Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate 20180130 : vi

CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate January 30, 2018

Vote the presiding officer is there anyone in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . If not, the yeas are 56, the nays are 42. The nomination of David Ryan Stras is confirmed. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senates actions. Mr. Boozman mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from arkansas. Mr. Boozman i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. The presiding officer without objection. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from arkansas. Mr. Boozman thank you, mr. President. Tonight in the state of the Union Address, President Trump will discuss the importance of Infrastructure Investment. This is an important conversation for the administration to lead because our nations infrastructure is in need of an overhaul. Having the support of the Administration Provides us tremendous opportunity to revamp the way we prioritize and fund our nations infrastructure. As a member of the Senate Environment and public works committee, i understand the importance of Infrastructure Investment. Since i came to congress, i have been a constant advocate for increased investment, particularly for our nations water resources. Last congress i supported the passage of the Water Infrastructure improvement for the nation act as well as the comprehensive highway bill, the fixing americas surface transportation act. Passing these pieces of legislation was a major step forward but only a step in the process. Theres still more to be done, and im looking forward to the opportunity to make Critical Infrastructure investments this congress. Like many americans, im encouraged by the president s commitment to improving our nations crumbling infrastructure. Looking at the example set by president device Eisenhower Dwight eisenhower and the establishment of the interstate highway system, it is clear that the Infrastructure Investment boosts our economy, creates immediate jobs, and produces decades of economic prosperity. And opportunity. Unfortunately, since president eisenhower signed the federal highway act of 1956 we have relied on the fix as fail apostcloture to our nations infrastructure. Not only is this causing more expensive, increasingly causing delays to commerce, but it is also posing a risk to Public Safety. By ensuring that our roads, bridges, and Water Systems meet an American Standard for excellence, we can save many lives. In Water Infrastructure spending alone, the United States faces an over 500 billion shortfall which includes Drinking Water, waste water, storm water, and water supply projects. This funding shortage is reflected in the American Society of Civil Engineers overall grade for americas infrastructure, which is a d . This is not a rural issue or a bigcity issue. Its not a red state problem other a blue state problem for a blue state problem. This is a national emergency. One where we can find bipartisan support. We can and must Work Together to provide all americans safe and reliable Drinking Water and effective waste water and storm water treatment. Access to safe and clean water is critical to the livelihood of every american. Very soon senator booker and i will be introducing commonsense legislation that will revolutionize the way we invest in needed Water Infrastructure. The security required funding for Water Infrastructure now or srf win act, takes the best of the s. R. F. s and combined it with the best of the Water Infrastructure finance and innovation act, better known as wifia. The s. R. F. Act creates a significant pot of money within the wifia program that is available over to s. R. F. s. Further, the bill allows state s. R. F. s to bundle their priority Drinking Water and waste water projects together and make a single loan request. This dramatically increases the availability of s. R. F. Funding to communities across the nation while substantially reducing the time and related cost for completing projects. Because all 50 state s. R. F. s have a triplea bond rating, they have a very low risk of default. Less than one half of one percent. This combined with the leveraging power of wifia has given the s. R. F. Win act the leveraging capacity of an incredible 1001. This is according to the Technical Assistance provided by the e. P. A. s office of water. Simply put, the s. R. F. Win act is a critical component to future Water Infrastructure financing. With a 1 billion investment, the United States government will create over 50 billion in project money. This is not a handout. This is a loan from the federal government to the states that will be paid back over 35 years. The s. R. F. Win act gives communities the tools they need to help themselves. Instead of waiting decades for funding, communities will be available to invest in their crumbling Water Infrastructure now. With 35 years to pay back their loan, ratepayers will avoid harm and not see massive rate spikes. What the s. R. F. Win act does is simple. It combines the efficiency and trust associated with the s. R. F. With the leveraging power of wifia. This legislation makes the process easier and more affordable for states and communities to access federal Water Infrastructure funding. I encourage my colleagues who support the s. R. F. , wifia, and more funding for Water Infrastructure projects in Rural Communities and big cities alike to cosponsor the s. R. F. Win act. This has been a monumental effort of bipartisan work. Senator booker and i have been working for months to meet with everyone in the water industry to ensure our bill helps people all over our country in communities both big and small. This bill is the result of months of negotiations, taking the best ideas available to ensure this commonsense, Bipartisan Legislation will work effectively and efficiently, providing billions in project dollars to communities who have traditionally not had access to these types of funds. I would like to specifically thank the e. P. A. Office of water, counsel of infrastructure financing authorities, American Water with association, water environment federation, and the association of metropolitan water agencies for providing us Technical Assistance to ensure we preserve the wifia and s. R. F. Programs. The fact of the matter is, communities need every funding tool possible at their disposal. And this bill is another great tool that will work with the wifia and s. R. F. Program. The s. R. F. Win act has strong support from rural and municipal water and waste water organizations. This landmark legislation also has the support of our nations leading construction, engineering, labor, and manufacturing organizations, including the National Rural water association, the council of infrastructure financing authorities, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the associated general contractors of america, the American Council of engineering companies, the National Association of clean water agencies, ducks unlimited, the American Public works association, the Rural Community assistance partnership, the Water Systems council, the International Union of operating engineers, the vinyl institute, the hydraulic institute, the California Association of sanitation agencies. Congress needs to do a better job providing basic Public Services such as safe roads, bridges, and an uptodate Water Infrastructure system. This is the time to act and make Water Infrastructure investment a priority. With innovative financing and privatesector investment, not only will we be providing americans with basic Water Infrastructure but we will also be creating jobs, keeping commodity and utility prices low and remaining competitive on the global stage. We can no longer kick the can down the road and ignore our infrastructure problems. It is time for the United States to be realistic about its water problems and start investing in Water Infrastructure today. I ask my colleagues to join senator booker and myself in supporting significant new investment in our nations Water Infrastructure and to cosponsor the s. R. F. Win act today. With that, mr. President , i yield the floor. Mr. President , i suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call the presiding officer the senator from ohio. Mr. Portman mr. President , today i want to talk about the Opioid Epidemic the presiding officer the senate is in a quorum call. Mr. Portman i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Portman today i want to talk about the Opioid Epidemic that has gripped our country and my state of ohio and talk a little bit about a report we issued last week with regard to synthetic opioids coming in through the United States mail system. This tragedy has hit ohio hard. We are not alone, though. Opioids affect every american regardless of age, area code, class, or color. Every state represented here in this body has experienced this. Broken families, communities devastated, higher crime rates, friends lost, and of course lives taken through opioid overdoses. The centers for Disease Control recently reported that more than 63,000 63,600 americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses. Thats the last year for which they have statistics but we all believe it was worse in 2017. But with 63,600 americans dying of overdoses, that means on average more than 174 americans died every single day. Thats up from approximately 143 americans who died on average every day from drug overdoses a year earlier in 2015 and 105 americans who died every day in 2010. The problem is getting worse, not better. Drug overdoses in fact are now the number one cause of death, not just accidental death but the number one cause of death in america for americans under the age of 50. The reason for this increase in Overdose Deaths is the spread of heroin, Prescription Drugs, and now the synthetic opioids, fentanyl and carfentanil. Opioids were involved in more than 42,000, about twothirds of all the Overdose Deaths in 2016 and opioid Overdose Deaths were five times higher in 2016 than they were just a few years ago. This is a national epidemic, and its unfolded in three different waves. The first wave was the Prescription Drug epidemic, pain pills. 15, 20 years that started to increase dramatically. Next heroin deaths spiked. Heroin being turned to as a less expensive and a more accessible way for people who were addicted from pain pills to continue to receive from, in this case, heroin mostly coming from mexico, the high. Now synthetic forms of heroin are overtaking the illegal opioid market. And the results have been even more deadly. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin has become the new scourge of the epidemic. Fentanyl is so deadly that two milligrams of it, as little as a few flakes of it can be lethal. Its cheap, easily accessible, and can be added to make any number of Illegal Drugs more potent. Cocaine, heroin, pills. In ohio fentanyl in its variations like carfentanil were responsible for nearly 60 of our states more than 4,000 Overdose Deaths in 2016, the most recent year we have statistics for. Thats 60 . Its a huge increase from just the Previous Year 2015 when fentanyl was responsible for about 37 of the deaths. So weve had more deaths from overdoses and a lot more deaths linked to fentanyl. Sadly again, this situation is getting worse, not better. Just last week in ottawa county, ohio outside of tol, we had five of toledo, we had five overdoses in one single day. We had three people die of overdoses in one week. The suspect the cause of course fentanyl. Earlier this month in akron, a 57yearold man, a board member of the Akron Public School system was found unconscience in his car from a drug overdose. First responders were thankfully able to revive the man with narcam. Again, fentanyl caused the overdose. A 12yearold columbus boy encountered fentanyl while he was over at his cousins for a sleepover. He was rushed to the hospital but died days later from a lack of oxygen to his brain. As a result of fentanyl. These synthetic drugs have invaded communities across ohio and across the country. Unbelievably this deadly poison is primarily shipped into america from china through our United States Postal Service. The permanent subcommittee on investigations which i chair along with Ranking Member senator tom carper recently held a hearing on this issue. It came on the heels of our yearlong bipartisan investigation that resulted in a 100page investigative report that examined how these drug traffickers in china exploit vulnerabilities in our International Mail system to ship these deadly synthetic drugs into our communities. I encourage people to look at that report on the p. S. I. , permanent subcommittee investigations website. The result, of the report were shocking. We found that it was incredibly easy to buy fentanyl online. By simply searching fentanyl for sale on google, our staff identified hundreds of website, many affiliated with chinese labs all openly advertising this deadly drug. Online sellers were quickly to respond, unafraid to be caught and ready to make a deal. They offered discounts for bulk purchases and tried to upsell us to carfentanil. Fentanyls more deadly cousin. This is an email from chinese traffickers offering, quote, a hot sale. A hot sale for one fentanyl analogue before it is discontinued. Their preferred shipping method is the United States Postal Service because as they told us, the chances of the drugs being seized were so insignificant that delivery was essentially guaranteed. This chart shows a carfentanil advertisement and the online traffickers suggested usps as their preferred shipping method. Usps as their preferred shipping method. Why . Because usps is the way in which the delivery is virtually guaranteed. D. H. L. , u. P. S. , fedex, t. N. T. Are quicker but not safe, will be detained frequently. Instead we suggest usps only. Wow. Its inexcusable that these drugs are as easy to ship as a postcard and that the traffickers preferred shipping method for these deadly poisons is a federal agency, the United States Postal Service. Our post office has become a conduit for these deadly drugs. By the way, this is incredibly dangerous for the postal employees, the letter carriers, those who have to handle these packages. I should note that our team never purchased any of these drugs online but we did use the Online Sellers Payment Information to determine if others were buying. And, of course, we found out that they were. We narrowed our search to just six websites, six websites and from those six sites we identified more than 500 payments to those six Online Sellers by more than 300 americans in 43 states just in the last couple of years. This map shows where the fentanyl went. As you can see, just from those six websites and those couple hundred, few hundred people, it went all over the country. The largest concentration of buyers were in my home state of ohio where you see the red. Also pennsylvania and florida. But as i mentioned again, it went to all 43 states. We were able to track hundreds of packages related to the online purchases. By analyzing more than two million lines of shipment data obtai

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