Civil Rights Cold Case Investigations Support Act of 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise today to tell a story of one family's tragedy but also of two wonderful people who turned that tragedy into helping others and finding solutions.
On May 15, 2014, a 19-year-old Wisconsinite named Archie Badura died of a fentanyl overdose.
Two years later, I met his mother Lauri Badura, who testified before a field hearing I held in Pewaukee, WI, together with an emergency room doctor named Dr. Tim Westlake, who testified about the growing problem that he was seeing in his emergency room with overdoses and, in particular, overdoses with, I think, a drug that we all heard was somewhat new, fentanyl, a schedule II drug; one used in medicine but one that had been altered, the molecule changed, and produced in China and shipped through our Postal Service and was killing people like Archie Badura.
It was probably the first time I heard of what was happening to fentanyl. And so Dr. Westlake, because he was seeing the tragedy firsthand, was developing a piece of legislation that he was proposing in Wisconsin as well as on a national level.
The piece of legislation I introduced in 2017 was called the SOFA Act. The reason I called it the SOFA Act--and that stands for Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogs--is because Lauri Badura, again, who lost her 19-year-old son, turned her tragedy into helping others.
She was the go-to person for other families who also lost a loved one through overdoses, and she started an organization called Saving Others for Archie. The acronym was SOFA. So I thought it only appropriate, when working with Dr. Tim Westlake on this piece of legislation that would recognize the growing problem of these analogs, of these fentanyl-related drugs that were killing and poisoning our citizens--I thought it only appropriate to come up with a piece of legislation named after that organization with that same acronym, SOFA.
So on July 13, 2017, I introduced SOFA for the first time here in the U.S. Senate.
On November 9, 2017, because of Tim Westlake and Lauri Badura's tireless effort, a State piece of legislation, the SOFA equivalent, was signed into law in Wisconsin. And basically what this law does--it is a pretty simple law--it just allows law enforcement, the DEA, to view these fentanyl-related substances as a class under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.
Prior to this bill, prior to these regulations, law enforcement had to view each new molecule, each new analog as a separate drug, and they could not arrest, they couldn't prosecute, they couldn't put people in jail for selling these and poisoning our cities.
So Dr. Tim Westlake recognized that problem. I recognized that problem, and so we introduced the SOFA Act. And once DEA saw it, they thought this was a pretty good idea, and they utilized their regulatory authority and passed a regulation on February 6, 2018. They issued a temporary scheduling order that placed ``certain fentanyl-related substances in schedule 1 for 2 years.''
The text of that regulation was identical to the text of the SOFA law that I had introduced earlier in 2017.
Now, unfortunately, they could only issue that regulation having an effect of 2 years. So as it was about ready to run out, Congress extended that regulation in an act of Congress, and we have extended it six times. President Biden has signed that extension five times. But the problem is, the extension of that regulation runs out on December 31 of this year.
Now, the Biden administration--I think it is important to understand--in its 2021 budget proposal, called for classwide fentanyl scheduling. The DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said:
The permanent scheduling of all fentanyl-related substances is critical--
Is critical-- to the safety and health of our communities.
She added:
Class-wide scheduling provides a vital tool--
A vital tool-- to combat overdose deaths in the United States.
Now, why have we extended this regulation six times? There is no need for it. We could pass the law, which we have tried to do a number of times.
But the reason we keep extending it is because it has worked. It has helped stop the flow of these precursor chemicals coming out of China. China has actually cracked down on these analogs within China. So the regulation worked. The SOFA Act is vital, according to Anne Milgram.
Something else I want to point out about the SOFA Act is, in an almost unprecedented--this is very rare--in 2018, all 50 States' attorneys general, plus the attorney general from the District of Columbia, including current HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was an attorney general for California at the time, signed a letter to congressional leadership urging the Congress to act expeditiously and pass the SOFA Act.
This is such a commonsense piece of legislation. It works. It reduces the number of types of fentanyl on the streets killing our citizens, killing our youth, killing people like Archie Badura.
Again, the DEA had a regulation for 2 years. Congress has extended that regulation six times. All I am asking is for the Senate to pass this commonsense, lifesaving piece of legislation by unanimous consent.
1006 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
I ask this in the name of Archie Badura and on behalf of Dr. Tim Westlake and a wonderful woman, a wonderful Wisconsinite named Lauri Badura.
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Mr. JOHNSON. Would the Senator from Illinois yield?
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Mr. JOHNSON. So I want to just make the point that there is nothing in the SOFA Act that would prevent that research from continuing, and if a molecule was found that is helpful, it can be scheduled separately.
This is just targeting the deadly drugs that are not helpful. So there is nothing in this that would prevent that type of research, which is why, you know, we have--Congress has reauthorized this or extended this six times, and the Biden administration supports this. They say it is vital that we are able to class all these fentanyl- related molecules together so that we can enforce our laws and prevent death.
So, again, there is nothing in here that prevents the research, which I would completely support. Again, molecules are amazing things, and changing them can change the characteristics, but we have to recognize how deadly fentanyl is.
We have gone from, you know, slightly more than 50,000 overdose deaths in 2015, the year after Archie Badura died, to over 107,000 last year, and we are on a path to break that record too.
So, again, this has been supported on a bipartisan basis. We have extended this.
I just have to say that the research argument just doesn't hold water.
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Mr. JOHNSON. Would the Senator yield again?
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Mr. JOHNSON. Fentanyl is being used in medicine today, and it is on schedule II. So they can do the research off of that drug on schedule II. There is nothing preventing that--nothing whatsoever.
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Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, again, I find that unfortunate. I would hope that the Senator from Illinois would not at least object to Senator Grassley coming on the floor looking for another extension of this.
Again, the DEA Administrator says this is vital. So I hope that, at a minimum, we can extend this for a seventh time, and then maybe we can come back when some of these issues are resolved and maybe finally pass SOFA possibly in the next Congress.
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