Michael Burgess: “I thank the gentleman for his participation. As the gentleman was talking about, the fact that in his State and the…”

“I thank the gentleman for his participation. As the gentleman was talking about, the fact that in his State and the surrounding States it is possible that, if there is not collaboration between State prescription monitoring programs, a doctor or a pharmacist would never know what other prescriptions might have been written for a patient. Our committee actually has a history of working on this. Charlie Norwood, a Member of Congress from Georgia, 15 years ago came up with the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, or NASPER. We have authorized NASPER several times. I am happy to say that, this year, in the omnibus bill, there actually was funding, for the first time, provided for the NASPER program. It is just a beginning. Clearly, the need for this national reporting program is so critical. In a State like Texas, we are huge, where we don't even think about other States in Texas. But the crossing of State lines with this information can be extremely powerful and, in fact, it can be lifesaving. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for bringing that up, and I thank him for the work that he is doing on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and I thank him for the work he is doing on the prevention of pill dumping. Mr. Speaker, the fact that the opioid crisis is devastating our country and undermining our social structures and eroding our economic productivity is, every day, more and more tragic. But the good news, Mr.…”