Greg Walden

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5811) to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to postapproval study requirements for certain controlled substances, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Representative Ruiz, Representative Clark, and Representative Mullin; they all worked together to make this bipartisan bill a success. This bill would authorize a 4-year demonstration project to test new ways to treat opioid use disorder among the Medicare population. In addition, this bill will help secure the prescribing of controlled substances in Medicare by requiring the use of e-prescribing. Pretty important work. We have heard from providers that have not only cut down on the abuse of fraudulent prescriptions by switching to e-prescribing but also have saved time for themselves and their nurses, all while saving millions of dollars in the process. So these are really important, substantive steps forward, another piece of the puzzle in addressing the opioid crisis. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC, June 7, 2018. Hon. Kevin Brady, Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Brady: On May 9 and 17, 2018, the Committee on Energy and Commerce ordered favorably reported over 50 bills to address the opioid epidemic facing communities across our nation. Several of the bills were also referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. I ask that the Committee on Ways and Means not insist on its referral of the following bills so that they may be scheduled for consideration by the Majority Leader: H.R. 1925, At-Risk Youth Medicaid Protection Act of 2017; H.R. 3331, To amend title XI of the Social Security Act to promote testing of incentive payments for behavioral health providers for adoption and use of certified electronic health record technology; H.R. 3528, Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act; H.R. 4841, Standardizing Electronic Prior Authorization for Safe Prescribing Act of 2018; H.R. 5582, Abuse Deterrent Access Act of 2018; H.R. 5590, Opioid Addiction Action Plan Act; H.R. 5603, Access to Telehealth Services for Opioid Use Disorder; H.R. 5605, Advancing High Quality Treatment for Opioid Use Disorders in Medicare Act; H.R. 5675, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require prescription drug plan sponsors under the Medicare program to establish drug management programs for at-risk beneficiaries; H.R. 5684, Protecting Seniors from Opioid Abuse Act; H.R. 5685, Medicare Opioid Safety Education Act; H.R. 5686, Medicare Clear Health Options in Care for Enrollees (CHOICE) Act; H.R. 5715, Strengthening Partnerships to Prevent Opioid Abuse Act; H.R. 5716, Commit to Opioid Medical Prescriber Accountability and Safety for Seniors (COMPASS) Act; H.R. 5796, Responsible Education Achieves Care and Healthy Outcomes for Users' Treatment (REACH OUT) Act of 2018; H.R. 5798, Opioid Screening and Chronic Pain Management Alternatives for Seniors Act; H.R. 5804, Post-Surgical Injections as an Opioid Alternative Act; and H.R. 5809, Postoperative Opioid Prevention Act of 2018. This concession in no way affects your jurisdiction over the subject matter of these bills, and it will not serve as precedent for future referrals. In addition, should a conference on the bills be necessary, I would support your request to have the Committee on Ways and Means on the conference committee. Finally, I would be pleased to include this letter and your response in the bill reports and the Congressional Record. Thank you for your consideration of my request and for the extraordinary cooperation shown by you and your staff over matters of shared jurisdiction. I look forward to further opportunities to work with you this Congress. Sincerely, Greg Walden, Chairman.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record on the bill.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5605) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for an opioid use disorder treatment demonstration program, as amended.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their bipartisan support of this legislation. We also were just notified not long ago about the appropriations flag, and we are working out those matters at a higher pay level. So, we appreciate and understand. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, this is a thoroughly thought-out bill. I encourage my colleagues to support it to help stop the spread of deadly synthetic opioid analogues. Let us remember why we are here. It is children like Amanda and the parents who survive them, the parents who got the worst call any parent could ever get, and that is notifying them of the death of their child. We are going to stop this from happening in America with the package of bills we have going through the House and the Senate. Mr. Katko's work on this is extraordinary as is the other members of the committee. Mr. Chairman, I call for Members to support this legislation.

Mr. WALDEN. This illegal fentanyl that comes into our country from foreign countries, generally through our mail facilities, has been one of the deadliest waves of the opioid crisis to hit our Nation. Representative Katko's bill will modernize the Controlled Substances Act to create a new schedule of drugs that specifically concentrates on the rapidly changing synthetic analogues of opioids such as fentanyl. In doing this, we must make sure to keep particular attention on not compromising important public health protections. A thoughtful amendment was offered by our committee member in the Energy and Commerce Committee, Morgan Griffith of Virginia, which ensures that research and innovation will not be impeded by SITSA. Among other issues, if an applicant is registered to conduct research with a schedule I or II substance, they can continue to do that research that they may be pursuing with a schedule A substance while their application is being processed. The bill we will vote on today is the result of bipartisan feedback from two House committees as well as the collaboration of multiple agencies within the Trump administration.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate all those who have put so much work into this, especially Mr. Katko of New York who has been relentless in his battle to stop illegal fentanyls from coming in and killing. I rise today in support of H.R. 2851, the Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues, also known as the SITSA Act of 2017. Now, this legislation will give law enforcement officials additional tools to get and keep synthetic drugs such as fentanyl off our streets in America. On February 28, during our first of four legislative hearings on the opioid crisis, we focused on finding ways to protect our communities and the people who live in them and equip law enforcement with the necessary tools to fight this deadly opioid epidemic that kills more people than traffic accidents in America. During that hearing, the chief of police from Syracuse, New York, Frank Fowler, talked about how synthetic drugs tore apart his community. His call for this legislation rings as true now as it did then. After that hearing, we held a roundtable to hear from families who had been directly impacted by this deadly crisis. Seated across that table from me was Michael Gray. He bravely shared his family's story, hoping that their loss would help spur Congress to modernize Federal laws. He gave me a picture of his daughter, Amanda, and he gave me a new one yesterday when I met with him and Amanda's brother. This is Amanda Gray. She suffered from some mental illness and self- medicated with something you and I would know as heroin. She wasn't a regular user. She was an intermittent user. The person who sold her heroin knew that. Just this past January, Amanda bought some heroin. What she didn't know was that it was not heroin. It has now been determined not only was it--normally they cut fentanyl into heroin. This had no heroin. It was all fentanyl. Let me explain why that is so deadly. It is so potent that if you took a saltshaker and sprinkled three or four or five or half a dozen grains of salt on this podium and touched them, you would likely have that fentanyl go through your skin, and you would fall on the floor here in this Chamber. Unless one of our folks here in the Chamber or one of the medics nearby had Narcan, naloxone, to resuscitate you, you would die. Tragically, that is what happened to Amanda. She took what she thought was heroin, and she died from 100 percent fentanyl. That same night, her father recalls news reports saying additional people in their city died. It is a fatal but common trend with illicit fentanyl.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee on both sides of the aisle, thanks for your great work on this bill. My colleague, Congresswoman Blackburn from Tennessee, this is an issue she has worked on for a long time--we will just say a long time--with great passion and great diligence. We had the subcommittee chair of the Health Subcommittee, Dr. Burgess, go up to the facility in New Jersey recently and observe firsthand what happens, what transpires there. My colleague, Mr. Green, and others have talked about the number of packages that go through the facility versus the number that are actually inspected. Then, I know we have all had pretty good conversations with Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the now-Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and he has done marvelous work with the limited tools that he has to really ramp up their ability to try to stop these shipments of illegal fentanyl. For those here in the Chamber, you have to understand illegal fentanyl. If you took a salt shaker and put, I don't know, half a dozen grains of salt on this podium and put your finger on it, it would likely go through your skin and you would pass out and die, unless my colleague from Texas or Tennessee here, or the House Physician, had some naloxone they could come and revive you. It is that potent; it is that dangerous; it is that deadly; and that is what is getting cut into heroin. By the way, you can always trust your local heroin dealer to get the right mixture. They are good chemists, I am sure. No, not. But that is what is getting cut in. That is what we are trying to stop with this legislation, this illegal fentanyl coming in through the mail system from foreign countries, mainly China, stop it from getting into our country. That is why I want to commend Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Green, and others, everybody who was involved in this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I also take the floor because, over the course of this week and next week, we will deal with more than 57 different opioid- related bills. We have heard from Republicans and Democrats. This is an epidemic that doesn't check your party registration before it sickens or kills or addicts somebody in your family or your community. Throughout all this, we have had terrific support, not only from our Members, but also from our staff and on both sides of the aisle. There is somebody I want to single out today on our side of the aisle who, unfortunately, has decided to pursue other endeavors. Paul Edattel has served as the chief counsel for our Health Subcommittee since 2016 under then-Chairman Fred Upton. Prior to that, he served our Health Subcommittee on an abundance of healthcare issues, as well as being hired to be Speaker Boehner's top health policy staffer. But timing has a funny way of getting in the way of things, and following Speaker Boehner's decision to leave the Congress, we were able to persuade Paul Edattel to come back to the Energy and Commerce Committee. In fact, when I became chairman of the committee, I remember meeting in Speaker Ryan's office when we were just getting started, and I was choosing the final staff and Speaker Ryan looked at me and said: I don't care who else you keep or don't keep, but that guy over there is the brightest guy around on health policy. I said: I agree, and we have already reached our agreement that he would continue on. His service has been our gain and that of the country's. Paul has helped lead our push on the floor on these issues with his very talented team; and just as my colleagues and I have made this our top issue, so has Paul. At the same time, he has ensured other critical healthcare policy priorities continue to move through our processes. Paul is one of the best. He is also a machine. He has been guiding this committee on the Nation's top healthcare issues for many years, including our comprehensive review of America's mental health laws that we passed in, I think, a big bipartisan vote last Congress, helped engineer through the 21st Century Cures Act, our opioids act, and so many other pieces of legislation. Paul is also a wonderful family man, a great individual with tremendous integrity and insight, and we will miss his friendly smile and unmatched understanding of how this place works. We will even miss his unwavering support for the Buffalo Bills, if you are a Buffalo Bills fan. If you are not, you will be glad to see him go, probably. It has been an honor to work with Paul and call him a trusted adviser and, moreover, a friend. So, Paul, as you begin your new chapter in your new career, I join with all of our Energy and Commerce Committee members and staff, I think, on both sides of the aisle in wishing you the very best and thanking you for your service, Paul Edattel.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5102) to amend the Public Health Service Act to authorize a loan repayment program for substance use disorder treatment employees, and for other purposes.

Mr. WALDEN. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on the bill.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 5102. This is the Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act. It is legislation that would create a loan repayment program for substance use disorder treatment providers. Serious workforce shortages exist for all health professions across the United States. We know that. But a delay in addiction treatment for a patient with substance use disorder can be a life-or-death situation. By offering student loan repayment for those who agree to work as a substance use disorder treatment professional in an underserved area, this bill encourages more people to enter the substance use disorder treatment field and get critical services to areas that are seriously in dire need of treatment. I would like to thank my colleagues, Representatives Katherine Clark, Hal Rogers, John Sarbanes, and Brett Guthrie, for leading this important initiative. It is brought to you from your Energy and Commerce Committee with a unanimous vote. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 5272. This is a bill that helps ensure that federally funded programs and activities that prevent or treat health or substance use disorder are evidence-based. What a concept. H.R. 5272 will enhance the work of the National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory by directing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, to provide guidance for entities applying for grants, including guidance on how best to explain the rationale for a given program or activity. By encouraging the funding of evidence-based interventions and the replication of promising or effective practices, we believe we can help ensure that local organizations, health departments, nonprofits, and substance use disorder treatment providers have the tools and evidence necessary to implement solutions that work. I would like to thank Representatives Steve Stivers and Eliot Engel for leading this important and, again, bipartisan initiative. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers), who has been a real advocate on these and other issues dealing with this opioid epidemic.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on this bill.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5272) to ensure that programs and activities that are funded by a grant, cooperative agreement, loan, or loan guarantee from the Department of Health and Human Services, and whose purpose is to prevent or treat a mental health or substance use disorder, are evidence-based, as amended.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers on this matter. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, one of the best ways we can fight the opioid crisis is by decreasing diversion of prescription drugs. This bill does just that, giving hospice employees new tools to dispose of unused medications on-site after a patient's death. During the committee process, several thoughtful amendments were offered to perfect this language. For example, one clarified that the training will be conducted by the hospice program, not the Federal Government. Another added a recordkeeping standard for hospice programs to maintain information within patients' clinical charts of the controlled substance dosage, number of pills, and the way it is disposed of. And finally, a technical amendment incorporated comments from the DEA. Of note, there is one final technical correction incorporated into the suspension document, which clarifies that hospice employees may handle these unused controlled substances. This specification, obviously, improves the bill. In closing, Michigan Representative Tim Walberg and Representative Debbie Dingell should be commended for, once again, their bipartisan and thoughtful work on this legislation. They worked tirelessly to forge an inclusive process, incorporating input from people in Michigan, hospice groups across the country, the agencies who will oversee this program, and others. Even more, their staff showed real initiative and reason as we put this together. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg), my colleague, to discuss this legislation.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record on the bill.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers on this matter, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5041) to amend the Controlled Substances Act to authorize the employees of a hospice program to handle controlled substances in the residence of a deceased hospice patient to assist in disposal, as amended.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5197) to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a demonstration program to test alternative pain management protocols to limit the use of opioids in emergency departments, as amended.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials in the Record on the bill.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 5009. This is known as Jessie's Law, and it is written in memory of Michigan resident Jessie Grubb, who tragically died of an opioid overdose in 2016. This legislation will help ensure medical professionals have access to a consenting patient's complete health information when making treatment decisions. This is critical to ensure that mistakes, such as the one that tragically happened to Jessie Grubb, never ever, ever happen again. This bill also incorporates the language of H.R. 5695, known as Emmett's Law, which would require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop best practices for healthcare providers on permitted disclosures of medical records during emergencies with families, caregivers, and other healthcare providers. I thank my colleagues from Michigan, Representatives Tim Walberg and Debbie Dingell, for leading this important initiative, along with the collaboration and support of Representatives Evan Jenkins, Carol Shea- Porter, Tom MacArthur, Vicky Hartzler, Bob Latta, and David McKinley. They have all put a lot of time and effort into this to solve a problem many of us have encountered in our States and our districts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg), an author of this incredibly important piece of legislation.