Providing for Consideration of S. Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016
Floor Speech
I thank the gentleman for yielding me 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule today that provides for consideration of S. 524.
As has been discussed on the floor this week, Mr. Speaker, our Nation is in the midst of an epidemic. While opioid abuse is nothing new, the numbers are getting more and more alarming. Addiction claimed over 28,000 lives in 2014 and drastically altered many more for the worst.
All week we have heard stories from both sides of the aisle speaking to how addiction is breaking apart families and communities. Today we are considering a package of bills that will hopefully take some meaningful steps towards addressing this crisis.
Prescription drug addiction is a very complex issue. There is no simple solution. It is a subject that deserves comprehensive debate and full consideration of ideas that Democratic and Republican Members have to be able to address: this public health crisis.
While I and many of my Democratic colleagues are supportive of the underlying legislation, there are problems with the process that have locked out ideas that can save lives that are being prevented from coming to the floor under this rule.
Of the 18 bills included under this rule, all but 2 were brought to the floor on suspension. What does that mean? It means no Members-- Democratic or Republican--were allowed to amend or improve 16 of these 18 bills.
The scope of the two bills that were brought forward in a manner that allowed amendments was so narrow that it closed out many of the amendments that we considered in the Rules Committee because they weren't germane to these two particular bills. I find that very frustrating. It limits discussion on a major public health crisis, something that is an issue that is not at all partisan.
Many bipartisan amendments that I will talk about in a moment, many ideas from Republicans and Democrats, were simply not even allowed to be considered in this process. Amendments that would save lives, amendments that families would be grateful for, and amendments that would reduce opioid abuse in our country are not even allowed to be considered here on the floor of the House.
These were not amendments with an ideological agenda. Sometimes we are down here on a bill that is highly ideological and there are amendments that are locked out that would change it drastically or gut it. No, these are good faith efforts and ideas from the experiences that many of us have had back in our own districts as to how we can address this opioid abuse crisis that we are facing nationally.
Among the amendments that should have been allowed this week and why I am urging my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule--one amendment that was locked out was a bipartisan amendment by Representatives Ann Kuster and Frank Guinta, my colleagues from New Hampshire, which is really one of the ground zero areas for this crisis, offered a bipartisan amendment to H.R. 4641 that would have allowed HHS to award grants to recovery community organizations.
Their amendment acknowledges that recovery is a long road. For any of us, including myself, who have known people who have been in recovery from drug addiction, they know it is difficult. It is a real test of internal fortitude for them. Of course, their community and family need to rally around and support their sobriety.
We need to be supporting not only prevention and initial treatment, but also lifetime support for the lifetime struggle to pull people out of the vicious cycle of addiction. This amendment that was blocked under this rule took the long view that, to address this crisis, we need the long-term support of recovery community organizations.
Now, we know how pressing this issue is for our New Hampshire colleagues, Republican and Democratic. So why not open up this process to allow their idea to be debated on its merits?
If Members of Congress found it lacking merit, of course, it would be the prerogative of Members of this body to vote it down; but at least have that debate, and I honestly think that it likely would have passed.
Representatives Katherine Clark and Evan Jenkins offered a bipartisan amendment to H.R. 4641--again, locked out under this rule. We are not allowed to debate it, and we are not allowed to vote on it.
Their proposal, very simply, would have authorized grants for the creation of comprehensive systems to provide support for prescribers with regard to patient pain and substance abuse. According to a study in the Journal of Opioid Management, fewer than half of primary care providers felt sufficiently trained in prescribing opioids. This would have helped address that training gap of prescribers so that they would less often use opioids and more frequently use alternative pain reduction prescriptions. It is our doctors and nurse practitioners and nurses who are on the front lines. They need to be adequately prepared to deal with patients in pain and with patients who are in the throes of addiction.
Again, unfortunately, under this rule, Katherine Clark and Evan Jenkins' amendment is not allowed to be considered by this body.
I, personally, offered a bipartisan amendment with Mr. Rohrabacher of California that would have required the Pain Management Task Force, created in H.R. 4641, to take into consideration the potential for marijuana to serve as an alternative to opioids for pain management.
Several private studies have yielded promising results. In 2014, the Journal of Pain found that those who suffer from chronic pain reduced their use of opioids by a significant margin when using marijuana for medicinal purposes. Marijuana likely won't work in every instance where somebody has chronic pain, but, where it does, you have a far less harmful, less addictive option with much more limited side effects than opioids and painkillers. We shouldn't be taking an option with limited side effects off the table when it could help free millions of Americans from excruciating pain and crippling addiction.
Unfortunately, that amendment--simply an amendment to take into consideration and study the issue--was also blocked under this rule.
Those are some of the many examples. As I mentioned, none of the amendments made it out of the Rules Committee, and our colleagues will not have the opportunity to weigh in on the House floor. A wide variety of amendments were blocked.
From a process perspective, this is really irresponsible of this body, when responding to an epidemic of this complexity, to not debate and solicit ideas--bipartisan ideas, Republican ideas, and Democratic ideas--from Members of this body and to find creative solutions that can actually save lives and would be of great comfort to families who are affected.
My other concern is that the majority has authorized, but has not funded or appropriated any of the programs under these bills. In February, the President submitted a proposal that would have provided $1.1 billion in new funding to address this epidemic in enforcement and treatment. Despite that, this bill has no funding for these efforts.
Combating addiction is truly a bipartisan effort. When close to 100 Americans are dying from drug overdoses every day, we have to work together to change that. I think that, unfortunately, under this rule, while this might be some baby steps forward, we are falling short of the mark of really being able to put our very best thinking and very best solutions forward.
According to the CDC, since 1999, the number of prescription opioids sold in the United States has quadrupled despite no discernible change in the pain that Americans are reporting. So in a 15-year period, opioids are used four times as much. That is the precursor to this opioid addiction problem, and we need to do more to address that overprescription of opioids.
In my home State of Colorado, the statewide rate of drug overdose deaths increased from 9.7 percent per 100,000 residents to 16.3 percent per 100,000 residents. Opioids were a major component of that.
Nationally, there have been even larger increases. Since 1999, deaths from prescription opioids, like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone, have quadrupled. So it is no surprise the number of prescription opioids sold in the United States have quadrupled and deaths have quadrupled. It is no coincidence that those numbers are similar.
In 2014, almost 2 million Americans had some level of dependence on prescription pain relievers. This trend has especially dire consequences during pregnancy, which one of our bills addresses. In the last decade alone, over 130,000 infants were born with newborn drug withdrawal symptoms.
Given the extremity of circumstances surrounding opioid abuse in this country, I am glad that this body is devoting some effort towards casting a critical eye on what we can do; and I am saddened that this body didn't have a more open process to include many of the ideas, which I mentioned earlier, from bipartisan Members of this body and others that are simply locked out under this rule.
The Committee on Energy and Commerce reported out 12 bills. The Committee on Foreign Affairs considered a bill to allow the Treasury Department to block international drug traffickers from using the U.S. financial system. The Committee on Veterans' Affairs passed out a bill. I was also pleased that the committee that I serve on, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, took up a bill that I coauthored along with Representatives Barletta and Clark and Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Scott and Representative Walberg--the Infant Plan of Safe Care Improvement Act--which directs child protective service agencies to develop a safe care plan to closely monitor the health outcomes for infants who are born with this syndrome.
The scourge of opioid addiction has touched families in my district and across the country. No State has managed to avoid it. I stand in opposition to this rule because, truly, we need to do everything we can to address this emergency, including debating good ideas, creative ideas from both sides of the aisle, and letting the Members decide, based on their own experiences, their own creative solutions as to what we can do to help combat this scourge that has affected our country.
I thank the gentleman for yielding me 30 minutes.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, this package before us cannot be the final word. Congress needs to approve funding to develop a comprehensive response to this epidemic and save lives.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that, in addition to including all of the opioid bills passed this week, which I do support, will also provide $600 million in funding to address the opioid epidemic.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been harrowing tales told here on the floor of the House, and there is no doubt opioid addiction is a segment of that. It is a public health crisis in this country that is hurting communities, hurting families, killing people.
In 2012, enough prescriptions were written for opioids to give every single adult in this country their own bottle. Prescriptions for opioids have increased four times in the last 15 years. That is four times as many prescriptions.
We need to do something. It is a start today. It is not enough. It is not enough.
Unfortunately, these rules block out and prevent many creative and effective ideas from both sides of the aisle from coming to the floor. We also have missed the opportunity to provide funding to address treatment and enforcement.
The fact that both parties in both Chambers have come together to tackle opioid addiction is a testament to how far the reach of this epidemic is. Every district has been affected; every Member of this body has taken note. I and many of us know families and individuals whose lives have been devastated or ended prematurely from the opioid crisis.
It is crucial that we approach the problem from every possible angle: support for providers, training for law enforcement, well-funded treatment centers, thoughtful policies for addicted parents, education for our youth, innovative dispensing technologies, alternative pain management therapies. There are so many ideas to consider.
This rule packages 18 bills that address part of the problem together. Unfortunately, 16 of them don't allow amendments, and the 2 that do, many amendments were ruled out for lack of being germane. Given the rate of deaths from prescription opioid abuse, we should allow a full debate of amendments and ideas on the floor of the House to address this issue.
Yes, we are taking a first step today, but there is a lot more work to do to save lives and help families across our country. We need to fund these programs so they are not just words on a page.
This is a very real issue with real implications for American families, and we owe it to American families across the country to have a more open and thorough process to do more to combat the opioid scourge.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can bring forward Ms. Kuster's amendment, ``no'' on the underlying rule, and ``yes'' on the underlying bills.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
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