[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 101 (Thursday, June 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3359-S3360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



              Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, later today our friends in the House will 
be voting on the HALT Fentanyl Act. This is important legislation, and 
I am glad that it will soon be on its way to the President's desk.
  I don't need to tell anybody about the terrible impact of drug 
overdoses in this country--many of them caused by fentanyl. More 
Americans die of drug overdoses each year than the number of Americans 
who died in the entirety of the Vietnam war.
  Just 3 years ago, the New England Journal of Medicine estimated we 
were losing 22 teenagers every week to drug overdoses. Twenty-two 
teenagers every week, that is like losing an entire high school 
classroom week after week, and no part of this country has been spared 
from the influx of fentanyl.

[[Page S3360]]

  We certainly have seen it in my home State of South Dakota. Enough 
fentanyl was seized in Sioux Falls, SD, last year to kill 2.5 million 
people.
  Law enforcement reports that the cartels have a presence in our area, 
and the price of a single pill has dropped from $40 a few years ago to 
just $5 per pill today, largely due to the growing supply.
  As bad as this situation is today, it was much worse a few years ago. 
Before 2018, the fentanyl analogs that were killing so many Americans 
were generally classified as schedule II substances, meaning 
regulations were less stringent and violations carried lighter 
penalties.
  And if a particular analog was moved to schedule I, the cartels would 
simply alter the chemical composition slightly, which meant the new 
analog wasn't subject to stricter enforcement even though it was no 
less deadly, but that ended in 2018 when the Trump administration 
temporarily reclassified all fentanyl analogs under schedule I. And 
Congress has extended that temporary reclassification several times 
because it works.
  Now it is time to make that permanent. That is where the HALT 
Fentanyl Act comes in. It will permanently classify fentanyl analogs as 
what we know them to be: the deadliest kind of drugs. And it will 
ensure that law enforcement has an important tool to go after the 
people bringing this poison into our country and peddling it in our 
communities.
  I want to thank Senators Cassidy and Johnson and Chairman Grassley 
for their leadership on this issue and for getting this bill to this 
point. I expect today's vote in the House will be broadly bipartisan, 
as it was in the Senate, and it will soon be signed into law by 
President Trump--all made possible by their efforts.
  The HALT Fentanyl Act has drawn support from law enforcement officers 
and State attorneys general, and perhaps, most significantly, it has 
the support of families of numerous Americans who have died from 
fentanyl overdoses. And I am grateful to those families for their 
passionate advocacy on this issue and on passage of this bill.
  The HALT Fentanyl Act is just one step in the fight against the 
scourge of fentanyl. In the coming weeks, we will be taking up 
legislation to address another aspect of the fight, securing our 
borders. Much of the fentanyl in our country comes across an 
international border so securing our borders is a key step to 
preventing shipments of this poison from getting into our country in 
the first place, and the bill we will be voting on in the coming weeks 
will make a generational investment in border security, including 
finishing the border wall and investing in personnel and technology to 
stop illegal aliens and illegal drugs from getting across.
  Too many Americans have lost their lives to drug overdoses. And so 
many of those deaths were caused by a single pill containing a lethal 
dose of fentanyl. Republicans will continue our efforts to end this 
crisis and prevent illegal drugs from getting into our country and 
devastating our communities.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.