Improving the Federal Response to Families Impacted By Substance Use Disorder Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5891) to establish an interagency task force to improve the Federal response to families impacted by substance abuse disorders.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. GROTHMAN. 5891.

Mr. Speaker, we have all heard about the opioid epidemic, and I always feel, despite the fact that it has been very publicized, it has still been underpublicized. Over 40,000 people every year die of this epidemic.

I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war, and it was relatively late in that war before we got to 41,000 deaths, and we all remember how that divided the country. There are more people that die in this year, every year, than the number of people who are both murdered and die in car accidents combined.

I am on a variety of committees, and if you sit on almost any committee, I think, in this institution, eventually the topic of opioid abuse comes up. One of the things that hits me when it comes up is the degree to which there are varying opinions on what to do with this, and it varies from agency to agency.

Therefore, what I am proposing in this bill is a task force that gets together two representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Labor to look for solutions and look for best practices. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is also supposed to appoint four other members to this task force.

I don't want this to be one of the task forces that is hanging out there for too long. They have got to come back with recommendations within 9 months, and, hopefully, we will use these recommendations by this time next year on this floor.

It is very frustrating, like I said, to attend these hearings and hear, among the experts, such divergent opinions as to how to save some lives here. We really cannot be spending more time on programs that don't work or having the agencies not work with each other.

I look forward to strong leadership in this committee. I expect that they will be taking advice from strong local leaders who have done what they can to address this epidemic around the country. We must put our full weight behind a coordinated strategy to bring stability and health to our communities.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my final comment on this issue, first of all, for the folks back home, is that when politicians talk about resources, they really mean money. Back in Wisconsin, when I think of resources, I think of timber, iron ore, oil, gas, and that sort of thing. But up here, I guess when we talk about resources, we mean money.

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my Democratic colleagues for making this a fine piece of bipartisan legislation. I hope when the recommendations come back in 9 months, we can have another nice big bipartisan vote and move the recommendations out.

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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