Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield an additional 1 minute to Mr. LaHood.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood).

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman from Michigan for offering this amendment and for his commitment to combating opioid abuse, including joining as an original cosponsor of H.R. 5046. In a recent poll, 62 percent of American teenagers stated that prescription drugs are easy to get from the family medicine cabinet. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, a full 70 percent of prescription drug medications that are obtained by adolescents are acquired from family, relatives, or friends. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, of the 2.4 million people annually who use prescription drugs nonmedically and for the first time, a shocking 800,000 are aged 12 to 17. Often, the drugs are pilfered, which means a child or a visitor takes one or two from a bottle at a time in order to escape detection from a parent or a friend. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment that addresses this problem.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations of the Committee on the Judiciary, and the chief author of this legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Mimi Walters), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today the United States is in the throes of an epidemic of prescription opioid and heroin abuse. Every Member of this body has heard a tragic story about a constituent who has become addicted to opioids, and, tragically, many have lost their lives to the addiction. The statistics are shocking. In 2014, 47,055 Americans died from a drug overdose. Of those deaths, 18,893 were attributable to prescription pain relievers and 10,574 were related to heroin. The number of opioids prescribed nearly tripled from 1991 to 2013. Though the United States has 5 percent of the world's population, Americans consume 80 percent of the global opioid supply. More than half of chronic prescription drug abusers obtain those pills from prescriptions written for them or for friends or family members. In 2014, nearly half a million teenagers used prescription painkillers for nonmedical purposes. My home State of Virginia is not immune to the ravages of opioid addiction. In 1999, approximately 23 people died from abuse of fentanyl, hydrocodone, methadone, and oxycodone, the leading prescription opioids abused. By 2013, that number jumped to 386 prescription opioid deaths, a staggering increase of 1,578 percent. In 2013 alone, deaths attributed to fentanyl use increased by more than 100 percent. Data also shows a sharp rise in heroin deaths in Virginia. In 2010, 49 deaths were attributed to heroin use. By 2013, just 3 years later, that figure had risen to 213, an increase of 334 percent. The number of drug overdose deaths in Virginia surpassed the number of traffic fatalities for the first time in 2014. This is a problem that affects Americans in all regions of the country, across all socioeconomic levels, and one that Congress will address with passage of H.R. 5046, the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Act of 2016, and other opioid legislation approved by the House this week. H.R. 5046, sponsored by Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, provides resources to States, localities, Indian tribes, and others to help fight the historic problem of opioid abuse. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this bill. H.R. 5046 is an important, reasonable piece of legislation that will do a great deal to combat the opioid epidemic. It creates a comprehensive opioid abuse reduction program at the Department of Justice, which will direct Federal resources for drug abuse programs targeted at the opioid problem within our criminal justice system. By styling this as a competitive grant program for opioids, this bill will give States and localities maximum flexibility to attack opioid abuse issues unique to their communities. States will be able to use the grant funds for a variety of important criminal justice programs, including alternatives to incarceration, treatment programs for incarcerated individuals, juvenile opioid abuse, investigation and enforcement of drug trafficking and distribution laws, and significant training for first responders in carrying and administering opioid overdose reversal drugs like naloxone. States will also be allowed to enlist nonprofit organizations, including faith-based organizations, in the fight against opioid abuse. The bill authorizes this new program at $103 million annually over 5 years. Importantly, the comprehensive grant program created by H.R. 5046 is fully offset in accordance with the House CutGo protocol. This means that Congress has successfully directed funds to address the opioid epidemic by taking advantage of existing funding streams to Department of Justice grant programs. The result is no net increase in spending authorizations and no additional burden on the American taxpayer, which is a responsible, good government approach to this epidemic. H.R. 5046 is thoughtful, historic legislation that, once enacted, will help fulfill Congress' duty to protect the American people. I urge my colleagues to support this important bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5046, about to be considered by the House.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus) for offering this amendment, and I support it. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, more Americans are now dying every year from drug overdoses than in car accidents, and a majority of those overdoses involve prescription medications. In 2012, healthcare providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid pain medications, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills. In 2010, the House Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Energy and Commerce shepherded through Congress the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act, which amended the Controlled Substances Act to allow patients to legally return unused or expired prescription drugs to local pharmacies, police stations, and community drug disposal programs. That same year, the Drug Enforcement Administration began hosting National Prescription Drug Take-Back events. At the previous 10 take- back day events, over 5.5 million pounds of unwanted, unneeded, or expired medications were surrendered for safe and proper disposal. On April 27, I was pleased to host, along with Committee on Appropriations Chairman Rogers, a drug take-back event here on Capitol Hill. At this year's National Take-Back Day, held on April 30, Americans disposed of more unused prescription drugs than during any of the previous 10 events. The DEA and over 4,200 State, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies collected 893,498 pounds of unwanted medicines, about 447 tons, at almost 5,400 sites spread through all 50 States, surpassing the previous high of 390 tons in the spring of 2014. This amendment will allow grant funds to be used to sponsor these important drug take-back events. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), a lead sponsor of this amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), a sponsor of the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 184, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5052) to direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to evaluate the effectiveness of grant programs that provide grants for the primary purpose of providing assistance in addressing problems pertaining to opioid abuse, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this good legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5052, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 5052, the Opioid Program Evaluation Act, or OPEN Act, is a bill that would require an evaluation of the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Grant Program that will be authorized by H.R. 5046, and other opioid-related grant programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip, requires the Attorney General, through an arrangement with the National Academy of Sciences and the Secretary of HHS, through an arrangement with the National Academy of Sciences, or other entity, to: Identify outcomes that are to be achieved by the activities funded by Congress to address opioid abuse; Develop the metrics by which each program's performance will be evaluated; Complete an interim evaluation assessing the nature and extent of opioid abuse and illegal opioid distribution in the United States; And carry out an evaluation of the effectiveness of the programs. Additionally, to increase transparency and facilitate the evaluation of the performance of the programs, the bill requires grantees to collect and annually report data on the activities conducted pursuant to these programs. Evaluations such as these can be Congress' best measure of how well a Federal program or agency is operating. At their conclusion, we hope to learn, for example, whether a substantial number of criminal justice agency personnel have received training on substance abuse disorders and co-occurring mental illness and adapted their procedures accordingly. We also hope to learn the extent to which offenders offered a treatment alternative to incarceration have benefited from a response that integrates substance abuse services into the traditional criminal justice system. I agree with the bill's sponsors that Congress must demand greater achievement and increased transparency and accountability with respect to our Federal grant programs. Therefore, I thank the bill's sponsors for the contribution this bill makes to the effort to address opioid abuse, as well as to our congressional oversight efforts. I urge support of this important bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC, May 3, 2016. Hon. Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Goodlatte: I am writing to notify you that the Committee on Energy and Commerce will forgo action on H.R. 5052, a bill to direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to evaluate the effectiveness of grant programs that provide grants for the primary purpose of providing assistance in addressing problems pertaining to opioid abuse, and for other purposes, so that it may proceed expeditiously to the House floor for consideration. This is done with the understanding that the Committee on Energy and Commerce's jurisdictional interests over this and similar legislation are in no way altered. In addition, the Committee reserves the right to seek conferees on H.R. 5052 and requests your support when such a request is made. I would appreciate your response confirming this understanding and ask that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be included in the Congressional Record during consideration of the bill on the House floor. Sincerely, Fred Upton, Chairman.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader, who is also the chief sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 125) to amend title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to extend the authorization of the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program through fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes.