Political Quotes

“I wish to start by commending the majority leader who just came to the floor and offered a motion to go to conference on CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation because it will allow the U.S. Congress to be a better partner in fighting against this heroin and prescription drug epidemic that is seizing our communities. This is a big step today because it says we are going to send a few Senators over to work with the House to come up with a consensus bill between CARA, which passed in this body on March 10, by the way, by a 94-to-1 vote. That never happens around here, and it happened because after 2\1/2\ weeks of debate on the floor, everybody realized this is an issue that had to be addressed and that the legislation we came up with was the sensible and responsible way to do it. It was legislation we developed over a 3-year period. Senator Whitehouse and I were the leads on it. We had five conferences here in Washington, bringing experts in from around the country.…”