Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. GUTHRIE. 467.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, action is needed now to address the fentanyl crisis. That is why I rise today in strong support of H.R. 467, the HALT Fentanyl Act.
Fentanyl is the top cause of death for Americans 18 to 49 years old. In my home State of Kentucky, illicit fentanyl overdoses represented 70 percent of all overdoses in 2020 and 2021.
The fentanyl crisis is one of the foremost problems that the American public faces and has been made worse by the crisis at our southern border. Illicit fentanyl is turning virtually every community into a border community with these poisons flooding streets across America and taking innocent lives, including the lives of our kids.
The HALT Fentanyl Act would ban all fentanyl analogues and strip the drug cartels and other criminals of the incentive to create new versions of fentanyl to skirt around the law. This bill is a key step to help get these poisons off our streets and give law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on illicit fentanyl trafficking.
A two-pronged approach to addressing this crisis is needed. We must have a law enforcement and a substance use recovery strategy to address this crisis. That is why I look forward to examining the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act later this year to continue providing access to treatment and recovery support services that so many individuals rely on throughout the country.
To those who oppose this legislation on the grounds it could lead to mass incarceration, the emergency classwide scheduling implemented by President Trump did not lead to mass incarcerations. In a Government Accountability Office study from 2021, the GAO found that there were only eight prosecutions--yes, eight prosecutions--during the period in which the Trump administration temporarily scheduled fentanyl-related substances as schedule I drugs from 2018-2020, with four of them being individuals working on behalf of the cartel because the cartels quit creating illicit fentanyl separate from the fentanyl that is poisoning our kids today.
It could be even worse. I know there are also those who believe the emergency scheduling order didn't lead to reductions in overdose deaths and that this bill before us won't effectively address the issues we are facing.
To both of those criticisms, this bill stops these analogues from being produced in the first place. Right after the classwide ban was put in place, the number of fentanyl analogue encounters dropped nearly 89 percent, more than 6,200 fewer reports of analogues. DEA officials stated that the classwide scheduling contributed to this dramatic drop.
It also includes provisions to facilitate more research into the detection of fentanyl-related substances and potential treatment of fentanyl poisonings, something that has much more red tape in the status quo.
I am happy to see the White House supports two main provisions of the HALT Fentanyl Act. The HALT Fentanyl Act is one step of many this body needs to take to address the end of the overdose crisis. The time to permanently act is now, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 467.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, this was a bipartisan bill. It got bipartisan votes in committee. It is the DEA's number one priority.
If you are selling fentanyl to our kids, you deserve to be incarcerated. We don't apologize for that.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington State (Mrs. Rodgers), the chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith), the bill's sponsor.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Bucshon), the vice chair of the Health Subcommittee.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California, Mr. Mike Garcia.
Mr. MIKE GARCIA of California. Madam Chair, for too long, a lack of national leadership has forced law enforcement into navigating this fentanyl crisis without the proper tools or a defined mission. The HALT Fentanyl Act would provide both the tools and the mission by permanently classifying fentanyl analogues as schedule I narcotics. This bill, which I have long supported, will mitigate this crisis by empowering police to use every tool available to get the traffickers of poison off the streets and put them in jail.
Sell fentanyl, go to jail. Poison kids, go to jail. If you don't want to go to jail, don't sell fentanyl and don't poison our kids.
Right now we are failing as a Nation. We are failing to recognize the severity of this crisis, failing to hold China and dealers accountable for their role, and we are failing to protect the people who most need it, our children.
We have lost young Americans with bright futures like Daniel Puerta from my district who was a year away from graduating when he was poisoned by a counterfeit pill sold over Snapchat. For Daniel's memory and the memory of countless others, we must act.
Madam Chair, I urge support of this bill. One last thing, 30 times the number of people who died on 9/11 last year died of fentanyl poisoning.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. D'Esposito).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
The Acting CHAIR (Mr. D'Esposito). The gentleman from Kentucky has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from New Jersey has 8 minutes remaining.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Cammack).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger).
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
My friend from New Jersey did say that this law expires at the end of the year. That is why we are here today to make scheduling illicit fentanyl permanent.
We have to understand what the status quo is. The status quo currently is horrific. Before these illicit fentanyls were scheduled, although we couldn't get them permanently scheduled, there were all kinds of analogues throughout America. That is why the DEA and others recommended that we schedule these, because once you change the fentanyl molecule, unless these are scheduled, then it becomes no longer illegal. These all appeared in our country, and that is why we are reacting to it. They are scheduled now, and what we are moving to do is to make it permanent.
What has happened since they were scheduled?
They came to me, and they talked about mass incarceration. We have heard that today. There have been eight people in prison under this law, four dealing with cartels, which I would say absolutely should be in prison.
I asked some of my law enforcement people when I was looking into this bill: If you have only arrested eight people, why does it matter?
That is what they are saying on the other side of the aisle.
What they said was the only reason we have only arrested eight people is because when this was put into place, the analogues--not fentanyl, but the analogues, which can be more dangerous--had disappeared from the marketplace. They are bringing in fentanyl that is already scheduled.
The problem is, if we treat fentanyl analogues differently than fentanyl, they are going to reappear again. That is why we have to put them in the same category. If you have fentanyl subject to mandatory minimums, but not these analogues, then they are going to reappear.
We have to pass this bill, we have to move forward, and I recommend support of this bill.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Griffith) having assumed the chair, Mr. D'Esposito, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 467) to amend the Controlled Substances Act with respect to the scheduling of fentanyl-related substances, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
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