[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10227-10230]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      DEFENDING PUBLIC SAFETY EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT ACT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.


              Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid Safety Act

  Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise not to speak about an issue that 
divides this Chamber but rather one that unites us; that is, the care 
of those who have served and sacrificed for our Nation, America's 
veterans.
  Today, I take great pride in the fact I have worked across the aisle 
to introduce bipartisan VA reform legislation, the Jason Simcakoski 
Memorial Opioid Safety Act. I am pleased to be joined in offering this 
legislation by my friend and colleague Senator Capito of West Virginia.
  This legislation is aimed at addressing the problem of 
overprescribing practices at the VA and providing safer and more 
effective pain management services to our Nation's veterans. It is 
named in honor of a Wisconsin veteran, U.S. Marine veteran Jason 
Simcakoski.
  On August 30, 2014, Jason tragically died at Wisconsin's Tomah 
Veterans Affairs Medical Center as a result of what was medically 
deemed mixed-drug toxicity. I call this a failure to serve someone who 
has faithfully served our country.
  At the time of his death at the VA, Jason was on 14 different 
prescription drugs. Yet this Marine's heartbreaking story is just one 
example of the overprescribing problem at the VA.
  After two, decade-long, wars, a large number of our servicemembers 
are coming home with the damage of combat, and our veterans and their 
families are facing the difficult challenge of physical injuries, PTSD, 
and other mental illnesses.
  Unfortunately, I believe the VA's overreliance on powerful and highly 
addicting opioids has resulted in getting our veterans hooked rather 
than getting them help. Jason's story is a tragic example of the 
devastation caused by addiction--addiction whose roots are, 
regrettably, at the VA.
  To me, overprescription of opioids at the VA is a root problem, and 
it is growing into a weed--a weed of addiction whose impact is being 
felt beyond the walls of VA facilities. The ripples are indeed being 
felt across America in the communities we work for every day in our 
Nation's Capital.
  The families whom we have a responsibility to represent--families of 
those who have bravely served our country--are struggling with the loss 
of a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, a sister or a brother to 
addiction whose

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root is planted within the VA system. It is our job to make sure they 
do not feel alone, and I believe we have a shared responsibility to do 
everything we can to pull out this weed by its roots.
  Jason's family is in Washington today, and I am so honored to have 
worked with them and others in putting these reforms together to 
provide the VA with the tools it needs to help prevent this type of 
tragedy from occurring to other veterans and their families.
  I what to thank the Simcakoski family and let them know I have a 
tremendous amount of respect for the courage they have shown in telling 
theirs and Jason's story and working to make a difference in the lives 
of other veterans and their families.
  Their story is one of a sacred trust we must have with our veterans 
and their families. It is a story of how that trust has been broken, 
and it is a tragic story of loss.
  My message to my colleagues comes from Jason's widow Heather, who has 
said:

       When I look back at the past, I want to know we made a 
     difference. I want to believe we have leaders in our country 
     who care. I want to inspire others to never give up because 
     change is possible.

  Her words have inspired me, and it is my hope they will inspire my 
colleagues to join us in taking action. I hope I speak for all of us 
when I say there is no room for politics when it comes to ensuring that 
our Nation's veterans receive the timely, safe, and highest quality 
care that they have earned.
  Our legislation takes steps to give veterans and their families a 
stronger voice in their care by strengthening opioid prescribing 
guidelines and other measures. It also works to improve
coordination and communication throughout the VA and puts in place 
stronger oversight and accountability for the quality of care we are 
providing our veterans.
  Our goal is simple: put these bipartisan reforms in place to prevent 
tragedies like Jason's from occurring to other veterans and their 
families.
  I wish to thank and recognize Senators Blumenthal, Brown, Hirono, 
Johnson, Kaine, Manchin, Markey, Moran, Murray, Sanders, and Tester for 
joining Senator Capito and me, signing on as original cosponsors of 
this bipartisan effort. I also wish to thank the many veterans service 
organizations and medical professionals for their invaluable support, 
insight, and input as we crafted this legislation.
  Today, I ask the rest of my colleagues to join us in working to 
confront the problems of overprescribing practices at the VA and to 
provide more safe and effective pain management services to our 
Nation's veterans.
  Let us work together to fix what has been broken and restore that 
sacred trust with our veterans and their families. Let us work together 
to give our veterans and their families a voice--a voice that is heard, 
respected, and recognized. Let us be inspired by that voice to take 
bipartisan action on solutions to prevent these problems and tragedies 
from ever happening again and to provide our veterans and their 
families with the care they have earned and the care they deserve.
  Madam President, I yield time to my coauthor on this bill Senator 
Capito.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I come here before you today, joined by 
my colleague Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin--but also by colleagues 
from both sides of the aisle, as she mentioned--in support of 
legislation to provide safer and more effective pain management to our 
Nation's veterans.
  Too many of our veterans have returned from overseas duties only to 
fight another battle here at home. The Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid 
Safety Act takes the necessary steps to address challenges faced by our 
veterans.
  Again, I thank the Simcakoskis for their bravery and courage, as 
painful as it is for the family, in hopes that it will help--and it 
will help--the next generation of veterans who are being treated at the 
VA.
  This bill reforms the overreliance on painkillers by the VA while 
still ensuring that veterans receive appropriate medication. This 
legislation not only updates and strengthens the guidelines for opioid 
prescriptions, but it requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to 
expand the scope of research, education, delivery, and integration of 
alternative pain management. Chronic pain should not be something our 
veterans are forced to live with, and the VA must be on the cutting 
edge of developing effective pain management.
  This bill will elevate the role of patient advocates--as I am sure 
Jason's wife was a great patient advocate--require community meetings 
hosted by the VA, and establish a joint DOD-VA working group to improve 
coordination and communication at all levels of government.
  In an era where medical research and technological advancements have 
led to at least a 90-percent survival rate for our wounded soldiers, we 
must continue to focus on the battles our veterans face when they 
return home, including treatment of those wounds that are not evidently 
visible.
  One marine in my hometown, Andrew White, returned home to West 
Virginia after serving in Iraq. Andrew displayed signs of PTSD, 
including insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness, and pain related 
to an injury. In addition to antidepressant and antianxiety pills, 
doctors placed Andrew on a strong antipsychotic drug and, over time, 
increased his dosage from 25 milligrams to 1600 milligrams--more than 
twice the dosage recommended to treat schizophrenia. Andrew White died 
in his sleep at the age of 23.
  Andrew is a reminder of the physical and mental side effects of the 
war. We must work together to provide the resources and care necessary 
to assist our veterans in their transition into civilian life.
  Expansion of the Opioid Safety Initiative and further development of 
the opioid therapy risk support tool will do just that. These measures 
will enable the VA to use the patient record database to detect those 
at higher risk of opioid abuse and submit information to the State 
prescription drug monitoring programs. We really need all hands on 
deck. This real-time tracking of information will enable medical 
professionals to better diagnose and treat patients.
  This legislation calls for more accountability within the VA through 
internal audits, reports to Congress, and increased information 
sharing. We cannot allow bureaucracy to get in the way of delivering 
quality care to veterans, and we must prioritize the efficient delivery 
of care.
  In my home State of West Virginia, the tragic effects of opioid abuse 
have left families devastated. I have met with other families who lost 
their loved ones who suffered from PTSD and traumatic brain injury, and 
I believe more can be done to find solutions.
  It is incumbent upon us in a bipartisan way, as my colleague has 
said, to do right by our veterans. I wish to thank Senator Baldwin. I 
have been at committee meeting after committee meeting with her where 
she has pounded the drum on the importance of this issue and how 
devastating it is to families across this country. I thank Senator 
Baldwin.
  Our best is not just the least we can do. It is our duty to those who 
have served, of whom we have asked so much, to do more than our best, 
and this bill does that.
  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. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Data Breach at OPM

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, earlier today the Financial Services and 
General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, of which I am a member,

[[Page 10229]]

conducted a hearing on the data security breach at the Office of 
Personnel Management. I am a member of that subcommittee, and we had 
several witnesses, including OPM Director Archuleta. Our goal was to 
learn about the latest data breach that was revealed earlier this 
month.
  I think that in many ways the hearing was useful and in other ways it 
was inadequate. The hearing once again demonstrated that much more 
needs to be done to address the ongoing IT management issues which 
plague so many agencies but in particular OPM.
  As our witnesses testified, the recent breach--and really, it is 
breaches--at OPM was not a resource issue but a management issue. Too 
often--and I certainly understand that how we appropriate money is 
important--the excuse is we don't have enough resources. Today, in my 
view, it was made clear that this is much more of a management issue 
than a resource issue.
  As Director Archuleta said in her confirmation hearing as well as in 
today's hearing, IT security was her top priority when she entered the 
agency in November of 2013. But what has transpired since then has been 
troubling. She reminded me today that in her confirmation hearing--IT 
data security was her top priority when she arrived at the agency in 
late 2013.
  Ms. Archuleta highlighted the fact that in March of 2014, OPM 
detected a sophisticated attack targeting sensitive information. While 
the hackers didn't get information in that particular instance, this 
should have been the first alarm to go off that somebody was trying to 
get access to very sensitive documents.
  I will reiterate what I am talking about in this case. This was March 
of 2014. We are talking about a hack attempt that occurred last year, 
not the ones that are making the news today. Unfortunately, it happened 
again a year ago--in June of 2014--when a company that was involved in 
background checks for the government, U.S. Investigation Services, 
USIS, suffered a breach impacting as many as 26,000 Federal employee 
records. It happened again in August of 2014--a third time. So we have 
March, June, and August. In August of 2014, another company
involved in background checks, KeyPoint, was breached, and this time 
over 48,000 records were stolen.
  In both of these contractor breaches, OPM was required to send out 
notifications to Federal employees who were affected. Clearly OPM knew 
about these breaches. Now we have learned that the credentials stolen 
in those original breaches were used to enter the OPM system and this 
time steal highly sensitive information. The information stolen was 
Social Security numbers, military records, veteran status, addresses, 
birth dates, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, 
pension, age, gender, race, and union status. So these three separate 
examples should have been the stark warning to secure this highly 
sensitive data.
  When I asked the Director today about this topic, she merely pointed 
to an IT modernization plan that was drafted when she entered the 
agency about 20 months ago. My question was: Having seen these three 
attempts to breach the information at OPM, what then occurred at OPM 
following that which was different to further and better protect 
information at the Office of Personnel Management? The answer was 
really about pointing to a plan that was developed when the Director 
initially arrived at OPM some 20 months ago.
  In addition to those three breaches, if those were not warning 
enough, there were two other important reports which also could have 
and should have suggested that better management was needed. In 
November 2014, the inspector general for OPM released its annual report 
on Federal information security. That report found that 11 of the 47 
major information systems--23 percent--at OPM lacked proper security 
authorization. In fact, 5 of the 11 systems were in the office of the 
Chief Information Officer, the person responsible for the agency's data 
security.
  This morning, Ms. Archuleta was proud to claim that the agency had 
been upgraded to just ``significant deficiency'' with regard to its IT 
system, up from ``material weakness.'' And the inspector general 
testified this morning that they had offered 29 recommendations in 
their November report, and to date only 3 of the 29 recommendations had 
been adopted.
  In addition to the inspector general report in November of 2014, in 
December--the following month--of 2014, the General Accounting Office, 
or GAO, issued a report highly critical of IT management at OPM. The 
report identified best practices that OPM should implement to improve 
IT management. The report found that ``OPM's efforts to modernize 
retirement processing have been plagued by IT management weaknesses''--
another indication that OPM desperately needed to address IT 
management, which our witnesses argue is critical to ensuring agency-
wide security.
  So my takeaway from this morning's hearing is that all the warning 
signs were there. OPM was aware of the persistent issues. They knew 
about breaches to their contractors, and the agency knew they were a 
target. Yet the only evidence that OPM did anything was a plan that was 
written in the first 100 days of the new Director's tenure at OPM. 
Planning is important, but execution matters a lot more.
  We still need lots of answers as to what OPM did following those 
original breaches last year. What security plan did they put in place? 
Have they identified which information to secure? How did they secure 
these documents? Were they effective in preventing other attacks? How 
often did the OPM Director and the CIO, the Chief Information Officer, 
meet and what were their discussions?
  I am encouraged to know that our Financial Services and General 
Government Appropriations Subcommittee intends to have another hearing, 
and this time we will have the opportunity to present it in a secured 
setting so that no one can indicate that they are incapable of 
answering the question because of security issues. I look forward to 
that hearing. However, I will tell my colleagues that it is 
discouraging to know what I now know, and it is a discouraging time for 
IT security and the Federal Government.
  I hope we can use this as a lesson for other agencies that they need 
to be vigilant. We face real and serious threats. Inaction by agencies 
put Federal workers, the American people, and, most importantly, our 
national security at risk.
  In my view, this is important. These hearings matter. The information 
we are garnering and attempting to garner is important for those who 
are employees of the Federal Government. They need to know what has 
transpired so they can better protect themselves. Why are they at risk 
because of these hacks? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we need 
to know what has transpired here. Processes need to be in place to 
prevent additional challenges to our information technology, because it 
is a matter of our national security.
  So for the sake of our Federal employees and their well-being but 
also for the sake of the American citizens and our national security, 
this is not an issue that we have the opportunity to avoid. Answers 
need to be forthcoming and decisions need to be made system-wide--not 
just at OPM but throughout the entire Federal Government--as we work to 
protect those who work for the Federal Government and as we work to 
protect American citizens from a national security perspective.
  With that, I thank the Chair for the opportunity to address the 
Senate.
  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. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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