Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume; and I rise in support of H.R. 5812, the CONNECTIONS Act. I was pleased to work with Representative Griffith on this bipartisan legislation. This bill authorizes funding to enhance and improve State prescription drug monitoring programs, among other prevention efforts. This legislation codifies CDC's Prevention for States program, which includes funding to improve State prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs. As part of that program, the CDC will implement the activities described in the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting, or NASPER Act, which I was pleased to see receive funding this year. As the original Democratic sponsor of NASPER, I have been a longtime champion of PDMPs as public health tools that can prevent and respond to opioid abuse. The role of PDMPs in the current opioid epidemic has proven why our longtime interests and push for investments in this space is so critical. As the technology has matured, we have moved from working toward the goal of ensuring the interstate sharing of PDMP data, to now aiming to make PDMPs more interconnected real-time, and usable for public health surveillance and clinical decisionmaking. Continuing to strengthen PDMPs will improve our ability to prevent addiction from occurring in the first place and help identify individuals who could benefit from treatment for opioid use disorder.…”