Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1410

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. I am deeply grateful to my colleague and friend, the Senator from Arkansas, for bringing this to the floor of the U.S. Senate.

There is an urgency he described that I agree with. One hundred Senators here, and not one State has not been touched, devastatingly, by the fentanyl epidemic. These analogs present a crisis to our country. Lives are at stake so I share his sense of urgency.

I am hoping we can work together to find a way to stop, as he put it, these cartels and these drug labs from wreaking such havoc on our country. I believe that together we can find a solution. In fact, there has been constructive talk across the Capitol--bipartisan talk about finding a way to come to some kind of accord.

In addition to that, I am hopeful that there are other bills out there that have the same ambition, the same goal, the same sense of urgency that I believe should be part of the discussion; for example, policies like the ones in the STOP Fentanyl Act, which I understand Senator Markey will be introducing in the Senate very soon. I believe we should have time in the Judiciary Committee to work on a longer term solution that cannot just deal with the international cartels, not just deal with these horrific drug labs but also empower people who are addicted to begin not to be punished simply with the criminal justice system but to find ways to provide treatment and support to people who are struggling with addictions to this horrific drug.

So with that, I would like to object.

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I want to say, in conclusion, before I switch to another topic, that I appreciate the willingness of the Senator from Arkansas to look not just at his bill but a powerful potential bipartisan extension however we can deal with this. The urgency does exist. We are in a crisis.

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