Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 116, S. 349.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be considered read the third time.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today six police officers from the Dayton Police Department were awarded our Nation's highest honor for law enforcement. These were the six individuals who stood tall at 1 a.m. on August 4, in Dayton, OH, standing up to a shooter, engaging him within 30 seconds of the tragedy beginning. Nine people had already died. Another 27 were injured. By standing up to him and doing it so quickly and responding so effectively, they saved so many lives. They put their lives in danger because they were standing between the shooter and innocent civilians who were out that evening, having a celebration, enjoying themselves, not imagining this horror could be committed. These six individuals were well trained. As Chief Rick Biehl of the Dayton Police Department has told me--and he is a friend of mine--the training worked, and he is right. It was more than just training. It was instinct. It was heart. It was their willingness to step up as soon as they saw the danger and run into the danger, literally. President Trump today awarded the highest honor to these individuals. When he did so, he said: ``The light from these intrepid souls defies the darkness and confronted the most sinister danger.'' Well said. Sergeant William Knight and Officers Vincent Carter, David Denlinger, Ryan Nabel, Brian Rolfes, and Jeremy Campbell deserve the gratitude of all of us for stepping into the breach. Tonight I will have the opportunity to be with them on this floor. They are going to come see the world's greatest deliberative body. I know that everyone in the Senate joins me in expressing our gratitude to them for the work they do every single day to protect all of us and for their extraordinary bravery that horrible night. We thank them, and we say God bless them for what they do.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 831 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. PORTMAN. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. PORTMAN. I know of no further debate on the bill.

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, we just had our last vote here in the Senate before going into the August recess, and I am looking forward to being home in Ohio during the week. I come here during the week and go home on the weekends, but during this August recess period, it gives me a chance to get all around the State because we are home during the workweek. I will be in a few dozen counties by the end of the recess, but I am going to start by being at the Ohio State Fair tomorrow. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m., we have the biggest ag event in the State, which is our annual ag breakfast. I will be hearing from farmers from all over the State. It has been a tough year for us in Ohio. Because of all the water, we have had lots of farmers who weren't able to plant their crops, and, therefore, there are some fields that are bare. Others who did plant their crops have found that their crops aren't doing very well because of all of the water damage early in the year. So it has been a hard year, and, frankly, it has been a hard few years in terms of the price, particularly, of corn and soybeans. On top of that, we have less exports of soybeans, which I hope is now being addressed with the new agreements being made with relation to China in particular, but that has put pressure on price, because without having those additional overseas markets, it has had the effect of lowering the price, particularly for soybeans and corn. On top of that, it has just been generally a tough time in farm country in terms of the price of inputs going up and the price of the product being flat. So my hope is that tomorrow I will get more input from farmers all across the State, and we will be able to continue to talk about the things we are doing. I supported the U.S. Department of Agriculture providing some emergency loans and grants to Ohio farmers to get us through this season to avoid bankruptcies and to get people back on their feet. That money is now beginning to flow, I am happy to say. We are beginning to see some progress. The new farm bill is helping. So my hope is that we will see better weather here going into the end of the season for these crops, that the harvest season will be better, and that we will be able to get back on our feet. Also tomorrow, after touring the fair, I will be having some meetings with the business community, talking about what is working and what is not working in terms of regulations and taxes. I will also be meeting with business leadership about how to get these new opportunity zones in the tax bill up and going. At those meetings, we will have community leaders and we will have people from neighborhoods that have had a tough time. Even during the economic growth, we have seen that some neighborhoods have been left behind. They still have relatively high unemployment, and they still have real problems of stubborn poverty. These opportunity zones are a perfect example there. This actually puts money into these communities by lowering and sometimes removing altogether the capital gains taxes for people if they agree to invest. I will be talking to small businesses and housing advocates who are excited about this and see how this is working in Columbus, OH. I will also be in Youngstown, OH, early next week, talking about this same topic, as well as some other economic development issues we have there in terms of how we deal with the Lordstown plant, the plant that General Motors, unfortunately, has chosen to walk away from, which is very discouraging. So we will be all over the State. On Saturday, I will be at the largest gathering in the country of watercraft, which is the annual Paddlefest, with more kayaks and canoes on the Ohio River than any other event in the country. I will be participating in a charity race--I think this is an 11-mile race this year--with my son, going down the Ohio River, all for a good cause. I look forward to that as well. I will be all over the State. It is an opportunity to visit the State, talk to constituents, hear what is going on, and try to be more helpful here in Washington to address the real concerns we have in Ohio. One of the things I will be doing next weekend is visiting the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I will be touring the park, looking at what some of their maintenance needs are, and talking to the Park Rangers. Cuyahoga Valley National Park is actually the 13th most visited national park in America. You probably haven't heard of it, unless you are from Ohio. But if you are from Akron or Cleveland, you certainly know about it because it is nestled right in between these two big cities, and it gets a lot of visitors and a lot of school kids. It is an incredible park because it is really a suburban and urban, as well as rural, park all at once. There is a lot of outdoor education going on there. There is a beautiful river that runs through it, the Cuyahoga River. There is also a train that can commute you back and forth. I will be there with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, doing a kayak trip down the river, again looking at some of the needs the park has. This leads me to a topic I had hoped to discuss on the floor yesterday, but because of a string of votes we were unable to do so. I was going to be out here on the floor giving a colloquy with some of my colleagues--Senator Alexander, Senator Warner, Senator King, and others. We were going to talk about the need for us to provide more repairs in our national parks. Unfortunately, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is one of those parks badly in need of it. We have about a $48 million maintenance backlog. What does that mean? It means that every year we do fund the parks, but we don't fund these capital expenses that are needed. In the case of Cuyahoga Valley, as an example, there is an old railroad bridge they use for pedestrian traffic that is falling apart, and they may have to close it off soon. For every year that you don't attend to this deferred maintenance, things get worse and worse. Think about your own home. If you stop taking care of the roof, what happens? You get a leak, and then you have drywall damage. Then, you have paint damage. So the Federal Government over time has not taken care of the parks and not provided the right stewardship in terms of these longer term deferred maintenance projects. Yes, we fund the naturalist programs and we fund the immediate needs of the park, but these, frankly, more expensive items, like deferred maintenance, do not get funded. My hope is that we will pass legislation to do that. For more than a century, we have been blessed as Americans to have these National Parks. They are amazing. Some of you have experienced the majesty of the Yellowstones, Yosemites, and Grand Tetons of the world. They are amazing. There are some more modest ones, like the boyhood home of William Howard Taft in Ohio, that maybe you don't know as well, but they are all important. A lot of them are focused on history, in terms of the historic homes. There are now 84 million acres of national parks and historical sites. They attract over 330 million visitors every year. Think about that. That is more than the population of our country. Again, we have eight of those parks in Ohio. We are proud of those. And 2.7 million visitors go to Ohio's National Parks every year. They are part of our history and part of our culture. This $12 billion backlog of long-delayed maintenance needs is a real concern, though. It is $12 billion now. These parks are treasures, but they have unfortunately been allowed to deteriorate to the point that some of the assets in these parks are totally unusable. If you go to a park today, you might find out that a trail is closed or a visitors center can't be visited. We have a visitors center in Ohio that had to be closed down because the roof was leaking. They didn't have the funds to replace the roof. They had funds to run the programs within the visitors center, but these long-term maintenance problems are a real problem. You may find that some of the overnight lodging facilities are not available. In a way, our parks are crumbling from within. They may look good on the outside, but they have serious problems. I mentioned the fact that we have long-term maintenance problems at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We also have that at others, to the point of about $100 million in backlogs. Last August, I visited Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial on the shores of Lake Erie, which was established on Lake Erie to honor those who fought in the famous Battle of Lake Erie during the war of 1812, as well as to celebrate the now longstanding peace we have had between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. There, I saw $48 million in long-delayed maintenance needs at the site, primarily a seawall. There is a seawall on Lake Erie to keep Lake Erie from destroying the park, and it is cracking. There are actually sinkholes around it. So you can't walk near the seawall for fear of falling into a sinkhole. This is something that needs attention, and it needs it now. Yet think of the expense of replacing a huge seawall, about a $48 billion project, when you add to that the need to make the visitors center accessible under the ADA, or the Americans with Disabilities Act. That is an example. I mentioned President Taft's first place. The house was in pretty good condition, and, unfortunately, it now has some problems. It has roofing problems, and about $2 million worth of repairs are necessary and needed there. I also visited Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe. There you see millennia-old burial sites from pre- Columbian times. Again, there are about $3.5 million in unmet maintenance needs at the site, including repairs to the exterior of the visitors center that was absolutely needed. You can see why when you go there, because there are construction signs in front of it. You can go in the Visitors Center, but pretty soon you will not be able to at all. Our parks have had a lot of issues that have built up over time. This deferred maintenance is really important. So we have legislation to address that. It is important that we do it now because if we don't, the costs just go higher. For taxpayers, it is a good deal to move now to make these improvements so that the costs don't compound and you make the situation even worse. This is at a time when more and more people want to go to our parks. Visitation over the last 10 years has increased by about 58 million people. That is putting a lot of pressure on the parks, of course. But it is good that people want to go to our parks. Our national treasures are a great place to go with your family, but we can't keep the parks healthy through bandaids alone. We need this legislation. Along with my colleagues Senators Mark Warner, Lamar Alexander, and Angus King, about whom I spoke earlier--two Republicans, one Democrat, and one Independent--we have proposed what is called the Restore Our Parks Act. It is a commonsense solution. Specifically, the legislation creates what is called a legacy restoration fund, which will get half of all the annual energy revenues over the next 5 years that are not otherwise allocated to be used for these priority deferred maintenance projects. This money would come from royalties from our offshore and onshore energy projects. By the way, the Trump administration is doing more energy exploration and development. So there is actually more funding coming out of here. The funding and the royalty would go to this purpose to the extent it is not being used for other purposes. The bill caps deposits into the fund at $1.3 billion annually, which would provide a total of $6.5 billion for deferred maintenance over the next 5 years. You might notice that $6.5 is not the $12 billion we need, but, No. 1, it is a great start. No. 2, we have asked the Park Service to give us a specific list of what are the most urgent problems, and that is about $6.5 billion. We will continue to work on this, but right now we need that funding badly because, again, if we don't provide it, not only will the parks not be there for people to enjoy, with certain assets off limits, but also the costs only get higher and higher. It is a historic step in the right direction. Last Congress, we proposed this legislation and we got a lot of support. We had a total of 40 cosponsors here in the Senate, more than one-third of this Chamber. There was a House bill also offered, companion legislation in the House, that actually got 302 Members supporting it. So these are totally bipartisan approaches. That is two- thirds of the House of Representatives. We also got it through our committee here in the Senate last year. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a bill on a bipartisan basis by a vote of 19 to 4. Importantly, we also received support from all over the country. As people found out about this legislation, people who love the parks stepped forward. It includes the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Outdoor Industry Alliance, the National Trust for Public Land, and others. During the legislation hearing last year, the director of the Pew Charitable Trusts agreed, saying: ``Supporting this bipartisan bill is a wise investment for our National Parks System and has overwhelming support from the American public, generates hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for the economy each year and provides access to world class recreation opportunities and helps preserve our nation's history.'' That is all true. This is a critical piece of legislation that we can actually all agree on here on a bipartisan basis. We urge that it be moved quickly. As we enter the August recess, a lot of my colleagues are going to go to one of our national parks or more. Some of them live, as one told me recently, in the shadow of one of our national parks. Folks who live in places like Montana and Wyoming see the parks all the time. As I said, I will be at our largest park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This is a time for us to see the parks, tour the parks, find out what the needs are, and, hopefully, come back here to Congress in September and do something about this deferred maintenance. I urge my colleagues, first, on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to take this bill up. Let's mark it up, again, as soon as possible after the recess. Let's not wait any longer until things get worse. I look forward to working with my colleagues to get this legislation on the floor of the Senate, to get it voted on, and to have a companion bill that is still being worked on in the House voted on as well. Let's get something done and send it to the President for his signature so we can ensure that these treasures, our national parks, are there for generations to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am on the floor this afternoon to talk about an issue that I have come to this floor other times to speak about, and that is the drug crisis we face in this country. In fact, I am told that over the last 3 years, I have now come to the floor 58 times to address this topic--to talk about the opioid crisis, talk about the new resurgence of crystal meth, and talk about what we can do about it. I will tell you, during those 3 years, we made a lot of progress, not just in talking about this issue but doing something about it. We put new policies in place at the Federal level for better prevention, better treatment, better longer term recovery, and to also help our first responders--specifically, to give them access to this miracle drug naloxone, which reverses the effect of overdose. Congress passed legislation, like the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, the Cures legislation, and the STOP Act. We have provided actually more than $4 billion of additional funding for these programs--particularly for treatment--over just the last few years. In Ohio alone, we have received $140 million through CARA and Cures since they were signed into law. That money has gone toward innovative, evidence-based programs that are actually making a difference. We had to do this because this crisis has gripped our country in the worst drug epidemic ever. More people are now dying every year from overdoses from these drugs than died in the entire Vietnam conflict, as an example. We have never seen anything quite this bad, so we responded, as we should have, at the national level to a national crisis. Working with States, localities, nonprofits, people out there in the trenches doing the hard work, we are beginning to make a difference. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control--CDC--issued a report with their latest statistics on overdose deaths. While drug overdose deaths are still way too high, they show we are actually seeing a reduction. By the way, this is the first time we have seen a reduction in opioid overdose deaths in more than 8 years. Think about that. Every year for 8 years, we have seen increases in deaths, to the point that we had over 70,000 people a year dying of overdoses in 2017. In 2018--we now have the numbers in from CDC--it went from roughly 71,000 to roughly 68,000. Again, that is way too high. No one should be satisfied with that. But after increases every year, to have a 4-percent decrease nationally shows that we are beginning to turn the tide. Let's keep doing what we are doing. We cannot pull back now. If we do, it will just go back up again. Actually, it is the first time since 1990, I am told, that nationwide overdoses from any kind of drugs--opioids and other things--have decreased in a calendar year. That is the first time since 1990. In Ohio, we did even better from 2017 to 2018. We had more than a 4- percent drop; we actually had a 22-percent drop in Ohio. That is partly because my home State has been ground zero for this. Like West Virginia, Kentucky, and other States, we have been hit really hard. To go 22 percent below where we were the previous year is progress, and we should be proud of that. Still, we are seeing overdose rates that are way too high. Overall, around the country, 33 States had reductions. As I said earlier, the area where we made the most progress is in combating opioids, partly because of legislation we passed here. Particularly, we tried to address this issue of prescription drugs, heroin, and fentanyl. The Washington Post recently published a stunning analysis showing why it is so important that we continue to push back and how we got here. They showed that for the 6 years between 2006 and 2012, there was an absolutely unbelievably high number of shipments of prescription pain medications. Oxycodone and hydrocodone were the ones they focused on, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipments to pharmacies. In a single CVS pharmacy right outside of Cleveland, OH, more than 6.4 million pills were delivered during that 6-year period. Think about that. In one small pharmacy, there were over 6 million pills. Overall, the Post found that over that period, more than 3.6 billion prescription pain pills were supplied to Ohio. That is ``billion'' with a ``b.'' That is an astounding number. That means that during those 6 years, there were approximately 313 opioid prescription pain pills prescribed for every single man, woman, and child in Ohio. That is what we are talking about here. Obviously, this was used as a way for people to take these pills and spread them, not just in Ohio but in other places, causing immense harm because people got addicted to these pills and turned to heroin and fentanyl. Many of these people are people who not just have an addiction but end up having overdoses, and many of them died. This week, the largest civil trial in U.S. history will begin in my home State of Ohio. I think it is appropriate that it is in Ohio. This will consolidate cases from around the country. More than 2,000 cities, counties, Native American Tribes, and others will sue some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies and major distributors for their role in this drug crisis. The pharmaceutical companies and the distributors are going to be sued in court in Ohio through a consolidated case. This is the biggest civil trial, they say, in the history of our country. Two of the Ohio plaintiff counties--Cuyahoga and Summit--have been among the areas in my State that were hardest hit by opioids. No wonder they are part of this lawsuit. In 2016, the death rate from pharmaceuticals--opioids, painkillers--in Cuyahoga County was 3.26 times the national average. In Summit County, so many people died from overdoses that a mobile morgue had to be created in order to help process the bodies. I was there in Summit County during that time period. They actually had to bring in a mobile unit to be able to deal with all the overdose deaths. The more we find out about the sheer number of pills these drug companies pumped into the United States--more than 76 billion overall during that period--the more it is clear that lawsuits like this are going to be necessary to get to the bottom of what happened and require these entities to help those who were affected by these pain pills. A lot of these people turned to other substances that were more accessible and less expensive, like heroin, but had started with an addiction to pain medication. We are pushing back against the opioid pill industry that flourished for too long within our borders. That is a positive sign. While the CDC showed an overall decrease in overdose deaths, as I talked about earlier, there are some troubling trends that have continued. First, while the number of opioid overdose deaths fell, the number of overdose deaths fell related to synthetic opioids--specifically, cheap and dangerous fentanyl--actually rose. Heroin and prescription drugs went down, but actually, for the synthetic opioid--which is 50 times more powerful than heroin and unfortunately produced overseas and shipped into our country--those numbers actually rose. Fentanyl deaths actually rose. In fact, last year, more deaths were attributed to fentanyl than to heroin and prescription drugs combined. Fentanyl is the big new danger. There is overall progress, but fentanyl is getting worse. We had a report last week of a single kilo of fentanyl being seized in Middletown, OH, which is enough of the drug to kill more than half a million people. This was in our community, Middletown, OH. That is enough of the drug to kill more than half a million people. We are beginning to push back on fentanyl, as some of you know, through legislation, including the STOP Act, which got passed in this Chamber and in the House. This is doing a better job with keeping this poison from coming through our U.S. mail system, which is where most of it has been coming from. Our own postal system has been the conduit for this poison. Most of it is coming from one country--China. It is produced in chemical labs there by unscrupulous scientists and chemists and then sent through the mail. The 2019 audit by the inspector general of the Postal Service found that the Postal Service identified and pulled a package requested by Customs and Border Protection 88 percent of the time. This was an improvement from only 79 percent of the time the year before, in 2017, and only 67 percent of the time in 2016, but it is still not complying with the STOP Act. The STOP Act says 100 percent, not 88 percent. Again, why is that important? This stuff is getting in through the mail. If the U.S. Customs and Border Protection can identify these packages and screen them and pull them offline, less of that poison will come into our neighborhoods. It also raises the price of this product, which is part of the problem right now--that it is not just powerful and deadly but also inexpensive. Overall, it was said that the Postal Service missed a number of packages--12 percent--due to operational errors. We can't afford these operational errors. It is too important. We need to ensure that all packages that enter the United States have the kind of information we need to be able to track potentially harmful packages once they get inside our border. This is advance electronic data. It is not required everywhere, but it needs to be. The STOP Act requires the Postal Service to do that, including with 100 percent of the packages coming in from China. It required it, by the way, by December 31 of last year. Yet the Postal Service just informed us on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which we did this work--where we investigated this over many, many months-- that it has only received data on 52.8 percent of all of our international packages and only 70.7 percent on those from China for 2018. In March of this year, 2019, it was up to 57 percent and 78 percent. Let's get to 100 percent from China. This legislation requires 70 percent from other countries. There is no excuse for not meeting this. Again, it is the law of the land. So, while it is improving, the process is taking too long, and it has failed to meet the requirements in the STOP Act. The next big milestone, by the way, in the implementation of the law requires the Postal Service to begin refusing foreign shipments without there being the required advance electronic data that reads where it is from, what is in it, and where it is going. This is to apply to any package to be received after December 31, 2020. At the end of next year, if it is not providing the data, we will refuse the package. A lot of people have expressed concern about that to me. ``My gosh. This is going to stop international freight back and forth.'' No. It is going to require the Postal Service to do what it should be doing already, which is to require these shippers to do what they should be doing, and that is to provide the data. It is not hard, and it is not expensive. Again, most people are doing it. By the way, FedEx, DHL, and UPS--the private carriers--have done it for years. They have done it based on the law that passed after the 9/11 attacks. It is our post office that has not. Sometimes it has viewed this, apparently, as its having a competitive advantage in its not having to require that. Do you know what? It is too important to us and to the deaths that are occurring from fentanyl not to require that. We have to improve the screening in the mail, and we are, and we will continue to make progress on that. Of course, that is not all we have to do. More fentanyl is now coming from other places, particularly from across our southern border. This is very concerning because we have gaps on our southern border right now. They say that between 40 and 60 percent of the Border Patrol agents are being pulled off the border to deal with the very real humanitarian crisis on the border. I was there a week ago last Friday, and I had an opportunity to speak to a number of Border Patrol agents who were processing individuals and dealing with the humanitarian needs of a surge of families and children, including those who were claiming asylum. We need to have these people attending to the humanitarian needs and processing these individuals. Yet I will tell you, when I talked to the Border Patrol agents about it, that was not where they wanted to be. They want to be doing their jobs because they know these drugs are coming in when they are not out there with a watchful eye on our border. Unfortunately, we are in a situation right now where we need more humanitarian aid, which we have finally provided, thank goodness. We also need more help on the border itself to be able to close some of these gaps. I want to be sure that we are, indeed, dealing with both issues. We can and should. The drug smugglers who are affiliated with Mexican cartels are pretty smart. They know where there are gaps. They take advantage of them and bring in more fentanyl. Last year, Customs and Border Protection seized about 1,800 pounds of fentanyl at the border. In the first half of this year alone, it seized more than 2,000 pounds of fentanyl. This year, we are headed toward apprehending double the fentanyl at the border. I will tell you we don't know how much is coming in. Nobody does. Because of these gaps and because of the Border Patrol's having been pulled off the border to deal with the very real crisis down there with regard to the humanitarian issue and the flux of people coming in, there are more gaps. The numbers of those shipments that have been apprehended have been bad enough--more than double this year. It has been enough fentanyl to kill millions of people, and it is probably worse than that. This fentanyl is increasingly being laced into other drugs by the cartels. The fentanyl makes you so likely to become addicted that they put it in other things, including crystal meth, including cocaine, including heroin. Individuals who consume anything right now that is a street drug might be unknowingly ingesting this incredibly toxic drug fentanyl also and risking their lives because of the overdose deaths that are associated with it. In Ohio, the number of overdose deaths attributed to fentanyl-laced cocaine and methamphetamines has increased dramatically. As an example, Columbus Public Health actually released a public alert just this week that urged anyone who uses drugs or knows someone who uses drugs to have naloxone, a miracle drug--some people call it Narcan--that reverses the effects of the overdose from opioids. They say you have to have this miracle drug on hand because of the fentanyl poisoning that is going on in Columbus. Already in 2019, 740 doses of Narcan have been issued in response to overdoses in one town alone, Toledo, OH. This issue of fentanyl is very real. It is affecting our communities in new ways, and we have to be able to respond flexibly to what is happening. It remains a dangerous threat. Also complicating the recovery process is the continued resurgence of psychostimulants, particularly crystal meth. Again, crystal meth is coming from--where?--across the border, from Mexico. You will probably remember that at one time in your communities, there was talk about meth labs. You may have seen some coverage of that, and you may have had some meth labs in your neighborhood. There are horrible environmental issues, obviously, in the producing of methamphetamines, which are so dangerous. Guess what. There are no more meth labs in your neighborhood. That is the good news. The bad news is, there are no meth labs because this stuff that comes in from Mexico is cheaper and more powerful, more devastating, and more damaging to our communities. So it is a concern. The latest CDC data on overdose deaths--particularly with regard to opioids--is very hopeful, but the overdose deaths by psychostimulants and cocaine continue to increase. That is because, again, fentanyl is being mixed into these psychostimulants. Methamphetamine deaths increased by nearly 30 percent, and 42 percent of all overdose deaths last year were directly attributable to cocaine, psychostimulants like meth, or both mixed together. That is the new problem, and we have to address it. As we have continued to fight opioid abuse, I recently introduced a bill, entitled ``Combating Meth and Cocaine Act,'' in order to address this resurgence and to be sure that here in Congress we are being flexible in responding to it and not waiting until we have another huge drug crisis here of a new way to mix drugs or a new resurgence of crystal meth. To date, grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act, which is now called the State opioid response grants, have been used to increase access to naloxone--again, a very important drug--as well as to long-term addiction treatment and support services. Yet, for all the good these grants have done, they can't be used to address the crisis beyond opioids, which ignores the underground reality, at least in my State and in so many other States. Earlier this year, for example, I participated in a roundtable discussion with leaders in Knox County, and I do this around the State on a regular basis. In Knox County, the prosecutor's office estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all drug incidents now involve crystal meth-- methamphetamines. They told me they have been able to use the State opioid response grants to help with the treatment and recovery services but that they are not effective with regard to meth because there is not an effective way to treat meth with drugs, as there is with opioids. There is not an effective way to use the Narcan with meth, as there is with opioids. So we need to be more flexible in providing these communities with the help they need to combat this new resurgence. Our legislation will allow the State opioid response grants to be used for programs that focus on methamphetamines and on cocaine usage. More flexibility is important. We know these funds are making a difference, so the bill will also reauthorize the State opioid response grants for 5 years, which will give some certainty by providing the $500 million annually that will be needed to ensure there will be a stable funding stream to go to these innovative programs in the States. This is a simple, commonsense change. It will allow State and local organizations the flexibility they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on addiction--opioids but also psychostimulants that are coming back with a vengeance. The latest data from the CDC is a promising sign that we can and will recover from the drug crisis if we continue to work to give those in need the help they need to get back on their feet. We also need to ensure that we don't rest on our laurels as cartels continue to innovate themselves and try different angles. There is so much money in this that these deadly drugs will continue to come unless we show the same kind of flexibility when responding. If they can, they are going to continue to send drugs through the postal system. They are going to continue to send them across the southern border. Fentanyl, cocaine, and meth have shown themselves to be continuing public health threats, and we have to keep working--all of us here on a bipartisan basis--to ensure that State and local governments get the resources they need to help stem the tide. The Federal Government has been a better partner over the past few years with our States, with our localities, and with our nonprofits that are there in the trenches, doing the hard work. We can't give up now. The numbers from the CDC are hopeful with regard to opioids, but that just means we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that we do not now back off. We cannot take our eye off the ball. We have to continue to focus on what we are doing and then add to that more flexible responses to the new resurgence of fentanyl being mixed with meth and crystal meth coming in directly from Mexico. This new drug reality is one that must be met with the same kind of innovative response we have responded with here in the last few years. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the career and accomplishments of David Blom, retiring CEO of OhioHealth. David began his career with OhioHealth in 1983. Working through various roles in the health care system, he was named CEO of OhioHealth in 2002. In his first year as CEO, after several tough years with losses, David led OhioHealth to report a $23 million profit. Over the last 17 years at the helm, he has presided over expansion in and beyond central Ohio. OhioHealth has nearly tripled system revenue and has grown its central Ohio market share while working to unite the culture of multiple hospitals, outpatient sites, and physician practices. Today, OhioHealth is a $4 billion system of 12 hospitals and more than 200 outpatient sites. The organization has 29,000 associates, 3,600 physicians, and 3,000 volunteers across 48 counties in Ohio. Under David's leadership, OhioHealth has become a major central Ohio employer and economic driver. David also cares deeply about the central Ohio community that he has called home for so many years. He has served on the boards of the Columbus Partnership, the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, and the Columbus Foundation. He was also instrumental in creating Columbus 2020, the economic development arm for central Ohio. Under David's leadership, OhioHealth has had a substantial positive impact in Ohio, and I want to thank him for his service and leadership. I wish David the best in the next chapter of his life.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Thank you to my colleague from North Dakota. North Dakota has a lot of farmers and manufacturers. There is a lot of manufacturing in his State as well, and they never had a better friend. That is why he is so strong a supporter of this agreement. It makes a big difference. My colleague from Arkansas talked about the fact that Arkansas's two largest trading partners are Canada and Mexico. It is the same for Ohio. China is actually kind of a distant third. These two countries are critical for our exports. That is why this agreement is so important. I am a former trade lawyer. I also was the U.S. Trade Representative under George W. Bush. Now I am on the Finance Committee, which is the committee that handles these trade issues. I think having a balanced and healthy trade relationship is very important. We have to stand up for our country. We need to enforce these agreements we have. We also need to expand the exports because that is what creates jobs--by the way, better paying jobs. They pay about 16 percent more on average and have better benefits. That is why we need to be sure we have agreements like this one. We have about 5 percent of the world's population and about 25 percent of the world's economy. We need to sell our stuff overseas. It gives us access to 95 percent of the consumers who live outside of our borders. Mexico and Canada, as I said, are our biggest trading partners. Thirty-nine percent of our exports go to Canada alone--twice the national average. All in all, Mexico and Canada now support more than 12 million jobs nationally, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We all know the NAFTA agreement has to be updated. It is now 25 years old, and it looks like it. It doesn't have a lot of things I would expect in any modern agreement, such as taking care of the digital economy. So much of our economy is now over the internet; yet there is nothing in this agreement that deals with that part of our economy. It is more than just a name change. It does include a lot of different aspects. We put in more modern agreements that we don't have in the NAFTA. Another is labor and environmental standards. Not only are they stronger, but they are enforceable under this new agreement. They are not enforceable under NAFTA. Auto jobs have left the United States of America over the last 25 years. One reason this agreement is necessary is that the USMCA shifts more auto production back to the United States. My colleague from North Dakota talked about the manufacturing side. This is going to get U.S. automobile assembly lines humming again because if you want to get the better tariff treatment under the USMCA, car parts and cars have to have higher content from North America--that means from us. Under NAFTA, that requirement was 62.5 percent, and under USMCA, it is 75 percent. There is also a new provision where 70 percent of steel that is used in automobiles has to be North American steel. Both of these things help to ensure that we have more manufacturing jobs in Ohio and around the country. American farmers, as we have heard earlier, are going to gain access to new markets in Canada and Mexico. That is why Ohio farm groups are for this. That is why, by the way, nearly 1,000 farm groups from around the country now--I didn't know there were 1,000 farm groups--have come out to support this agreement. Small businesses in Ohio and around the country whose bottom line relies on these internet sales, internet commerce is going to have much more access to Canada and Mexico, thanks to these new digital economy provisions. So it kind of helps across the board. By the way, these stronger labor standards in Mexico we talked about are going to help level the playing field in terms of labor because labor costs are less in Mexico, but it goes even further than that. It actually requires that 40 to 45 percent of a USMCA vehicle made in Mexico, or anywhere in North America, must be produced by workers making at least 16 bucks an hour. This is kind of revolutionary. It is a different kind of thinking in a trade agreement. Frankly, it is something you would expect from a Democratic administration to put into an agreement, but it is in there, and it is going to help autoworkers in this country. Because of all of these changes I have discussed--by the way, many of which, like the higher minimum wage or like the higher domestic content, have been advocated by Democrats in the past. That has been their approach to these trade agreements, not Republicans so much, but because these provisions are so good for workers, I must tell you I am surprised--even amazed-- to see so many of my Democratic colleagues not stand up to support this agreement because it has all of these things they have said they have wanted over the years, and they certainly don't like NAFTA. Many of them have campaigned against NAFTA for the past 25 years. In a way, if you vote against USMCA, you know what you are stuck with--NAFTA. So in a way, you are voting for NAFTA if you vote against USMCA. That is the alternative here. It is a binary choice, as they say. It is either you are for this new agreement that is an improvement or you go back to the status quo, which is NAFTA. So it will be interesting to see, but my hope is the media and others, outside groups, will hold people accountable and say: Why would you be against an agreement that is better, even if it is not perfect from your point of view? By the way, no trade agreement is absolutely perfect. Every one of us would negotiate something slightly different. It is a question of trying to make sure you don't make the agreement, which is not perfect, the enemy of the good, and the good is to go to this new agreement. There was an outside, independent study done by the International Trade Commission showing that 176,000 new jobs will be added to the U.S. economy just from this agreement alone. So this is better. So the bottom line is, do we continue under the outdated NAFTA or do we adopt these new USMCA standards that will allow us to compete better in the global 21st century economy? A vote against the USMCA, again, is a vote for the status quo, without enforceable labor and environmental standards, with a nonexistent digital economy provision, and with rules of origin that allow more automobiles and auto parts to be manufactured overseas instead of in America. USMCA addresses and solves all those problems. I put together a little handy chart to talk about some of these specific provisions. USMCA will create 176,000 new jobs. NAFTA? None. Enforceable labor and environmental standards. USMCA, yes, checkmark, enforceable. Enforceable under NAFTA? No. Rules for the internet economy, new rules, again, to help small businesses, internet economy, checkmark. NAFTA? No. Seventy percent of the steel in vehicles has to be made in North America. That is a new provision. It is not in any other trade agreement, by the way. Yes on USMCA; no on NAFTA. Finally, 40 to 45 percent of the vehicles must be made by workers earning at least 16 bucks an hour. NAFTA, no; USMCA, yes. So it is pretty clear to me, if you actually are honest about this and you look at it objectively and you say here are these two opportunities, which way would you go? So I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle take a look at this and apply logic and say: It might not be perfect. I might have wanted a little more here or there, but be sure that you are supporting what works for your workers. If we can get this agreement passed, the President will sign it. It will make a difference for employees, for farmers, workers, service providers in my home State of Ohio and around the country.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor this afternoon to talk about a landmark moment in human history that occurred 50 years ago next week--the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first person on the Moon. Today, 50 years after that incredible feat, we sometimes take for granted that we explored the Moon. But think for a moment about the generations of men and women from the beginning of time until July 20, 1969, who looked up at the Moon's pale light in wonder at what secrets and insights may lay on its surface. Think about the countless paintings and poems depicting the Moon as an unchanging and unknowable presence in the sky. Think about how, after hundreds of thousands of years of such mystery and reverence, we actually went there. On July 20, 1969, the world watched in breathless awe as grainy footage came in of the Moon landing. It was beamed in from the lunar surface 289,000 miles away to millions of TV screens all around the globe. As a 13-year-old teenager, I saw two figures clad in bulky spacesuits bounce across the screen against the stark black-and-white landscape. As anyone who witnessed it can remember and tell you about, there was a great sense of pride as Americans--Americans who broke the earthly bonds that had tethered our ancestors for eons, to set foot on the surface of a body we only saw in the distant night sky. I also felt pride as our pristine American flag was unfurled and planted on the Moon's surface, forever marking our country's trailblazing spirit. I felt pride in being from Ohio, as my fellow Buckeye, Neil Armstrong, was the very first man to step onto the Moon, continuing our legacy in the State of Ohio as a pioneer in flight and in aerospace. In 2003, actually, Congress officially designated Ohio the ``Birthplace of Flight'' due to the Wright brothers. They were born and raised in Dayton, OH, and it was in their bicycle shop that they dreamed up and researched the first fixed-wing aircraft anywhere. But for such a lofty title, Ohio has played an even greater role in the story of mankind's progress in the skies and beyond--even beyond the Wright brothers. In fact, one of my predecessors in this seat here in the Senate was John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. In all, two dozen astronauts to date are natives of Ohio--more than any other State--and I am proud to say that many more call it home today. Our legacy of flight in Ohio continues today. In Dayton, OH, we have the National Air Force Museum, which houses more than 300 historic aircraft. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base--one of the largest in the country--trains not only our pilots in our Air Force, but those of our allies all around the world. Just last month, I had the honor of announcing, with Neil Armstrong's widow, Carol Armstrong, that the Smithsonian will be bringing a special exhibit on the Apollo 11 mission entitled ``Destination Moon'' to Cincinnati's own Museum Center. On that day in 1969, Neil Armstrong became all of our heroes, and it was at a time when our country was deeply divided over the war in Vietnam and other social and cultural issues. At a time when we were yearning for heroes, Neil Armstrong inspired us and brought us together as a country. I have one story I would like to share that I thought about while walking over this afternoon. It is about how Neil Armstrong inspired a particularly important group of Americans. In 2011, the year before Neil Armstrong died, he came here to the U.S. Capitol at my request to join my wife Jane and me at our swearing- in ceremony. I was elected in 2010, and the swearing-in was early in 2011. As we walked into the Capitol, we looked up on the left and saw a mural, and it is a mural that is still down on the first floor of this Capitol on the Senate side, and it is of Neil Armstrong on the face of the Moon. I pointed it out to Neil and his wife Carol--his wonderful wife Carol who was with us. Neil's comment was, that is interesting. The 30 or 40 people who were with us walking into the Capitol that day--they didn't think it was interesting; they thought it was amazing. I later found out that Neil Armstrong was the only American living to have a mural painted of him in the U.S. Capitol. That night at dinner, one of my other friends, Col. Tom Moe, came to me and asked if he could speak with Neil Armstrong and whether I would introduce him to Neil. I said: Of course. Col. Tom Moe is a hero in his own right, an Air Force pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam. He spent many years in the prison called the Hanoi Hilton with our former colleague John McCain--a true hero. When we went over to see Neil Armstrong, Col. Tom Moe shared a story with him. He said that the prison guards in the North Vietnamese prison were intent upon telling the prisoners that America was falling apart, that there were protests on the streets, which was true, that the country was deeply divided, and that America was going backward. He said in particular they didn't want the prisoners to know that America had accomplished what President Jack Kennedy had laid out as an ambitious vow, which was to go to the Moon by the end of the decade. They had kept that from them. Then one day, the prison guards somehow let a letter go to one of the prisoners from his mom, and that letter included a postage stamp, of course. Guess what was on the postage stamp. A photograph of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon. Colonel Moe told Neil Armstrong that it was incredibly inspiring. It lifted the spirits of all the prisoners. Immediately they went to the pipes and they tapped out what had happened, which was the way they communicated with one another in the Hanoi Hilton. Through the pipes and the tapping, he said you could just feel the momentum building and the morale improve. Neil Armstrong was not a very emotional guy, but when he heard that story, he became very emotional, as did Colonel Moe. That is just one more example of where Neil Armstrong inspired all of us--in this case, a group of Americans who richly deserved and badly needed that inspiration. Over the years, my family and I have come to know the Armstrong family. Carol Armstrong is still in Cincinnati, a dear friend. We were his neighbors in Cincinnati. As we have shared stories in the lead-in to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, I have been reminded of how extraordinary it was that this towering figure had truly been such a modest, unassuming man despite all the notoriety. In my view, how he handled the spotlight into which he was thrust said as much about Neil Armstrong as the time he spent on the Moon a half century ago. He was a true hero, but even before he blazed trails through the cosmos, Neil was already contributing to Ohio's rich legacy of pushing the boundaries of flight. He had already served his Nation with bravery and skill on Gemini 8. As a test pilot pushing the envelope, he had strapped himself into terrifying-looking contraptions with gigantic flame-belching engines tied onto huge fuel tanks. Before he was a test pilot, he distinguished himself through his service to his country as a naval aviator--among other things, flying 78 combat missions over the Korean Peninsula. In one such mission, in fact, he was forced to eject from his plane into enemy territory, holding out long enough, thank God, for the U.S. Marines to locate him and escort him to safety. For all of these accomplishments, this son of Ohio received the highest honors a grateful nation could bestow: the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. God smiled upon Neil Armstrong throughout his extraordinary life. Neil returned the favor by living his life with honor and dignity. In 2012, Neil returned to the heavens above, this time venturing into the Kingdom of Heaven. I had the honor of being among those who delivered the eulogy at his funeral. Then, as today, I remembered him as a hero and as a friend. He was a humble Midwesterner and a proud Ohioan who believed that the honor of serving his country and meeting great challenges in his own stoic way was all the reward he deserved. He was a refreshing counterweight to the celebrity culture we too often embrace today. The Apollo mission was many things to many people. To the world, it was mankind's greatest journey to date, a daring sojourn to the crown jewels in the night sky. For Americans, it was an affirmation of America's exceptionalism, that we could beat the Soviets and respond to their Sputnik Program by following through on President Kennedy's bold vow to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. For me, and for thousands of other young boys and girls across Ohio, it was simply the next act in our State's leadership in aviation, done with that quintessential Midwestern resolve and humility. As Neil once so eloquently said, ``The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited.'' Fifty years on, as we look ahead to chart our next voyage to the stars, let us always remember the bravery and patriotism and the humility of Neil, also of his other astronauts--Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin--and the thousands of men and women who supported them on Earth, and the many courageous astronauts who preceded and followed them. Let the Apollo 11 mission be an example of what our great country can do when we come together to achieve the seemingly impossible. Let us commit to come together into the future, into the distant horizons. Like the Apollo 11 exhibit exhibiting American leadership and benefiting all of mankind, there is more for us to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, the legislation I came to the floor to talk about today passed in the Homeland Security Committee last week to help make our synagogues, our churches, our mosques, and other nonprofit institutions safer. Sadly, we have seen a troubling pattern in recent years. Hate-fueled attacks at houses of worship and religious institutions, not just in our country but around the world, are becoming more and more common. A couple of months ago, a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego took the life of Lori Gilbert Kaye, who heroically sacrificed herself to save her rabbi. Exactly 6 months to the day prior to that, the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue outside of Pittsburgh, PA, claimed 11 lives, the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in U.S. history. Sometimes this hate is manifested in other ways: bomb threats at the Jewish Community Center in Columbus, OH, and anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed on the Hebrew Union College walls in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH. Right after the attacks on the synagogue in Pittsburgh last year, I went to the Jewish Community Center in Youngstown, OH, only 60 miles away from Pittsburgh, to meet with Jewish community leaders. An attack on one is an attack on all. We must all stand up. In Youngstown that somber day, we talked about where we go from here to stop anti-Semitism and hatred. I asked them for input about what the Federal Government can do to help keep the Jewish community safe. Part of the input I got was that we need more help on best practices on security and more resources to protect our community centers, our schools, our churches, our synagogues, our mosques. The resurgence of this anti-Semitism must be confronted and defeated with all the energy we can bring to bear. But sadly, it is not just related to the Jewish community, which has known it for over the centuries. Hate seldom stops at one religion or one country. Hundreds of Christians in Sri Lanka were massacred in churches and hotels on Easter Sunday. In New Zealand, the shooting at the mosques in Christchurch killed at least 49 people. We will never forget the 2015 tragic killings of African-American parishioners at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, where I have visited and prayed, or the 2017 attacks on the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX. While I have highlighted unconscionable mass murders, there are so many other examples of vandalism and harassment. We saw this in my home State of Ohio this February, where a man holding a gun smashed the windows of a mosque in Dayton while worshipers were praying inside. We saw it in Louisiana this April when three historically Black churches were deliberately burned down within the same parish. This violence is senseless and contrary to our values as Americans. Our first obligation as Americans and certainly as public officials is to stand up and say this must stop. Stop the hate--not just partisan finger-pointing but a single, unified message. Targeted communities cannot stop it on their own. We must remind all of our fellow citizens that we are all made in the image of God, and the anti-Semitism, the hatred, and the violence are not acceptable in this country. Sadly, if these trends are any indication, we also have to recognize these attacks are likely to continue, and I think Congress can and should do more to provide synagogues, mosques, churches, and other faith-based organizations with best practices and more resources to secure their facilities effectively. Based in part on the input I received in Youngstown that sad day, I have been the leading supporter of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. This grant program allows nonprofits, including synagogues and other faith-based organizations, to apply for funds they can use to access best practices to secure their facilities and to train personnel. Some good news came out recently. Under the new Department of Homeland Security rules, nonprofits are now permitted to hire armed security personnel with these funds. That is something I had promoted. I think it is a good idea because it is needed. Last year, I led a bipartisan letter with Senator Casey to push for a total of $60 million for the program nationwide. I am happy to say that funding level was incorporated in the final Homeland Security appropriations bill. This year, I am working with my colleagues to actually authorize this program to be sure it will be there in the future and to increase the amount of funding in the program to $75 million so that nonprofits outside of the largest urban areas--which are currently being served through the initial program--also have access to this funding. Unfortunately, in a lot of instances I talked about earlier, it was not in major urban centers. So it is being spread well beyond our big cities. To support that effort, my colleague Senator Gary Peters and I have introduced bipartisan legislation called the Protecting Faith-Based and Nonprofit Organizations from Terrorism Act to provide best practices and more funding for hardening vulnerable nonprofits and faith-based institutions and for training resources for those congregations. The bill authorizes $75 million annually for the next 5 years, $50 million to be used by nonprofits located within high-risk, large urban areas, and the rest will be available for nonprofits in other areas. I am pleased to report that the Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved this bill last week. I look forward to its coming to the floor, where I hope it can be passed on a bipartisan basis. While our bill is pending, I hope my colleagues in the Appropriations Committee will once again be receptive to the letter and spirit of our bill to make those resources available to urban and nonurban areas alike. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure that the thousands of religious and other nonprofit institutions in Ohio and across our country are safe and welcoming places. I pray we will see the day when such security grants are not necessary because we will abide by the admonition to love our neighbors as ourselves. But in the meantime, let's do what we can to give our communities the know-how, the resources, and the best practices so they can be safer and more secure. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I was coming to floor today to talk about legislation we just got passed in the last week in the Homeland Security Committee with the hopes that I can convince some of my colleagues to join us in this effort, and I will talk about that bill in a moment. But first let me, if I could, address the photograph and the comments from my colleague from New Jersey. He showed a tragic photograph that so many of my constituents and all Americans have seen--Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria, facedown in the Rio Grande. This man came from El Salvador. We don't know all the details yet, but clearly he was interested in coming to the United States and applying for asylum, as so many others have come--hundreds a day, thousands a week, hundreds of thousands a month now, overwhelming the infrastructure at the border, pulling 40 to 60 percent of our Border Patrol off the border to deal with the humanitarian crisis that has occurred. That tragic photograph--and it is a horrific photo of a daughter clinging to her father's neck, having drowned in the Rio Grande coming over from Mexico--should be a wake-up call. I agree with that, but it should not be a wake-up call to have us continue to point fingers around here at the other side and blame someone else for the problem. It should instead be a wake-up call for solutions--for bipartisan solutions--because that is all that works to be able to resolve these issues. I hope the first step will be taken today, because I just learned, as I came to the floor, that the House of Representatives is now considering taking up the legislation we passed here in the Senate just yesterday. It provides immediate emergency funds for humanitarian assistance at the border that is needed right now. We passed it with over 80 votes here in the Senate--82 votes, with 9 of our Members absent, I believe. Over 82 votes is very unusual for anything to pass around here, particularly something so substantial. It is bipartisan. It came out of the Appropriations Committee with a 30-to-1 vote to get these funds and these resources down to the border now to help with this true humanitarian crisis that we are facing. Everyone must acknowledge that. The House was balking at that. They were sending us another bill that had some partisan elements to it that no Republican could support in the House--not a single one. Finally, I think they have decided to pick up our bipartisan bill and pass it, and thank God, because now the President can sign it and that aid can go down to our border immediately where it is needed. But I have to be frank with you. That humanitarian aid going down to the border is not enough because I don't think it would have had an impact on the tragic photograph that was talked about on the floor earlier. That incident did not occur because of the lack of humanitarian aid that is badly needed. That incident occurred because there is this pull factor to come to our country, particularly from these Northern Triangle countries--Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. This particular gentleman, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, came from El Salvador. Then, there are push factors from those countries. And, again, this is causing so many families to come here, so many unaccompanied children to come here from these three countries in Central America. The traffickers are telling them: If you come to America and you ask for asylum, you will be let in. Let's be frank. These countries are countries that have real challenges and real problems. My colleague from New Jersey is right. We have sent a lot of American taxpayer dollars down to those countries, and he noted that the reports back from the administration and others are positive, saying it is beginning to make a difference. He noted that that funding is now being reduced or even eliminated in some cases, but it was during the time when that funding was there that the people started coming. So, yes, we should have more funding that is effective for those countries. I agree with that. The Millennium Challenge Corporation funding is the new way we send that funding. It is more effective because it says: What are you doing in Central America to improve your infrastructure, your conditions, your judicial system, your rule of law, and to fight corruption? We need to do all those things. But let's be frank. Let's be honest. We have been doing that, and yet the push factor is still there. So I believe it is part of the answer, but I don't think logic applied to this situation means that you could say that it is all of the answer because we have been doing it. My taxpayers and other taxpayers, I think, around this country are willing to do more, but they also want to deal with the pull factor, and the pull factor is very simple. If you come to America and you apply for asylum right now, with the system being overwhelmed and with certain laws in place, including a court decision, you are released into the community, meaning you come into America. Most of the court cases that deal with whether you are successful or not in your asylum claim take over 2 years now. It takes over 2 years until you are before a judge for a hearing. When those court cases occur, we are told on the Homeland Security Committee, that about 15 percent of those individuals are granted asylum--15 percent. Now, in America, our wages are 10 to 20 times higher than they are in these Northern Triangle countries--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. Is it any wonder that they come here seeking a better way of life? No, you would too. But we have to have a system of laws here in this country where, yes, we accept refugees and, yes, we accept people who have claims of asylum that are granted, but we don't have open borders. We have a system here, a system of laws, and it has clearly broken down now. Again, thousands come in every week, hundreds of thousands every month--mostly families, mostly children because of the way our laws work. I don't think we should be separating families, by the way. So, if you have a child with you or you are a child, then under a court decision you could be held only for a short period of time, 20 days maximum, in emergency situations. What happens is that people are released into the community. I will be frank with you. From what we have heard from Customs and Border Protection and from the Department of Health and Human Services, which are responsible for many of these detention facilities, they are so overwhelmed, they don't even have room for 20 days, so people are allowed to come into the community. Again, the court cases happen a long time after that, and people are granted work permits. That is why people are coming. It is a pull. They are saying: If you get to America, we will get you in. These traffickers are charging a lot of money. It is horrible. They are taking mortgages on people's homes. They are saying ``We will take half your pay for the next year,'' promising things that are frankly beyond what can be accomplished. A situation in Ohio occurred a couple years ago with kids from Guatemala. Unaccompanied kids coming from Guatemala were told: You can get in. It is good. We will take care of you. In this case, the traffickers took mortgages on the parents' homes. They brought these kids to the United States, to the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, detention facility. They were then sent out to sponsor families, which is what they do. They take these minor children, underaged, and send them to sponsor families. Sometimes they can find families; sometimes they can't. In this case, our own government sent these kids back to the traffickers because the traffickers applied for the very kids they had brought up from Guatemala. Despite claims and promises to their parents that they would get a good education with a family taking care of these kids, do you know what they did with these kids? They put them on an egg farm in Ohio-- underage kids--and exploited them. They took away their pay, had them live in conditions none of us would find acceptable for any member of our family. They had them living in trailers, some of them under trailers, on mattresses without sheets, working 12 hours a day. Some of these kids were working 6 days a week, some 7 days a week. This is not America. Yet this was happening. Again, our system is broken. These traffickers were exploiting these children. Finally, in this case, law enforcement stepped in, and we have been able to indict and convict the traffickers. Thank goodness. But this is not a situation that can or should continue. In the tragic photo of the story I just told, the answer is not politically pointing fingers. Blaming Donald Trump isn't going to solve this problem. We need as a body to change the laws. We need as a body to provide more effective aid to those countries. That is true. The push factors and the pull factors both need to be addressed. But if we just play politics with this on both sides, we will have more unnecessary deaths. We will have more tragic situations. Again, I had planned to come and talk about something else, and I will, briefly. But I must say, with regard to this immigration challenge we face as a country, I hope the tragedy we have now all seen online and on TV serves as a wake-up call to get to bipartisan solutions that actually help solve this problem and stop the push factors and the pull factors that will continue to bring hundreds of thousands of people from these three countries to our border, which has overwhelmed us. Today there is a start. Today there is a start with the humanitarian aid package. Thank goodness. Tomorrow we need to get to work to talk about these bigger problems. I will say, I have worked on this with some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I heard the words today from my colleague from New Jersey about refugee processing centers. I think that is part of the answer. In the Obama administration, you could apply for refugee status from your country--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras--and not come to the border. The refugee criteria is almost identical to the criteria for asylum. The United Nations does this all over the world. I agree, that is a much better solution. Let's have these processing centers in the Northern Triangle countries. Let's have one in Mexico, maybe one in Mexico at the southern border with Guatemala, maybe one at the northern border of the United States. Let's deal with this processing problem. Let's determine who is qualified, who has a legitimate fear of persecution. Again, 15 percent of them are now being granted. The other 85 percent are not. For the others, we have to say: You can apply to come to the United States as everybody else does, from Mexico, from the Philippines, from India, from countries in Africa, and we need to continue to be a generous country with regard to immigration. But we have to have a system of laws, and we have to stop these tragedies where people are being told by traffickers: You can make this journey to the north. It will be fine. It is not fine. It is arduous, it is dangerous, and you see the results. The trafficking that is going on of girls and women is all part of this too. It is not going to stop unless we as a group here in Congress, on a bipartisan basis, deal not just with the push factors but also the pull factors and deal with them realistically.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I would like to speak about the legislation that is before us right now on the floor. It is the annual National Defense Authorization Act, incredibly important legislation that the Senate, pretty much every year, is able to pass on a bipartisan basis. It is really an exception. There is so much else that we are locked up on here with partisan gridlock. With regard to our troops, we tend to come together, Republicans and Democrats, and make commitments to them that we are going to give our men and women serving in the Armed Forces the resources and support they need to carry out their critical mission. We have now proceeded to that legislation. I want to talk a little about it. It has a lot of incredibly important things in it. It is really important to Ohio. In my State of Ohio, we have a lot of defense installations. They are very important to our national security because they do important work. They are also important to our Ohio economy. Ohio's defense spending now accounts for more than 66,000 direct jobs, more than $4 billion in salaries, and more than a $14 billion economic impact. Forty-three of our 88 counties in Ohio are impacted by these facilities. So they are critical to our State, to our economy, to our soldiers and their families, and to tens of thousands of civilian employees as well. Again, because of the good work being done in Ohio, including at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is our largest single employer in Ohio, it is really important to our military readiness and to our national security. This bill has proceeded through the Armed Services Committee in the bipartisan manner in which it usually is done. I love seeing that. It is legislation that every Member of this body, I hope, will be able to support at the end. It has a lot of important initiatives and some much needed reforms-- including, by the way, this year, a 3.1-percent pay raise for our troops. I think that is necessary. They are in harm's way around the world. They are ensuring our safety, and we should ensure that they are fairly compensated for their hard work and their sacrifices. One of the bill's other important initiatives that has a big impact on my State is authorizing $1.7 billion to increase the rate of production for both our M1 Abrams tanks and also for upgrades to 165 tanks that are already in service. That is an increase from last year's figure. It also authorizes about $249 million to upgrade the Stryker armored fighting vehicles. This is great news for the men and women who are out in the field in our Armed Forces. They love these vehicles, and they need them. The Abrams and the Stryker are the most advanced and lethal tanks and armored vehicles on the battlefield today. One of our priorities in Congress should be to ensure that we are providing our troops with what they need to be able to do their duty and to protect themselves. We want to be sure they have the highest quality equipment to be able to do that. Only by ensuring that these funds are allocated to such key vehicles like this can we be sure our Armed Forces are able to maintain their advantage--their qualitative advantage on the battlefield. This isn't just a big win for our military, however. It is also a big win for a plant called the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, or JSMC, which is the tank plant in Lima, OH. The best tanks and armored vehicles in the world are made at this plant. It has the best workforce in the world to do it. I have seen them in action many times. It is the only facility in the United States that has the capacity to produce tanks like the Abrams tank and the Stryker armored vehicle. It is a really important strategic asset for our country in Lima, OH. Having been out there a lot, visiting with the workers, watching them work, seeing what they can make, and having talked to the soldiers in the field who use these products, I can tell you how important they are. Most recently, I was at the Lima tank plant in March where I was able to speak directly with the workers there about the long-term health of the Lima plant, which the Obama administration, about 8 years ago, attempted to shutter. The President sent a budget to Congress--President Obama--saying we would like to close down the tank plant because in the future we won't need these tanks, at least not immediately, and some day we will have a new generation of tanks, and meanwhile, let's just shut down this plant. Some of us stood up, and I fought against that. We were able to convince the U.S. Congress to overturn what the President wanted to do and instead to provide funding for the tank plant to keep it open. Even though production was down at that time, we were able to keep the plant open and not have it be mothballed, as the administration wanted to do. Thank goodness we did that because now we know--particularly with the Russian influence in Europe and what our allies are telling us they need--that we have to have these armored vehicles and these tanks, and we need to continually upgrade them. If we had shut down that plant, we would have lost this incredible workforce that is there building something that is unique. There is nothing quite like the welding, as an example, and the cutting that goes into our tanks. We also would have lost the supply chain. That would have been detrimental. It would have cost taxpayers so much more to try to take that plant out of mothballs and recreate it again than to keep it open as we did. Now, frankly, we kept it open mostly through foreign sales. Other countries around the world, including our allies, were still buying Abrams tanks and Stryker vehicles. And Israel was buying the Nemera vehicle, which is an armored vehicle that is much like our Abrams tank without the turret. That kept us going, plus a little bit of upgrade to our tanks. Now, today, again, and since 8 years ago, when there was a proposal to shutter this plant, we have been able to increase production slowly but surely to the point that today we have the ability to really have that plant humming. We have a lot of people who are working. It is on its way up, and that is really exciting. The funding allocated under this legislation we talked about today is really important because it will allow this JSMC--the Lima tank plant-- to hire, train, and retain more workers dedicated to making the best equipment possible to protect our troops. I will tell you that the workers at the tank plant are very proud of what they do. A lot of them are veterans. They know that what they are doing every day by providing these armored vehicles has the potential to save the lives of the American men and women in uniform across the world who are relying on these vehicles to keep them safe and to be able to have that qualitative advantage on the battlefield by having the best equipment possible. Last year, I had the opportunity to be the first Member of Congress to see the latest models of the Stryker Dragoon vehicles, up-armored at Lima. This was a real fight also. The Army came to us and said: We need to have some additional capability with regard to our Stryker vehicles to be able to push back against potential threats on the European continent. At that time we had no tanks in Europe, and we needed to upgrade what the Strykers could do by providing for additional lethality, particularly to provide a turret on top of the Stryker vehicle. We did that. Now, as I saw with the 2nd Calvary Regiment in Germany, they are using these vehicles, and those drivers of those vehicles, those other troops who are using those vehicles, love them. It feels like, again, it gives them the ability to be effective on the battlefield. They are also training with a coalition of our allies, including Poland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. The work our men and women in uniform are doing with our allies in Europe is vitally important because it forms a framework of defense to protect our NATO allies from aggression. The importance of an American military presence in Europe has never been in doubt, but perhaps now, more than at any time since the end of the Cold War, the security of Europe is uncertain. We have seen repeatedly, these past few years, instances of military aggression, electoral interference, and diplomatic provocation by Russia toward its western neighbors. Nowhere is Russia's continued maligned behavior on display more than in the country of Ukraine. For the past 5 years, we have seen Ukraine work to break free of Russia's orbit and seek greater integration with the democratic framework of the West, with the EU, with the United States, and with our NATO allies. Most vividly during the 2014 Maidan protest in Kiev, Russia responded to these appeals for democracy by illegally invading and annexing Crimea, which remains occupied in violation of international law to this day. In the eastern region of Donbass, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed fighting Russian-backed separatists. I have been to the frontlines, the so-called line of contact in the Donbass, and let me tell you that it is very much a hot war. Just last November, the Russian Navy attacked three Ukrainian naval vessels and captured two dozen Ukrainian sailors in international waters near the Kerch Strait. These individuals remain unlawfully detained by the Russian Government to this day. I urge my Senate colleagues and the entire international community to join me in calling for the release of those sailors. I know here, on this side of the Atlantic, what is happening in Ukraine can sometimes seem like it is half a world away, but it is not. It is very relevant. In a sense, it is where the modern battle is taking place between two different ideologies--between whether a country wants to go toward freedom and democracy in the West or whether, again, to stay under the orbit of the Russian influence. Here, in Ohio, we have a large and vibrant Ukrainian-American community, particularly in Northeast Ohio, who have a vested interest in seeing that their ancestral homeland can defend itself from Russian aggression as it works to align itself more with NATO and the West while promoting a platform of democracy, freedom, transparency, and free markets. Frankly, we should all be supportive of Ukraine's efforts to reshape itself as a beacon of liberty in the region. As cochair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, which I cofounded with my colleague Dick Durbin, I have been an advocate of the Ukraine as it works to break free from Russia's influence. I traveled to Kyiv to meet with their newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelensky. I am encouraged from my meetings that they will stay on the right path toward reform, but to properly do so, they also have to defend themselves from Russian aggression. For the past 3 years, I have successfully introduced and passed amendments to the legislation before us today, the National Defense Authorization Act, to expand U.S. military aid to the Ukraine. These provisions built and expanded the primary statutory framework for U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. This year, I was pleased to see a further $300 million authorized in lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine in the NDAA. This security assistance package is good news and sends a strong signal that America stands with the Ukrainian people, and we will make sure their military has the capabilities it needs to defend its sovereign territory on land and in the sea and air. But our commitment to Ukraine security should extend to other forms of support as well. I have offered an amendment that I hope will be included in the final bill to pressure Russia to release the Ukrainian sailors kidnapped in the Kerch Strait. It would do so by adding the release of the 24 Ukrainian sailors as a condition for any U.S. military cooperation with Russia. We need to take a firm stance against Russia's blatant disregard for international law in this matter, and passing this amendment will help us do so. I am glad to see that the National Defense Authorization Act will keep the lines of production running, from the factory floors in Lima to the frontlines all around the world. I am glad we will be continuing to help Ukraine defend itself from unlawful Russian aggression. I hope we can also push for the release of the Ukrainian sailors who have been detained illegally in the Kerch Strait. I look forward to voting on the bill's final passage in the Senate in the next week so the men and women who give so much of themselves to keep us safe have the resources they need to fulfill their important mission. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Mount St. Joseph University on its 100th anniversary of service to higher education. Since 1920, Mount St. Joseph University has stood the test of time as an institution of higher education in Greater Cincinnati, grounded in the spiritual values and vision of its founders, the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. As the Mount approaches its centennial in 2020, it remains on a mission--to educate students, build better communities, and to serve the common good. Mount St. Joseph University enrolls 2,168 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students. The majority of Mount graduates--i.e. more than 13,000 of the 16,600 living alumni--stay in the Cincinnati region to pursue their careers and to raise their families, contributing to the overall success of this region. The Mount also serves a diverse population. Over 31 percent of students are first generation, 23 percent represent minority populations, and 100 percent receive financial assistance through scholarships and financial aid. About 48 percent of Mount students are from families in the low or moderate income levels. Students at the Mount pursue studies in 39 undergraduate degree programs, 6 master's degree programs, and 2 doctoral programs. As a result of the academic excellence and career focus of the university, more than 98 percent of Mount students are successful in starting their careers, securing significant volunteer opportunities and obtaining admission to graduate programs within 6 months of graduating.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I am here to continue the important conversation we had on this floor about the ongoing addiction crisis we face in this country. Over the past 2 years, I have come to the floor 57 times to talk about addiction, and usually it has been about opioids and the impact opioids are having--tearing our families apart, devastating our communities. There is certainly an opioid epidemic in this country with prescription drugs, fentanyl, heroin--it is true--but we also have to focus on the fact that we have a broader problem. That is what I am going to talk about today, along with what we can do about it. Congress has done a lot in the last several years. When looking at what was proposed and what was passed, we put new policies in place at the Federal level to promote better prevention, better treatment programs, and better long-term recovery. We passed legislation to stop some of these deadly drugs from coming into our country. That has helped somewhat. Those legislative initiatives, such as the CARA Act, the 21st Century Cures Act, and the STOP Act, are starting to work. Over $3 billion of additional funds has been appropriated by this Congress just in the last 3 years alone to ensure that we have the ability to push back against this epidemic. In my home State of Ohio-- one of the States hardest hit by this epidemic--we received nearly $140 million from the CARA and Cures grants. It is going toward stuff that is working--evidence-based prevention, innovative approaches to treatment and getting people into treatment, and closing some of the gaps in the continuum of prevention, treatment, and recovery. A lot of people were falling between the cracks. Closing those gaps has a made a big difference in my State. We also equipped our first responders with what they need and the training they need to help push back. The good news is, these programs are starting to work. Drug overdose deaths are still way too high, but for the first time in 8 years--8 years of increased overdose deaths every year--we are seeing a reduction in overdose deaths. In my own State of Ohio, we have seen significant progress. We have had a 21-percent drop in our overdose deaths finally after 8 years of increases. This was the biggest drop in the Nation from July 2017 to June of 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control National Center of Health Statistics. Nationally, again after 8 years of annual increased deaths, we have seen a leveling out--in fact, a very modest downturn. Between 2017 and 2018, overdose deaths fell from 73,000 to 71,000. In all, the overdose rate dropped in 21 States. Overall, there has been only about a 1-percent drop, so it is very modest but a lot better than the alternative we have seen for 8 years, which is increased deaths. As we begin to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, I am convinced that we would be doing even better if not for the influx of fentanyl. About 4 or 5 years ago, fentanyl came to our country in a big way-- almost entirely from China and almost always through our own U.S. Postal Service, believe it or not--and it has caused all kinds of havoc. It is the deadliest of all the drugs. When you look at overdose deaths, the primary cause now is fentanyl. It is a synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than heroin. We are beginning to push back again, including with our STOP Act, which has now been passed, which requires the post office to begin screening and stopping some of these packages from coming in. We will do a better job in working with China. We have commitments from them, and we hope they will follow through on them. Even as this limited progress is being made on the opioid front, we have a new, growing danger. I have heard this over the past few years from law enforcement and from providers--from people on the frontlines of the drug epidemic. They are seeing a resurgence of what are called psychostimulants. Mostly it is pure, powerful methamphetamine from Mexico--crystal meth. In the last couple of months, I have heard about this from the people in the trenches all over Ohio. I have talked to community leaders in Knox County; treatment providers in Southeast Ohio; service providers in Columbus; the ADAMHS Board in Adams, Lawrence, and Scioto Counties; the leadership of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition; and community leaders and law enforcement in Butler County and the Dayton area just last week. From all over the State, they all tell me the same thing: We are making some progress now on heroin, and that is good. We are making limited progress on keeping the fentanyl out. But we are spinning our wheels on combating particularly crystal meth, and they are also seeing a resurgence of cocaine--both of which are stimulants, and both of which are causing havoc in these communities, in part because, as a psychostimulant, it leads to more violent behavior. They are having a devastating impact in my State. According to a 2018 report from Ohio University, these psychostimulants--including meth-- were found in just nine overdose deaths in 2010. That number rose to 556 overdose deaths in 2017, which is the most recent data we have. That is an increase of 6,000 percent. That same year, Ohio had more than 1,500 people die of cocaine overdose, which is an almost 140- percent increase from the year before. This problem isn't isolated to Ohio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving cocaine, crystal meth, and other psychostimulants have increased nationwide. In the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than 23,000 or nearly one- third involved cocaine, meth, or both. Just from 2016 to 2017, in that 1 year, death rates involving cocaine and crystal meth increased by approximately 33 percent. Increases occurred across all demographic groups and in all ZIP Codes. In the case of meth in particular, usage rates have gone up as opioid rates have gone down. I am told by experts that this is for a few reasons. Some meth users initially turned to this drug to manage the heavy crashes that followed prolonged usage of opioids--heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids--and then they became just as addicted to meth as they had been to opioids. Others turns to meth because the drug is stronger and cheaper than other options. By the way, the days of home chemists and one-pot meth labs in America are largely gone. You probably can remember, 5, 10, 15 years ago, the meth labs in your community. You are not hearing about those now. That is the good thing, but the bad thing is that you are not hearing about them because the stuff coming from Mexico is more powerful and less expensive. The super-labs in Mexico run by the drug cartels are mass-producing this meth. It is powerful, deadly, and low cost. I am told by law enforcement in Columbus, OH, that crystal meth now costs less than marijuana on the streets of Columbus. Most of this pure crystal meth enters the United States from Mexico in bulk at ports of entry along our southwest border, often hidden in cars and trucks. Our Customs and Border Protection officers, who are already stretched thin by the ongoing migration crisis, don't have the resources to identify these smuggled shipments. The INTERDICT Act, which we passed here, is beginning to help by providing some technology, but, frankly, we need research on better technology, and we need to provide more funding to ensure we can stop this deadly substance by identifying it at the border to keep it from coming in. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the amount of methamphetamine at our ports of entry has soared from about 14,000 pounds in 2012 to 56,000 pounds in 2018. We have also seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking along the southern border just in the 1 year from 2017 to 2018. One troubling measurement is that the number of crystal meth submissions to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation lab rose from 2,000 in 2015 to over 12,000 in 2018. That is a 500-percent increase in my home State. This is an indication of how much of this is being detained, being found by law enforcement and taken to these labs. As I heard from folks all across Ohio, we are also seeing meth laced with other drugs, including fentanyl, heroin, and sometimes cocaine. I am told that sometimes the cartels mix these drugs into methamphetamine to lower the cost of the final product, meaning that the users may be consuming dangerous opioids without realizing it. Other traffickers do so because they know that fentanyl is incredibly addictive. You may think it is one thing, but it is really another. Any street drug you use is potentially deadly--remember that. We still don't have the full picture of how these drugs are being mixed together and sold for consumption. Over the past 2 years, I have seen more reports of individuals in Ohio who used cocaine that, unknown to them, had been mixed with fentanyl. In the last month alone, at least 49 Ohioans in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, were killed by that deadly combination. It has been hitting our African-American communities particularly hard. Again, this highlights how the drug cartels sometimes try to hook users by cutting stimulants with addictive, deadly fentanyl, often with lethal outcomes. The bottom line is, we have to address the broader issue of addiction, not just the issue of individual drugs. We know that crystal meth and cocaine are increasing pretty dramatically. That is why we have to continue our fight against opioid use but also provide more flexibility to our communities. As a result, today I am introducing new legislation designed to address the resurgence of crystal meth and cocaine into our communities. To date, the grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act--these are grants that go directly back to the States, and the States determine how they are used in local communities. These are called State opioid response grants. They have been used to increase access to naloxone--a miracle drug that reverses the overdose. They have also been used for longer term addiction treatment and support services for opioids. For all the good they have done, these grants can't be used effectively to combat the drug crisis beyond opioids, which ignores the new on-the-ground reality of addiction in my State and many others. So the legislation I am introducing today will make a simple change to existing law. It will allow the State opioid response grants to be more flexible so they can be used for whatever the drug addiction problem is on the ground, which will be a little different for every State and, for that matter, every community. In particular, dollars would be able to be used in programs focused on methamphetamine and cocaine treatment and recovery. We know these existing funds are making a difference. We have to be sure and keep this program going. That is why my legislation will also reauthorize the State opioid response grants program with this flexibility but reauthorize it for 5 years, providing $500 million annually to ensure there is stable funding. A stable funding stream to these States is absolutely essential to having the predictability and the certainty we need to continue to make progress and to avoid these new drugs coming in and creating more devastation in our communities. It is a simple, commonsense change that will allow State and local organizations the flexibility they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on addiction. The fact that we are continuing to see these new types of drugs pop up in Ohio and around the country highlights the reality that this is a fight against addiction. Addiction is a disease. Again, this Congress has done an unprecedented amount of work in this area in the last few years, and I commend us for that, but we have to do more. We have to provide this flexibility. We have to be sure we are focusing on the fight against addiction, not just on individual drugs. While I am encouraged by the welcomed progress in preventing opioid overdose deaths, we cannot rest on our laurels. The cartels continue to pump new combinations of opioids and stimulants into vulnerable communities, hooking individuals on yet another toxic drug and perpetrating this cycle of addiction. Let's keep our unprecedented bipartisan efforts going in this body. Let's continue to partner with allies, local government and State governments, and with our nonprofits. Let's make sure the resources are there to continue to save lives and restore communities.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I am here to continue the important conversation we had on this floor about the ongoing addiction crisis we face in this country. Over the past 2 years, I have come to the floor 57 times to talk about addiction, and usually it has been about opioids and the impact opioids are having--tearing our families apart, devastating our communities. There is certainly an opioid epidemic in this country with prescription drugs, fentanyl, heroin--it is true--but we also have to focus on the fact that we have a broader problem. That is what I am going to talk about today, along with what we can do about it. Congress has done a lot in the last several years. When looking at what was proposed and what was passed, we put new policies in place at the Federal level to promote better prevention, better treatment programs, and better long-term recovery. We passed legislation to stop some of these deadly drugs from coming into our country. That has helped somewhat. Those legislative initiatives, such as the CARA Act, the 21st Century Cures Act, and the STOP Act, are starting to work. Over $3 billion of additional funds has been appropriated by this Congress just in the last 3 years alone to ensure that we have the ability to push back against this epidemic. In my home State of Ohio-- one of the States hardest hit by this epidemic--we received nearly $140 million from the CARA and Cures grants. It is going toward stuff that is working--evidence-based prevention, innovative approaches to treatment and getting people into treatment, and closing some of the gaps in the continuum of prevention, treatment, and recovery. A lot of people were falling between the cracks. Closing those gaps has a made a big difference in my State. We also equipped our first responders with what they need and the training they need to help push back. The good news is, these programs are starting to work. Drug overdose deaths are still way too high, but for the first time in 8 years--8 years of increased overdose deaths every year--we are seeing a reduction in overdose deaths. In my own State of Ohio, we have seen significant progress. We have had a 21-percent drop in our overdose deaths finally after 8 years of increases. This was the biggest drop in the Nation from July 2017 to June of 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control National Center of Health Statistics. Nationally, again after 8 years of annual increased deaths, we have seen a leveling out--in fact, a very modest downturn. Between 2017 and 2018, overdose deaths fell from 73,000 to 71,000. In all, the overdose rate dropped in 21 States. Overall, there has been only about a 1-percent drop, so it is very modest but a lot better than the alternative we have seen for 8 years, which is increased deaths. As we begin to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, I am convinced that we would be doing even better if not for the influx of fentanyl. About 4 or 5 years ago, fentanyl came to our country in a big way-- almost entirely from China and almost always through our own U.S. Postal Service, believe it or not--and it has caused all kinds of havoc. It is the deadliest of all the drugs. When you look at overdose deaths, the primary cause now is fentanyl. It is a synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than heroin. We are beginning to push back again, including with our STOP Act, which has now been passed, which requires the post office to begin screening and stopping some of these packages from coming in. We will do a better job in working with China. We have commitments from them, and we hope they will follow through on them. Even as this limited progress is being made on the opioid front, we have a new, growing danger. I have heard this over the past few years from law enforcement and from providers--from people on the frontlines of the drug epidemic. They are seeing a resurgence of what are called psychostimulants. Mostly it is pure, powerful methamphetamine from Mexico--crystal meth. In the last couple of months, I have heard about this from the people in the trenches all over Ohio. I have talked to community leaders in Knox County; treatment providers in Southeast Ohio; service providers in Columbus; the ADAMHS Board in Adams, Lawrence, and Scioto Counties; the leadership of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition; and community leaders and law enforcement in Butler County and the Dayton area just last week. From all over the State, they all tell me the same thing: We are making some progress now on heroin, and that is good. We are making limited progress on keeping the fentanyl out. But we are spinning our wheels on combating particularly crystal meth, and they are also seeing a resurgence of cocaine--both of which are stimulants, and both of which are causing havoc in these communities, in part because, as a psychostimulant, it leads to more violent behavior. They are having a devastating impact in my State. According to a 2018 report from Ohio University, these psychostimulants--including meth-- were found in just nine overdose deaths in 2010. That number rose to 556 overdose deaths in 2017, which is the most recent data we have. That is an increase of 6,000 percent. That same year, Ohio had more than 1,500 people die of cocaine overdose, which is an almost 140- percent increase from the year before. This problem isn't isolated to Ohio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving cocaine, crystal meth, and other psychostimulants have increased nationwide. In the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than 23,000 or nearly one- third involved cocaine, meth, or both. Just from 2016 to 2017, in that 1 year, death rates involving cocaine and crystal meth increased by approximately 33 percent. Increases occurred across all demographic groups and in all ZIP Codes. In the case of meth in particular, usage rates have gone up as opioid rates have gone down. I am told by experts that this is for a few reasons. Some meth users initially turned to this drug to manage the heavy crashes that followed prolonged usage of opioids--heroin, fentanyl, and other opioids--and then they became just as addicted to meth as they had been to opioids. Others turns to meth because the drug is stronger and cheaper than other options. By the way, the days of home chemists and one-pot meth labs in America are largely gone. You probably can remember, 5, 10, 15 years ago, the meth labs in your community. You are not hearing about those now. That is the good thing, but the bad thing is that you are not hearing about them because the stuff coming from Mexico is more powerful and less expensive. The super-labs in Mexico run by the drug cartels are mass-producing this meth. It is powerful, deadly, and low cost. I am told by law enforcement in Columbus, OH, that crystal meth now costs less than marijuana on the streets of Columbus. Most of this pure crystal meth enters the United States from Mexico in bulk at ports of entry along our southwest border, often hidden in cars and trucks. Our Customs and Border Protection officers, who are already stretched thin by the ongoing migration crisis, don't have the resources to identify these smuggled shipments. The INTERDICT Act, which we passed here, is beginning to help by providing some technology, but, frankly, we need research on better technology, and we need to provide more funding to ensure we can stop this deadly substance by identifying it at the border to keep it from coming in. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the amount of methamphetamine at our ports of entry has soared from about 14,000 pounds in 2012 to 56,000 pounds in 2018. We have also seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking along the southern border just in the 1 year from 2017 to 2018. One troubling measurement is that the number of crystal meth submissions to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation lab rose from 2,000 in 2015 to over 12,000 in 2018. That is a 500-percent increase in my home State. This is an indication of how much of this is being detained, being found by law enforcement and taken to these labs. As I heard from folks all across Ohio, we are also seeing meth laced with other drugs, including fentanyl, heroin, and sometimes cocaine. I am told that sometimes the cartels mix these drugs into methamphetamine to lower the cost of the final product, meaning that the users may be consuming dangerous opioids without realizing it. Other traffickers do so because they know that fentanyl is incredibly addictive. You may think it is one thing, but it is really another. Any street drug you use is potentially deadly--remember that. We still don't have the full picture of how these drugs are being mixed together and sold for consumption. Over the past 2 years, I have seen more reports of individuals in Ohio who used cocaine that, unknown to them, had been mixed with fentanyl. In the last month alone, at least 49 Ohioans in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, were killed by that deadly combination. It has been hitting our African-American communities particularly hard. Again, this highlights how the drug cartels sometimes try to hook users by cutting stimulants with addictive, deadly fentanyl, often with lethal outcomes. The bottom line is, we have to address the broader issue of addiction, not just the issue of individual drugs. We know that crystal meth and cocaine are increasing pretty dramatically. That is why we have to continue our fight against opioid use but also provide more flexibility to our communities. As a result, today I am introducing new legislation designed to address the resurgence of crystal meth and cocaine into our communities. To date, the grants provided by the 21st Century Cures Act--these are grants that go directly back to the States, and the States determine how they are used in local communities. These are called State opioid response grants. They have been used to increase access to naloxone--a miracle drug that reverses the overdose. They have also been used for longer term addiction treatment and support services for opioids. For all the good they have done, these grants can't be used effectively to combat the drug crisis beyond opioids, which ignores the new on-the-ground reality of addiction in my State and many others. So the legislation I am introducing today will make a simple change to existing law. It will allow the State opioid response grants to be more flexible so they can be used for whatever the drug addiction problem is on the ground, which will be a little different for every State and, for that matter, every community. In particular, dollars would be able to be used in programs focused on methamphetamine and cocaine treatment and recovery. We know these existing funds are making a difference. We have to be sure and keep this program going. That is why my legislation will also reauthorize the State opioid response grants program with this flexibility but reauthorize it for 5 years, providing $500 million annually to ensure there is stable funding. A stable funding stream to these States is absolutely essential to having the predictability and the certainty we need to continue to make progress and to avoid these new drugs coming in and creating more devastation in our communities. It is a simple, commonsense change that will allow State and local organizations the flexibility they need to fight what is quickly becoming a two-front war on addiction. The fact that we are continuing to see these new types of drugs pop up in Ohio and around the country highlights the reality that this is a fight against addiction. Addiction is a disease. Again, this Congress has done an unprecedented amount of work in this area in the last few years, and I commend us for that, but we have to do more. We have to provide this flexibility. We have to be sure we are focusing on the fight against addiction, not just on individual drugs. While I am encouraged by the welcomed progress in preventing opioid overdose deaths, we cannot rest on our laurels. The cartels continue to pump new combinations of opioids and stimulants into vulnerable communities, hooking individuals on yet another toxic drug and perpetrating this cycle of addiction. Let's keep our unprecedented bipartisan efforts going in this body. Let's continue to partner with allies, local government and State governments, and with our nonprofits. Let's make sure the resources are there to continue to save lives and restore communities.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes following the first vote in this series be 10 minutes in length.