Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to remember Maynard F. Hagemeyer, a WWII veteran and Ohio business and civic leader. Mr. Hagemeyer passed away on July 16, at the age of 98, at his home on Wilmington Road in Clarksville; he died in the same room he was born in on November 22, 1918. Maynard Hagemeyer attended Spring Hill elementary school in a one- room schoolhouse and graduated from Massie Township High School in Harveysburg, OH in 1936. He attended the University of Cincinnati, studying business administration. He loved horses and, in his youth, showed Percheron and Belgian horses throughout the U.S., and in 1940, he traveled through the Panama Canal, transporting draft horses to Chile. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, Maynard served almost 5 years during WWII, half in deployment overseas. He attained the rank of captain and commanded a company in the 23rd replacement battalion in North Africa, serving under General George Patton. He also served under General Mark Clark in Italy. Maynard took over the family farm in 1948 and operated various business ventures over the years. These included an excavation business, a feed mill, an anhydrous ammonia and fertilizer business, an egg business, and a Standardbred racing and breeding business he started in 1957 that still continues today. Active in the community, Maynard was a member of the Clarksville Masonic Lodge since 1940, the Scottish Rite and Shrine since 1946, and he joined the Eastern Star in 1947 and served as ``Worthy Patron'' in 1952 and in 1962. Maynard was on the Warren County Fair Board for 42 years and the Warren County Veterans Commission for 20 years. He also served as a director of the Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association and was the first president of the Harness Horse Youth Foundation. He stepped into public service after the death of his father in 1948, completing the balance of his father's term as Warren County commissioner. He was also a member of the Warren County School Board for 10 years and served as a Washington township trustee for 32 years. Maynard has been recognized many times over the years, including the Pacer Grass Roots award in 1989, named a ``Kentucky Colonel'' at the age of 91, Masonic Lodge 75-year award in 2016, and the Harveysburg alumni 80-year award in 2016. Maynard and his beloved wife, Stella, were married for 71 years and had 4 children, 8 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. I would like to honor Maynard Hagemeyer for his contributions to his community, his country, and his family.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about an issue that Members on both sides of this aisle have a deep concern about, and that is human sex trafficking and, specifically, the work we have done to try to stop one website called backpage.com from selling people online. This morning, I--along with my colleagues Tom Carper and Claire McCaskill--announced that we have asked the Department of Justice to investigate backpage.com for criminal violations of the law. This is a criminal referral, and it is a new development in this case. We believe there is sufficient evidence to warrant this criminal review by the Justice Department, based on the work that we have done in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. With estimated revenues of more than $150 million a year, backpage.com is a market leader in commercial sex trafficking and has been linked to hundreds of reported cases of sex trafficking, including trafficking vulnerable women and children. Backpage has claimed that it ``leads the industry'' in its screening of advertisements for illegal activity, including sex ads for children. That is simply not true. In fact, we now know that this website has long facilitated sex trafficking on its site so that it can increase its profits--profits that come at the expense of those being trafficked, including children. When victims or State authorities try to bring actions against this company, backpage has evaded responsibility by saying that it doesn't write the ads for sex; it just publishes. Frankly, as a rule, courts have sided with the company, citing the immunity granted by a Federal law that is called the Communications Decency Act. The law, in essence, says that if a company like backpage publishes an ad someone else gives them, they are not liable, even though, again in this case, we know that this website has long facilitated sex trafficking and they know what they are doing. We also now know that backpage has actively edited words and images, which makes them cocreators of these ads. We also know from a new report in the Washington Post just this week that, despite claims, backpage has aggressively solicited and created sex-related ads designed to lure customers. It further demonstrates that backpage is not merely a passive publisher of third-party content. They are involved. The article found that backpage workers were active cocreators of many of these sex advertisements, including those that seek to traffic women and young, underage girls. I believe the legal consequences should be that they should lose their immunity under the Communications Decency Act, and that is why we have asked the Justice Department today to review this matter. Let me be clear about the Communications Decency Act. It has an important purpose. It is a well-intentioned law. It was enacted back in 1996 to protect online publishers, and I support the broader legislation, the Communications Decency Act. But the law was not intended to protect those who knowingly violate the law and facilitate illegal conduct, and it was never intended to protect those who knowingly facilitate the sex trafficking of vulnerable women and girls. We are actively exploring legislation to fix this issue once and for all. I have been working with a bipartisan group of Senators on potential legislation, and I am hopeful that will soon be introduced in the U.S. Senate. We must protect women and underage girls and hold accountable websites that knowingly facilitate these types of criminal exploitations. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a place in Ohio called the Ranch of Opportunity in Washington Court House. The Ranch of Opportunity opened its doors in the latter part of 2013. It is on a 22-acre site, a tranquil setting, a peaceful, spacious, and healthy environment for girls between 13 and 18 to help find healing and recovery during a residential program. The ranch is a place of hope. As it says in its name, it is a ranch of opportunity, and a lot of the girls who spend time at the ranch have been victims of human trafficking and child abuse. In fact, I am told that the majority--roughly 60 to 80 percent--of the young girls who come through this program have been trafficked. As I have talked to some of the girls and the staff there, of course, backpage.com comes up again and again, as it always does when I talk to survivors and victims of human trafficking. These types of crimes-- sexual abuse and trafficking--are horrific, but they are happening. They are happening all over the country, and they are happening more and more. So in your community, wherever you live, sadly I will tell you that this is a problem. Part of it is because of these online traffickers. In other words, as many of the survivors of human trafficking have told me: Rob, this has moved from the street corner to the smartphone, and the smartphone is where backpage.com dominates. In touring the State, I have heard over and over again about this specific link between drugs and human trafficking. I have talked to trafficking survivors who have told me that their trafficker first got them hooked on heroin and other drugs. I saw this firsthand in May, when I toured the Salvation Army of Greater Cleveland Harbor Light Complex. They have been operating in Cleveland for 65 years, providing incredibly important services to some of the most vulnerable members of society, including women who have been trafficked. It is important to know that link is there. Both of those issues are so important to address--trafficking and what is happening in terms of the increasing heroin and prescription drug and fentanyl crisis in this country, which is now at epidemic levels. That is why the STOP Act is so important--the Synthetic Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, which we are trying to get passed here, as well as the Prescription Drug Monitoring Act, which is so important. There is a connection. Human trafficking requires urgent action, and so does the opioid epidemic. On human trafficking, including sex trafficking, we are now told it is a $150 billion a year industry. Think about that. It is the second biggest criminal enterprise in the world behind the drug trade. Unfortunately, again, it is happening in all of our States. Just last month, a 26-year-old man was indicted on human trafficking charges. He used backpage.com to advertise the availability of two girls, ages 15 and 17. He advertised them for sex and trafficked them out to several hotels in the area. Thankfully, in this case, members of the Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force rescued both of the victims, one in Columbus and one in Toledo. Cases like this are alarming, but they are happening all over the place. At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, experts on this issue report an 846-percent increase in reports of suspected child sex trafficking from 2010 to 2015. That is an increase of more than 800 percent in 5 years. The organization found this spike to be ``directly correlated to the increased use of the internet to sell children for sex.'' Again, it is the dark side of the internet, and trafficking has now moved from the street corner to the cell phone. To confront this problem, as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, along with my colleague and ranking member, Senator Claire McCaskill, now Senator Tom Carper, I opened a bipartisan investigation into sex traffickers and their use of the internet. The investigation began over 2 years ago. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children now says that nearly three-fourths--73 percent--of all suspected child sex trafficking reports it receives from the general public are linked to one website, backpage.com. According to leading anti-trafficking organizations, including Shared Hope International, service providers working with child sex trafficking victims have reported that between 80 percent and 100 percent of their clients have been bought and sold on backpage.com. Backpage now operates in 97 countries--934 cities worldwide--and is valued at well over one-half billion dollars. According to an industry analysis, in 2013, $8 of every $10 spent on online commercial sex trafficking advertising in the United States goes to this one website, backpage.com. As I said earlier, they say that they lead the industry in screening; in fact, their top lawyer described their screening process as a key tool for disrupting and eventually ending human trafficking. That is not true. Despite these boasts, the website and its owners have consistently refused to cooperate with our investigations on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. With regard to our inquiries, despite subpoenas for company documents on how they screen advertisements, they have also refused to provide us documents after a subpoena. As a result, this body, the U.S. Senate, last year, for the first time in more than 20 years, voted to pass a civil contempt citation--in other words, holding backpage.com in contempt and requiring them to supply these documents and come forward with this information or else face a lawsuit and potential criminal violations. Finally, last August, after going through the district court, the Circuit Court, all the way to the Supreme Court, we were able to get their request to appeal it rejected, and we were able to get the documents. Over 1 million documents were eventually turned over, including emails and internal documents. We went through them all, and what we found was very troubling, to say the least. After reviewing the documents, the subcommittee published a staff report in January that conclusively showed that backpage is more deeply complicit in online, underage sex trafficking than anyone ever imagined. The report shows that backpage has knowingly covered up evidence by systematically deleting words and images suggestive of the illegal conduct, including child sex trafficking. The editing process sanitized the content of millions of advertisements in order to hide important evidence from law enforcement. I encourage people to take a look at this report. They can look at it on our website and other websites here from myself or Senator McCaskill. Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer personally directed his employees to create an electronic filter to delete hundreds of words indicative of sex trafficking or prostitution from ads before they were published. In other words, they knew these ads were about selling girls, selling women online; yet they published them. Again, this filter they used did not reject ads because of the obvious illegal activity. They edited the ads only to try to cover up the illegal activity. It didn't change what was advertised; it changed the way it was advertised. Backpage did nothing to stop this criminal activity. They facilitated it, knowingly. What did they do? Well, afraid to erode their profits--they were afraid because, as Mr. Ferrer said, in his words, it would ``piss off a lot'' of customers. They began deleting words. Beginning in 2010, backpage automatically deleted words including ``lolita,'' referencing a 12-year-old girl in a book sold for sex, ``teenage,'' ``rape,'' ``young,'' ``little girl,'' ``teen,'' ``fresh,'' ``innocent,'' ``school girl,'' even ``amber alert''--and then they published the edited versions of those ads on their website. They also systematically deleted dozens of words related to prostitution. This filter made these deletions before anyone at backpage even looked at the ad. When law enforcement officials asked for more information about the suspicious ads, backpage had destroyed the original ad posted by the trafficker, so the evidence was gone. This notion that they were trying to help law enforcement flies in the face of the fact that they actually destroyed the evidence that would have helped law enforcement. We will never know for sure how many girls and women were victimized as a result of this activity. By backpage's own estimate, the company was editing 70 to 80 percent of the ads in their adult section by late 2010. Based on our best estimate, this means that backpage was editing more than one-half million ads a year--more than one-half million ads a year. At a hearing on the report, the backpage CEO and other company officials pled the Fifth Amendment, invoking their right against self- incrimination rather than responding to questions we had about the report and its findings. We also heard powerful testimony from parents whose children had been trafficked on backpage. One mother talked about seeing her missing daughter's photograph on backpage. She frantically called the company to tell them that it was her daughter--they finally found her--and to please take down the ad. Their response: Did you post the ad? Her response: Of course I didn't post the ad. That's my daughter. Please take down the ad. Their response: We can take it down only if you pay for the ad. Talk about heartless. Based on our report, it is clear that backpage actively facilitated sex trafficking taking place on its website in order to increase profits at the expense of vulnerable women and children. Then, after the fact, they covered up the evidence of these crimes. What is happening to these kids is terrible. It is not just tragic. To me, it is evil. No one is interested in shutting down legitimate commercial activity and speech. As I said earlier, the Communication Decency Act plays an important role, but we want to stop this criminal activity. I see some of my colleagues are here to speak. I appreciate their allowing me to finish, but I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in reforming these laws to be able to protect these innocent victims, these children. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Suzy DeYoung from Cincinnati, recipient of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service. The Jefferson Awards Foundation was founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft, Jr., and Sam Beard to power others to have maximum impact on the things they care about most. Suzy cares about helping her community and has a passion for good food. She was born to be a chef. Her father, Pierre Adrian, was head chef at the five-star Maisonette restaurant in Cincinnati and her grandparents were chefs in New York. She and her sister co-ran La Petite Pierre restaurant until Suzy split off to focus on La Soupe. Now, Suzy is more than a chef. She is a business owner, transportation manager, teacher, and a fundraiser. In response to growing childhood poverty rates and the fact that one- third of all food produced worldwide is either lost or wasted each year, Suzy DeYoung started La Soupe to close the gap between food waste and hunger. La Soupe rescues otherwise wasted produce to create delicious and highly nutritious meals for customers, nonprofits, and food-insecure families. In 2016 alone, La Soupe rescued 125,000 pounds of food from going to the landfill and donated over 95,000 servings to people living in food insecurity. La Soupe partners with Kroger, Jungle Jims, Crosset Company, Sugar Creek, and various local organic farms who provide ingredients allowing La Soupe's team of volunteer chefs to share their culinary magic turning rescued produce into soup or sometimes stew or gumbo or a casserole to feed to people who are hungry. Suzy also spends time helping parents learn how to feed their kids and teaches weekly cooking classes at area schools, sending kids home with ingredients and recipes to cook for their families. In addition, she operates a retail ``Soupe Shack,'' where sales of the meals made from rich ingredients fuel donations to Cincinnati's food-deprived individuals. An energetic social entrepreneur, Suzy has inspired chefs to create and give. She has inspired parents to provide healthier options to their families, and she has also inspired kids to pursue culinary careers. I would like to congratulate Suzy DeYoung and thank her and all of the volunteers at LaSoupe for their dedication to closing the hunger gap for so many in greater Cincinnati.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a promising young man from Wyoming, OH--just outside of Cincinnati, my hometown--a young man whose life was drastically cut short at just 22 years of age. I rise to talk about Otto Warmbier. Otto had all the smarts and talent you could ever ask for. He was a homecoming king and the salutatorian of the Wyoming High School class he graduated from a few years ago. He spent a summer at the London School of Economics. He was a smart kid. He won a prestigious scholarship to study at the University of Virginia. As everyone expected he would, he excelled at UVA. He got great grades. He had a thirst for learning. He loved meeting new people and hearing about their lives and their perspectives. His future was as bright as it could possibly be. It was this smart, kindhearted young man--a college kid--who was taken prisoner by the North Korean regime for nearly 18 months. Otto's detainment and sentence were unnecessary and appalling. Neither one should have ever happened in the first place. At some point soon after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, from what we know, Otto suffered a severe brain injury--from what, we don't know, and we may never know. Whom did the North Korean Government tell about this? No one. For the next 15 months or so, they kept this a secret. They denied him access to the best medical care he deserved, and they refused repeated requests for consular access that would normally be provided to those who have been detained--requests from our government, from the Obama administration, from the Trump administration, requests from the Red Cross, requests from the Swedish Government, which provides consular service for Americans in North Korea, requests from many of us here in the Capitol. The regime unjustly imprisoned him and then lied about his severe medical condition. By the way, they continued to tell stories that make no sense. Doctors at the University of Cincinnati--some of the best doctors in the world and just the type of medical professionals Otto should have been able to see from the start--say that North Korea's claims as to what happened simply don't stand up to the evidence. They called him a prisoner of war, but they also violated the Geneva Convention. For North Korea to imprison Otto Warmbier with no consular access for more than a year with his medical condition and severe brain injury--it goes well beyond that. It demonstrates a complete failure to recognize fundamental human rights. Because of these actions by the North Koreans, Otto is dead. His promise has been cut short. If there is ever any doubt about the nature of the North Korean regime--that pariah country--then Otto's case should erase all doubt. We know this regime has no regard for the rule of law or the freedoms we enjoy here, but they also have no regard for basic human rights and dignity. They have subjected hundreds of thousands of their own people to mistreatment, torture, and death for decades. They are now extending that treatment to innocent Americans. North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior and be held accountable for its actions. Otto's family--God bless them--tried everything they could to bring Otto home. For 18 months--and for almost 16 months not knowing of his dire condition--they were steadfast and resilient, trying everything they could. I was there with Fred and Cindy Warmbier when Otto finally returned from North Korea. He came home. It was incredibly emotional to watch Otto be reunited with his loving family. I believe he knew he was back home. I believe he knew he was among those who loved him. I want to thank State Department Special Representative Joe Yun, Deputy Secretary Sullivan, and Secretary Tillerson for their work to help secure Otto's release last week and to bring him home. There are still three Americans who are being detained by the North Koreans. They should be released immediately, and we should do everything we can do as a country to secure their release. Otto's case is a reminder that we must, on the one hand, increase pressure on North Korea to force them to change. There will soon be more to discuss on that. At the same time, we have to maintain an open line of communication to deal with the deadly serious issues we face. Those are some of the lessons I have taken from the last 18 months. Fred, Cindy, and the entire Warmbier family have been incredibly strong through this ordeal. No one should have to go through what that family has experienced. My wife Jane and I will continue to be at their side, including at the funeral service tomorrow in Wyoming, OH. I urge my colleagues and everybody listening at home to continue to hold up this family in prayer, but also let's ensure that this tragedy is a wake-up call about the true nature of this brutal regime. Mr. President, I yield back.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I want to start by commending my colleagues from Georgia and Montana for their compassion and care for our veterans and specifically for their continued efforts to ensure we have accountability at the VA. They worked hard on this legislation. I hope the Senate moves expeditiously to vote for it and to help our veterans to be able to have the kind of responsibility and accountability they deserve. Remembering Les Spaeth Mr. President, I also rise today to talk about veterans. I am going to focus on World War II veterans. Last Monday was Memorial Day. I was in Mason, OH. I was in Warren County, OH. My mom grew up there, and my family still has a lot of ties there. I was there at a ceremony for the veterans memorial, one of the most beautiful memorials in the State of Ohio. I happened to be there about 15 years ago when it was first began, and it was great to be back. At the ceremony, I got to see a World War II buddy of mine. His name is Les Spaeth. He is also a good friend of my father's and grandfather's. As always, seeing him brought back great memories, and I was able to speak about him during my remarks. Two days later--a few days ago--we got word that Les Spaeth died at age 92. I want to take a moment to pay tribute to this man who gave so much to his country and to his community. Les was a marine corporal during World War II. He signed up after graduating from Mason High School in 1942. He served in the Pacific, including the occupation of Japan after the war, helping that country make a difficult transition to democracy. Thanks in large part to American soldiers like him, by the way, the transition worked. Japan has become one of our greatest allies. Les came back to Mason, OH, and started a small business called Spaeth Brothers Cleaners. He had that optimism so many of the World War II generation had. He had the courage to take a risk and help build jobs and help the economy of his hometown. My dad did the same thing after World War II. Les was a businessman, but he was also a public servant for more than half a century. He served six terms as Warren County auditor. He served on the Board of Elections for 25 years. He chaired the Warren County Republican Party for 17 years. He was very active in the community in so many other ways too. He was one of the very first volunteer firefighters in Mason, OH, starting way back in 1948. He was elder at his church, Heritage Presbyterian, where his service will be held. For 70 years, he was a freemason and member of the American Legion. He helped set up the American Legion Buckeye Boys Program, a great program where they are teaching young men about State, local, and Federal government and values and leadership. His whole life was centered around his community--through the family business, through military service, through elected office, and through volunteerism. In 2009, Mason High School started having a distinguished alumni graduation speaker every year. For all the reasons I talked about a moment ago, a few years ago, in 2013, I wrote a letter and recommended that they honor Les Spaeth. They agreed with me. That spring of 2013, it was time to receive his award. He gave a beautiful speech. He talked about his love for this country and counting our blessings as Americans. He received a standing ovation from the graduating class. I know that meant a lot to him. That ovation shows the respect and esteem people in Warren County have for Les Spaeth across generations. On behalf of Ohio, I want to express my condolences to the family of Les Spaeth. I also want to thank them for sharing Les with the rest of us in Ohio for these past 92 years. He was a dedicated servant to the people of Warren County, an American hero for his military service, and a good friend to so many. 73rd Anniversary of D-day As was noted, as we talk about World War II, today is also the 73rd anniversary of D-day. As Chairman Isakson just said, it was really the beginning of the end of that war. And 73 years ago this morning, Les Spaeth was in theater in the Pacific, as I said, risking his life for all of us. But in Europe on that same morning, the largest amphibious invasion in the history of the world was taking place. Men as young as 18 years old were crossing the channel, carrying packs weighing 80 pounds. More than 160,000 Allied soldiers--mostly Americans--and more than 5,000 ships backed by more than 10,000 aircraft were fighting to liberate Europe from Hitler. The outcome was far from certain. The Nazis had spent 2 years fortifying the coast to prepare for this moment. It was Hitler's so-called Atlantic Wall. The beautiful coastline of France was covered in barbed wire, land mines, and bunkers. A little more than a month before D-day, by the way, the Allies had conducted a trial run. They practiced on beaches in western England that were most like those of Normandy. The practice run was a disaster. In fact, Germans spotted the Allied ships and attacked them. Hundreds of American troops died in that practice session. COL George Taylor told his troops as they were about to land on Normandy: ``Only two kinds of men are going to be on this beach--the dead, and those about to die. So get moving.'' This was tough stuff. They had an enormous task, and the stakes could not have been higher. Erwin Rommel--and Rommel was leading the Nazi defense at that time-- said at that time: ``The fate of Germany depends on . . . the first 24 hours of this invasion.'' He was right. Well-known historian Douglas Brinkley said that D-day was ``the single most important moment in the 20th Century.'' It was one of the bloodiest too. It was the beginning of the end of the most difficult war in human history, and the lives of millions of people depended on the outcome. They depended on the success of brave, young Americans like Eugene Lyons of University Heights, OH. Eugene was a medic. His ship hit a mine in the English Channel and sank off the coast. He swam to shore while German planes shot at him, missing him by a matter of inches. Or the Napier brothers of Warren County, like Les Spaeth. Five brothers all served during World War II. Two of them were there on the beaches that day; one died. Or Jim ``Pee Wee'' Martin from Dayton, OH, who served in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and parachuted behind German lines before dawn that day. Jim received both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his service that day. Or Sigmund Czelusniak of North Royalton, OH, who was wounded by a mortar shell on Omaha Beach. Sigmund later said, as he lay wounded: ``In my heart, I didn't think I'd ever come back.'' More than 10,000 Allied troops did not come back. While those brave men and hundreds of thousands of others were fighting, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took to the airwaves, as you would expect a President to do. As you know, he was known for what were called fireside chats. These were informal speeches he would give to the Nation during difficult times. But on that day, he did something very different. Instead of giving a speech, he was called to lead the Nation in prayer. This prayer brought our country together. It strengthened our resolve. It comforted us at a very difficult and frightening time for our country, and it briefly encapsulated, as you will hear in a second, what our purpose was--not just in World War II but what our purpose was as Americans. He made an indelible mark on our history. Three years ago, after the 70th anniversary of D-day, then-President Obama signed into law legislation that I had authored to add the words of this famous prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. Since then, the site for the plaque has been approved. The architect is continuing to work with the National Park Service on the design. I have been told that the Park Service intends to present the design options to the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission during their meetings this summer. Construction could begin as soon as December and be completed by next June. Frankly, I am discouraged this has taken so long because this prayer belongs on the World War II Memorial, and Congress has said so. I urge the Park Service to move as expeditiously as possible to complete this project, to bring those words to so many veterans and others who visit that beautiful memorial. As has been my tradition since the time we were trying to get that legislation passed, I would like to read the words President Roosevelt spoke on D-day 73 years ago. He started by saying: My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you . . . I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with great success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer. This was his prayer: Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know by Thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest--until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for those of us at home--fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too--strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment--let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace--a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen. Those were the words he spoke and the words that will soon be inscribed on the World War II monument. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I came to the floor last week to talk about our police officers. It was during Police Week. We talked about the bravery and heroism of our officers back home. I talked about tragic stories of police officers who were gunned down in the line of duty and talked about what they do for us every day. Today I want to talk about an issue that is endangering their lives and the lives of so many in our communities but specifically law enforcement. This happens in every single State represented in this Chamber. This danger is this new epidemic of synthetic heroin, of opioids. We know more about heroin and prescription drugs. Now we have these synthetic heroins coming in that are even more powerful. Being a police officer has always been a tough job, but it is becoming riskier today because of this. Some people have heard it as carfentanil or fentanyl or U4. Most of this synthetic poison coming into our communities is coming through the mail system. It is coming from overseas, primarily from China, where they have laboratories, where some evil scientist is mixing up this chemical mix and sending it over here into our communities. Let me tell you about something that happened last Friday in East Liverpool, OH. Some of you may know the name ``East Liverpool'' because it is the same city where there was a photograph that went viral on the Internet of a couple who had overdosed in the front of a car, with their 3-year-old grandson in a car seat behind them. It showed the grandson, and it showed the two who had overdosed passed out in the front of the car. In this same town of East Liverpool, OH, an officer by the name of Chris Green pulled over a car in a routine traffic stop. As he came up to the car, he noticed there was white powder sprinkled around the car. He took the appropriate precautions. He put on his gloves, he put on a mask, and he began to deal with the situation at hand. The people in the car apparently had spread the powder to try to avoid it being detected, but it was easily detectible. At the end of his arrest process, there was a small amount of powder that was left on his jacket, which he did not notice. He went back to the police station. When he got there, he noticed the powder on his shirt and instinctively he went like this to get the powder off of his shirt. This small amount of powder touching his hand caused him to overdose. Officer Green is not a small guy; he is about 6 feet 3 inches, 225 pounds. He is a big, strong police officer who overdosed just by trying to get a few flakes of powder off of his jacket. Why? Because this fentanyl is so powerful. It is so deadly. Fortunately, his fellow police officers were able to save his life with naloxone. This is a miracle drug which reverses the effects of an overdose and which is being used on our streets every single day to save people from dying from overdoses. In this case, it was used to keep a police officer who was doing his duty and who had simply tried to get a few flakes of powder off of his uniform from dying of an overdose. East Liverpool police chief John Lane put it this way: If he had been alone, he'd be dead. That's how dangerous this stuff is. Chief Lane later made the point that if Officer Green had gone home in that shirt and unknowingly had this powder on his shirt or his jacket, he could have endangered the lives of his family. That is a scary thought. Obviously, that is true. That is how deadly these drugs are. It only takes a few milligrams, just a few specks, to kill you. This chart will show you how much it takes. Here you see that 10 milligrams of carfentanil is powerful enough to sedate a 15,000-pound elephant. Here is the carfentanil over here, as shown on this chart. You will see why a fatal dose can be a very, very small amount--30 milligrams for heroin, 3 milligrams for fentanyl, even less than 3 milligrams for carfentanil. By the way, for those of you at home, if you look at a penny, you will see Abraham Lincoln's profile on one side of it. The deadly dose of fentanyl that we are talking about here is enough to only cover up the face of Abraham Lincoln on a penny. That is how little we are talking about and how deadly this stuff is. You can see why our law enforcement officers are so concerned about this. Officer Green is not the only one to experience this. There was a famous case last year where two officers in Atlantic County, NJ-- Detective Dan Kallen and Detective Eric Price--overdosed on fentanyl just by breathing fentanyl in the air at a crime scene. As some of you have heard, fentanyl is so dangerous that they are afraid to use dogs to try to sniff it out because just by trying to sniff these packages to see whether fentanyl is included in them, the dogs could overdose and die. Fentanyl is dangerous stuff. By the way, it is taking up more and more of the resources of our police officers and other first responders. Earlier this year, I came to the floor and talked about Officer Ben Rhodes of Chillicothe, OH. Last year Officer Rhodes reversed more than 50 drug overdoses. This is one officer in one small town. Talk to the firefighters in your community and ask them whether they go on more fire runs or more heroin and fentanyl and carfentanil overdose runs. I almost guarantee you they will say they go on more overdose runs. As a result, in some communities, those firefighters are not there to be able to protect us as you would typically think from the fires that still continue to be a major problem. So this is a real issue. It is taking up more and more of their time and more resources and causing more and more crime. On Thursday, in Middletown, OH, which is a town in Southern Ohio, a family was getting ready to leave the house. In fact, they had already strapped their 3-month-old baby into a car seat. It is not clear whether they had shot up with heroin before they put the baby in the car seat or after, but they went back into the house and they overdosed in the house. They had the baby in the car seat in the car. They overdosed in the home. They have another son who is 5 years old. He ran out of the house barefoot. He went to a neighbor's house, to his stepfather's home, which is a few blocks away, and yelled at the door: Mom and dad are dead. Mom and dad are dead. The grandfather called the police, and they rushed to the scene. They were able to revive the boy's dad with naloxone. They used seven doses of naloxone on the mother, but she still couldn't wake up. From talking to police officers about this, they tell me that there is a very good sign this involved fentanyl, perhaps carfentanil, because after two, three, four, five, six, seven doses of naxolone, she still could not be revived. Fortunately, the police rushed her to the hospital, where they were finally able to bring her back. Again, this is what police officers are facing every day in my home State of Ohio, in your State, in your community. After this incident, the Middletown Police said on Facebook: It has to stop. Please get help before it's too late. Not only to save yourself, but to save your kids. Give these kids a chance by getting help. If you or someone you love has a drug problem, please seek help right now. This is a cry from our police officers saying that this can't continue. Talk to the firefighters and police officers who have administered naloxone to the same individual time and time again, overdose after overdose. These brave officers and police officers around the country are feeling overwhelmed. Drug overdoses are now the No. 1 cause of accidental death in the United States of America. It has now surpassed car accidents. It has way surpassed gun violence. In the last 3 years, more Americans have died of drug overdoses than died in the Vietnam war. More Americans are dying of drug overdoses now than died of AIDS at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995. This year, 2017, more people will die from overdoses from opioids than died from AIDS at the peak in 1995--another tragedy. According to an article in the New York Times, more than four times as many people are dying every day from this epidemic than were dying of drug overdoses at the peak of the crack cocaine epidemic. When I say it is the worst drug crisis we have faced in this country and that it is an epidemic, that is not overstating it. The Fraternal Order of Police and the Major County Sheriffs of America are actually focused on this issue, and they want better tools to be able to at least try to stop some of this poison--the fentanyl and the carfentanil--from coming into our communities. I mentioned earlier the fact that this actually comes by the mail system. Unbelievable. It doesn't come by all mail systems. It comes through the U.S. mail system, as opposed to the private carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, or others. One reason is because our mail system in the United States does not require the kind of advanced notice of where the package is from, what is in it, and where it is going that the private carriers require. So where do the traffickers go? They go to our mail service, the U.S. Postal Service, and the postal service in the country that interacts with and connects with our postal service. This is why the Fraternal Order of Police, the Major County Sheriffs of America, and other law enforcement are saying: Help us by passing legislation called the STOP Act. The STOP Act is to help stop traffickers from bringing these deadly poisons into our communities, the kind of stuff that caused Officer Green to overdose. Fentanyl and these other synthetic drugs are not just coming in from overseas; they are coming in through our mail system. What we are saying in the STOP Act is, let's close the loophole. Let's say that the mail system in the United States has to say the same thing that other private carriers say, which is, if you want to ship something through our system, that is fine, but you have to tell us what is in it. You have to tell us where it is from and where it is going. Otherwise, they can't effectively stop these packages. It is like finding a needle in a haystack. I talked earlier about the difficulty of detecting it and how poisonous it is, and sniffing dogs can't be used because of the potential of them overdosing and dying. It is also very difficult for our officers to find these packages without some information. Expert testimony, including that from the Secretary of Homeland Security, General Kelly, from Customs and Border Protection, and from the folks at DEA all reach the same conclusion, which is that this policy change would make it easier for law enforcement to detect suspicious packages of fentanyl, carfentanil, and other synthetic drugs and help keep this poison out of our country. Support for this legislation is bipartisan, and it is growing. We now have 16 cosponsors in the Senate--8 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Completely bipartisan. In the House, Congressman Pat Tiberi of Ohio and Richard Neal of Massachusetts--a Republican and a Democrat--have introduced bipartisan companion legislation. They now have 128 cosponsors. Support is building. It is an obvious way to help push back. Is it the silver bullet? No. There is not one silver bullet. We need to do more in terms of prevention, treatment, and recovery, and help our law enforcement more to make sure they have naloxone to be able to save lives. At least, let's stop some of this poison from coming in, and let's at least increase the cost of the fentanyl because one reason you see this big increase in overdoses from fentanyl and carfentanil and traffickers using more of it is because of the cost. At the very least, by helping our law enforcement, giving them the tools they need, we can stop some of it and increase the cost on the street. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the STOP Act. We have a hearing on this legislation on Thursday of this week in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. We have experts coming in--law enforcement officers who care a lot about their colleagues. They talk about what a danger this is to them, what a danger this is to our communities. It is time for us in the U.S. Senate to stand up and take this important step, not the silver bullet but the important step to be able to help save lives and make our communities safer. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague from Florida. He has been a stalwart on this issue. We have never made this a partisan issue, have we. We always kept this a bipartisan issue because this is a danger to our country, our communities--all Americans. The Senator is absolutely right. It is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin. A flew flakes can kill you, as you see here. It is absolutely necessary we figure out a way together, as Republicans and Democrats. With the recovery efforts the Senator supported and the Cures Act he already supported, this is the next logical step to deal with the new threat, which is this synthetic heroin coming to our country. I thank my colleague from Florida. I yield back.

Mr. PORTMAN. Absolutely.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise during Police Week to pay tribute to our police officers around the country--the men and women in blue who serve us every day in Ohio and in every State represented in this Chamber. In Ohio, this is a particularly difficult week. Here we are during Police Week, and we are, once again, mourning the loss of a police officer. This happened just last Friday. Last Friday, a gunman took two people hostage in the woods behind a nursing home in Kirkersville, OH, which is a small town about 25 miles east of Columbus. The first one to arrive on the scene was the police chief of this small town. His name was Steven DiSario. Chief Steven DiSario confronted the assailant, and he was ambushed by this assailant. He was shot. He was killed. This gunman then went inside the nursing facility, and he murdered two staff members--a registered nurse, Marlina Medrano, and a nurse's aide named Cindy Krantz. Then he took his own life. By the way, Police Chief Steven DiSario was 36 years old and had just become the police chief in Kirkersville a month ago. The women who were slain were Marlina Medrano, who had a son, and Cindy Krantz, who had five kids, including a 10-year-old son. Those kids had to spend Mother's Day preparing for their moms' burials. On Monday, I went to Kirkersville and saw the memorial there for the officer. I also had an opportunity to meet with some of the officers who were from neighboring communities. There was just one police officer in Kirkersville--just the chief. I was able to express to them the sympathy and the gratitude of the people throughout Ohio. I had brought a flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of Chief DiSario, and that flag will go to his family as a very small token of the appreciation and gratitude of all of us for their father's and husband's service. Chief DiSario had six kids, and his widow, Aryn, is currently pregnant with their seventh child--a child who is never going to know his or her dad. What he or she will know is that he died a hero, that he died a hero in risking his life to protect innocent people. That is what police officers do every single day. They keep us safe. They take dangerous criminals and weapons and drugs off our streets. They enforce the law. Even their very presence helps to deter crime and keep our communities safer, but they do it all at great risk--at great risk to themselves and at great sacrifice to their families. A little more than a year ago, I did a ride-along in Columbus with Officer Greg Meyer. He is one of those brave Columbus police officers who goes out every day to help keep our communities safe, and we were focused on a couple of issues that night in Columbus. One was the drug trade, particularly the opioid crisis we face in Ohio. He was able to show me where much of this activity occurs, and we were able to see with our eyes some of the people who were trafficking drugs, dispersing, and what goes on in our communities. We were also talking about human trafficking and his work in that area. We were able to go to some particular places at which there had been trafficking in the past and where the police had broken up trafficking rings in which girls and women had been made to become dependent on heroin. Then the traffickers had them, often in a hotel for a week until they had moved on to another one and trafficked-- sold--human beings, usually online, usually through the iPhone. Again, this police officer was able to tell me about what he has done and what his force has done to help protect these girls and women and to help get them out of that situation. This was just a few hours for me, and I always enjoy doing these ride-alongs, but this is his life and their lives every day. They are out there doing their best to try to protect us and to make our communities safer. The day before this tragedy occurred in Kirkersville, we had had a lot of police officers here in town because, on Thursday and Friday and over the weekend, police officers had been coming in for Police Week and Police Memorial Day, which was on Monday, so I had a chance to meet with a bunch of these officers and thank them for their service. We talked about the fact that the job is dangerous and increasingly dangerous. Unfortunately, the numbers show that. Little did we know that, the day after we had been talking, there would have again been this tragedy in Ohio. We talked about the fact that some of their families have had sleepless nights because they do not know whether their husbands or their wives or their sons or daughters are going to be coming home. In our Nation's history, more than 21,000 police officers have died in the line of duty. Think about that--21,000. We have already had 42 this year, 2017. In 2016, we lost 143, which is about one officer every 3 days. Again, last year, five of those fallen officers were from Ohio: Aaron Christian, a patrolman with the Chesapeake Police Department; Thomas Cottrell, a patrolman with the Danville Police Department; Sean Johnson, of the Hilliard, OH, Division of Police; Steven Smith, of the Columbus Division of Police; and Kenneth Velez, an Ohio State trooper. I had the opportunity to meet with some of the families of these fallen officers to express our appreciation, to express our respect for them and the sacrifices that they bear. It takes courage to wear the badge, and those officers wear the badge day in and day out. They knew what they were getting into. Yet they wore that badge; they died wearing that badge. Although these heroic men were taken from us, their examples can never be taken away and will not be. Ohioans are going to remember them as models of bravery and service, as examples of fellow citizens who, on behalf of all of us, were in the habit of walking into danger rather than running away from it. We have an opportunity to do something that will make a difference for our police officers by supporting the Police Week resolution that the House and the Senate are working on. I urge all of my colleagues to support it, and I am sure they will. I think we need to show our men and women in blue, who are on the frontlines, that we do appreciate them. There is also legislation that can be supported. Most recently, with the majority whip, I introduced legislation that is called the Back the Blue Act. It is very simple. It says, if you target law enforcement officers, you are going to have to pay a very high price. That is appropriate. We think the Back the Blue Act, which would increase penalties on those who would attempt to harm or kill a police officer, is going to make a difference because it will send a strong message and help deter some of these crimes. Ultimately, I think that it will make our heroes in blue safer and help save lives. Again, I urge my colleagues to join me in the wake of this terrible tragedy we had in central Ohio. I know the people of Ohio are looking for Congress to stand tall and to stand with our police officers and to thank them for what they do to protect us every day. Let's support this Police Week resolution. Let's support the Back the Blue Act. Let's do everything we can to ensure that our police officers know that we are with them--that we are at their side--as they do their job every day to protect us. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise today in strong support of Jeffrey Rosen to be the Deputy Secretary of Transportation. It is my understanding that later this evening we will have a vote on that nomination. It will be the first of a couple of votes. I would just ask my colleagues on the Democratic side and on the Republican side to look carefully at his qualifications and to be in a position to support this good public servant to be the new deputy at Transportation. I recall that this body overwhelmingly supported Elaine Chao to be the Secretary of Transportation. She is doing a terrific job, in my view. She needs help, and she needs a deputy in place. Jeff has gone through the proper process. We have had hearings, and he has been voted on in committee. It is time to get him there to help Secretary Chao to be able to have her team in place and accomplish the goals that so many of us share. Jeffrey is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. Here in DC, where there are lots of lawyers, he is one of the most respected ones. He has 30 years of experience handling very complicated, high-stakes cases. He has litigated in more than 20 States. He has been in just about every setting imaginable: jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations, appellate arguments--on every topic--contracts, antitrust, securities, business torts, enforcement actions, product liability, and class actions. You name it, and he has been involved. He has a lot of experience. Maybe particularly relevant to this job at Transportation, in 2003 he was unanimously confirmed by this body to serve as the Chief Legal Officer at the Department of Transportation. There he supervised more than 400 lawyers at the Department of Transportation. As the top lawyer there, he wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves and get involved in lots of issues, including policy issues. I think the kind of experience he gained there will make him very well qualified to serve now as Deputy Secretary of that same agency. He did such a good job that in 2006 I reached out to him and asked him to join my team at the Office of Management and Budget. I wanted somebody who was a good lawyer but also someone who could manage well and give me good advice, and Jeffrey Rosen was that person. I recruited Jeff to serve as general counsel and senior policy advisor at OMB. In that role, he was always vigilant about the use of taxpayer dollars, a guy who understands those hard-earned dollars need to be stewarded properly. He was someone who focused on management in the Department. He understood the need for us to ensure that taxpayers are getting the best bang for the buck, and, finally, maybe most important, he gave me good advice. He was insightful but also honest. I think that kind of candid advice is exactly what every Department Secretary or leader would want, and that is what he will provide should he become Deputy Secretary. Since that time, I have stayed up with Jeff. He has continued to give me good advice and counsel. He is a guy who is well regarded in the legal community here in town and someone who understands how the Department of Transportation works and what is needed to ensure that it will be successful. One thing that Jeff and I have in common is we married way over our heads. Kathleen is an Ohioan. She has the Ohio commonsense that makes Jeff, in my view, an even better public servant. They have three amazing kids--Anne, Sally, and James--and for all of Jeff's personal and professional accomplishments, he would be the first to say that his greatest pride is in his family--and rightly so, by the way. In my view, Jeff has the judgment, he certainly has the experience, he has the skills, and he has the right aptitude to be the Deputy Secretary of Transportation. He is needed now, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the cloture motion today on his nomination and in favor of his nomination to ensure we can get him in place to help move the Department of Transportation forward. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to continue a discussion we have had on the floor over the last year or so on the issue of opioids--that would be addiction to heroin, prescription drugs, and now this new form of synthetic heroin coming into our communities called fentanyl or carfentanil. Sadly, I must say that things are not getting better. In fact, in the States we represent, in our communities, we see more and more evidence of not just addiction but overdoses and deaths. Fentanyl, in particular, is more deadly than heroin--30 to 50 times more powerful-- and is resulting in not just more overdoses but more deaths per overdose. This has become a crisis to the point that it is the No. 1 cause of death in my home State of Ohio and across the country, surpassing car accidents. This is the 35th time I have come to the floor to talk about this issue and what we ought to do. We have made progress. In the last year alone, we passed legislation, including the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, to help with prevention, treatment, and recovery, and to help our law enforcement and other first responders, with Narcan, be able to reduce the number of deaths--this miracle drug that reverses the overdoses--to be able to save lives. We also passed the Cures legislation, which sent money straight back to the States that would help to provide the treatment that is so badly needed. Probably 8 out of 10 people who are addicted are not receiving treatment. Sadly, there is a revolving door where people are coming under the grip of this addiction, committing crimes, going to prison, getting out, getting into the addiction again, and going back into the criminal justice system once again. This legislation we passed is now starting to be implemented. It takes a little while for things to get moving around here. I am happy to say that the States have now received some of this funding. Some of the programs--about half of those in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act are now implemented. I urge the administration to implement the other half of the programs, and I have done that every time I have come to the floor over the last few months. Unfortunately, I also have to come to the floor today to talk about something that is going to make it harder to address this issue should it become reality. As some of you may know, recently it was reported that there was a document from the White House Office of Management and Budget saying that the White House is considering cutting funding dramatically for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the ONDCP. This is the office that coordinates the drug issue for the White House, the administration. The proposal that was leaked to the media said that it would be a cut from $388 million a year to $24 million a year. That is a cut of 95 percent. What does that mean? It means the staff would be, obviously, reduced dramatically. They have 33 people who would lose their jobs, people who are out there every day on the frontlines, trying to use a relatively small number of people to expand this effort all over the country. It would eliminate a lot of grant programs, office administrators, including what is called the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, or HIDTA, and a program called the Drug-Free Communities Support Program. I want to touch on those two programs quickly and make the point as to how important they are, hoping that the administration is hearing us and hoping my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will help us ensure that this proposal does not become reality, that we don't end up, at a time when we have an unprecedented drug crisis in this country--the worst drug epidemic we have had in our lifetime--pulling back on these important programs. Why does this matter? Again, having a drug czar, which is what the Director of the Office of National Drug Policy is called, is very important to coordinate the efforts. In fact, it is cost-effective to have a drug czar rather than having different agencies and departments competing and sometimes in duplication with each other, to have one person in the White House in charge, talking about the importance of this. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan established the drug czar. The reason they did it was they wanted to be sure America and the White House were speaking with one voice on this issue. I have known every drug czar since then. I have known every one of them over the last--what would that be?--30 years. I think it is incredibly important to have this job filled with the right person to get out there and deliver this message that it is important that we work together on prevention and education to try to keep people out of drugs altogether, and should people become addicted, how do we maximize the chances of their success by getting them into treatment and recovery? The program I mentioned a minute ago, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, is one that pretty much every Senator knows about. Why? Because in pockets of every State, there are areas in which there is a particular problem with drugs. This program, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, does something unique. It says: OK, we are going to put Federal law enforcement together with State law enforcement and local law enforcement to intensely focus on this issue at the local level. As you know, that is necessary because so much of this is interstate, even international, and by having this intense focus, there has been enormous success in my State and States around the country. Under the program, you have to have one full-time law enforcement officer at the Federal level, State level, and the local level. What I have found back home is that typically you have a sheriff or a police chief who runs this locally and has a lot of his officers involved but really is able to maximize what he or she can do because you have this involvement from the State highway patrol, you have this involvement from the FBI, you have this coordination. The Ohio HIDTA alone has removed $90 million worth of illicit drugs from our streets. It has apprehended more than 4,000 fugitives involved in drug trafficking operations. Think about the difference that makes. It makes our communities safer; ultimately, of course, it is going to save a lot of lives. So I think this is one that is really working. If you ask your law enforcement locally about it, they will tell you that if they don't have a HIDTA grant, they probably wish they did. It is very competitive; not everyone can get one. But if you can show that you can use the money effectively and if you have a really serious drug problem in your area, having that HIDTA program is important. The second program I mentioned is called the Drug-Free Communities Support Program. What does this do? This supports community anti-drug coalitions all around the country. Often, people ask me: What is the solution to this problem? Why are we in the situation we are in? I turn to prevention and education because, if you think about it, once you get into that funnel of addiction, it is very costly and very difficult. Wouldn't it be better if we had better programs out there? Frankly, we did back in the 1980s and even the 1990s--to tell young people and to tell others why it is such a mistake to get into this drug issue, why they must do everything they can to avoid, in the case of heroin and prescription drugs and other opioids, taking these painkillers, these prescription drugs that are addictive, to the point that you become addicted, which is so often where the heroin addiction and the overdoses start. Four out of five heroin addicts in the country started with prescription drugs, they say. Getting that information out there, that awareness, is incredibly important. That is what this Drug-Free Communities Program is about. I got involved in this program early on through a personal experience. I was a first-year Member of the House of Representatives 23 years ago. A woman whose son had died of an overdose came to see me. She came to see me because she wanted to talk about her experience and what were we going to do about it. At the time, Bill Clinton was President. I went to an event where both President Clinton and I were given a gold ID bracelet by a young man. The young man's name was Jeffrey Gardner. I put Jeffrey Gardner's ID bracelet on, and then I prepared for my meeting with this mother, who was obviously very upset. She was there with her younger son. She came to my office. I was prepared for her. My staff had done all the research, and we knew there was about $15 billion a year being spent on drug interdiction, interdicting drugs coming from other countries, incarcerations and prosecutions, and the eradication of drugs overseas in places like Colombia, where a lot of cocaine was being grown at that time. So I told her that. I said: Your tax dollars are being used well to fight this battle. This is what is happening with your dollars. She looked at me and said: How does that help me? She said: I went to my church. I went to my school to get them to help, to mobilize people, to provide more prevention and education resources, to get the word out. They were in denial. They said: This does not happen here. She said: I went to my neighbors and tried to get a community meeting together, and people did not show up. She said: How does interdicting drugs help me? How does the work on eradication overseas help me? I did more research and looked into it further and talked to people around the country who were experts on this and found out where there was this community-of-support network, bringing in all sectors of the community. It really made a difference to reduce drug abuse. So we started this program. This program, the Drug-Free Communities Act, has to be made up of all sectors of the community. We are talking about the religious community, faith leaders--very important--but also teachers, police officers, parents, doctors, other community leaders who come together with this intense focus on education and prevention. The program we put together has real accountability. You know, I am a Republican. I believe in accountability. I want to be sure tax dollars are being used wisely. To receive funding under this program, coalitions are required to be in existence for 6 months before they can even apply--get on their feet, be sure they are working. It is the only Federal drug abuse prevention program that requires that, by the way. The coalition is required to go through a year-long training academy to ensure they have the skills necessary to effectively reduce drug rates, and they have to have data to show that their efforts are actually working. There have to be performance measures in place. In these coalitions, there are surveys done in schools to see what the results are. These coalitions are made up of people who are on the front lines. They know their communities better than anybody else does. That is why they are more effective than anybody else. They know how to reach people in that setting, know how to respond quickly when problems begin. In communities with these coalitions, use of alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, marijuana, and cocaine by our young people have declined: alcohol, 32-percent decline; tobacco, 38-percent decline; other drugs, including prescription drugs, 21-percent decline. So these things work. I must say, I have seen it firsthand because, before drafting the legislation, I started my own coalition called the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati. Twenty-three years ago, we started this coalition, and we did it with, again, all members of the community. In my case, I reached out to the first lady, Hope Taft of our State; also to a religious leader in our community, Damon Lynch, Jr., one of the most respected community leaders and at that time head of the Baptist Ministers Conference; and the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, John Petter, so we brought in the business community as well. We established this coalition not thinking that we were going to end up applying for Federal grant money because there was no Federal grant program then, but that we would focus on how to ensure we could actually make a difference. We set up a survey that went to two-thirds of the schools in our community and asked questions about drug use, so we would know if our efforts were working or not working, as the case might be, and how to target our efforts toward parents and teachers. We spent a lot of time in the faith community, but also with coaches and athletic directors. This program is still going. It is called Prevention First. I chaired it for 9 years. I was on the board of the coalition again before I ran for the Senate. I know it works because I have seen it. We have gotten good results. The coalition tells me that since 2000, alcohol use among young people they worked with in Cincinnati has gone down 46 percent; tobacco use, 61 percent; marijuana use, 22 percent. Since 2012, which is when we started focusing on the prescription drug issue, there has been a decline by 29 percent in the use of prescription drugs by our young people. So, I think, this program, which by the way, cost about 90 million bucks last year--as someone who was a distinguished military officer told me recently: That is about what we charge to keep the lights on in part of the Pentagon every day, not that I am not for more and smarter defense spending; I am, but $90 million is what we are talking about for this program during the time of the worst drug crisis in the history of our country. I just think this impact, which I have seen, really works. It means less crime, less strain on our healthcare system, more productivity in school, more productivity at work, more people who can pass a drug test and go to work. That benefits all of us, and it saves taxpayer dollars. The success we had in this coalition, again, led me to the legislation. A Democratic Representative from Michigan, Sandy Levin, and I introduced the legislation, bipartisan in the House. Here in the Senate, the leaders who were the leaders of this legislation are still here and continue to support it; that is, Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Patrick Leahy--again a bipartisan group. The bill, the Drug-Free Communities Act, is, again, based on these lead documents from the administration, one of the programs they have proposed defunding altogether. I am hopeful that this legislation, the Drug-Free Communities Act, which has really worked--it has provided funding that has spawned over 2,000 community coalitions around the country. Today, it currently mobilizes 9,000 community volunteers all around the country. I am hopeful that we will not be defunding this program but, instead, focusing more on the issues of prevention and education. That is going to be the long-term solution to this drug problem. Yes, we have to get treatment to those who need it, but if we are not working on prevention and awareness and education, the issues of drug addiction and drug abuse are going to continue to get worse, in my view. I am a former Budget Director. I understand it is a tough job to look at all the different competing priorities when you are trying to save taxpayer dollars. I get that. But I also get that we don't want to take a program like this that is actually working, that has all of these accountability measures in place to be sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent right, and then get rid of it at a time that we have this growing crisis in our country. When I first got involved in this issue 22 years ago, I became convinced pretty quickly that one reason the drug issue had raised its ugly head in the 1990s is that we took our eye off the ball. I think in the 1980s, under the leadership of President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan and Bill Bennett, who did an awesome job as drug czar, we made real progress, particularly on the issue of cocaine. I think there was sort of a sense that we had solved that problem, and it was time to focus on other things. So we took our eye off the ball. That is why you saw, in the 1990s when the Drug-Free Communities Act legislation was necessary, there was a big increase in drug use, particularly among our young people. So I was always worried that we might do that again, that when there was a reduction in drug use, we might say: Well, that problem is behind us; let's move onto the next one. The problem was never behind us, sadly. It is like the tide. It just keeps coming in, so you have to keep your focus on it. But I will tell you, I never expected that at a time when we would have a substantial increase in drug use, in crime, in overdoses, in deaths--which is what we have experienced in this country over the past few years--that we would cut these programs. I just did not imagine it. So I am concerned about it. We can't take our eye off the ball, particularly at a time like this. We have to be sure that we are supporting these programs that work. Let me show you a chart that tells you where we are today. This is the number of drug overdose deaths in our great country from 1999 to 2015, the most recent year for which we have data. Look at this line here. This is opioid painkillers, this is fentanyl, and this is heroin. You see this incredible increase. Sadly, I will tell you that in 2016 and 2017, it keeps going up. This year, we have had more opioid overdose deaths over the first few months than we had in the same period last year. In fact, here is one example. In Cleveland, OH, in the last 10 months, we have had more overdose deaths from fentanyl than we had in the previous 10 years. So it is sad that it is not getting better; it is getting worse. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, surpassing car accidents. This is, again, a troubling chart, but we need to look at it. We hear a lot about homicides, and gun homicides, in particular. We hear about car crashes. Here is an example of HIV/AIDS in 1995, a time that was the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when all of us reacted appropriately. Here we are in drug overdoses in 2015--far worse than any of these. So between prescription painkillers, heroin, and synthetic forms of heroin, drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States of America. According to CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more Americans died from drug overdoses in 2015, again, than died in the AIDS epidemic in 1995. A recent story in the New York Times said there are more than four times as many people dying every day from this epidemic than were dying at the peak of the crack epidemic. Another way to look at it, sadly, is that more people died in the last 3 years than died in the Vietnam War. Those are tough things to compare, but the point is, this is not a time for us to be gutting these programs. Fortunately, we have these programs in place to help. Let's use them to try to encourage more prevention and more education. Here is a chart that just shows where heroin and fentanyl are. Again, from 1999 to 2015, this is heroin, this is fentanyl. Look at the rise of this over the last few years. That is what we are dealing with. That is the reality. That is what is happening in the communities and in our streets. You might ask yourself, why do we want to cut this back at this point? My understanding is that some have argued we don't need the program. They said this program is duplicative because we have other programs now, including great legislation passed last year that I mentioned earlier called the 21st Century Cures Act. In fact, the author of that legislation just joined us on the floor, Senator Alexander of Tennessee. They have said the Drug-Free Communities Act may be a duplication of that CURES Program. That is an entirely different program--again, $90 million a year. CURES is $500 million a year needed right now. I was a strong supporter of the CURES Act, and I again thank my colleague for working with some of us who have been focused on this issue, as he has, to get that legislation passed on a bipartisan basis. The 21st Century CURES Act provides $500 million, but it provides that funding over this year and next, over 2 years. It is a temporary increase in funding to deal with the real crisis. This will help fill the gaps, but it does not ensure that $1 of that money goes toward this evidence-based prevention we talked about today. Second, these programs have distinct goals. The CURES grants can be used however a State wants, and that is appropriate. In Ohio, I know Governor Kasich and the State legislature are focused on using it in a smart way, focused mostly on treatment which is badly needed. As I noted, 8 out of 10 people who are addicted and need treatment are not getting the treatment they need. We need more treatment facilities in some communities where the treatment is not available. The Drug-Free Communities Act is specifically focused on this prevention through education at the community level. Funding goes directly to these coalitions I talked about and their focus is on prevention. It is not duplication. One is a prevention program focused on the community level, and one is an open-ended grant to the States. There is no other Federal program that funds evidenced-based prevention at the community level and has these measures except this one. The accountability measures we talked about are important, and that distinguishes it from CURES or anything else. We require that communities provide matching funds, a one-to-one match. So if a dollar of Federal tax dollars goes out, it has to be matched by a dollar of non-Federal tax dollars just to get the funding. We put a cap on administrative expenses of 8 percent to ensure that we maximize the amount of funding going into these programs. If you want funding in your coalition, you have to keep your funding below 8 percent. That ensures that a maximum amount of funding goes into these programs. We specifically included strict accountability measures to ensure the highest level of support in solving the substance abuse crisis every community faces. These programs are effective. They use taxpayer dollars well, and cutting them doesn't make sense. One of the reasons I believe President Trump was elected was that he had the courage and foresight to talk about this issue on the campaign trail. He talked about addiction, whether he was in New Hampshire, Ohio, or other States where we have a high level of heroin, prescription drug, and fentanyl abuse and addiction. He spoke with a passion about this and the toll it has on our citizens and devastation to our communities. I think that was one reason he was elected. He focused on how we would stop this epidemic. This proposal apparently put forward by Members of his administration runs counter to what he talked about during the campaign. Earlier today, my original House cosponsor of the Drug-Free Community Act, Congressman Sandy Levin, and I sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, encouraging him not to pursue this course of action. More importantly, more than 219 nonpartisan public health groups-- experts like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Northern Ohio Recovery Association, the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America, and other groups sent a letter to the White House expressing their support for the work of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, these groups know that the proposed cuts would undermine our anti-drug efforts at a time when we need them more than ever. So I ask my colleagues to join me in urging the OMB Director and the folks in the White House who are making these decisions not to take this course of action but rather to support our proven community anti-drug coalition, to support ONDCP in doing the important work at a time of a growing epidemic. We have never needed these programs more than we do right now. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. The Republicans yield back 4 hours of the majority's time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that affects every single Senator in this body and all of us as Americans, and that is this epidemic of drug use--opioids--which would be heroin, prescription drugs, the new synthetic heroins, like fentanyl, carfentanil, and U-4. It is devastating our communities. This is the worst drug crisis we have ever had in this country. That is my view, but it is also the view of a lot of experts. I have been involved in this issue for over 20 years, and I have never seen anything like it. That is why I have come to the floor to talk again today. This is the 34th time that I have spoken on this issue on the Senate floor in the last year or so. I come with sadness in my heart because it is not getting better. Based on the statistics I have seen from my home State of Ohio and around the country for the first quarter of this year, it looks like the number of deaths and overdoses from drug abuse are increasing, not decreasing. Part of it is because of these new drugs coming in, particularly synthetic drugs, including fentanyl, carfentanil, and U- 4--things that are produced in a laboratory by some evil scientist somewhere and shipped into our country. So the need to act has grown only more urgent. Every day we are now losing 144 Americans to drug overdoses. Think about that. Every single day, 144 Americans are dying of drug overdoses. It has now far exceeded the number of people who are dying in car accidents in my home State of Ohio and it is exceeding that number around the country. Millions more are not dying of overdoses but are seeing their lives and their futures ruined, and millions of us--those of us who are not drug addicted but who have friends, family, and neighbors who are--are watching loved ones as they fight this addiction. Maybe they have lost a job. Maybe they have broken relationships with families and friends. Maybe they have committed a crime like theft, shoplifting, or fraud to pay for their habit. Maybe they have just given up hope. Just last week, I met with some community leaders from Dayton, OH. As it happens, no matter where I am in Ohio, this issue comes up and this is what they want to talk to me about. They wanted to talk about the story of Nathan Wylie. Nathan Wylie was a happy 13-year-old boy. He was a Cincinnati Bengals fan. His goal in life was to be a professional football player. He wanted to play for the Bengals one day. He had his whole life ahead of him. Nathan's dad, according to police reports, is a heroin user. One day a few weeks ago, Nathan got into his dad's heroin, and he overdosed. His dad took him to the fire station and first responders did what they could. They took him to Dayton Children's Hospital, but it was too late. Nathan died of an overdose at age 13. Two weeks ago, a 14-year-old girl in Dayton was mowing the lawn at the apartment complex owned by her grandparents, and she came upon a body on the ground. It turns out that it was a 25-year-old young man who had died of an overdose. This is what is happening in our communities. Just a few hours after this young man who died of an overdose was discovered by this girl, Dayton Police responded to a car accident on Route 35 where a man had driven through a barrier and knocked over a street light. Police arrived and found the driver passed out with a used needle on the floor of the car. In this case they saved his life. They used this miracle drug called naloxone, or Narcan, which reduces the loss of life because it reverses the effects of overdoses. It doesn't always work, but it works the vast majority of the time if you get there in time. He was revived, and he said that he not only just used heroin, but that he was on his way to get more when he overdosed and almost died. So I could go on. We see these headlines every day, not just in Dayton, OH, where I talked about these three cases, but all throughout our State and our country. That is why people are starting to take action to turn the tide, and I commend them for it. Last week, more than 500 religious leaders across northeast Ohio banded together and said: We are going to do something about this. They took to their pulpits all at once to speak about this issue. A lot of them talked about National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, which was this past Saturday that it occurred. Father Bob Stec of St. Ambrose Parish in Brunswick, OH, gave his parishioners a three-part action plan. No. 1, get educated. Learn about these opioids. Learn about the connection between prescription drugs and heroin. With many heroin addicts, their use started with prescription drugs. No. 2, throw out unnecessary medications from your medicine cabinets. It is unbelievable the number of people I have run into who have said they started because they took prescription drugs, and they got their prescription drugs--in one case, a young man told me--from his grandmother's medicine cabinet. No. 3, he said, was to pray for our first responders. God bless them, because they do save lives every day--in Ohio, 16,000 lives last year. Without them, the death toll would be far higher and the damage to our community would be far greater. They are as frustrated as anybody, by the way, by this epidemic. They want to get to the bottom of it, to be able to focus more on prevention and treatment and recovery. They don't want to keep applying Narcan to the same person again and again. So I want to thank Father Stec and all of the other religious leaders for being willing to roll up their sleeves and to get involved. If they prevented even one addiction from starting, then they have made a permanent impact on the community. I am convinced that those 500 pastors, ministers, and rabbis have saved lives. People in Ohio are taking action in other ways too. People are forming groups, particularly parent groups. Those who have lost a child are banding together and talking about how they cannot just console one another and support one another but put in place plans to help others. I was at a treatment center recently when there were a couple of families there, and they spoke up. They are involved in the center. They come every day. They are there because they lost a son or a daughter to overdose. God bless them for stepping forward. The Federal Government needs to do more too. We need to take action because we can be a better partner with States, local communities, and families. It is not going to be solved in Washington. Washington is not the solution, but it is part of the solution by being a better partner. We can take best practices from around the country as an example, as we did in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which passed this Chamber last year, and spread those around the country so that every community has the opportunity to make a bigger difference. Last week I met with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. He has a passion for this issue. He is leading the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. I thought it was a very good meeting. Governor Christie is serious about this. I think he is going to be a constructive partner with the Congress and with our President to help turn this tide. I am glad he was selected, and I am glad he has the Commission going. I will tell you, though, that my message to him was twofold. One, I am glad you are doing this, but, second, let's take action. We don't need another commission to study this problem to know that this is an area where Congress and the administration can work together to take action. In fact, this agreement that we will vote on in the Senate this afternoon and again tomorrow to fund the government between now and the year's end actually includes a lot of good legislation to help with this crisis. It fully funds the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act I talked about earlier, or CARA. This legislation is the first comprehensive reform to Federal addiction policy in 20 years. It treats addiction like a disease, which it is. It focuses on prevention, education, treatment, and recovery and helping our first responders with Narcan. It is very comprehensive because that is the only way to get at this issue--to do it in a comprehensive way. The legislation we will vote on today and tomorrow also fully funds the 21st Century Cures Act, which includes more funding that goes directly to the States to deal with opioid addiction. In the funding bill, we have funded the CARA programs now at over $200 million for this fiscal year. That is more than the bill authorizes, and that is good news because we need it. It includes $103 million in grants from the Department of Justice for drug courts, veterans courts, and prescription drug monitoring programs. It also includes $114 million for Health and Human Services grants for Medicaid assistance treatment, treatment for pregnant and postpartum women, and for supplying naloxone--again, this miracle drug can actually reverse an overdose--also known as Narcan, and this will help our first responders. It also provides training for them to be able to use it effectively. It also includes $50 million authorized by CARA for the Department of Veterans Affairs to treat and prevent opioid addiction at the VA, as well as funding CARA's recovery services--the first time any Federal law has ever focused on recovery, not just for treatment but for longer term recovery. By the way, when there is a good recovery program, the rate of success is dramatically increased--much improved. So it is important that Congress is being a better partner with regard to recovery. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services also announced that $26 million will also go out as part of the Cures Act I spoke about to the State of Ohio. Every State in the Union applied for that money, and States are getting money, and it will be very helpful. I know our Governor and our legislature will put it to good use. These are important steps. But I will tell my colleagues--and I said this to Governor Christie--that by my count, there are at least six provisions of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that have not been implemented yet by either the previous administration or this administration. By the way, this is 9 months after CARA was signed into law. Let's get these programs all up and going. We haven't set up the Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force yet. What does that mean? We need a strategy for figuring out what the best practices are for pain management, for opioid prescribing and alternatives to potentially addictive opioids. This is really important. Think about it. Four to five heroin addicts started with prescription drugs. Still, when you go to the doctor and you have an injury or an accident, it is not unlikely they will give you some pills--prescription drugs--and they will be addictive. We have to be sure we do everything we can to come up with nonaddictive forms of medication, right? If we don't do that, we will continue to have the problem. We need to stop overprescribing. We have made some progress, but not enough. When a young man or a young woman goes to get their wisdom teeth taken out, they should not be given opioids. This has happened too many times. I have met two families from Ohio, one whose loved one died from an overdose because as a teenager he went in to get his wisdom teeth taken out and was given a bunch of these pills--60 Percocets in 1 case--and then, because he got physically addicted, he ended up going to heroin as a cheaper and more accessible alternative and ended up overdosing. That shouldn't happen. So this is an important part. It can be done right now. Let's get this up and going and let's push back on overprescribing. Let's find ways for the pharmaceutical companies to produce medication that actually is not addictive that can help with regard to pain management. Second, we haven't started the public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid abuse and the link between these prescription drugs and heroin and other synthetic drugs like fentanyl. Let's do it. In the legislation we have authorized an amount of money for the Federal Government to do a national awareness campaign that lets people know about this, because most of my constituents don't know about it. When the doctor prescribes those pills, they think that because the doctor prescribed them, it must be the right thing to do. Instead of taking maybe one or two, they are fine with having their kid or their brother or sister or mother or father take the whole dose when they aren't needed, perhaps, because they don't know about the link. They don't know these pills are addictive. Just getting that information out there is going to save lives, and it is an important part of turning the tide. Let's do it. This public awareness campaign can be implemented now. The Department of Health and Human Services has not yet released information on alternative treatment options for youth sports injuries and about how parents and kids can seek treatment if they become addicted as a result of a prescription. Why wouldn't that make sense? Let's do that. Let's do it now. I have had, unfortunately, many instances of talking to parents about a kid who was injured in high school through a sports injury and who was prescribed opioids and, again, the parents and the kids didn't have the information to know how dangerous this can be. There is a guy I worked with a lot on prevention who goes to colleges and high schools and talks about this. He talks about his son Tyler. He was a football player. He must have been a great kid; I wish I had met him. He had an injury, and, of course, the coach said to play through it, and the doctor said: If you take these pills, you can play through it. He became physically addicted. Again, he later turned to heroin as a less expensive alternative because the pills were too expensive. He overdosed and died. His dad, by the way, is channeling his grief into something really constructive. God bless him. The FDA has not yet announced its action plan on approving new opioids. The legislation we wrote, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, says the FDA has to seek recommendations from an advisory committee before approving any new opioid, and they have to label any opioid that is going to be used by kids--label it. The FDA is also supposed to issue guidance to educate prescribers on this issue. They have not yet done that. Let's do it. That action plan of approving new opioids is something we can do. We don't need another study or a commission to do it. Let's do it. The National Institutes of Health hasn't begun CARA's clinical research into alternatives to opioids for treating chronic pain. NIH should do that. Now, they may say after hearing this speech that they are starting to do it. That is great. Let's do it. Let's get that information out there. Let's use the NIH and all the great researchers we have there and the great tools we have there to come up with alternatives that are not addictive. The Department of Justice has not yet expanded the prescription drug take-back program. As I mentioned, National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day was last Saturday. This is where you can dispose of your prescription drugs in a safe way. You know it is going to go into a safe receptacle where some trafficker is not going to take the drugs and spread them around our community, which, by the way, has happened. This is a really important program to get these painkillers off of the bathroom shelf. I mentioned the young man who got his grandmother's pain pills, and that is how he started his addiction. So get them off your shelves. If you are listening today and you haven't taken this action, I urge you to do it. Somebody is going to be at your home, maybe fixing your plumbing, or somebody is helping to clean your home or something else; or kids might be in your home, or maybe some friends of your kids, and those pills are just too darn tempting. The cost of one pill is about $80 on the street. So think about that. Get rid of those pills. Take them to a drugstore where they have a receptacle now or take them to the police department where they have a receptacle. Be involved in these drug take-back programs. Almost every community in America participated on Saturday. There were tons of drugs--and I mean tons--that were disposed of. That is a good thing and that is going to save lives, but, again, the Department of Justice can expand that program. Under our legislation, they are authorized to do it. Let's do it. This is something that can be done right now. These are steps that HHS, DOJ, and others can take right now under the authorities already given them. It will make a difference. Again, this crisis is getting worse, not better. To turn the tide, we have to do all these things and more. I also wish to mention that in addition to these important parts of CARA and other actions the administration can take is that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, can increase access to sober housing for people coming out of treatment. I know Dr. Carson well enough to know he has a passion for this issue and he wants to address it. This is one way to address it. Under the previous Obama administration, sober living facilities lost priority if they had a zero tolerance drug policy. To me, that makes no sense. Dr. Carson has the authority to change that and to make it easier for folks who are in recovery to stay clean over the long term. Again, I hope the administration will take that step and these other important steps. Whether it is FDA, whether it is NIH, whether it is DOJ, whether it is HHS, whether it is Housing and Urban Development, we have opportunities without new legislation. This is either already authorized or actions they can take. Let's go ahead and do it. Let's do everything we can. None of these individually is a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. This issue is ultimately going to be decided in our communities, in our families, and in our hearts. We all have to get involved. All these will help. All these will help to ensure that we are responding to a true crisis in our community. If we do all these things, I believe next year can be better. This year is going to be worse. All the data shows that the number of overdoses and deaths--in my State of Ohio, in your State--are increasing this year compared to the last year. It doesn't have to be this way. All these actions taken together on prevention and education, better treatment, longer term recovery, sober housing, ensuring that we are moving away from overprescribing and providing alternatives to addictive pain medication, ensuring that we do provide our first responders with the training they need on Narcan and naloxone, to get people who are overdosing and save their lives and then get them into treatment--not just save their lives but get them into treatment. All of that together will make a difference. I believe we can turn the tide. I believe we can save lives. I believe we cannot just save lives of those who otherwise may overdose and die as a result of their overdose, but we can help all those who are addicted--the hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio, the millions of people across our country--to be able to achieve their dreams by getting them into treatment programs. There is good news here because there are so many examples of people who have gone into treatment and longer term recovery and turned their lives around, many of whom are now helping others to do the same, many of whom are back at work, back with their families, back being the kind of citizens who contribute to our society in so many ways. That is the hope, and that is what can happen if we work together to implement this legislation, to do everything possible to have this broad, comprehensive approach to turn the tide.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN. We have 1 hour remaining. We will keep our hour.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to join my colleagues from Ohio in congratulating our good friend and colleague, Congressman Steve Stivers, on his new promotion to the rank of brigadier general in the Ohio Army National Guard. This is a big deal. Steve is one of the highest ranking National Guard officers ever to serve simultaneously in Congress. I think that is really important because it gives him a unique perspective as a legislator and puts him in an unique position to advocate on behalf of our troops. The title is a great honor, but what is more important, in my view, is the fact that he earned it. Steve has been serving Ohio as a soldier for 30 years. He deployed to the Middle East during Operation Iraqi Freedom, while simultaneously serving as a State senator in Columbus, and he even earned a Bronze Star for his accomplishments. Since he came home, he has been serving his neighbors in central and southern Ohio as a legislator for more than a decade. We are really grateful for that because he has been a faithful Representative in speaking up for his constituents. I want to congratulate Steve, Karen, and the kids on this exciting time for them. On behalf of the people of Ohio, I want to thank Steve and all of our troops for their service. Thank you.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about legislation to give our economy a shot in the arm and to help raise wages for Americans all across our country. When I am back home, whether it is at a small auto body shop or whether it is at a big steel plant or whether it is at a soybean farm, I hear the same thing, which is people coming up to me and saying: Hey, Rob, with all of these regulations coming from Washington, I would love to hire more people, but I am spending too much time and money trying to keep up with these regulations. I think that is true with every Member here, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, when you are back home talking to people. They get frustrated. Sometimes it is local and State regulations as well, but a lot of them are coming from the Federal Government. One example would be the Whitacre Greer Company, which makes bricks. It is a small family-owned business in Alliance, OH, just outside of Youngstown. They told me recently that complying with just one regulation is now costing this small company almost a million bucks a year that they don't have. They have had to go out and borrow the money, and that has been difficult for them. The cost of just complying with this one new regulation is about 10 percent of their annual revenue. Otherwise, that roughly million bucks would have been invested, they say, in plant, equipment and people. In other words, they would be able to create more jobs and modernize their facility if not for that compliance cost. They are not alone. It is happening all over Ohio and across the country. Costly regulations are causing companies to pull back on expanding jobs and creating more opportunity for the people we represent. Look, regulation has its place. There is no question about it. We need regulations. I think everybody acknowledges that. It has a proper role. We need reasonable laws that protect our health and the environment and prevent dishonest business practices. But let's make sure that, as we regulate more and more and more, we have smart regulations--regulations that make sense and that don't affect these small businesses, as I talked about with this brick company in Alliance, OH. The reality today is that a lot of Federal regulations are more extensive in scope, more expensive to these companies--and, therefore, these workers--more unpredictable than they have to be to meet whatever the policy objectives are. So Congress writes a law, and we have certain policy objectives, but then the regulators take that and they change the spirit of the congressional law instead of meeting that objective in the most cost- effective way possible. So I get that from my constituents, and the question is this: What do we do about it? The other thing I hear about is the fact that regulators aren't accessible. People don't feel like they have any influence over it. By keeping new businesses from starting and small businesses from growing, regulations are just making it harder for people to be able to make a living. So how did we get here? Why are regulations so expensive and so burdensome on workers and jobs? I think a big reason is the way the Federal Government goes about writing regulations. Too often the process is unaccountable to the people. Too often it is based on sloppy or even bad information. The current law that gives us the basic framework for all this process is called the Administrative Procedure Act. This has been around for a long time. But guess what. It has not been reformed in any significant way in 70 years. The APA, or the Administrative Procedure Act, is something I have studied in law school, as did other people here in this Chamber. It is something that you would expect to sort of change with the times, but it simply hasn't. That doesn't make sense. Imagine if we didn't update our healthcare laws for 70 years. We are talking right now about updating the healthcare laws that were passed 7 years ago. Imagine if we didn't update our immigration laws for 70 years. Imagine if we didn't update our criminal laws for 70 years. You know, the world changes. It just doesn't make any sense not to update our regulation policy because we live in a growing and dynamic economy. Things are changing, and we have changed a lot in the last 70 years. We didn't have things like microwave ovens or color TVs, and our economy was 10 percent the size of what it is today. Yet we are still using the same regulatory process that was put in place for a totally different kind of economy. By the way, in 70 years, we have also learned a lot about how to regulate in a way that it is more cost effective and more efficient, and we need to put that into practice. So a reform of our regulatory process, in my view, is long overdue. So far this year, we have taken some steps here in the Congress to give small businesses very specific regulatory relief by rescinding some of the recent regulations that the Obama administration had promulgated. We have done this about 10 times now with what is called the congressional review process. It is estimated that this has saved the economy a total of $65 billion in regulatory costs and about 45 million hours of paperwork. I have supported most of these Congressional Review Act bills because I think they make sense. But this is just a handful of recent regulations. We have only addressed a few of the symptoms, not the underlying cause. We still have to deal with the underlying problem of the way regulations get made. If we don't do that, the regulatory burden will just continue to increase. By the way, this should be true whether it is a Republican administration or a Democratic administration. The same rules ought to apply. All of this is why yesterday Senator Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota and I introduced bipartisan legislation called the Regulatory Accountability Act, or the RAA, which would put in place some really important and very reasonable safeguards on the regulatory process to get better outcomes. Every President since Ronald Reagan--Republican and Democrat alike-- has agreed with the idea that regulatory agencies should estimate the costs and the benefits of something that we all accept. So they put this into what are called Executive orders saying that they have to go through the cost-benefit analysis the same way that your family does and that families in Ohio do when they make a decision as to whether to buy that car or whether they can afford to send their kids to college. They figure out what it will cost and what the benefit will be. That has to go into regulations. Although every President from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has agreed on the need for that, it has never been put into law. The first thing this legislation does is very simple. The Regulatory Accountability Act--the RAA--says that there should be a law, we should codify the practice so that businesses have the predictability of knowing that regulations are going to continue to use that commonsense cost-benefit practice. The Regulatory Accountability Act would then take the next step of requiring regulatory agencies, once they have figured out the costs and benefits of these proposals, to choose the most cost-effective way to achieve their policy objectives. That is common sense, right? It is not done now. This is a big change and an important part of the legislation. Again, it is the same thing people do every day with their families. When they are deciding where they are going to go to school or what brand of milk they are going to choose, they go through that kind of analysis. Let's find the most cost-effective way to accomplish the goal, one that costs less and has the least impact on the ability to create jobs. As I said before, a lot of regulations are expensive. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, from 2009 to 2014, in those 5 years, the Federal Government published more than 80 major rules a year, every year. A major rule costs the economy more than $100 million a year, and there have been 80 a year. For these major rules, the RAA would let stakeholders ask a court to review the cost-benefit analysis used by the regulators, so that we ensure that agencies are using the best information available, not relying on faulty information or making mistakes. That seems fair to me, that we should have some process to make sure they are doing the right thing. This is going to have a huge impact on regulations. The RAA makes regulators more accountable by bringing the public into the process. When folks talk about regulations, a lot of the time, their concern is that they feel they are cut off from the process. Although they can come to me or their other elected officials and state their concerns about this or that law, they have no access to the regulators. They are not elected; they don't feel as if they are accountable. They can't complain to them, and there is no influence if they do. So under the RAA, agencies would have to listen to public comments and proposals before making a decision. Again, this is an important change. Instead of waiting until after the decision has been made and potentially triggering years of litigation, the RAA would move up that process. An ounce of prevention, my colleagues, is worth at least a pound of cure. It is a lot better for our companies and for job creation to put some time into the effort upfront to get it right than to have to fix it later. I think it is better for the regulatory process and better for a smart regulatory process in terms of taking our laws and putting them into practice. So the RAA requires agencies to choose the most cost-effective regulations, creates more accountability by involving the public, ensures we are using better information, and takes existing practice and puts it into law. Ultimately, this is going to make smarter rules with better outcomes and will give us a better environment for creating more jobs with better wages. The RAA will free up more resources for small businesses to hire more people, raise wages, and purchase more equipment. That will boost economic growth and benefit all of us. There are some critics who have suggested that this bill will kill the regulatory process and prevent new regulations from being issued, but clearly they have not read the bill. The reason this bill is bipartisan is because it gives the American people a voice in the regulatory process and it makes it more effective for both our economy and for our health and safety. That is the kind of commonsense regulatory process that hard-working taxpayers expect and deserve from their government. We have a lot of support for this bill from workers all over the country and from a wide variety of industries, including organizations representing truckers, farmers, electricians, and manufacturers. It is a bipartisan bill because it is a common-ground bill. It is a middle- ground bill. I first introduced the RAA 6 years ago, and it has passed the House of Representatives five times. By the way, on one of those stand-alone votes, 19 Democrats in the House supported it. Some Democrats who serve in the Senate today have supported it in the past; they were House Members then. By the way, that was when the regulatory burden was less of a problem than it is today. I have always had Democratic cosponsors of the RAA when I have introduced it here in the Senate. I am happy to have Senator Heitkamp, Senator Manchin, and Senator Hatch as the original cosponsors to this legislation because this idea is needed now more than ever. It is a great opportunity to break through the partisan gridlock and get something that creates more jobs, raises wages, and makes a difference in people's lives. I think that is what the American people are looking for. That is what my neighbors in Ohio tell me. They want us to get stuff done to help families. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Heitkamp, Senator Hatch, Senator Manchin, and me in supporting this legislation that will create a more stable and reliable regulatory process and give the people we represent more opportunity. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I wish to honor 374 high school seniors in eight northeast Ohio counties for their decision to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces. Of these 374 seniors from 118 high schools in 98 towns and cities, 86 will enter the Army, 98 will enter the Marine Corps, 55 will enter the Navy, 26 will enter the Air Force, 3 will enter the Coast Guard, 95 will enter our Ohio Army National Guard, and 11 will enter the Ohio Air National Guard. In the presence of their parents/guardians, high school counselors, military leaders, and city and business leaders, all 374 will be recognized on May 10, 2017, at the Northeast Ohio Foundation for Patriotism ``Our Community Salutes'' event. In a few short weeks, these young men and women will join with many of their classmates in celebration of their high school graduation. At a time when many of their peers are looking forward to pursuing vocational training or college degrees or are uncertain about their future, these young men and women instead have chosen to dedicate themselves to military service in defense of our rights, our freedoms, and our country. They should know that they have the full support of this Senate Chamber and the American people, who are with them in whatever challenges may lie ahead. It is thanks to their dedication and the dedication of an untold number of patriots just like them that we are able to meet here today in the U.S. Senate and openly debate the best solutions to the problems that confront our country. It is thanks to their sacrifices that the United States of America remains a beacon of hope and freedom in a dangerous world. We are grateful to them, and we are grateful to their parents and their communities for instilling in them not only the mental and physical abilities our Armed Forces require, but also the character, the values, and the discipline that leads someone to put service to our Nation over self. I would like to personally thank these 374 graduating seniors for volunteering to risk their lives in defense of our Nation. We owe them, along with all those who serve our country, a deep debt of gratitude. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the names of the 374 high school seniors.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the contributions of Dr. Candace Kendle, recipient of the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Corporate Growth, Cincinnati. As the visionary cofounder of one of the largest international providers of drug development services to the biopharmaceutical industry, Dr. Candace Kendle is being honored for her achievements in founding and growing Kendle International, Inc., from a small, private startup in 1981, to a global clinical research organization traded on NASDAQ, KNDL, and acquired by INC Research in 2011. Under Dr. Kendle's leadership, Kendle International delivered a wide range of clinical development and clinical trial services to biopharmaceutical companies around the world, including the development of Celebrex. Prior to founding Kendle International, Inc., Kendle held senior faculty positions at several leading academic institutions, including the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine; the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine; Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science; and the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy. A first-generation college student, Dr. Candace Kendle earned a bachelor of science and doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, College of Pharmacy, and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in science from the University of Cincinnati in 2010. Dr. Candace Kendle is recognized worldwide as a leader in the CRO industry and is a founding member and past chairperson of the Association of Clinical Research Organizations. She has served as a mentor for the Fortune--U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership and as a member of the Committee of 200, where she served on the board of directors for its foundation. She has also served on biotechnology task forces for the U.S. Department of Commerce, as well as for two Ohio Governors. Dr. Kendle serves on the boards of directors for USP, Emerson, and the H.J. Heinz Company. She is cofounder of Next Chapter Press and ReadAloud.org, an organization to encourage children and adults to read aloud to encourage lifelong learning. She is also a former trustee for the University of Cincinnati, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and numerous other nonprofit organizations.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.