Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the College of Wooster in recognition of its 150th anniversary of providing quality higher education to the citizens of Ohio. In 1865, Reverend James Reed, the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Wooster, rallied the community to create a Presbyterian college in Wooster. On December 18, 1866, the then University of Wooster was incorporated by the Presbyterian Synod. In order to better reflect the institution's offerings, the University of Wooster became the College of Wooster. Wooster's first class consisted of 30 men and 4 women instructed by five faculty members; the college now enrolls over 2,000 students, representing 45 States and 44 countries, and instructed by 171 faculty members. Wooster now has more than 50 academic programs in business, the arts, humanities, and the sciences. The mission of the College of Wooster is to create ``a community of independent minds, working together to become leaders of character and influence in an interdependent global community.'' Wooster accomplishes this by offering a rigorous and dynamic liberal education that focuses on mentoring, applied learning, and project based learning where students develop attributes that are valued by employers and important for developing the leaders of tomorrow. It is helping to ensure that students are prepared with the skills they need for the jobs of the 21st century. Because of this, 92 percent of Wooster graduates are either employed or in graduate school within 1 year after receiving their diplomas. We are proud to have this extraordinary independent college in Ohio. I am here to honor the College of Wooster and to congratulate all of those who contributed to making its first 150 years such a success.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for allowing me to speak briefly. I rise to talk about an issue that is affecting every State represented in this body; that is, this heroin and prescription drug epidemic. Unfortunately, opioids is an issue that is very much present in my home State of Ohio right now. We have seen over the last 48 hours, 10 overdoses in one rural county in North Central Ohio, Seneca County. We are told that already in Lucas County in the Toledo area there have been 150 overdoses in the last few weeks of this month, heading toward, unfortunately, what will be a record. This issue is affecting families, it is tearing apart families, it is affecting communities, it is causing crime. Pretty much every county in Ohio tells me that the No. 1 cause of crime now is the heroin, prescription drug, opioid issue. A lot of thefts are being reported because of it but also other crimes which result from people being torn apart from their families, from their community, from their jobs based on this addiction. I come to the floor to talk about a report that was issued today by the U.S. Surgeon General. This report is about addiction in America. I applaud the Surgeon General for putting it out there. It is an 11-page report. If you haven't had a chance to look at it yet, I hope you will. I hope it will raise awareness around our country of this issue. It talks about something incredibly important as to how we approach it, which is that addiction is a disease and should be treated as such. As the Surgeon General says, this is not a moral failing but rather it is like other diseases--something that actually changes your brain and creates a problem that must be dealt with through treatment and longer term recovery just as would be the case of other diseases. I think that alone is a significant finding by the Surgeon General, to help us come up with the right policies to address it but also raise awareness in communities around the country. The first chapter of this report talks about something this Chamber has spent a lot of time on, which is the importance of prevention and education. It talks about the need to look at this from a science perspective. It talks about the need to look at it in terms of longer term recovery. That summary in the first chapter is again something I would commend everybody to read just to sort of bring you up to speed, if you haven't been, on the importance of this issue and importance of addressing it. The next chapter focuses on the science behind addiction. This is consistent with a conference we had in Washington, DC, almost a year ago now--Senator Whitehouse and myself--in anticipation of proposing legislation in this area. We brought in experts from all over the country to talk about the science behind addiction, why it happens, how it happens. As was indicated earlier, that was something that led us to focus on the fact that addiction is a disease. It is something that impacts the brain. The brain responds to chemical substances in certain ways for certain people, and that addiction is something that has to be addressed through, again, treatment and longer term recovery. The legislation we came up with after this, by the way, is called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. That legislation was passed late in the summer. It is now in the process of being implemented by the administration. I encourage the Surgeon General, with his great 11- page report, to also focus on implementing this legislation as soon as possible, including in this area of treating it as a disease. The next chapter talks about a key component, which is prevention and education. It talks about the need for us to use evidence-based techniques around the country. Again, this legislation--the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, also known as CARA--focuses on this and starts a national awareness campaign to make this link between prescription drugs and heroin. Sadly, many people who are on heroin--probably four out of five people who are addicted to heroin-- started with prescription drugs. Sometimes it was because of an accident or an injury where someone was prescribed a painkiller that was addictive that then led to the addiction and then led to the use of heroin as a less-expensive and sometimes more accessible alternative to it. I think that issue of prevention and education is incredibly important. The take-back programs on pharmaceuticals is also important. The anti-drug coalitions supported in our legislation are also important. This is all part of how to get people from falling into this funnel of addiction, which is to do a much better job of explaining the problem and understanding the link particularly between prescription drugs and these other opioids. The next chapter talks about how we treat addiction. This talks about the need for us to get people out of the criminal justice system and into treatment. Our legislation helps in that as well by providing funds for diversion programs to ensure that people who are addicted are not simply locked up but are also given the opportunity to be able to get into a treatment program and into a longer term recovery program. The next chapter of this report also talks about recovery. CARA is the first legislation to actually fund recovery. I think we need to do even more in this area, but we certainly learned again from conferences in Washington, DC, over the last few years, that the success rate is increased dramatically where you have not just a short-term treatment program but a longer term program of recovery, where people are surrounded by those who support them, and specifically sober housing arrangements and other ways to support people with a supportive environment rather than going back to the old gang or the old family or the old environment. Again, the report today does a good job of talking about that and the importance of it. The Surgeon General has a fashion for this, a commitment to it, and I applaud him for that. I do hope again that he focuses on this legislation. We have now passed it with the support of the administration. The President has signed it. The report does not mention the legislation, but it is consistent with every aspect of this report today. This report, I hope, will raise awareness nationally, as I said, but I hope it also raises awareness of the need to move very quickly to put in place the grant programs that need to be there to help on prevention, education, treatment, and recovery, help our law enforcement community and other first responders to be able to get access to Narcan--this miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose--help to provide the training, help to ensure we do have more drug take-back programs around the country. These Federal programs need to be put in place right away to allow the Federal Government to be a better partner with State and local government and with our communities and with our families to be able to reverse the tide on this issue that has, unfortunately, gripped my State and so many other States around the country. I look forward to continuing to work with the Surgeon General on this issue. Again, I commend this report today to your attention. I hope we will be able as a Congress to continue to provide the funding, as we have in the short-term spending that is in effect right now. We provided funding to ensure this legislation can be set up so we can stand up these programs and get this started. We need to continue that effort and, I think, redouble our efforts, including passing additional legislation as it becomes apparent it is needed. One piece of legislation I hope we move on, in addition to the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, is legislation to try to stop some of these synthetic drugs from coming into our communities. Carfentanil, fentanyl, and U-4 and other synthetic heroins are coming in increasingly from overseas--China, India, and other places. They come by mail. There is a way for us to be able to reduce that simply by requiring that those who send products by mail have the same requirements you would have if you were FedEx or UPS or a private carrier--to know where it is coming from and what is in it and where it is going and have that information being provided in advance electronically. Based on law enforcement officials, that will help us to be able to stem the tide of these poisons coming into our communities and infecting our families, our children. These are all issues this Congress has taken up over the last 6 months with legislation, with specific programs, and I hope we can continue to fund that now, to get the administration to set up these programs, and to ensure that we are in a position to respond as new dangers arise, as we have seen with synthetic heroin coming from overseas. I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me time today to talk about this. Again, I commend this report today by the Surgeon General to be able to increase awareness and to ensure that every community in America is armed with the facts and the information to be able to push back and to help save lives and restore lives of those addicted.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 619, submitted earlier today.

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am on the floor to talk about an epidemic that has gripped my State of Ohio and affected every single State in this body in every community we represent; that is, the issue of prescription drug, heroin, and now fentanyl and other synthetic heroin addiction. This epidemic is affecting our communities in fundamental ways. It is breaking families apart. It is causing crime. In fact, in my home State of Ohio, as I talk to law enforcement officials in every county, they tell me it is the top reason for crime and the growth of crime. It is affecting our first responders. When I go to a firehouse now and talk to firefighters about what they do with most of their time, they tell me they do a lot more heroin runs than fire runs, and thank God because they are out there saving lives every single day. They now carry Narcan with them, which is a form of naloxone, which is a miracle drug that reduces the dangers because it reverses the effects of an overdose. They have provided Narcan 19,000 times in the last year in Ohio. This is something that is out there in all of our communities. Sometimes there is a huge spike in these overdoses. Sadly, we had that this week in Columbus, OH, when in the space of 24 hours we had 27 overdoses. I have been working with the county coroner's office and with the health department in the city of Columbus to try to help them determine what the cause of this spike in overdoses was. It appears to be another case where there is a particularly dangerous batch of heroin, and it probably has something to do with these synthetic heroins that are coming into the States and our country--fentanyl, carfentanil, or U-4. A few flakes of carfentanil ingested can kill you. This is very dangerous stuff. I wish I could say it is getting better, but I fear it is only getting worse. I have been on this floor talking about this issue every single week since February. During that time period, we passed, by a vote of 92 to 2, legislation to help address this issue. A vote of 92 to 2 is a rare vote in this place. Because Republicans and Democrats came together on this issue, we were able to pass something that will help. We spent 3\1/2\ years working on it--my colleague Senator Whitehouse and I and others were very involved--to help ensure that we can get better prevention and education efforts out there; do more in terms of treatment for people who are addicted and need to get help; provide longer term recovery, which we believe is essential to successful treatment because all the facts indicate that unless you have the longer term recovery, the relapse rate is very high. We also help our police officers, our firefighters, and other first responders by saying: Let's get them the Narcan they need and the training they need to be able to save those lives. Very specifically, it also helps our veterans and pregnant women who are addicted and these babies born with dependency. Some very specific programs are going to help to turn the tide. Overall, I would say the legislation is important because for the first time ever not only is Congress supporting recovery, as we talked about, but we are also finally addressing this issue as it needs to be addressed, as a public health issue, saying that this is not a question of someone making a bad moral choice as much as it is a disease. It needs to be treated like a disease. Until addiction is treated as a disease, I think it is going to be very difficult for us to turn this tide and begin to save these lives. In my home State, it has been the top cause of accidental death, surpassing car accidents, probably since 2007. Sadly, that is now the case in many States around the country. Nationally, we believe it is the No. 1 cause of accidental death. Think about that. It is a situation that affects every State and our entire country, so in the legislation that was passed yesterday, called the continuing resolution, which is basically just a bill to continue the funding of government through December--it is a short-term spending bill--we were able to include $37 million to help implement this legislation, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. I am very proud of that. I am very pleased that this Senate and the House were willing to go along with that. I know it is unusual because typically in a continuing resolution, you simply fund the previous year's funding and there are no new programs, no new starts. Frankly, the administration did not recommend a new start in this instance, although they did recommend an anomaly or an addition to the CR in 27 other areas. We had to rely on Members in the House and the Senate to do the right thing, to make an exception, and to include this funding. I thank my colleagues for doing that. I think it is critical that we begin to fully fund this Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act--otherwise known as CARA--and do it now and not wait until the regular appropriations process in December. That $37 million will help us stand up some programs. In particular, there are four I want to mention this morning. One is the community- based coalition prevention grants, the second is the grants for access to overdose treatment, the third is the recovery grants, and the fourth is the State incentive grants for a comprehensive response to this opioid issue. In other words, we are dealing with prevention, education, treatment, and recovery, helping the States be more engaged and involved in this issue so the Federal Government can be a better partner. On the prevention side, what it does is start to tell people what is going on. We are doing that here today on the floor but specifically to let people know what this connection is between prescription drugs, prescription drug overprescribing and abuse, and heroin and fentanyl. The reason I think this is very important is that probably four out of five heroin addicts in Ohio started with prescription drugs. Many people don't know that. When they are prescribed a prescription drug for pain relief, sometimes they don't realize the potential for addiction. To the young people who are listening today, you need to know this. You need to understand this. Everybody does. Again, if we are going to turn the tide, we have to change the way we deal with it to ensure that people are getting the education they need to avoid getting into the funnel of addiction in the first place. This program called CARA also increases the availability naloxone, or Narcan, which is very important. It has long-term recovery grants, including grants for recovery colleges, recovery universities. In other words, there are programs within colleges and universities to help on recovery because unfortunately we are finding that many of our students need these recovery programs as they are trying to work through their addiction. It also supports recovery high schools and increases eligibility for alternatives to incarceration--drug courts and veterans courts. So instead of putting people in jail for using these drugs, we say: Let's do a diversion. If you stay sober and clean, you will stay out of jail and we will get you into treatment. As I have seen around our State, these programs can help people get back on their feet. These are critical changes. The experts who helped us write this legislation over the last 3\1/2\ years, who came here to Washington, where we held four different conferences on this issue and brought in the best minds, the best practices, tell us they believe this legislation will make a difference in our communities day to day. Of course, it is up to the administration to actually implement this aggressively. Congress has done its work to pass these new programs, to pass this legislation. Now it shifts over to the executive branch to administer it. There is no excuse that the funding is not there because we were able to provide this funding. It is an exception to a normal CR, but we got the $37 million of funding in to begin to get these programs up and running so we can begin to turn the tide on this addiction epidemic. There are some aspects of the legislation that are already working that don't require a new program or setting up a new program. For instance, nurse practitioners and physician's assistants are now permitted to be involved in administering Suboxone at treatment clinics around the country. We should get that up and going now. That shouldn't require a lot of time, effort, and new programs. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to visit a fire station in Norwood, OH. This is a community of about 19,000 people that has had 56 overdoses since June 1. That is one small town in Ohio with 56 overdoses just since this summer. I met with law enforcement, I met with firefighters, and I met with other first responders. I met with a treatment specialist they brought in to help and work with them. They are doing some very interesting intervention work with families. They showed me a video of a young man who was overdosing. They showed me a video of police officers and then firefighters administering Narcan-- not once, not twice, but three times. They showed how he was brought back to life. It was tough to watch, but firefighters and other first responders, police officers, see that every single day. Every 3 hours someone dies of an overdose in Ohio, but every 3 hours many more are saved by the administering of naloxone and Narcan to bring them back to life. As they are doing in Norwood, OH, the key is to intervene with that person, their family, and their friends and get that person into treatment so first responders are not administering Narcan again the next week or sometimes even the next day. Over the last 4 years, the number of heroin overdoses has tripled. Let me repeat that. Over the last 4 years, the number of heroin overdoses has tripled. Sadly, there is reason to believe this trend is continuing. Even though our first responders save the vast majority of those who overdose in Ohio, in Ohio we are losing more lives every day. We have already had more drug overdoses and more drug overdose deaths this year, at the end of September, than we had all of last year. Of course, the numbers don't really tell the story. This story is about people. It is about dreams that have been shattered. It is about lives that have been cut short, often lives that are promising and young. It is about people like the 25-year-old student who was found dead of a heroin overdose in a bathroom stall at Columbus State University last week--25 years old, with his whole life ahead of him. It is about people like the Hess family of Crestline, OH. Their son Jason was a college student, a talented musician, a gifted athlete. One of his classmates got him to try heroin, to just try it. Almost immediately the drugs became everything in Jason's life. Jason's dad said: ``He liked his dealer more than he liked me.'' I have met with several hundred addicts or recovering addicts in Ohio over the last few years. Many of them tell me the same thing, which is that the drugs do become everything, so they become everything ahead of friends and family and work. Jason struggled with his addiction for 15 years. He was in and out of jail a lot and in and out of hospitals. In the past 2 months, his dad saved his life twice with naloxone because as family members they are now permitted to get Narcan over the counter. A few weeks ago, Jason died of an overdose. He was 35 years old. When his mother heard the death notice a few hours later--she was informed about it--she went to a cemetery with a bottle of Valium and committed suicide. It was her 60th birthday. In a note she left behind, she said: ``Thanks, heroin. Another victim.'' That was the note she left for all of us. With this crisis getting worse and taking such a toll in Ohio, we have to get this legislation implemented as soon as possible and we have to continue to fight, not just for more funding but for better ideas and ways to address this problem at every level and in a comprehensive way. We need support for safe disposal sites for prescription drugs. That is part of the legislation. When you are at the drugstore or at the pharmacy getting your medication, you will also have an opportunity right there to dispose of some of the medication you may not have used. I have been to these dropoff sites. I was at one recently at Walgreens in Toledo, where they are implementing a program to provide these sites and to provide safe disposal of these drugs so they don't get in the wrong hands. The experts tell us that in most families in America, there are drugs available that can be dangerous. Many times, they are painkiller prescription drugs that are very addictive. Recently in Marion, OH, an 18-month-old girl was able to get into her parents' Percocet, and she overdosed. We need these disposal sites to help protect kids like her. We need CARA's prevention efforts, such as its national awareness campaign that is making this link I talked about between prescription drugs and heroin. People need to understand this. Kelly Clixby of Marion, OH, needed that information. I met her earlier this year when I visited the Crawford-Marion Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services, where they are working hard every day to fight back against this epidemic. When I visited, the director, Jody Demo-Hodgins, told me that they are so overwhelmed with patients that ``most of the time, I feel like I'm drowning.'' They are overwhelmed, but they are doing a great job, and Kelly is an example. Kelly was prescribed painkillers. She became addicted to those painkillers, and, as is the case with many people, when those pills became too addictive and too expensive, when she couldn't afford them, she turned to heroin. Heroin is less expensive and more available, actually, in many cases. Within a year, she had lost her job, her house, her car, and custody of her five kids. Over the next decade, she and her husband Randy got a divorce. She was arrested four different times for shoplifting. She went to jail 19 times. She overdosed. Paramedics saved her life with naloxone, the Narcan we talked about. When Kelly was in the grip of this addiction, she didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning. She felt like she couldn't even get started on her day. She felt a constant sense of despair. Kelly's life turned around when her best friend Chrystina died of a heroin overdose. At that point, she realized she needed to get treatment. Nine months to the day after paramedics saved her life, Kelly got clean. With the help of medication--in her case, Vivitrol, which is medication that actually blocks the craving for the opioid, and it has worked very well in many cases in Ohio, including in our drug courts--with the help of Vivitrol and with the compassion of people at the Marion Area Counseling Center, Kerry has now been sober for a year and a half. She is back with her husband Randy. She is back with her kids and her family. She is now a grandmother. She is leading a 12-step program to help others. She is beating this because she got treatment. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act will help get more people into treatment so we can have more success stories like Kelly's. As I said, we need to raise awareness about how easy it is to become addicted to these opioids. I believe that will also help us to be able to push aside the stigma that is so often associated with addiction. That is one reason people don't come forward and get treatment. Kelly said the stigma of addiction kept her from getting help when she needed it. She said: You feel horrible for stealing because you need to get high. Then you get high and you feel horrible for getting high. And then you have to steal again. I feel guilty because I use, and I use because I feel guilty. And the stigma kept her from coming forward. Think about Tera Guest. Tera Guest is from Lorain, OH. She was a nurse's aide in a nursing home. She had been a good student and a talented artist. One day she was on her way to work and was hurrying down some stairs in her apartment building. She slipped, fell, and broke her ankle. When she went to her doctor, her doctor prescribed her Percocet and then OxyContin. She became addicted. When the prescriptions expired, like so many, she turned to heroin. Her mom Lori--who is a strong advocate on this issue and heads up the Lorain Community Task Force--found out about Tera's addiction when Tera was evicted from her apartment and started living out of her car. Lori felt what so many moms and dads have experienced in Ohio and across the country. She said that when her kids were young, ``We never discussed heroin. I never thought it would be part of our lives. You don't think that it's going to be your child; you don't think that it's going to be in your family. And when it is, the stigma makes you so ashamed'' and you don't want to talk about it. Her daughter Tera fought this addiction for 2 years. At just 24 years old, she died of an overdose of heroin laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is this synthetic heroin that is creeping into our communities, this poison that is coming into our country from other countries, particularly China and India. It is coming here by the mail system. For Tera, it started with a broken ankle. It could happen to anybody. That is why we need this prevention effort--to warn people about the dangers and to help end the stigma to keep people from hiding it and to get them to come forward. For all these reasons--the prevention, the treatment, the recovery, and ending the stigma--the people we represent need this legislation to be enacted but also to be implemented as soon as possible. In order to help as many people as we can, we have to get the funding in the CR working and we have to continue to fight for funding. Madam President, we have talked about a lot of tough stories today. Unfortunately, the grip of this addiction is so great that there are a lot of heartbreaking stories, and it is getting worse, not better. But there is also hope. There is hope I see every week when I am back home in Ohio. I recently met Sheila Humphrey, whose child succumbed to a heroin addiction and an overdose and death. She started her own organization with other moms and family members, and they are having great success in intervening with these families and explaining the reason to get treatment and get into recovery. She gave me this bracelet. It talks about the Rally for Recovery in 2016. We had one in Ohio last weekend that I was able to attend. At that rally, with the Ohio Citizen Advocates for Addiction Recovery, I got to meet so many people who are in recovery. They came forward to talk to me about their stories and to talk about what they are doing to help others. They talked to me about the need for us to have more treatments and recovery programs. I met someone who has not only beaten the addiction but is a counselor in Dayton, OH, named Gary. Gary Gonnella is helping others to get their lives back on track. He is incredibly persuasive because he has a story to tell. Gary told me: Senator, there is hope. Don't give up. He is telling me don't give up. I am telling my colleagues: People expect us not to give up. They are not giving up. This guy, Gary, is a recovering addict. He is not giving up, and he is asking us to ensure we do everything we can to help--to be a better partner with State and local governments and with the nonprofits out there in the trenches every day that are doing this work with folks like Gary who are looking for our help. CARA will give more people more hope. So on behalf of all of those whom I talked about today, those whose lives were cut short, and their family members, and on behalf of our communities, let's continue this fight. Let's ensure we do, in fact, get CARA implemented quickly. Let's ensure we do continue to push not just to provide funding but new ideas and better ideas. There is new legislation we just introduced in the last couple of weeks called the STOP Act that stops the synthetic heroin, the fentanyl, the carfentanil, and U-4 from coming into our country from other countries by requiring packages include information about where the package is from, what is in it, and where it is going. That is not required now by the post office, but it is required by private carriers. So these traffickers are using the postal system, including the U.S. postal system, to move these deadly chemicals into our communities. We need to stop that. So there is more we can and should do. It is our responsibility to do that. As we break for these elections and as the lameduck period in December comes upon us after that, let's continue to work to ensure we are able to turn this tide and bring back more hope. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, this will probably be the last time I will have a chance to talk to the minority leader across the floor. I have worked with him on a number of things over the years, including when I was in the Senate and before the Senate. I guess I am going to plead with him this evening and say please don't block this. This has nothing to do with Supreme Court nominations. It has nothing to do with the other rancor we have seen here on the floor. This is a bill that is totally bipartisan. In fact, it is one that Tom Carper, the ranking member of the committee, is the coauthor of. It is one they have been asking for from FEMA for 10 years, even going back to a previous administration. It is one that has been up here on the floor for the last couple of weeks with no objections on the substance, not a single one. I know Senator Reid knows well that he has a task force in Nevada too. It is Nevada Task Force 1, located at the Clark County Fire Station in Las Vegas. I know he knows it well. They strongly support this legislation. Of course they do. All of them do. The International Association of Firefighters strongly supports this legislation. If I can ask unanimous consent to put Senator Reid's name as the author rather than me, I would do that tonight. Am I permitted to do that, Mr. President?

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about legislation that would support our first responders--specifically those who work on our urban search and rescue teams. These are FEMA forces around the country staffed by volunteers--brave individuals who are willing to go into danger, who are willing to go into places like the aftermath of 9/ 11, as they did, or Katrina, as they did. We just had the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and many of my colleagues came on the floor and talked about how much they appreciate those first responders who responded for us. They talked about their virtues and how they put their lives on the line to rescue victims. Those heroes included members of our urban search and rescue teams. As we all do, I remember where I was on 9/11. I was here in Washington. My wife was in for a rare visit. The morning 9/11 happened, I think she got the last Enterprise rental car out of town and went straight home to be with our three kids to let them know they would be safe. As she was driving back to Ohio on a Pennsylvania highway, she saw flashing lights coming the other way. It was Ohio Task Force One. She recognized the truck right away because we knew a lot of the members of that task force. The lights were flashing as they went into danger: They were driving to 9/11. They were there for weeks. Some were there for months. They put their lives on the line for all of us. At every place around the country, these task forces are staffed by the same brave individuals--not just brave but highly skilled. We think about the bravery of people like Chief Jeff Payne of Ohio Task Force One, who immediately left his family and went to the World Trade Center. We think of men like Ray Downey, one of the architects of FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue Program. Ray gave his life that day, 9/ 11, so that others could live. I think about so many around the country who are not just brave but highly skilled and do extraordinary work. They bring specialized skills that most first responders wouldn't have, skills such as heavy rigging or the ability to lift large and heavy objects like iron beams and concrete walls--tools that were needed at the World Trade Center. They are absolutely critical to the future of our emergency response. They also went to Katrina to save lives there. They are volunteers. They leave their families on a moment's notice when they are needed for this vital support. On 9/11, some lost their lives in service. The families who were affected by that want to be sure that when those members deploy at the risk of their health, employment, and personal liability, that when they put it all on the line, we are there for them. That is what this legislation does. It doesn't have to be the way it is now because we could put legislation in place that would take a lot of those concerns away, give people more peace of mind, and protect these first responders from lawsuits, medical expenses, and job loss as a result of their service. The legislation is called the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System Act. It is something FEMA asked this Congress to do after 9/11. It took Congress a while to get through it, but we finally put together legislation with FEMA over the last year and a half. The legislation was worked on by Republicans and Democrats alike. It has been totally nonpartisan. The coauthor of this legislation is Tom Carper, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. The Homeland Security Committee passed this legislation not with a vote of Democrats and Republicans on each side but unanimously, with Democrats and Republicans working together. We actually passed the legislation unanimously back on May 25. The legislation not only has the support of Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Mike Bennet, Senator Dianne Feinstein, but it is also just common sense. This is exactly the kind of legislation we should be passing around here. It has the support of FEMA, strong support. They are the ones who worked with us to put this together because they want to codify what current rules are and expand those rules and clarify them. It has the strong support of the International Association of Firefighters, and they are wondering why we can't get this done. It also has the support of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, with whom I spoke yesterday in a public hearing about this very bill. He said, ``Let's get it done.'' He wants us to complete this project. He testified before us yesterday--what will probably be his last testimony as Secretary before the Homeland Security Committee--and he said, ``Let's get this done.'' Despite this unusual and strong bipartisan support on a critical bill to help these first responders, we can't seem to get it done. After getting out of committee on May 25 with a unanimous vote, we then took it to the floor. In fact, over the last couple of weeks, we have had it as a hotline, meaning you ask your colleagues whether they are OK with it passing. Of course, there has been no concern at all about the substance of the bill, so on our side of the aisle, no concerns were raised. By the way, it took 1 day to hotline it on our side, of course, because there is no controversy about it. On the other side of the aisle, we have been asking every day. I have been asking my colleagues, including Tom Carper and Cory Booker, who want to get this done, if they can help. They said there seems to be a hold on it. They say it is an anonymous hold. In other words, somebody is objecting to it over there on the other side of the aisle, but they won't come forward and say they are objecting to it. To me, that is wrong. That is why a couple days ago I said I was going to come to the floor and ask unanimous consent to find out who could possibly be objecting to this. My colleagues asked me if I could give them a couple days to check it, so I have. So I didn't do it the day before yesterday when I planned to, and I didn't do it yesterday because they wanted more time to check on it. They continue to tell me that there is a hold, and it is an anonymous hold. I hope it is not for political purposes. That would, of course, be an incredible disservice to these first responders. If they think these task force members should come home from saving lives and have to pay for expensive injuries or health problems acquired in their service, we should have a conversation about that. If they think they shouldn't have a job waiting for them when they get back, we should have a conversation about that. But frankly, in my view, I don't think that is the issue. I can't imagine anybody objects to this on the substance, so let's get this done. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we get it done; that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 578, S. 2971; further, that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank him for hearing me out tonight. And to my colleagues, I hope this is legislation we can move forward on as soon as we get into another session, I guess the lameduck session. I hope to go to work with my colleague from Nevada on that. I know he has been very supportive of firefighters and does not object to the merits of the legislation, so my hope is that we can get this done.

Mr. PORTMAN. I would be happy to yield to the minority leader.

Mr. PORTMAN. No. On behalf of the majority leader, of course I object to that. I am amazed that we are blocking legislation to help our urban search and rescue teams by bringing partisan politics into this discussion, and I object.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am willing to have this be a Reid bill. It would be a good bill here toward the end of the session for the Senator to do, which would help his firefighters. I will withdraw my name from the bill. I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my name from the bill and insert Senator Reid's name instead or anybody else he chooses.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize cofounders David and Liane Phillips on the 20th anniversary of Cincinnati Works. Cincinnati Works began with the dream of founders Dave and Liane Phillips to eliminate poverty in the community. As a result of significant research and review of best practices in workforce development programs across the Nation, a program model was developed which focused on job retention and advancement rather than simply job placement. Since its opening in 1996, Cincinnati Works and the Phillipses have helped to provide hope and encouragement for thousands of people living in poverty, assisting in advancing self-sufficiency through employment. Cincinnati Works offers a comprehensive approach to eliminating poverty in the Tri-State area through a network of job services and employer partnerships. The contributions and dedication the organization has shown is commendable and continues to be a vital asset in the community. I applaud the outstanding commitment of David and Liane and all who were involved in reaching this milestone. I congratulate and thank them for making the first 20 years of Cincinnati Works a success.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, again, this is an issue that has brought us all together in the past. Let's continue to work together on this on a bipartisan basis to begin to turn the tide on this epidemic before it is too late, before we lose more of our young people, before we have more communities devastated by this crisis. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleague from Indiana for his indulgence, and I look forward to hearing his remarks. We were both on the floor today waiting to speak while we tried to work out differences with the continuing resolution. I am hopeful those issues can be resolved so we can have a process to move forward with our spending bills. In the meantime, I need to talk on the floor today about an ongoing issue in all of our communities around the country, sadly, which is this issue of prescription drug abuse, heroin, and now fentanyl. It is really an epidemic. It is now the No. 1 cause of accidental death in my home State of Ohio, and more recently it is the No. 1 cause of accidental death in our country, surpassing car accidents. It is something that is taking thousands of lives every year, and it is something that is tearing families apart, causing crime, creating real hardship for so many families, and hurting the economy. President Obama and his administration declared this week Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week, and I commend him for that. I think raising the awareness of this issue is really important right now. Having a national conversation on this issue is really important right now. This is the opportunity I take every week to come to the floor. I have been doing it since before we passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act back in March. I come every week to talk on the floor about the importance of addressing the issue. Initially, it was to get the legislation passed, and we did that. Now we are implementing the legislation and even adding additional legislation because of this new wave of addiction that we are seeing and overdoses and deaths based on synthetic heroin, also called fentanyl or carfentanil or U-4, which is coming into our communities. About once a month, I have a tele-townhall, and I ask people on the call a number of questions that they answer about their top priorities. I started out by asking this question: How many of you have been directly affected by the heroin and prescription drug epidemic in Ohio? I will tell you, sadly, that in the last few calls we have had surprising results, which is that roughly half of the people on the call say they have been affected, whether I am calling people in Cleveland, Columbus, or in rural areas--no matter where it is. I recently called people in Canton, OH, and Wood County, outside of Toledo, and 49 percent of the people on the call said yes, they have been affected directly. Earlier this month I talked to people in my town of Cincinnati, and it was 51 percent. Here is something even more alarming. A couple of months ago, I called people in southeast Ohio. Some of you know that Portsmouth, OH, is an area that, unfortunately, has been hit particularly hard. In fact, there is a book that some may have read, and if you have not and you are interested in this issue, I would recommend it. It is called ``Dreamland,'' by a man named Sam Quinones. What the author talks about is the history behind this prescription drug, heroin, and opioid epidemic and some suggestions for us on how to address it. In any case, I called southeast Ohio. ``Dreamland'' is based on a community center swimming pool. It is the name of a swimming pool in Portsmouth, OH, and 68 percent of the people on the call said they were directly affected. Typically, we have about 20 to 25,000 people on the call, and 68 percent said they were directly affected. That is alarming, but it doesn't surprise me because I see it when I am home. So many other people are seeing it now, too. As some know, recently there was something that went viral on Facebook. It was a photograph of two people passed out in the front of a car and a child in the backseat. It happened in northeast Ohio, in East Liverpool, OH. This has been shared thousands and thousands of times, and commented on thousands and thousands of times. The two people in the front seat were the grandmother and her boyfriend and a grandson was in the backseat, age 4. They were passed out, overdosed in the front seat, and he was looking confused and alarmed in the backseat. This, unfortunately, is something that is happening around our country. The East Liverpool police said at the time: It is time that the non-drug-using public sees what we are dealing with on a daily basis. . . . The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities--not just ours. I agree with them. They see these images every day, not just in East Liverpool but in your hometown and in your county. This is not the only child who has watched his parents overdose. In Cleveland, 2 weeks ago, a 6-year-old boy was found in Barkwell Park shaking and crying next to his parents, who were both unconscious from heroin overdoses. Another incident that has received national attention is the spike of 24 heroin overdoses in Akron, OH, 1 week ago today. So far 112 people in Akron, OH, have died from overdoses this year. That is already a record. Already this year more people have died in Akron than all of last year. This follows an even larger spike of overdoses in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, where since August 19, there have been 300 heroin overdoses. During a 6-day period there were 174 overdoses. I went to the firehouse that responded to the largest number of those overdoses and talked to the firefighters about it. They talked about administering Narcan. This miracle drug actually can reverse the overdose. Typically, it is administered once. With regard to these overdoses, they saved so many lives--34 lives. They had to use Narcan not once, not twice, not three times but four or five times. We found out later--and I was able to get samples to Cincinnati to find this out--that there was carfentanil mixed with the heroin. This is a synthetic drug that traffickers are now using that is far more powerful even than heroin. Carfentanil is actually something that is a sedative for large animals such as elephants, and yet traffickers are using this along with heroin. The Hamilton County coroner confirmed that eight of the overdoses in this 6-day period were a direct result of carfentanil. Some of these victims were not brought back to life. Some of them did pass away. But these brave first responders responded quickly, professionally, and were able to save all but 4 or 5 lives out of 174 in a 6-day period-- incredible. This new drug called fentanyl is incredibly powerful. It is a substance so strong that only a few flakes of it ingested by a human being can kill them. If you want an idea of how addictive this stuff is, consider the story of a woman in Massillon, OH, who last Saturday used heroin with her boyfriend. He died of an overdose right next to her, and, according to police, after he died, she left his corpse lying there for 11 hours while she went out to get more heroin. I have met with addicts who are still using, and I have met with those in recovery all over Ohio. I have met with several hundred people who have a story to tell. I am told again and again by those in recovery the same thing: The drug becomes everything. The drug becomes more important than family, more important than work, more important than anything, leading them to do what many of these people have never done before, which is commit crimes to pay for their habit. As addictive as heroin is, fentanyl can be 50 to 100 times more powerful. According to the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, carfentanil can be many times more powerful, 10 times as powerful as morphine. It is used primarily to take down elephants and used as a sedative. The police officer in Newtown, OH, who heads up our Hamilton County drug task force said: ``The side effect of carfentanil is death.'' These synthetic drugs are contributing in Ohio to our rapid increase in overdoses. Since 2000, the number of annual opioid overdoses in Ohio has increased dramatically. We are losing one life to overdose every 3 hours. We happen to have information now coming in on fentanyl. Just in the last 2 years, according to records, from 2013 to 2015, we saw a 13- fold increase in fentanyl-related deaths. Just 3 years ago, about 1 in 20 deaths in Ohio was a result of fentanyl. Now it is more than one in three. Sadly, I expect that number to rise substantially this year, based on the information we have. The message today for those who might be listening or a family member who might be listening is, if you are suffering from this addiction, get treatment. Find some place that provides treatment, longer term recovery. This legislation, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which passed this House with a vote of 92 to 2, will help provide for treatment and recovery. It is the first time we have ever dealt with recovery in the Congress. It is very important. If you don't know whether the heroin that is on the street contains these deadly synthetic drugs, you need to be extremely, extremely careful. As Coroner Sammarco in Hamilton County puts it, every time you buy heroin or every time you inject it, ``you may be literally gambling with your life.'' These drugs that are devastating Ohio don't come from Ohio. They don't come from any of our States. We are told they come from overseas, primarily from China. There are laboratories in China that are developing this poison--this fentanyl and carfentanil. Some of the labs, we are told, also are in India. The drugs that are coming from China and India then come through the U.S. mail. It comes from their postal system and our postal system into the United States. It is unbelievable, but the poison is coming in the mail to our communities. It is easy to do. Because unlike private carriers, such as UPS or FedEx, in the mail system a package can be sent without having any information attached to it. It shouldn't be that easy, and it doesn't have to be. We want to close this loophole. It is a commonsense idea that will help to keep our streets safer and help prevent some of these deadly overdoses from synthetic heroin. Customs and Border Protection has told us that if we had advance electronic data on these packages from overseas, like we must have from private carriers, such as UPS or FedEx, it would help to ensure that these dangerous drugs wouldn't end up in the hands of the drug traffickers or, worse yet, in the hands of our family members and friends. That is why we introduced the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, or STOP Act. It is very simple. It is to help keep this poison off the streets by closing a loophole and requiring that same advance electronic data to come with all these packages coming from overseas showing where it is coming from, what is in it, and where it is going. They are using the mail system because they don't have to provide that now. This legislation goes hand in hand with the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that we talked about earlier, which both Houses passed by nearly unanimous votes and the President signed in July. This legislation is a tremendous step forward and is very comprehensive, dealing with the prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery and helping to provide law enforcement officers with the Narcan they need. It helps in getting the drugs off the shelves with the take-back program. It is a good bill, but I think this is complementary to it--to deal with it now and to stop this new surge of fentanyl and carfentanil. I urge the administration, especially in light of these tragic events recently and during this Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week to implement the CARA legislation as soon as possible. There are a number of new programs that must be implemented for our veterans and for pregnant women and the babies born with dependency to ensure they are getting the funding that they need. The President and the administration, if they get these programs up and running, will be able to make a bigger difference sooner. Let's also increase the funding for opioid programs. We have a 47- percent increase in the funding for this year, the fiscal year we are in right now. But we are coming to the end of the fiscal year. CARA has another $181 million per year in authorized funding per year going forward for this opioid issue--heroin, prescription drugs, fentanyl. We should make a down payment for that in this continuing resolution. I know it is only a short-term continuing resolution that we are talking about on the floor here today in order to keep the funding going. We need to make a down payment to ensure CARA is funded. If you are one of the 92 Senators who supported the CARA Act, I hope you will look at the STOP Act. It is complementary to CARA. It will help deal with the very real problems we face by limiting the supply of these dangerous drugs. It is a bipartisan bill. Last week, Patrick Tiberi and Richard Neal introduced the STOP Act in the House. So we have a companion bill in the House that is bipartisan. They both have a real passion for this issue, and I appreciate them. Everything that we are doing in this area is important right now. Every Senator should be involved. If you are tough on crime, you should care about the increase in crime that is being created by this. If you are concerned about the innocent victims of an addiction epidemic, you should support this legislation to help protect those children who are being born with addictions. If you want to be tougher on China or if you want better border security, you should support this legislation to try to shut off this poison coming into our States from other countries. If you care about----

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that we have 7 minutes left on the Republican side, and I ask unanimous consent to use those 7 minutes.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about this epidemic of heroin, prescription drugs, and now fentanyl and other synthetic heroin. It is devastating our communities. My home State of Ohio, unfortunately, is one of those States that has seen the tragedy of this epidemic unfold. The grip of this addiction has affected every single State in this Chamber, though. People are talking about it more and more in this Chamber because it is affecting every one of us, every community. It knows no ZIP Code. It is in the rural areas, in the suburban areas, and the inner city. No community is safe from it. Yesterday, I had a coffee--which I do once a week--our Buckeye Coffee, and I had a woman come up to me at the coffee whose name is Sheila. Sheila told me about her son and her daughter-in-law. They had overdosed. They were unconscious. Luckily, she had Narcan--this miracle drug. It is a brand name of naloxone. She was able to bring them back to life. She then started a group that is all over our State now, which is called Families of Addicts. They are in five different counties. They are focused on the hope of treatment and recovery, but they are also focused on--when Narcan is administered--going to people, intervening with people, getting them into treatment, longer term recovery, and helping them save lives. I so appreciate her and so appreciate these other parents like her who are ensuring that, yes, we save people's lives with Narcan, which is so important, but we also ensure that we are getting people into the treatment they need so they can get back to a productive life and back to their families. This Chamber passed legislation called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, earlier this summer. That legislation is now being implemented by the administration. I hope they accelerate that implementation. They must because the epidemic is so urgent, but, unfortunately, that legislation, which was written over the last 3\1/2\ years, doesn't address one specific issue that I think must be addressed now in the context of what is happening in my State of Ohio and around the country, because it is not just prescription drugs and not just heroin. Increasingly, it is this synthetic heroin called fentanyl or carfentanil and sometimes U-4. This is poison and it is getting into our communities. It is much more powerful than heroin. Ingesting just a few flakes of it can kill a human being. We have seen huge spikes in overdoses in Ohio over the last couple of months. In my hometown of Cincinnati, we had 174 overdoses in the space of 6 days. Miraculously, most people were saved by Narcan but sometimes having to be administered four or five or six times. The authorities knew it wasn't just heroin, and sure enough, we were able to get a sample of carfentanil to them thinking that might be the problem. They tested it, and sure of enough, many of these overdoses were caused by this synthetic heroin which is 100 times stronger than heroin in some cases. By the way, it is a large animal tranquilizer used for elephants in zoos. Yet these traffickers and pushers are using this drug and not just causing overdoses but causing overdose deaths. We need new legislation. Last week, we introduced legislation in this Chamber to be able to stop this fentanyl, carfentanil, U-4, and these other synthetic drugs from coming into our communities. What we were told by the authorities is, the drugs come in by way of the mail system primarily from China and sometimes India. There are chemists in sophisticated laboratories in these countries sending this poison into our community. All we are asking for in our legislation is let's ensure that packages coming from those countries have the information provided so we know where they are coming from, where they are going, and what the contents are. Unbelievably, that is not required now. FedEx, UPS, and other private carriers require it, but our mail system, including our U.S. mail system, does not require it. Talking to law enforcement, including Customs and Border Protection, DEA folks, and the people who are in the trenches dealing with this issue, all agree this legislation makes sense so we can try to stop some of this poison from coming into our communities. I have been on this floor every single week since our legislation came up back on March 10. I have been talking about the importance of getting legislation passed, and that has now happened. I have been talking about the importance of implementing it quickly, and that is now happening. The Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act was supported by an amazing 92-to-2 vote in this Chamber because every State is affected. I believe we need to do even more with regard to the specific issue of these synthetic drugs coming into our country through the mail system. I ask my colleagues to support it--with 92 of us supporting that legislation--and please look at this legislation. Let's support it, get it to the floor, get it to a vote, and let's begin saving more lives as we have to deal with this new wave of synthetic heroin coming into our communities. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Well, first, I want to thank my colleague from West Virginia for holding this colloquy today. I enjoyed listening to Senator Capito, his colleague from West Virginia, talk about it, and I know Senator Brown was here. Senator Warner, from Virginia, was out there at the rally just before me. I get to follow him again. What I said the other day when we were at the rally was that this is not a partisan issue. This is one where you have Republicans and Democrats coming together to identify a real problem: 100,000 miners having their pensions endangered and 20,000 miners potentially losing their health care at the end of this year. That is a really urgent problem for them. He did a good job today of talking about some of these issues. I loved when Senator Manchin talked about the fact that this country was built on an energy economy that included coal. I will tell you, we have mined 4 billion tons of coal in Ohio. We are still a State and a country that depends on coal for our electricity. In Ohio, it is about 58 percent of us who turn on a light when we go home and get our electricity from coal. So it is incredibly important for our economy and has built this country, in effect. It has given us in Ohio the ability, frankly, to attract a lot of industry because we have had relatively low energy prices, stable energy prices. This is about telling these miners who for years and years have been doing the hard work, playing by the rules, doing exactly what they are supposed to do that we are not going to let them down. That is all this is about. It is just not fair to pull the plug after all of those years. As was noted earlier, having talked to a lot of these miners, some of them are in poor health. Part of the reason they are in poor health is that they were in the coal mines for many years. There are higher rates of cancer, for instance, among some of these miners. There are a lot of widows because some of the spouses have moved on. This is about keeping true to our commitment and our promise. I do think that we are going to have this committee vote a week from today. I am told it was pushed back from today to a week from today because the Congressional Budget Office had not done the score yet of what this costs. OK. That is fine. But let's be darn sure that we do not leave town to go back in October without addressing this issue. That is something I am going to insist on, as will my other colleagues that I have heard from today. I got a commitment on this. I got a commitment from the leadership, from the chairman, who I know is good to his commitments. We ought to be darn sure that we do the right thing for these miners. We had a hearing on it. We had people come forward and talk about the specifics of it. I will tell you, I know some people have differences of opinion on the fiscal impact of this. As a person who is a fiscal conservative and proud of that, I will tell you the alternative to this is that these plans could potentially go insolvent and the PBGC, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is the government program that backs all these up, would then be in deep trouble because this is the second biggest multiemployer plan that could be in trouble. That could result in taxpayers having to pick up the tab in a much more significant way. The actuaries have looked at our plan. They believe this will enable us to get through this period of time where we have a tough issue with so many companies going bankrupt. The Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Manchin, and I have talked about the underlying problem here, which is that there are a lot of people who are trying to do away with coal. The so-called war on coal is leading to some of these bankruptcies of these companies and some of these pension problems. That is part of the issue, too. So the Federal Government also has played a role here. We need to recognize that as well. I am going to thank my colleagues for coming to the floor today. I want to say that we look forward to the opportunity to debate and discuss this issue in committee a week from today to get a strong vote. Let's make it a strong bipartisan vote. Let's be sure that it comes to this floor with that kind of support and goes over to the House, and we can get something done to help those people who worked hard and played by the rules and deserve now for us in the Congress to look after them. I thank my colleague. I yield back.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 8, 2016, at 2 p.m., in room SH-219 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 8, 2016, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Reviewing Independent Agency Rulemaking.''

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 8, 2016, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Pakistan: Challenges for U.S. Interests.''

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise to talk about a tax increase in the President's Affordable Care Act. I want to start, though, by commending my colleague from Florida for his remarks regarding the Zika virus and the impact it is having, not just on his State but on so many others in our country. I thank him for his diligence in trying to get to a solution. We are so close. We did pass something in the Senate. The House passed something a little different. It is time for us to figure out how to resolve these relatively small differences and provide the help that is needed. This is an emergency. It is a medical emergency. I was on the floor yesterday speaking about another emergency, which is the opioid issue and the heroin and prescription drug addiction and now fentanyl addiction issue that is facing Ohio and so many other States in this country. So these are both issues that I hope Congress will act on as part of the process of being sure the government is funded at the year's end. Again, I commend my colleague from Florida, Senator Rubio, for his good work on this. Again, Madam President, what I want to talk about is a tax increase that is actually in the Affordable Care Act. This is a tax increase that many people don't know about, but sadly it goes into effect at year's end, and it is going to affect a lot of middle-income seniors in Ohio and around the country. There are millions of seniors who are potentially vulnerable to this tax increase. Some of them don't even know about it. By the way, it comes at a time when middle-class families all around this country are feeling squeezed. It is those very middle-class families who are going to be hit hardest by this tax increase. Let's face it. Wages are flat, even declining, on average, when you take inflation into account; whereas, the cost of living has gone up, hasn't it. There are a number of factors to that. Electricity costs have gone up in my home State of Ohio by about 25 percent in the last several years, for instance. But with regard to health care costs, there is no question that everybody is experiencing an increase--families, small businesses, seniors. The President's health care law, the Affordable Care Act, of course, was advertised as helping on that. The notion was, as was explained at the time, that there would be about a $2,500-per-family decrease in the cost of health care premiums. That has not happened. In fact, costs have skyrocketed to the point that for many people it is their biggest cost increase and they simply cannot afford health care coverage. It was supposed to bend the cost curve and bring health care costs down, but it simply hasn't. The Ohio Department of Insurance just did an analysis. They say the average cost of health care insurance premiums for the individual market in Ohio has increased over the past 7 years by 90 percent--90 percent--almost a doubling. When you look at the Affordable Care Act exchanges themselves, it was just reported that we are expecting a 12-percent, on average, increase--12-percent, on average, increase--for people in the exchanges. Who can afford that? This is a double-digit increase. The result, again, is people are feeling the squeeze. Wages are flat, expenses up. There is a survey that was done by the Federal Reserve recently that said about half of all Americans say they have to borrow money or sell something to cover a $400 emergency expense--$400. If you have ever had a health emergency, you know that can catch you by surprise. It can happen to anyone. Trust me, it usually costs more than $400. Seniors are especially vulnerable to these expenses, particularly seniors who are on fixed incomes. One economist testified to the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing we had that, in part, because of those unexpected health care cost increases, more than 85 percent of Americans are at risk of having insufficient income in retirement--more than 85 percent. We think this middle-class squeeze is going to get worse, not better, in Ohio because so many companies are pulling out of the health care exchanges. So, in Ohio, 6 of the 17 companies that offer health care on the Ohio exchanges have now decided to pull out because they are losing money. Aetna is the most recent one. This means, of course, less choice. When you have less choice, what happens? Less competition. Less competition, what happens? You tend to have higher costs and lower quality. So this is going to make things even worse. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan group in Congress, and the Joint Committee on Taxation projects that health insurance premiums over the next decade will continue to grow at about 5 percent per year, on average. So that steady increase is just impossible for people to be able to afford. For seniors, the Medicare trustees project Medicare's monthly Part B premium and deductible will increase even faster than that, by about 5.5 percent per year. Again, for a lot of people in that situation, they are on a fixed income. Their income is not going up 5.5 percent per year. One way seniors have found relief from the squeeze, of course, is take advantage of what is called the medical expense tax deduction. It is very simple. It says that if your medical expenses exceed 7.5 percent of your income, then you can deduct all of those medical expenses. A lot of seniors take advantage of that. Again, what a lot of seniors may not know is that as of the end of this year, under the Affordable Care Act, it increases--that threshold increases from 7.5 percent up to 10 percent. What does that mean? It means a lot of middle-income seniors are not going to be able to deduct their medical expenses because they exceed 7.5 percent, but they don't exceed 10 percent of their income. By the way, there are about 10 million Americans who use this deduction every year. Most of them are seniors. A lot of them make less than the national average household income. In fact, most make less than that. Of course, a lot are on a fixed income. I have met with some of these people back home who are directly affected by this. One would be Susan Culbertson. She is from Zanesville, OH. I was with her in Columbus last week. Susan said she started working when she was 14 years old. She contributed to Social Security. She thought she had a decent plan for health care with Medicare and being able to take this deduction. Now, as a senior citizen, she has a chronic illness. She is losing sleep over how she is going to pay for all of her medical bills if this threshold goes up to 10 percent. Her husband Michael McVicker worked as a substance abuse counselor in a school. He is now living off of Social Security and, boy, that is hard to do, as seniors will tell you. When he had a heart attack a few years ago, the medical expense deduction helped him and his wife Susan be able to stay afloat financially. The difference between the 7.5 percent and the 10 percent may not seem like much to some people, but it matters a lot to Susan, to her husband Michael, and to many other seniors in Ohio. I met with Lanny Hawkins. He is from Ontario, OH. He volunteers to help seniors do their taxes. God bless him. That is a hard job because the Tax Code has gotten so doggone complicated that people need help from these advisers. He tries to help them walk through the Tax Code. He told me that in his experience, the medical expense deduction is especially helpful to seniors who have just lost their spouse. He says then only one income is there, and often they still have to pay their spouse's medical bills after they are deceased. So in his practice, he has found people who fall between that 7.5 and that 10 percent number who are in that situation. By the way, I was supposed to meet with somebody named Regina George--Regina is from Hamilton, OH--to talk about this very tax increase. I was looking forward to it, but she couldn't make it. Do you know why she couldn't make it? Because of the very health care problems we are talking about here. Regina just had triple bypass surgery and she has a broken hip. She has some out-of-pocket expenses. She has to depend on her son who lives with her. Her out-of-pocket health costs each month are increasing. She is very worried it is going to exceed 7.5 percent but not exceed 10 percent, and she is going to find herself in a situation where she cannot deduct these health care expenses. The Ohio AARP has done a good job of providing specific information on this to me and to other members of the Ohio delegation. That is really helpful because this is just not about numbers; this is about people. When you talk to these people and see what they are going through, I think it is something Republicans and Democrats alike should be able to come together on to solve before we leave during this session of Congress. By the way, the data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that seniors who use this deduction end to be the oldest, the least healthy, and, by the way, disproportionately women. Think about it. To have medical expenses above the threshold means you either have to have low income, high out-of-pocket medical expenses, or both. These are not folks we should be raising taxes on, especially not now when they are feeling squeezed. Even with Medicare, as I said earlier, seniors still spend a large percentage of their income on health care. The average Medicare beneficiary spent more than $6,000 a year in out-of-pocket health care expenses in the last year we have information for. The result is that some 8.3 million seniors rely on Medicaid in addition to Medicare. While this billion-dollar tax increase we are talking about today is intended to pay for part of the President's health care law, it could actually, in the long run, cause more strain on an already struggling Medicaid system. I think that is sort of the definition of pennywise and pound foolish, another reason for us to pass this legislation. Again, it is not about numbers. It is about people, some of the most vulnerable in our communities. That is why Senator Brown and I have introduced this legislation--it is called the Senior Tax Hike Prevention Act--to block this tax increase from going into effect at the end of the year and to extend the current 7.5-percent threshold so many seniors are counting on. The bill is bipartisan. It is common sense. It is a chance for this body to show it does work for the most vulnerable in our society, that we stand with middle-class families who are feeling squeezed right now, and that we stand with our seniors. I thank Senator Brown for being an indispensable partner with me in this effort. I also thank the many supporters of our legislation, like the AARP, the American Senior Housing Alliance, and the Ohio Alliance of Area Agencies on Aging. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Brown, join others, join all these organizations that represent millions of seniors, and join me in blocking this billion-dollar tax increase by supporting this commonsense legislation for the sake of those seniors who are caught in the squeeze, those seniors whom we represent. I yield back the remainder of my time. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.