Providing for Consideration of H.R. Student Borrower Credit Improvement Act, and Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2019
Floor Speech
Now, that amendment would ensure the President can protect the United States and our ally, Israel. I don't think that is asking too much.
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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend on the Rules Committee for yielding me the time.
Our proposal to defeat the previous question and offer this amendment would do no underlying violence to the two bills--it has nothing to do with them--but it would save lives of all kinds of people in America.
You see, fentanyl is a synthetic, manmade opioid. It is 50 times more potent than heroin. It is 100 times more potent than morphine. It is a scheduled drug under the Controlled Substances Act. However, Madam Speaker, drug traffickers are able to make small changes to fentanyl and its chemical structure, and that creates a new variation of the substance.
Now, these so-called analogues are not on the schedule of controlled drugs. They are outside of the control of law enforcement, and they are incredibly dangerous--may I say, deadly.
For example, one of these analogues, carfentanil, is 100 times as potent as the same amount of fentanyl, 5,000 times more potent than a unit of heroin, and 10,000 times as potent as a unit of morphine.
Now, the creation of analogues outpaced the Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to schedule them, so the DEA used emergency authorities to place all of the analogues in schedule I.
The Controlled Substances Act, the CSA, provides the Attorney General with the authority to temporarily place a substance in schedule I of the CSA for 2 years if he finds that such action is necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety. In 2018, the Trump administration's DEA used this authority to place fentanyl analogues and fentanyl-like substances on that schedule I.
So here is the issue: The emergency scheduling order expires next Thursday, February 6, and Congress has yet to extend it. The Senate passed an extension, Madam Speaker, I believe, unanimously; but, so far, Democrats in the House have not acted.
There is no excuse for this. There is no reason for this. Lives will be lost. We have seen a series of delay tactics, and that is leading to an expiration of this incredibly important authority.
With the United States Senate dealing with impeachment, there is no time for the House to generate a new product, a different bill, before this expires. So the House needs to pass the Senate extension this week so law enforcement does not lose or have a lapse on this important capability to fight fentanyl, which is deadly, which is added to heroin, which causes deaths all across America.
We are using this limited tool we have asking for a defeat of the previous question so that we can offer this should-be-unanimous amendment to get it on a vehicle so it can become law.
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Mr. WALDEN. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Speaker, the gentleman's passionate statements are all accurate and true. It was not that long ago we came together as a Congress, the last Congress, under my leadership of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and passed nearly 60 pieces of legislation into one, the SUPPORT Act, that deals with the opioid crisis, the substance use disorder crisis in America, and one of the key points of that was dealing with this illegal fentanyl that is coming in.
If we let this authority expire, the real practical consequence is these evil actors, these chemists in their labs, will simply alter the chemical makeup, which they do all the time, create an even more deadly or powerful fentanyl that can go into heroin and other drugs and kill our citizens, and they can do that lawfully because that new substance will not be covered.
Now, we would hope the majority would move the Senate bill. But we have seen no text; we have heard no schedule. This authority expires next week on February 6, and we only have a legislative day or two left.
Madam Speaker, lives hang in the balance. This, we should adopt.
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Mr. WALDEN. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Speaker, we agree on the fentanyl issue, I think.
My understanding is that the leader posted this, Madam Speaker, at 11:50 this morning, about a half an hour after we posted our previous question proposal to bring this to the floor.
We are just curious what text, when it is scheduled. We need to resolve this issue, we would agree.
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Mr. WALDEN. Madam Speaker, I ask the gentleman when that will occur.
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