Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 331, the HALT Fentanyl Act. The House approved this bill in February, and since that time, the Trump administration has set its sights on dismantling our Nation's public health infrastructure, including the agency directly responsible for addressing mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Republicans are going to claim today that they are addressing the opioid overdose crisis with this bill, but this is nothing but a distraction from the fact that Republicans continue to silently stand by and allow the Trump administration to gut our public health agencies.

Republicans are also attempting to distract from the fact that last month they passed the largest cuts to healthcare in American history as part of their big, ugly bill. Republicans are stripping healthcare away from 16 million Americans so they can give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, two groups that don't need any help right now.

Now, Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of years, we have made significant progress in addressing the opioid overdose crisis. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a 24 percent decline in drug overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in September of 2024, compared to the previous year. This is encouraging news, but I am deeply concerned that the Trump administration's attacks on public health, coupled with the Republicans' attacks on Americans' healthcare will seriously threaten the improvements we have made.

The bill before us today permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. This is based on a class definition disputed by scientists. I oppose this bill because it is a permanent extension instead of a temporary one that we agreed on for 2 years in the end-of-the-year appropriations package.

Now, that bipartisan package was pushed aside by Speaker Johnson after Elon Musk voiced his opposition to the overall package. The temporary option would have left the door open for an off-ramp to substances found to have potential medical applications. However, this Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing. S. 331 also does not provide additional resources for prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction.

So this bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge. That is because Republicans don't want to talk about this as a public health challenge. Instead, President Trump and House Republicans want to focus on piecemeal policies in the hopes it will distract from their efforts to gut Medicaid and drug treatment programs.

Now Republicans are sabotaging Medicaid, which will be devastating to people who struggle with mental health and substance use issues. Medicaid is the single largest payer in the country for behavioral health services, covering 40 percent of all Americans with opioid use disorder.

Americans with substance use and mental health issues will face new barriers and red tape in signing up for and staying enrolled in their health insurance. House Republicans are setting up new barriers and roadblocks to care that will, unfortunately, result in our mental health and substance abuse crises only worsening.

Republicans are silently standing by as the Trump administration is moving forward with an unauthorized and illegal plan to eliminate the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, better known as SAMHSA. SAMHSA is the very agency responsible for preventing substance use disorder, increasing access to treatment, and promoting recovery.

It will be combined with other agencies that the Trump administration doesn't care about under the banner of a larger make America healthy again office. Now, these critical programs to treat mental health and substance abuse will be deprioritized or eliminated in favor of Secretary RFK, Jr.'s, pet projects, like destroying Americans' access to vaccines. He is going to prioritize that, and not SAMHSA and substance abuse treatment.

Congress has received zero information from the Trump administration about how this new office will work and how the work of SAMHSA to address the mental health and substance use treatment needs of our community will be prioritized.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Nation's leading mental health and substance use treatment organizations. It is called the Mental Health Liaison Group. MHLG, Washington, DC, June 10, 2025. Hon. Brett Guthrie, Chairman, House Energy & Commerce Committee, Washington, DC. Hon. Frank Pallone, Ranking Member, House Energy & Commerce Committee, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone: The Mental Health Liaison Group (MHLG), a coalition of national organizations representing people with mental health conditions and substance use disorders, family members, mental health and addiction providers, advocates and other stakeholders is committed to strengthening Americans' access to mental health and substance use disorder care. We are incredibly disheartened by the proposal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to eliminate the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as we know it, as well as drastically reduce spending or eliminate critical SAMHSA programs. Such a move would have devastating consequences for the 84.5 million Americans with a mental health and/or a substance use disorder, many of whom rely on SAMHSA's programs, research, oversight, and leadership to address critical mental health and substance use disorder needs.

Since SAMHSA was established by Congress more than two decades ago, the agency has built an infrastructure to coordinate and lead public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA and most of its programs and activities are authorized under Title V of the Public Health Service Act (PHSA), of which the Energy and Commerce Committee has sole jurisdiction. Yet, contrary to the statute, the HHS FY 2026 Budget in Brief proposes to eliminate SAMHSA and move some of its functions to a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). If this becomes reality, there will no longer be a federal agency whose specific purpose, function, and expertise is to address mental health and substance use disorders. Given the current opioid public health emergency, and our nation's ongoing mental health crisis, we are confused and troubled by this proposal. SAMHSA's work is lifesaving, helping ensure communities have access to mental health and substance use treatment services--along with suicide prevention strategies--with enough providers to deliver the care that every American deserves.

SAMHSA's effectiveness is due to its position as a federal agency with its specific focus on supporting community-based mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention services. Through the development of education, training, toolkits and resources; administering grants; and providing technical assistance informed by specialized expertise and data, SAMHSA is able to identify trends, implement efficiencies informed by current needs, and support states in providing community-based services for mental health conditions and substance use disorders.

Additionally, the proposed HHS budget would eliminate scores of mental health programs, including some that your committee explicitly established in the landmark Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act of 2018. Programs slated for elimination include Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers and the Youth Prevention and Recovery Initiative. These are just two examples of programs that your committee authorized in 2018 and voted to reauthorize on a bipartisan basis earlier this year, in addition to other concerning eliminations within the Programs of Regional and National Significance and those related to combatting overdose-related deaths. These proposed eliminations come at the same time that HHS extended the public health emergency declaration for our nation's opioid crisis--targeting the same programs aimed at addressing this crisis.

As leading voices working on mental health and substance use disorders, we believe it is paramount that the federal government retain a standalone agency explicitly focused on mental health and substance use disorders. In 2016, this committee recognized the importance of SAMHSA and the public health threats of mental health and addiction by elevating the leader of the agency from an Administrator to an Assistant Secretary of Mental Health and Substance Use, directly reporting to the Secretary. Within another agency, SAMHSA--and a focus on mental illness and addiction--will not have the same direct impact on HHS proposals and will not be elevated as a resource and partner for other components of HHS. SAMHSA has partnered with HRSA on workforce, CDC on the impact of infectious diseases on people with mental illness, NIH on early psychosis programs and CMS on health homes and demonstration programs in behavioral health. As with previous federal agency reorganizations, any efforts to change or reorganize SAMHSA should be directed by the Committee.

Through your leadership of the Committee, our nation has made thoughtful progress to address our mental health and substance use crisis. We urge you to continue your bipartisan focus on proven programs that address severe, chronic, and, far too often, life-threatening mental illnesses that impact our families, friends, and neighbors in every comer of our nation. Please ensure that any changes to SAMHSA programs do not disrupt, delay, or reverse our nation's great progress and commitment to addressing our mental health, suicide, and substance use crises. Sincerely,

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists, American Association on Health and Disability, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Mental Health Counselors Association, American Occupational Therapy Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Nurses Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, American Psychological Association Services, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Association for Ambulatory Behavioral Healthcare (AABH), Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).

Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Clinical Social Work Association, Committee for Children, Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), Fountain House, Global Alliance for Behavioral Health & Social Justice, Huntington's Disease Society of America, Inseparable, International OCD Foundation, International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses, Legal Action Center, Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, Mental Health America, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Board for Certified Counselors.

National Council for Mental Wellbeing, National Eating Disorders Association, National Federation of Families, National Health Law Program, National League for Nursing, National Register of Health Service Psychologists, National Women's Sheter Network, Inc., Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), SMART Recovery, The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, The National Association for Rural Mental Health, The National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors (NACBHDD), The Trevor Project, Tourette Association of America, Trust for America's Health.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this letter is in strong opposition to the Trump administration's efforts to eliminate SAMHSA, as well as their reference to drastically cut funding and eliminate critical SAMHSA programs.

As they write in this letter: These proposals ``would have devastating consequences for the 84.5 million Americans with a mental health and/or a substance use disorder, many of whom rely on SAMHSA's programs, research, oversight, and leadership to address critical mental health and substance use disorder needs.''

Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration is also rescinding more than $1 billion in essential funding that States rely on through block grants. This rescission is wreaking havoc on States' efforts to support prevention, treatment, and recovery. That is because States, counties, and towns are the main places where these treatment programs are.

My Republican colleagues refuse to hold this administration to account for these devastating and illegal cuts. Instead, they are trying to distract with this bill. This bill is opposed by nearly 190 national, State, and local public health, criminal justice, and civil rights organizations.

So, Mr. Speaker, I oppose the bill, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose it as well.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand. What I am saying is that if we don't treat mental health and substance abuse as a public health crisis and, instead, we just say that we are going to have mandatory sentences and throw everybody in jail, lock the door, and throw away the key, then I don't think that is going to solve the problem.

I will continue to highlight that while Republicans propose these mandatory sentences and want to put fentanyl permanently on the schedule, that is not the answer to this mental health crisis. It is not the answer. The answer is to provide adequate treatment, and education. It is also to prevent the drugs from coming into the country but not just to put people in jail and throw away the key.

Mr. Speaker, I think House Republicans know that we can't simply schedule our way out of this crisis, but they have refused to pass bipartisan solutions that address prevention, treatment, and recovery to help stop overdose deaths.

I know that they passed reauthorizing the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act last week, but the bottom line is that all of the programs under the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act that have helped with treatment, helped with education, caused the number of overdose deaths to decline are being gutted. The staff that administer them and SAMHSA, the program that they are under, all of these things are being either eliminated, gutted, or the funding frozen by the Trump administration.

My point today is this is not just a criminal justice issue. We must combat this opioid crisis through a multipronged public health approach.

Nearly half of all people in Federal prison today have been convicted of a drug-related offense, with a racial and ethnic disparity among those convictions.

Access to treatment remains a challenge today. In 2023, according to SAMHSA, approximately one-quarter of the people who are classified as needing substance use treatment received it in the last year. People with a substance use disorder who are untreated are eight times more likely to die of an overdose compared to those who receive medication treatment.

Just putting people away and throwing away the key is not the answer. Cutting back on the treatment programs, and the education programs under SAMHSA, is certainly going to make things worse.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman of our committee knows I have great respect for him, but the bottom line is that this bill does not consider individual circumstances. It is not just people that are selling drugs.

Look, I totally agree that if someone is selling fentanyl, it is a totally different situation from someone who is arrested for possessing it. The fact of the matter is this bill covers both those who possess it, using it for themselves, and those who are selling it--maybe those who have a huge ring of selling it.

My point is that when there are mandatory minimums, all those people come under the same rubric. The legislation, because it now makes permanent fentanyl on the schedule I, the mandatory minimums apply, and the harsh penalties do not consider individual circumstances.

I don't want to keep repeating, but I will, about how the legislation has no resources for prevention or treatment and just simply locks people up. The point is that there are going to be families and communities, because of the minimum mandatory sentencing and the inability of the judge to look at the individual circumstances, that we are going to repeat the same mistakes that were made for many years responding to other drugs.

Right now we know that people of color have been disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced to mandatory minimum sentences. The trend of racial disparity also can be seen in prosecutions for offenses involving fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

The Sentencing Commission data from fiscal years 2021 to 2023 provides strong evidence that these prosecutions disproportionately target people of color.

I would like to get beyond the point here when we debate these bills of saying that mandatory sentencing is a good thing, regardless of whether they are charged with possession or selling or how much they are selling, but that is not what this bill does. They get locked up. There are no individual circumstances considered. We know the consequences of that for people in many cases who, in my opinion, if I was the judge, would not impose these harsh mandatory penalties.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what the chairman of our Health Subcommittee said, and I am not arguing with him that we have to look at the fentanyl crisis in many ways, particularly at the border, and prevent it from coming into the country from China and other places that flood this country with it. Yet, my point is that what we are hearing from the Trump administration and from the Secretary of HHS, Robert Kennedy, Jr., is that we are going to defund substance use disorder programs, mental health programs, and treatment.

The fact of the matter is that about 58 percent of the people in prison right now have a substance use disorder. People with these disorders have challenges in getting appropriate treatment, and incarceration often exacerbates their symptoms. By having these mandatory penalties and putting more people in prison, who are, in many cases, only there because of mandatory sentences for possession of fentanyl and analogues, it only exacerbates their condition. It leads to individuals staying incarcerated longer, and they don't get treatment.

In the congressional justification for the Trump administration for a healthy America, the HHS agency proposes to cut various substance use and mental health programs that are helping State and local health departments combat the opioid crisis.

For fiscal year 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services proposes to zero out State opioid response grants, the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant, first responder training, youth prevention and recovery programs, and many, many more. I talked about this recently.

The bottom line is that if you zero out all of these programs--I think it is over $1 billion that has already been frozen--you are going to have no opportunity locally to actually help people with treatment and education. All you are going to do now is just throw them in prison, which only exacerbates the problem.

In the President's budget, they propose to cut SAMHSA programs that assist with harm reduction strategies to help those in need, as well as programs to help prevent Americans from using controlled substances. The President's budget also calls for reducing opioid overdose prevention and surveillance by $29 million.

I think that every dollar that is cut for prevention, treatment, and education is a life that is left unprotected. Terminating these critical programs and offices just puts millions of lives battling substance abuse in jeopardy.

Mr. Speaker, I wish my colleagues would spend time on these issues of protecting public health and coming up with solutions instead of retreading a bill that prioritizes this criminal justice approach, which I think doesn't work.

Mr. Speaker, we had this bill in the House back in February, and then it went to the Senate. Essentially, what came back today for final approval or final passage is the same bill.

As was mentioned by my Republican colleagues, if it passes today, it goes straight to the President's desk. At the time in February, when we were discussing this bill, I had pointed out that President Trump had just pushed a scheme, really, straight out of Project 2025 to choke off virtually all Federal funding, including halting over $8.6 billion in grant funding for the Federal programs to combat the opioid crisis. At the time, congressional Republicans just stood by silently as it happened.

Trump halted over $6.5 billion in funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, which supports treatment programs and prevention efforts. He also halted nearly $1.5 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health drug abuse and addiction research programs, which conduct and support research on substance abuse and addiction, basically to better understand the causes of addiction and identify treatments and interventions that reduce overdoses.

Trump also halted all federally funded programs that provide critical opioid-related services, including federally qualified health centers, which serve a high proportion of patients disproportionately impacted by the opioid crisis.

The Department of Health and Human Services also eliminated the workforce training programs, including the Integrated Substance Use Disorder Training Program, which trains professionals to provide opioid use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

Mr. Speaker, we went to court over a lot of these things, and many of them were overturned. Yet, I don't want anyone to think that the President is giving up. He is going to continue his efforts to illegally cut these programs, and I mentioned some of them before. Again, House Republicans are doing nothing to halt any of this.

In addition to that, I have to say that the big, ugly bill passed a couple of weeks ago by the Republicans, I think, altogether, between Medicaid, the ACA, and Medicare, because of sequestration, cuts, I don't know, I would say $1.7 trillion or so.

Understand that Medicaid is the single largest payer for behavioral health services in the United States and covers nearly 40 percent of all individuals with opioid use disorder. Medicaid covers a full array of services and support for people with behavioral health needs, including services and supports that typically are not covered by other health programs.

This is an assault on every effort for prevention and treatment of opioid disorders, whether it is cutting Medicaid, eliminating SAMHSA's programs, or cutting the money that goes back to States and towns to help people with treatment.

Mr. Speaker, again, this bill is a distraction because it gives the impression that if you lock somebody up with a mandatory penalty, even if it is just for possession, and throw away the key, that is going to solve your problem. It is not.

Everything that the President is doing and the Republicans are doing to support him completely eliminates or significantly cuts back on the treatment and the education that are going to be much more important in terms of trying to save people's lives.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, the bill before us today is the Senate companion to H.R. 27, which we voted on here in the House on February 6 of this year. The two bills are identical, other than a couple of minor punctuation differences. This bill would go to the President's desk, and he said he would sign it.

However, since that vote in February here in the House, the Trump administration has seriously threatened our Nation's ability to confront the ongoing opioid overdose crisis by attempting to dismantle the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, as I mentioned, firing hundreds of workers, including senior key officials, and rescinding over $1 billion from State and local behavioral health programs.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to oppose this bill because it is a permanent extension of fentanyl-related substances as schedule I drugs instead of the temporary one that we agreed on for 2 years in the end of the year 2024 appropriations package.

The temporary option would have left the door open for an off-ramp to substances found to have potential medical applications. This bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing. Furthermore, S. 331 also does not provide additional resources, as I have mentioned, for prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction.

For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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