Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on another matter, last night we voted on a very important piece of legislation called the Opioid Crisis Response Act, which came to us from the HELP Committee; that is, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Thanks to Chairman Alexander, the chairman of the HELP Committee, and as a result of his hard work and the contributions of 70 Senators and 5 standing committees, we were able to come up with a package that had overwhelming support. I believe it was 99 to 1, if I am not mistaken. The House has already passed its version of this legislation, so it was important that we do the same and get the bill to the President soon. I am happy to report that we have now done that. Included in this Opioid Crisis Response Act was something called the STOP Act, which is a bipartisan piece of legislation that imposes new requirements on the U.S. Postal Service and Customs and Border Protection. It will close loopholes that are currently being exploited by drug traffickers to evade detection when shipping synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, because so few of those postal packages are actually inspected to find out whether they include drugs like fentanyl. The package we voted on also includes a bill I sponsored with the senior Senator from California called the Substance Abuse Prevention Act, believing that we need to do something, not only about the supply side of the problem but the demand side as well.…”