National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise again to talk about the heroin and prescription drug epidemic that has gripped our country and has affected every single State represented in this body. Sadly, it is a problem that is getting worse, not better. I say that having been in Dayton, OH, where sadly we had 15 people overdose in the space of the Fourth of July weekend in one that city in Ohio. This is happening all over our country, and it is an issue we have to address.
The Federal Government has an important role to play. There is much more we can do. This body recognizes that. Back on March 10, the Senate passed something called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act-- CARA. CARA was on this floor for 2\1/2\ weeks, and there was some back and forth about the legislation, but by the end of the process--I think partly because Members were going home and hearing from their constituents about it--94 Senators in this body voted yes on it. One voted no, and it passed 94 to 1. Those kinds of votes almost never happen around here. It happened because people realize this is a crisis that we do need to address, and the bill that we came up with actually made sense because it was based on the best practices from around the country.
So I have come to the floor every single week we have been in session since March 10 to talk about this issue, to urge my House colleagues to act, which they did, and over the past several weeks to urge that the House and Senate versions be brought together. That happened yesterday.
Finally, from March 10 until now, going back and forth, we have what is called a conference committee report, meaning the House and Senate versions have been reconciled. There were compromises made and changes made, and we have one bill to go back to both the House and Senate for a vote and to the President for his signature and, most importantly, to get to our communities to begin to provide more help on prevention and education, recovery, treatment, helping law enforcement, and stopping overprescribing of drugs. It is a comprehensive approach to have the Federal Government be a better partner with State and local governments and nonprofits to be able to address this issue that unfortunately millions of families in America are now facing.
I want to thank the Members of the conference committee. On the Senate side that would be Senators Grassley, Alexander, Hatch, Sessions, Leahy, Murray, and Wyden. I also want to thank all the House conferees. They did some good work. Each one of these Members I just mentioned has a real passion for this issue. They care about this issue.
I want to thank my coauthor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, because he did a pretty good job of talking to the conferees on his side of the aisle, as some of us did, including me, talking to conferees on our side of the aisle. Senator Whitehouse and I started this process 3 years ago. We had five conferences here in Washington, DC. We brought in experts from all around the country. So we had a real interest in getting this done, and I commend him and congratulate him for this result as well.
I know that those who are in the advocate community--in other words, people who work in this field every day in prevention and treatment, law enforcement folks, and health care folks--are also very happy that this conference report has come together. Senator Whitehouse and I are very happy that the conference report kept to the substance of the Senate bill and frankly added some good elements that came out of the House legislative process. They had 18 separate bills, we had one comprehensive bill, and we had to bring them all together.
There are now more than 230 groups from all around the country. A lot of them are national groups, and some are State groups that have come out in support of this conference report--in other words, supporting the final CARA product. Yesterday I met with about two dozen of these groups to talk about the process and how we got to where we are, to talk about the need to act quickly to get this into law because they are desperate. If you are a professional in the area of treatment and recovery, you want this help. You wanted it yesterday. We need it now.
By the way, these are people we consulted with during these 3 years. They all came and participated in these five conferences. We also consulted with many others, including the Obama administration. They testified at these conferences. They also testified at the hearing we had at the Judiciary Committee. They were supportive of CARA in part because we took their input. We took everybody's good ideas, not Republican ideas and Democrat ideas but good ideas. We kept this not just bipartisan but nonpartisan. It would be nice if we keep it that way.
I understand this is an election year and that some people may want to score a few political points. But having gone through this process in a nonpartisan way, having gotten this great vote out of the Senate and a strong vote in the House, and now having this conference report that has the right mix of good House and Senate substantive policies, I would hope to be able to make a difference in the fight. I would hope that we would not hear any more talk threatening to block this conference report at the last minute.
Some of the concerns people are bringing up in the last minute are concerns that were never raised on the Senate floor. Some conferees did not sign the conference report because they said they wanted the mandatory spending that is in the President's budget be a part of the bill. That was never raised on the Senate floor. It was never raised even as an amendment in the appropriations process. It just took place over the past several weeks. So this is new.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't have more spending. In fact, as some of you know, we had a vote on the floor on more spending. It was about emergency spending--not mandatory spending, which happens to be offset with cuts and other entitlement programs or tax increases, but emergency spending. I believe emergency spending is appropriate because I believe this is an emergency, and I voted for that emergency spending, but many of my colleagues did not. It did not pass.
On the mandatory spending side, again, it is interesting because that was never brought up before. I for one would be for more spending, but I certainly wouldn't want to block the new spending that we have in CARA, which is a substantial increase in spending, because I am concerned about having more spending.
Every day we are losing about 129 Americans. This is why there is a group out there called the CARA family coalition that came to Washington recently. There were 129 families representing that one family who every day loses somebody to heroin and prescription drug addiction through overdoses. Those families are waiting. Some of them are here this week because they are interested in seeing what happens.
More Americans are now dying from drug overdoses than car accidents. It is the No. 1 cause of accidental death. In Akron, OH, 2 days ago, over a 10-hour span--this is one city, Akron, OH, 2 days ago--15 people overdosed on heroin. Two more people overdosed later the same day. It included a woman and her two daughters, all of whom were found unconscious. It included a 44-year-old man who died of an overdose. There have been 55 people just in Akron, OH, who have died from heroin overdoses this year. This means they will set a tragic record this year in terms of overdose deaths. The problem is getting worse, not better.
On Tuesday in Dayton, OH, I met with law enforcement and treatment service providers. We announced a new program called the Front Door Initiative. Sheriff Phil Plummer was there. He told me that in one weekend in one town--again, in Dayton, OH--15 people died of overdoses. No one is immune from this. We have lost moms and dads, college students, grandmothers, celebrities, rich, poor, and people of every background to this epidemic. It knows no ZIP Code. It is in the inner city, it is in the suburbs, and it is in the rural areas. In the 117 days that have passed since the Senate passed CARA on March 10, approximately 14,000 Americans have died of overdoses from prescription drugs and from heroin--14,000 Americans. It is time to act.
Again, the good news is, we had a meeting yesterday of this conference committee between the House and Senate to finally pass this legislation, then to the House and Senate for a final vote, then getting it to the President, and most importantly out to our communities.
By the way, the 14,000 is not the whole story, as tragic as that is, because of course there are millions of other casualties--fellow Americans who may have lost a job or their entire career, have broken relationships with their families and friends--and I hear this all the time back home in Ohio. I heard it over the weekend, when someone came up to me at a parade and said: I am one of those people who cares about this issue. Thank you for fighting on it. We have had this issue in my family, and it broke our family apart.
People say the drugs become everything.
We don't have time for partisan games. This is urgent. I think it is more urgent than any issue we are dealing with. Nine out of ten of those who are struggling with addiction are not getting the treatment they need. I think if this were the case of any other disease, it would be viewed as a national scandal. It is wrong and it is unacceptable.
Addiction is a disease. One of the tenets of this whole legislation is to acknowledge that. With all of the specific improvements we have in terms of grants going out--for treatment, recovery, prevention education, helping police with Narcan, and so on--in a sense, the biggest thing for this legislation is to say: Let's get this stigma out of the way. Let's deal with this as a disease and get people into the treatment they need to get back on their feet.
Again, a few months ago, I, along with others, worked with the Senate Appropriations Committee to be sure we did have additional funding to fully fund CARA, of course, and to get more funding into the pipeline for treatment, recovery, education, and prevention. When people talk about the funding issue, let me just be clear, we are increasing funding. Of course, the CARA bill itself increases funding in the authorization, but here is what the Appropriations Committees have done.
The 2015 number was $41 million. This is for the Department of Health and Human Services, discretionary spending for heroin and opioid abuse. It went up to $136 million for this year, the year we are in now. That is a 237-percent increase. Next year, for 2017--when and if we can get CARA passed this week or next week, this is what would apply--we are seeing a 93-percent increase from the 237-percent increase. That is more funding. I wasn't great at math in school, but that is more funding. In fact, it is a 539-percent increase from 2015.
For those who say we are not taking this seriously enough on the funding side--of course, I would like to do more, but we have to acknowledge that a lot has been done. In terms of the overall spending, not just the HHS spending, we have also seen increases. This would include Department of Justice and other grantmaking. We have seen an increase from 41 to 136 to 262 in the Senate appropriations. I am sorry. This is to add to the House version of the appropriations for 2017. For next year, again in the Senate, we have a big increase that will start on October 1, if we are able to pass our appropriations bills--whether it is a CR or an omnibus or whatever form it takes--this is what the increase would be, at a minimum, I would hope, because that is what passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
This week, this is what the House reported passing. So as big as this increase is in the Senate--again, a 93-percent increase from this year's increase--it looks like, from what we have seen from reports from the House Appropriations Committees and in conversations with them, they are talking about a 393-percent increase in 1 year. Again, this is the House Appropriations Committee--a 1,500-percent increase over, again, 2015.
For those who say there is not new spending being dedicated to this, of course there is. That is good.
With regard to the total discretionary spending, this is not just HHS but all the different areas, including the Department of Justice and so on, which has also seen an increase. This is the Senate only. We don't have the House number yet, but for the Senate, we have gone from 220 to 320 to 470, a 113-percent increase over last year's spending. We are seeing more spending, and that is good.
By the way, this spending is connected to the CARA legislation. This increase was increased with the provisions that were in the CARA legislation to be sure that the two matched up.
Finally, this is the increase we got in the conference committee for the amount that is authorized--not the actual spending but the amount that the Senate and the House would authorize for increased spending for new programs in CARA. Again, the Senate-passed bill, 94 to 1, had a $78 million-per-year increase. The conference report more than doubled that to $181 million.
This is what is interesting to me. There are Senators on this floor who voted for CARA because it was the right thing to do--a nonpartisan exercise with a lot of bipartisan support, a 94-to-1 vote.
All that has changed since then is we have it more than doubling the authorized amount of spending in CARA. With regard to the appropriations process--because we didn't have this appropriations in place then, the Senate committee had not acted, the subcommittee had not acted--in those 117 days since CARA was passed, we now see a 46- percent increase overall in the discretionary spending. With regard to HHS, which is where most of the treatment money is, we see a 93-percent increase. For the House version, it looks to be an over 393-percent increase.
All that has changed since CARA has passed with a 94-to-1 vote were these big increases in spending. Again, I voted for emergency spending on the floor. I think it is an emergency. I would go further, but for those who say they now cannot support this good legislation because of spending, it makes no sense. There is no way to argue that.
There must be some other reason. I hope it is not politics. Again, that is what people hate about Washington. If partisanship is going to slip into this at the end of the process and keep people from getting the help they need and save lives, that would be a tragedy.
These new spending programs will help, but we also have to point out that CARA is not just about spending, it is about authorizing better programs. There are lots of examples of that where we have done that in this body in other areas. I am the author of the Drug-Free Communities Act. It authorized spending to create anti-drug coalitions around the country. It has helped spawn the creation of 2000 coalitions. I founded one in my hometown of Cincinnati over 20 years ago. Another 2000 have benefited from that.
That legislation did not have an appropriation--because it was an authorization, as CARA is--but it set up new programs, as CARA does. That program to date, the Drug-Free Communities Act, has spent $1.35 billion focused on prevention and education on drugs.
We have more prevention and education programs that I think are even an improvement in the CARA legislation, but that is an example of what an authorization bill does. In 2013, the Senate voted to reauthorize a bill called the Violence Against Women Act. I voted for it. Every single Democratic Member of Congress voted for it. It passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis, 78 to 22.
The bill increased authorizations to $655 million annually and made policy changes, but it did not--and I repeat it did not--include the spending in the bill. It was an authorization bill. The spending bills come with the appropriations process. It didn't have mandatory spending. It didn't have immediate appropriations. It was an authorization bill. It was an incredibly important issue, violence against women--a priority. Yet we didn't see some of these same concerns raised. Nobody voted against the Violence Against Women Act because it didn't have appropriations attached to it. That just wouldn't have made sense, as it would not for any other authorization we pass around here. I know that wasn't an election year, but we voted for it. Then we fought for the funding as part of the appropriations process. We were successful in doing that, just as we will be successful in fighting for these appropriations, as we did this year, getting a big increase, a 237-percent increase, and as we will next year--as we see already. Thanks to our advocacy, those of us who were focused on the issue, we are getting the increases to cover these changes in CARA.
Of course, all the funding in the world isn't going to make a dent in this issue if it is not spent the right way, and that is why you have the authorization bills like CARA because we actually say, not just for the new spending but even for the existing spending, let's spend it in a way that is evidence based, where we actually look at what is working and what is not working in treatment and in recovery.
The number of people who relapse is shockingly high. The success rate is not what any of us would like it to be. Part of that is because some treatment and recovery programs work better than others. We want to be darn sure the tax dollars we are putting against this are being responsibly spent because we are good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars and because this crisis needs to be addressed.
Again, this legislation is not just about more money, although it does authorize more money and that is good. It is also about changing the way we spend the money so it goes to evidence-based prevention, treatment, and recovery programs that have been proven to work. That is why we cannot let a debate about funding jeopardize the critical policy changes that CARA would make and because CARA would help ensure that these new resources would be spent on what we know works. That is what this 3-year process was about. That is what the conferences were about. That is what all the experts coming to Washington to tell us what works in the States was about--getting those best practices into this legislation.
Again, the CARA legislation improves prevention by sponsoring a national awareness campaign about the dangers of abusing prescription opioids. Probably four out of five heroin addicts who overdose today started on prescription drug. That information needs to get out there. We need to explain this connection to people if we are going to get at this issue.
The legislation also targets anti-drug coalitions in areas where the epidemic is worse. So where it is at its worst, there is more funding targeted to these anti-drug coalitions to focus on prevention and education. That is key to keep people out of the funnel of addiction, the grip of addiction. We should all be for that. That is in this legislation.
It would increase access to treatment by increasing the availability of naloxone, which is a miracle drug. It can actually reverse an overdose while it is happening. It will train our first responders to be able to use Narcan or naloxone more effectively. These provisions will save lives, particularly when it is connected--when saving a life is connected to getting somebody into treatment.
The conference agreement would also improve recovery for those who have been treated for addiction. It will build recovery communities like the ones at colleges and universities--perhaps at the State of the Presiding Officer. We have one we are very proud of at Ohio State University.
These recovery communities will give the peer support that is necessary to follow through on addiction treatment over the long term. We know that works. That is one of the keys, not just the treatment but the longer term recovery to keep people heading in the right direction.
I think people in your State, people in Ohio, certainly understand the urgency of this problem because everywhere I go, whether it is in the cities, the suburbs, or the rural areas, people ask me about it. And they ask me why we aren't doing more, why we are not acting on this.
Two weeks ago in Southwest Ohio, in my hometown of Cincinnati, a 28- year-old was arrested after a young man in the Cincinnati area who bought heroin from him was found dead of an overdose. A 17-year-old teenager was found dead of an overdose. That is what is happening on our streets today.
A few days ago, a man from Canton, OH, was pulled over in Akron, in Northeast Ohio, for speeding. He had 13 pounds of heroin on him. By one measure, that is about $400,000 of heroin--enough for 20,000 injections. If not for that apprehension, we would have had a lot more distribution of heroin and overdoses and potentially lives lost.
In Madison County, in Central Ohio, police arrested 16 people for trafficking heroin. At one of the drug houses they went to, there was a 5-year-old child. That is what is happening. According to the sheriff's office, a high percentage of property crimes in that county are directly tied to opioid addiction. Sheriff James Sabin says that out of all the problems facing law enforcement in Central Ohio, heroin is the No. 1 issue we are dealing with. That is what is happening.
Ohioans know this is happening to their friends, their neighbors, and their family members. They understand the urgency of this crisis. That is why all over the Buckeye State people are taking action at the local level and at the State level. But they want the Federal Government to be a better partner in helping them do what they know has to be done to fight this epidemic.
As I said, on Tuesday I was in Dayton. There have been over 400 overdoses just this year in Dayton. By some measure, Dayton, OH, has been named the top big city in America for overdoses--not something we are proud of. These 400 overdoses are going to be helped by a new program that was just launched and announced on Tuesday--I was there for the announcement--called the Front Door Initiative. It will get treatment to those who have overdosed. Once they are clean, it will get them skill training, help them find a job, and teach them how to be better moms and dads. The notion is that instead of putting people into prison, get them into treatment. It is a diversion program that is going to be customized and personalized for the particular person's problems. Through looking at what works and what doesn't work, we have found that is an effective way to get people back on track.
This innovation is happening in other places, too, around Ohio. Sheriff Tharp in Lucas County is doing some very innovative stuff-- again, connecting people whom they arrest with treatment. In my view, it is going to be more effective, more compassionate, and it will also save taxpayer dollars.
I thank Sheriff Phil Plummer, the Cornerstone Project, and the entire Montgomery County Drug-Free Coalition in Dayton, OH, for their daily fight to get treatment to those who need it and help people get their lives back on track.
The conference report that has just been voted out will help. It will help law enforcement agencies like those in Dayton and Lucas County and other places around Ohio find alternatives to incarceration.
Ohioans are taking action, and they expect Congress to take appropriate action too. This is a crisis. They want the Federal Government to be a better partner. They have been patient.
Let me just say respectfully that, in my view, this is not like every other issue we address here. And we address some very important issues, as we did yesterday on sanctuary cities, issues that relate to spending bills, but this is about saving lives and allowing people to achieve their God-given purpose in life by not getting off track and not being casualties of this addiction epidemic.
I think this is urgent. And for those who might say ``Well, what hope is there? How can more money help?'' I will tell you, No. 1, it is money that will be wisely spent. That is how it will help. Secondly, if it is well spent, treatment can work and it does work. Recovery can work and it does work. There are so many stories I can tell because I have been at over a dozen treatment centers around Ohio and spoken to hundreds of recovering addicts and heard so many stories.
Let me tell you one about Bethani Temple from Prospect, OH. When she was 18 years old, her dad died of cancer. To help her cope with her grief, she tried one of the pain killers he had been prescribed. He had pain medication for his cancer, and she was grieving, so she thought she would try one of these pain killers, and she became addicted to these pain killers. Soon they were too expensive and not as accessible as something else, which was heroin. Bethani became addicted to heroin. While she was addicted, she gave birth to a daughter who was dependent on opioids.
By the way, there has been a 750-percent increase in babies born in Ohio in the last 12 years who are dependent on opioids. It is tragic.
Bethani's boyfriend got into a car accident while he was high on heroin and he died. Bethani was eventually arrested. Fortunately, she was in an area of Ohio where, although she got arrested, they helped get her into treatment. They diverted her into treatment. She got help. Bethani was the very first graduate of the Marion Ohio Court family dependency treatment program. It is a drug court. We had a roundtable discussion in Marion with Bethani and others and got to see some other young women who have been able to benefit from that.
Her daughter got treatment, too, by the way. Now they are both healthy--and not just healthy; Bethani is now a college graduate, she is now married with two kids, and she is now the coordinator of the same program that got her back on track and, as she would say, saved her. She is the coordinator there, and she is helping others get their lives back on track as she did. She is beating this because she got the right treatment for her, the right recovery program for her.
Mr. President, this is personal for me. It is personal for all of us--it should be. I know too many people who have gotten caught up in this grip of addiction. I know too many families who have gone through what may be viewed by some as the ultimate grief, which is to have your child predecease you because that child got involved with prescription drugs, then heroin, and then overdosed.
Two families I have gotten to know lost their children because when their children had their wisdom teeth taken out, they were given pain medication and they got addicted to the pills and then heroin. These were teenagers who had to have their wisdom teeth taken out. These families are waiting, but they need help, and we need to give it to them.
I would urge my colleagues to set the politics aside. This is not a partisan issue. It hasn't been from the start. This is an issue of helping the people we represent.
For all those people who voted for the legislation as it came through--94 to 1--remember, all that has changed is that there is more money in this bill now than there was before. Remember, in the 117 days since you voted for this legislation, over 10,000 Americans have died, including Americans in each of our States. Remember, there is an election every 2 years. There is always going to be politics. This needs to come above politics. We need to get this done, and we need to get it done now.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source