Political Quotes

“I listened very carefully to my colleague from Alabama, and I don't believe my colleague used the word ``fentanyl,'' and that is what we are concerned about in the Pacific Northwest. We are concerned that fentanyl has hit our country and our region like a wrecking ball. So maybe when this all gets sorted out, he will support my bill to crack down on fentanyl everywhere through reforms of this de minimis issue. And I would just say, for purposes of our discussion now, I understand--and we all await the announcement, I gather, sometime late this afternoon--the Trump administration only is going to address de minimis shipments from China and nowhere else. We have to make this comprehensive. My colleague serving as the Presiding Officer knows what it is like in the West with fentanyl hitting us so hard. If you just do it with China, Chinese companies are going to circumvent the rules and transship through other countries. That is why I felt so strongly about a comprehensive solution to get at this fentanyl, this poison, that has hit us so hard, because if you just go to one country, what you are going to have is something called merchandise laundering. We saw it when we did an investigation in the committee. A Chinese company ships its product through an intermediary in Vietnam or another third country.…”