
promising best practices related to identifying, referring,
and supporting children and families at risk of experiencing
exposure to substance abuse or experiencing substance use
disorder, including opioid misuse, including--
(A) prevention strategies for those at risk of experiencing
or being exposed to substance abuse, including misuse of
opioids;
(B) whole-family and multi-generational approaches;
(C) community-based initiatives;
(D) referral to, and implementation of, trauma-informed
practices and supports; and
(E) multi-generational practices that assist parents,
foster parents, and kinship and other caregivers
(e) FACA.--The Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C.
App. 2) shall not apply to the Task Force.
(f) Action Plan; Reports.--The Task Force--
(1) shall prepare a detailed action plan to be implemented
by participating Federal agencies to create a collaborative,
coordinated response to the opioid crisis, which shall
include--
(A) relevant information identified and collected under
subsection (d);
(B) a proposed timeline for implementing recommendations
and efforts identified under subsection (d); and
(C) a description of how other Federal agencies and offices
with experience, expertise, or information relevant in
responding to the opioid crisis that have provided input
under subsection (c)(4) will be participating in the
coordinated approach;
(2) shall submit to the Congress a report describing the
action plan prepared under
[[Page H5128]]
paragraph (1), including, where applicable, identification of
any recommendations included in such plan that require
additional legislative authority to implement; and
(3) shall submit a report to the Governors describing the
opportunities for local- and State-level partnerships,
professional development, or best practices recommended under
subsection (d)(3).
(g) Dissemination.--
(1) In general.--The action plan and reports required under
subsection (f) shall be--
(A) disseminated widely, including among the participating
Federal agencies and the Governors; and
(B) be made publicly available online in an accessible
format.
(2) Deadline.--The action plan and reports required under
subsection (f) may be released on separate dates but shall be
released not later than 9 months after the date of the
enactment of this Act.
(h) Termination.--The Task Force shall terminate 30 days
after the dissemination of the action plan and reports under
subsection (g).
(i) Funding.--The administrative expenses of the Task Force
shall be paid out of existing Department of Health and Human
Services funds or appropriations.
(j) Definitions.--For purposes of this section:
(1) The term ``Governor'' means the chief executive officer
of a State.
(2) The term ``participating Federal agencies'' means all
the Executive agencies (as defined in section 105 of title 5,
United States Code) whose officials have been appointed to
the Task Force.
(3) The term ``State'' means each of the several States,
the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman) and the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
General Leave
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material on H.R. 5891.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we have all heard about the opioid epidemic, and I
always feel, despite the fact that it has been very publicized, it has
still been underpublicized. Over 40,000 people every year die of this
epidemic.
I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war, and it was relatively
late in that war before we got to 41,000 deaths, and we all remember
how that divided the country. There are more people that die in this
year, every year, than the number of people who are both murdered and
die in car accidents combined.
I am on a variety of committees, and if you sit on almost any
committee, I think, in this institution, eventually the topic of opioid
abuse comes up. One of the things that hits me when it comes up is the
degree to which there are varying opinions on what to do with this, and
it varies from agency to agency.
Therefore, what I am proposing in this bill is a task force that gets
together two representatives from the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture,
and the Department of Labor to look for solutions and look for best
practices. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is also supposed
to appoint four other members to this task force.
I don't want this to be one of the task forces that is hanging out
there for too long. They have got to come back with recommendations
within 9 months, and, hopefully, we will use these recommendations by
this time next year on this floor.
It is very frustrating, like I said, to attend these hearings and
hear, among the experts, such divergent opinions as to how to save some
lives here. We really cannot be spending more time on programs that
don't work or having the agencies not work with each other.
I look forward to strong leadership in this committee. I expect that
they will be taking advice from strong local leaders who have done what
they can to address this epidemic around the country. We must put our
full weight behind a coordinated strategy to bring stability and health
to our communities.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the
balance of my time.
Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5891, which would establish an
interagency task force to identify, evaluate, and recommend ways in
which Federal agencies can better coordinate responses to the opioid
epidemic and carry out their authorized duties.
Many factors have contributed to this crisis, and it will take
significant efforts to overcome it. Throughout my listening tour around
northwest Oregon to discuss the opioid crisis, it became abundantly
clear that local, State, and Federal officials must work together to
address this epidemic and stem the loss of lives.
As I previously mentioned, I heard from numerous providers,
individuals in recovery, families who lost loved ones, teachers,
community leaders, all who called for greater Federal investment to
fight back against opioids and more assistance for State and local
entities that are working on the front lines.
Because of the breadth of programs required to assist families, any
government effort to address substance use disorder and the opioid
crisis must be a coordinated and collaborative approach across
agencies. I am hopeful that this interagency task force will result in
a more collaborative plan of action to address the many issues facing
my constituents and the other people across this country.
I am, however, concerned that a plan of action without the necessary
funding to carry out the recommendations will remain just a plan. So I
urge my colleagues to support providing sufficient resources to
implement these solutions.
I want to thank my colleagues, Congressman Grothman and Congressman
Lamb, for their work on this legislation, and I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Lamb), who I know is very concerned
about this issue as well.
Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to support
H.R. 5891, a bill I introduced with my Republican colleague, Mr.
Grothman, and I thank Mr. Grothman and Ranking Member Bonamici for
their efforts.
This bill is part of the fight against opioids. It creates an
interagency task force to study how we can take the work that these
government agencies are doing and do it even better.
We have to do it better for the families that are affected, and I
think the range of bills we are talking about today recognizes that. I
thank my Republican colleagues for focussing on that because the
mothers, the fathers, the brothers, and the sisters who have been left
behind, they are our first line of defense, and they need our support.
Mr. Speaker, heroin and opioid addiction is a full-blown crisis in
western Pennsylvania. It is a disease that does not discriminate.
People with money, people without money, people of all races, everyone
has been affected, and our people are dying every single day. An entire
generation of Americans, which is my generation, will have a huge hole
in it where our brothers and our sisters should have been.
Last year, we lost more than 60,000 Americans to the disease of drug
addiction, and they left behind more than 60,000 families. For too
long, those families have carried too heavy of a burden with too little
support from our government. I can tell you about the first one of
these families I met.
When I was a prosecutor investigating the death of their son, I met a
family whose son reminded me of so many young men that I served in the
Marines with. He was in his twenties. He was a hard worker. He was
prescribed prescription drugs for an injury that he got on the job. He
worked in the natural gas fields. He became addicted to opioids, and he
survived three different drug overdoses.
His family kept him alive. They rescued him from the side of the road
when he had been in a car with other drug addicts who threw him out
when he started to overdose. They fought for years to get him into
treatment and finally got him into a 30-day treatment program, where he
went and succeeded.
[[Page H5129]]
On the 31st day, that young man was released too soon, and his mother
was in a near fatal car accident the same day. He spent the day staring
at her in the ICU, and, no surprise, returned to heroin that same night
and passed away the next morning.
That man should still be with us today.
He was discovered by his grandfather and by his brother, and that
family will think about him and be asking forever what more they could
have done.
I have met them. I sat across from the father who cried in front of
me and asked what else he could have done. The fact is that they are
doing what they can, and if we, as a government, are going to ask them
to do everything they can, we have to ask the same of ourselves. We
have to have their back.
H.R. 5891 is a positive step forward. That is what this is for.
If this were any foreign military threat, we would study it in
detail. We would proceed strategically with great discipline and in a
bipartisan way, and that is what we are doing here.
This bill requires Federal agencies to do something that they don't
always do on their own, which is talk to each other and to put families
first. It also requires them to go listen to the people who are already
working most closely with these families--nurses, doctors, teachers,
therapists--so that we can use their testimony to make sure that this
task force produces results and not just a report. That is something we
have seen so far in western Pennsylvania.
{time} 1530
Our former U.S. attorney, David Hickton, led a local working group
and task force in the western district of Pennsylvania, which then
became the model for the National Heroin Task Force. Within a couple of
years, they gathered enough data, enough testimony, and enough momentum
that that became the basis for the White House's unprecedented request
for funding to fight this battle. Eventually, this Chamber got together
with the Senate and, in a bipartisan way, passed the 21st Century Cures
Act.
We need to harness that same spirit now. As Ranking Member Bonamici
said, we need to spend more than we spent so far. This is an
existential threat, and we need to treat it that way.
Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, my colleague, Congressman Grothman, and
I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 5891.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my final comment on this issue, first of all, for the
folks back home, is that when politicians talk about resources, they
really mean money. Back in Wisconsin, when I think of resources, I
think of timber, iron ore, oil, gas, and that sort of thing. But up
here, I guess when we talk about resources, we mean money.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I, again, want to thank Congressman
Grothman and Congressman Lamb on this important legislation and
emphasize again, that once we get the report from this task force, we
need to have the funding--the resources, the money--to implement its
recommendations to make sure that it really helps the people we are
serving. So, again, I thank them for their work on this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my Democratic colleagues for
making this a fine piece of bipartisan legislation. I hope when the
recommendations come back in 9 months, we can have another nice big
bipartisan vote and move the recommendations out.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5891.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
____________________