Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Floor Speech
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, today the Senate invoked cloture on an amendment to provide more than $1 billion in emergency spending to help combat the Zika virus. I support this effort. I think it is a good amendment, and I commend our leaders in the Appropriations Committee for reaching this bipartisan agreement.
However, I join my colleague from Maine, my colleague from West Virginia, and all of those who are disappointed that the opioid epidemic is not being treated with the same degree of urgency.
Some Senators on the other side of the aisle have said it is their preference to deal with the opioid epidemic through the regular appropriations process. Let me say that I am not encouraged by the results so far. With all due respect to my colleagues, an extra $1 million here and there for a few programs, which is what we are seeing in the appropriations process, is not going to address the nationwide crisis that Senator King has said is going to kill tens of thousands of Americans this year.
While the HHS appropriations bill is still being drafted, because of the tight budget caps that are in place for this fiscal year, I am not optimistic that it will include the type of game-changing funding that we need to stem the tide of this crisis. Unfortunately, we saw that the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill included only minor increases to programs to address the heroin and opioid epidemic. That is why we need emergency funding, and we need it now.
In March, the Senate had an opportunity to provide $600 million in emergency funding to address this crisis, but despite strong bipartisan support, that amendment was defeated on a point of order. Congress needs to rise to this challenge, just as it has done during previous public health emergencies and just as we are doing right now to address the Zika virus. Just last year Congress approved $5.4 billion to combat the Ebola outbreak, which killed one American, but in 2014, 47,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. Each day we wait, another 120 people die of drug overdoses. We are losing one person a day in New Hampshire.
Now is the time to act. I urge my colleagues to reconsider.
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