[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 130 (Thursday, July 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3737-S3738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FEND OFF FENTANYL ACT
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about important
legislation that was included in the National Defense Authorization Act
tonight and something that will help us fight the scourge of illicit
fentanyl in the United States of America.
An urgent public health crisis is gripping our State and many other
parts of the United States. I want to thank my colleagues Senator Scott
from South Carolina and Senator Brown from Ohio for their leadership on
the bipartisan legislation known as the FEND Act that was included in
tonight's legislation.
The fentanyl crisis is having a direct and dire impact on families in
the State of Washington and all throughout the United States. In the
past 12 months, more than 65,000 Americans have died by overdosing on
synthetic opioids like fentanyl. That is why it is so important that,
tonight, included in this legislation is the FEND Act, and that is part
of a response that we need to have to take this national crisis
seriously.
This legislation declares the international trafficking of fentanyl,
and its precursors needed to make it, a national emergency. This gives
the President and us the focus that we need to fight, as it says in the
legislation, ``an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.''
Mr. President, a crisis of this magnitude demands a robust Federal
response, and that is why this legislation provides the President with
new tools to stop the illicit fentanyl flooding our borders and those
who are trying to transport it into our country.
First, the new tools in this legislation are sanctions targeting
transnational criminal organizations and foreigners engaged in
international fentanyl trafficking. The bill specifically calls out
eight known cartels in Mexico, which means that Treasury can
investigate suspicious activities involved here and declare sanctions.
It recognizes that these traffickers, once identified, can have
sanctions imposed and can have forfeiture of their property.
Recognizing that fentanyl production is not simply these entities but
also diverse networks of players, this legislation helps us go after
those. Sanctions will enable the U.S. Government to try to disrupt the
flow of this product: the distributors, the brokers, the wholesalers,
the retailers, the sellers of precursors--anyone who is involved in
trafficking these deadly pills can now be targeted.
Second, the Senate-passed legislation goes after financial
institutions that participate in fentanyl-related money laundering.
Once caught, property forfeited by international fentanyl traffickers
can be used by the Department of Justice and State and local law
enforcements to help participate in additional investigations, and this
legislation also empowers Treasury to use special measures to pursue
fentanyl-related and other types of drug laundering activity. For
example, a foreign financial institution engaged in fentanyl-related
money laundering, it can impose restrictions on those banks and U.S.
banks doing business with those foreign entities.
So the bottom line is there are new tools. Once this legislation
makes it to the President's desk and through the finish of our
colleagues working together on a final House and Senate NDAA package,
it will give the U.S. Government Agencies more tools to disrupt the
illicit fentanyl trafficking and the supply chains that exist
internationally.
Severely penalizing those engaged in fentanyl trafficking is just one
step. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, my
State, Washington, experienced the single highest increase among U.S.
States in reported drug overdoses last year--an increase of more than
21 percent.
Hundreds of traumatized families that will never be the same,
thousands of first responders struggling to cope with this daily
tragedy that they respond to--the statistics are stunning, but they are
also just very tragic. Sometimes it is hard to even listen to the
stories, but I have been going around my State listening to people
affected by this crisis and talking to those in my State about the
opportunities to do something--the heart-wrenching stories of
individuals who have been impacted by this: a mother whose son went off
to college and just simply didn't come home; a beloved brother who
fought addiction for years and who got help to kick heroin, got sober,
and got his life back but then, sadly, succumbed to fentanyl; a woman
struggling with addiction who realized she needed help but then
couldn't find a bed available for detox, only to hear, time and time
again, that such a bed did not exist; a young man who took a single
pill he thought was Percocet who died from an illicit counterfeit pill
laced with fentanyl.
That is why we need legislation. In addition to the FEND Off Fentanyl
Act, we need to do more with just the supply. In the Tri-Cities, a
police officer told me that their local task force has already seized
over 200,000 fentanyl pills this year. Statewide, we have already
surpassed the number of fentanyl seizures in all of last year. Law
enforcement in Washington has already seized more than 1.6 million
fentanyl pills this year compared to a total of 1.3 million in all of
last year.
So the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has seized over 379 million
deadly doses of fentanyl. That was last year. That is more than enough
supply in the United States. We need to do something now to also aid in
the stopping and obstruction to make sure that we are preventing this
from happening in the rest of the United States and to stop it in my
State of Washington.
I plan to work with TSA and DEA to make sure that we strengthen the
laws that allow for the investigation of fentanyl distribution at our
airports, to make sure that we are tracking the supply and
investigating and giving our law enforcement any tool that they can use
to help stop the movement of this product.
I am also grateful that our colleagues tonight acted in a bipartisan
way, and I hope they will act in a bipartisan way in the future. There
are other things that we need to do to stop the cycle of addiction.
As one doctor told me: We could have access to recovery be as easy as
access to the drug, but it is not.
We have heard from people all over the State--from our firefighters,
from our police officers, from our courts, to our healthcare treatment
centers--and we have seen unbelievable pilot programs that are being
used to try to tackle this problem. We have seen fire stations use new
equipment and first responders so they can quickly get to the scene and
have the tools in place.
We have heard from our State and from our healthcare officials like
Dr. Banta-Green from the University of Washington, who has helped to
understand and pioneer a program so that people can just walk into a
facility that is community-based and get access to care and treatment
immediately. So no more trying to respond every day of where to go or
having a first responder having to go back to the same place, but
giving people a place that they can go.
I hope our colleagues will look at some of these innovative
prevention
[[Page S3738]]
measures that my State is trying to undertake. I hope that we can work
in a bipartisan effort to give more tools to DEA, but I hope tonight we
will be happy that we are now declaring this a national emergency, that
we have given the President and Treasury and our officials new tools to
stop the trafficking of this product and to pursue those who are
involved in it in an aggressive way around the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The majority leader.
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