National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. President, for recognizing me, and I want to thank the chairman of the HELP Committee, the Senator from Tennessee, who has in the Senate made a very passionate argument on why we should be passing the bill that contains the Zika funding but also for the opioid and heroin abuse overdose issue that we have in this country.

He did mention the Hatfields and McCoys more than a few times in reference to Tennessee and Kentucky, and I will throw West Virginia in there because we have a good history of Hatfields and McCoys. We understand a feud, and I don't like to see a feud over these issues either. This is about health care, women and babies, and these are families who are torn apart by this scourge of opioid and heroin abuse.

I would like to talk about the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, known as CARA, and strongly urge my colleagues to lay down the feud and have common sense. I am going to talk about why this is so very important.

This is a comprehensive step forward. It has been worked on for years. This is not a fly-by-night bill. This is a very comprehensive bill, a national response to the drug epidemic that we see like a fire rushing across America. It expands prevention and education efforts and promotes resources for treatment and recovery. I say often there is no one solution to this problem. There is a spectrum of solutions, and CARA addresses a spectrum of solutions. It helps law enforcement respond, provides resources for treatment, alternatives to incarceration. I know many Senators have been to see and visit drug court programs that have had successful graduations. They have gotten people back on their feet. They operate in West Virginia and many other States.

I was very pleased to see many elements of the Senate-passed bill included in the final conference report. Members on both sides of the aisle and the Senator from Tennessee talked about many of those Members who have worked hard to create the realities of those living with and impacted by addiction. The bill is just a commonsense response so let's have a commonsense vote in response to the commonsense bill.

For me, my personal passion has been the ability to craft several provisions that are included in this conference bill, one that would provide for safer, more effective pain management services to our veterans. Too many of our veterans are having opioid abuse and opioid overdoses in conjunction with care at the VA.

Another provision from Senator Kaine from Virginia would coprescribe naloxone, a drug that would reverse the effects of opioid overdose with prescription opioids. Another provision would increase access to important followup services. Again, it is another bipartisan amendment to prevent overprescribing. There is also a provision that would improve acute pain-prescribing practices. You have acute pain which is different than having constant pain. What are the prescribing protocols for that? We have too many stories of addiction that started with patients taking painkillers after suffering a minor injury or a minor surgery. Also, there are provisions that would allow doctors to partially fill certain opioid prescriptions. Senator Warren from Massachusetts and I worked together on this. This helps to limit the availability of unused painkillers.

Lastly, a provision I worked on with my colleague from West Virginia on the House side, Congressman Jenkins, would protect babies who are born exposed to opioids during pregnancy and get them the specialized care they need. We see it in Lily's Place in Huntington, and we need to have this across the country.

In March, we stood together and passed this bill 94 to 1, with broad bipartisan support. CARA has had broad bipartisan support in the House as well, but not one single Democrat signed the conference report. What changed? What happened? I don't know. Out of the blue, after they had already voted for this, they demanded a new mandatory funding--which means a different type of funding out of the Appropriations Committee was not added to this bill in conference. Some apparently believe that without this funding, CARA is not worth passing. I strongly disagree for the reasons I am going to line out. This is not the view of the over 200 treatment organizations that are in favor of this conference report--groups such as the Addiction Policy Forum, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Counties, the National Association of Addiction and Treatment Providers. These groups are calling for quick action on this conference report. They wrote a letter stating ``the report is truly a comprehensive response to the opioid epidemic which includes critical policy changes and new resources.''

The letter continues, ``As you know, 129 Americans die each day as a result of a drug overdose and this epidemic affects the public health and safety in every community across the country,'' not to mention the devastation, and I have seen it in my own communities, to families all across this Nation. ``This bill is the critical response we need.''

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, we all worked hard to ensure our States have the resources they need to win this fight, and I will not stop in this fight. The appropriations bills we have passed in committee provide substantial new resources. Under these bills, total funding to address heroin and opioid abuse will more than double the 2015 levels.

You can see on this chart that in 2015 it was $220 million. In 2016, we had a 46-percent increase to $321 million. In the bill that came out of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had bipartisan support, there was a 46-percent increase to $470 million. Those are significant resources that can help and will help in the treatment and gets money to our providers and to States for block grants.

Let's look at HHS discretionary appropriations that we passed in the appropriations bill that passed bipartisan. In 2015, we appropriated $41 million. In 2016, we increased that funding to $136 million, a 237- percent increase. This problem has been escalating across our country, and you can see it reflected in the dollars we are spending; in 2017, $262 million, which is a 93-percent increase. These are significant. It goes to problems that help with research, treatment, and community health centers. This is a very significant rise.

Our last chart shows what is in the conference report we are now considering. It goes out of the Senate at 78 million more dollars. The conference report comes back with $181 million, a 132-percent increase. Again, the urgency of what we are seeing is reflected in the real dollars we are willing to spend, so don't listen to the argument that no money is being spent. It couldn't be further from the truth. This is what has been decided and agreed upon in the Appropriations Committee in a bipartisan way to deal with this very difficult problem.

I think that 94 Members of this body already voted for this $78 million. Why in the world would we continue this feud that has been created and is bubbling up in a political fashion and turn our backs on a 132-percent increase in this conference report?

As I have shared on the floor several times before, this problem is particularly hard-hitting in the State of West Virginia, the State I represent. Unfortunately, West Virginia leads the Nation in drug- related overdose deaths--more than twice the national average. I mentioned that 129 Americans die every day. That means there are people dying in West Virginia in larger numbers per capita than in any other State in the Union. It also means we shouldn't be taking the time for partisan politics and delay the passage of a much needed piece of legislation.

I say this all the time because I believe it to be true. I hope it is not. I believe we are in danger of losing an entire generation to this scourge if we don't act with force, together, and make sure that we not only fund our programs but that we do the comprehensive approach to it that we see in this CARA bill.

I was on the floor yesterday talking about how we had witnessed Senate Democrats playing politics with critical funding for Zika, and now we are seeing a repeat. I hope we do not go through the same scenario. Let's not play political games with a veteran depending on the VA's ability to help them treat their opioid addiction or the newborn born dependent on opioids or the addict who is willing to seek treatment and needs the help CARA will provide. They do not deserve to be held hostage to a political situation.

I will proudly support the passage of the CARA conference report, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.

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