[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2231-2232]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          THE COMBAT METHAMPHETAMINE EPIDEMIC ELIMINATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, much of what we do here in Congress is very 
contentious. Our 1-minutes and 5-minutes tend to reflect a lot of those 
deep divisions. And while we sometimes share basic views, I think that 
they get carried to extremes sometimes on House debate.
  I want talk about something we have actually done in a bipartisan 
way. We often hear that we do not do anything here in a bipartisan 
fashion and that all we can agree on are naming post offices. But this 
week when the PATRIOT Act passes, inside the PATRIOT Act is the Combat 
Methamphetamine Epidemic Elimination Act, the largest and most 
comprehensive legislation ever done by a United States Congress on 
methamphetamine.
  Nearly 20 years ago there were some attempts to regulate some of what 
was then called ``crank'' and some variations of methamphetamine that 
had already started in Asia and had been in Hawaii and had trickled in, 
even a decade ago or a little longer, into the West Coast, in Oregon 
and Washington State and California, but had not really hit the United 
States in full force.
  Then over the last several years, Members of Congress have been 
coming here frustrated with the fact that our administration, from the 
Republican standpoint and from the Nation's, our present administration 
had not been responding aggressively enough to the Methamphetamine Act, 
and how to address the control of pseudoephedrine in the United States, 
as well as the ephedra and pseudoephedra that was coming into the 
United States that was making and going into the mom-and-pop meth labs, 
as well as the crystal meth.
  Senators Talent and Feinstein introduced a bill on the Senate side to 
do what many States were doing, and that is, put pseudoephedrine behind 
the counter. Majority Whip Blunt introduced similar legislation in the 
House.
  In addition, Members from both parties introduced many different 
bills. Congresswoman Hooley and Representative Kennedy, in particular, 
led the effort to try to go beyond just putting something behind the 
counter, but to try to regulate international legislation; and their 
bills were incorporated in a more comprehensive bill that then also 
absorbed the Blunt-Talent-Feinstein bill.
  This all was attached to the PATRIOT Act. And I would have just as 
soon had a free debate here on the House floor and dealt with this, but 
part of the thing is that as we moved this meth bill through, we came 
under tremendous counterattack from the pharmaceutical industry that 
did not want any limitations on pseudoephedrine in the United States.
  We came under heavy attack from the China lobby and the Mexico lobby 
that did not want the threat of decertification on them if they did not 
cooperate on controlling pseudoephedrine.
  What this bill will do is limit the daily purchase, it will limit the 
monthly purchase, require purchasers to show ID and sign in a log book.
  Therefore, as Indiana passes a law, people will no longer be able to 
go to Michigan and Ohio to get their pseudoephedrine and continue to 
kind of supply the raw material for all of the mom-and-pop labs, 900 
last year in the State of Indiana, whereas Ohio only had 300, which, by 
the way, was a growth from 30.
  But we go beyond just the control of pseudoephedrine and the few 
remaining States that did not have that control. We closed loopholes in 
existing import-export and wholesale regulations, not only the main 
markets, but the spot market. There are basically only nine plants in 
the entire world that manufacture pseudoephedrine. We need China and 
India and several of the European countries, and the Czech Republic 
recently closed down their plant; we need to regulate this, know how 
many quantities are coming through. We need to do better control on the 
southwest border, where much of what pours in from other nations in the 
world, Mexico basically puts a minimum of 40 tons of raw 
pseudoephedrine beyond what they use in the United States that is used 
in mom-and-pop labs.
  We also try to address not only the precursors for the mom-and-pop 
labs, but what immediately moves in behind. As we have seen in 
Oklahoma, as we have seen in many other States, and even in my State 
where the mom-and-pop labs go down, the crystal meth comes in behind.
  The crystal meth is even more potent to the individuals. It is not as 
dangerous to the environment. It is not as dangerous to our local law 
enforcement people. You do not see explosions in homes that kill and 
maim little kids. But to the individual user, crystal meth is even more 
damaging than the homemade meth, because it is pure and even more 
addictive. And this often moves in behind.
  So then the treatment programs are stressed, the highways still have 
people on it, that is why in addition to the behind-the-counter, we 
have got to go to

[[Page 2232]]

the raw pseudoephedrine that is going into the crystal meth labs in 
Mexico and some of the super labs that are still left in the West.
  We have increased and toughened penalties against meth traffickers 
and smugglers. We authorized the meth hot spots program, something the 
administration continues to try to zero out, and we have never had it 
authorized.
  This authorizes that program which makes it much harder for the 
administration to try to eliminate it, as well as increases funding in 
the authorizing for drug courts, for the drug endangered children 
program and programs to assist pregnant women addicted to meth.
  This is an historic step. When the Senate passes the PATRIOT Act 
tomorrow, there will be lots of debate about the PATRIOT Act and all of 
that. But inside that bill is the most significant bipartisan effort we 
have ever done in the United States Congress on methamphetamine.
  And I am thrilled that it is finally going to become law after 
languishing and battling and watching all of the different interests 
try to defeat this. This is a triumph for bipartisanship. It is a 
triumph for locals who came to us and asked this to be done. It is a 
triumph to all of our narcotics officers around the United States and 
all of the drug treatment people around the United States and 
prevention people who have been saying, when are you going to do 
something on meth? Well, this week we are.

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