This hearing runs about two hours. This hearing will now come to order. Good morning everyone. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Administrator milgram, we want to welcome you to the subcommittee today to testify regarding the Drug Enforcement administrations fiscal year 2025 budget request. On the personal note, i want to thank you for your attendance earlier this year at the annual Prescription Drug summit in atlanta. Your passion for the efforts to combat the drug epidemic is commendable, and your presence at the summit was greatly appreciated and understood. Before we delve into the specifics of the budget request, i want to address a broader theme that has emerged in our examination of the deas operations. While the mission of the dea remains crucial, and the commitment of administrator milgram appears sincere, it is evident that the support the agency receives from both the department of justice and this administration in general, is lacking. Recent remarks by the attorney general and the fbi director regarding our Law Enforcement relationship with key partners have raised concerns. Three weeks ago, when discussing Law Enforcement cooperation with mexico, the fbi director testified, quote, i am pleased with what we have gotten, but we need a lot more. Title of fbi director. When the dea encounters obstacles such as difficulties in securing visas in a timely manner for agents who operate in mexico, there are outstanding warrants that the Mexican Government fails to act upon. It suggests that the state of our relationship with mexico may be far from ideal. Additionally, it is troubling that the dea administrator, despite her efforts, has not been able to secure a single meeting with a Mexican Government official since assuming her position. This lack of engagement, the nonsensical bureaucratic delays in approving these ads blatantly ignoring extradition requests for cartel members, should be far from pleasing for anyone who cares about our efforts to combat the cartels. Furthermore, despite this administrations announcement in november of 2023 that it has secured Chinese Corporation to take steps to cartel to curtail the transit of fentanyl precursor chemicals, it seems to be lacking. More work remains to be done. In fiscal year 24, our subcommittee was faced with a challenging allocation which required significant cuts to many critical agencies budgets. Despite this, the dea was the only Law Enforcement agency to receive an increase in funding. The only one. I believe it speaks to our commitment to the mission of the dea and our hopes for your success. Notably, the largest increase in the deas fiscal year 25 budget request is for the expansion of the deas counter threat targeting teams. While this expansion is commendable, we must ensure that these investments yield measurable results. And that includes bi and from the department of justice. The attorney generals testimony before the subcommittee two weeks ago highlighted a concerning sentiment regarding the deas role in combating the fentanyl crisis. When describing the whole of government approach this administration is taking to combat fentanyl, the attorney general noted treasurys role in sanctions, homelands role in border security, the fbis role in investigating cartels the marshals role in securing fugitives. And then said, quote, the dea has at the very end of the line, a Public Affairs campaign. The perception that the deas role is limited to an Education Campaign undermined the agencys vital enforcement efforts. Nevertheless and continue to believe in the mission of the dea and recognize its importance in the war on drugs. Administrator milgram, we look forward to hearing from you today about the deas plans for fiscal year 25 and how the agency intends to address the challenges discussed here. I am especially interested in hearing your frank and honest assessment of our Law Enforcement relationship with mexico. Your agencys assessment of progress in stopping chinese precursor chemicals and whether the dea is truly receiving the support that it needs from this administration. Thank you for being here. I yield back the balance of my time. Let me recognize mr. Cartwright for any remarks he may care to make. Thank you, chairman rogers. I join in welcoming back administrator milgram for her second appearance before this subcommittee. While we discussed the fiscal year 25 president s budget request. First i would like to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic loss of our brothers and sisters of the department of justice last week, when deputy u. S. Marshal thomas weeks and three members of the Marshals Fugitive Task force lost their lives. It is a stark reminder of the risks and threats or federal law and for and their partners face every day and the ultimate sacrifice too many have had to make in the name of keeping our nation safe. I would also like to convey my deepest sympathies to their families, friends and colleagues. Administrator milgram, last year, we focused on how the types of drugs on our streets have dramatically shifted from plantbased narcotics such as cocaine and heroin, to those made in laboratories that require no growing season. The accessibility and affordability of these synthetic drugs leads dea and its federal, state and local partners in a continuous defensive posture to keep dangerous narcotics out of our communities and to combat the Drug Trafficking networks who are trying to put them there. It is estimated by the cdc that in the last year we have lost 112,000 souls to fentanyl overdoses and poisonings. Dea is in many ways the last line of defense we have to save american lives against this epidemic. So i look forward to discussing with you today what dea has done over the last year to identify and dismantle the entire network and what investments and other tools are most important to you in your fiscal year 2025 budget to continue this important work. I also look forward to hearing how the work youre doing on the International Stage further enhances your ability to prevent these dangerous drugs from ever entering our country. We have already heard from both fbi director wray and attorney general Merrick Garland this year about the Mexican Government, and the chairman touched on this, how the Mexican Government can be doing more to help us in this fight. We know that precursor chemicals are largely imported into mexico from the peoples republic of china. We know the mexican cartels are using their decadesold business models, rapidly to produce fentanyl and distribute it. We know they are exploiting their existing Drug Trafficking routes to smuggle millions of dollars work of fentanyl pills into our country. We need mexico to be a partner in this fight. So i look forward to discussing that more with you here today. I want to say ultimately, all of deas work relies heavily on congress to provide the resources needed to address the existing and emerging challenges and combating Drug Trafficking operations. And continued investment in dea sends a clear signal to our adversaries on the global stage that we will not allow this attack on our communities to continue. Without consequence. And that those responsible will be held accountable by our justice system. Administrator milgram, i want to upload the work of the men and women of the dea and i look forward to working with you and how we can best invest in this agency in fy 1220 five once again, thanks for being here, welcome back. I look forward to your testimony. Administrator milgram, you are recognized for an opening statement. Your statement will be entered into the record. Thank you. Administrator milgram thank you. Good morning chairman and members of the committee. I want to thank the subcommittee for inviting me to testify today on a National Fentanyl awareness day. It is appropriate that on National Fentanyl awareness day that im given the opportunity to highlight for you the National Tragedy that is being caused by fentanyl. According to this the cdc, in 2022, thousands of americans lost their lives. 42 of americans in the United States now know someone who has died. This tragedy has not. Cities, suburbs, Rural Communities or tribal lands. Fentanyl is killing all americans. Our communities today are being flooded with fentanyl hidden in other drugs or pressed into fake pills by two mexican cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and the jalisco cartels. During the past year, dea has ceased fentanyl seized fentanyl throughout the United States at unprecedented levels. Last year received nearly 79 million fake pills laced with fentanyl and nearly 12,000 pounds of fat milk powder. Together this is more than 380 million potentially deadly doses of the nearly 10,000 employees working at the dea, there is no greater urgency than to defeat the cartels in order to save american lives. The 3. 8 million increase you have provided this fiscal year is invaluable support for our mission. Thank you. We know that you are under financial constraints and we are grateful. This will help combat the epidemic and help save lives. Building on our many successes over the past year requires continued support and resources from congress. With your support we have continued to transform the dea to meet this unprecedented moment. Our counter threat teams, which we set up in 2022 and 2023 are active against every single part of the signal and jalisco cartels and their criminal networks. These teams include special agents, intelligence analysts, target arts, program analysts, Data Scientist and digital or cyber specialists. We also have partners from across the u. S. Government of that have joined our team. They are providing the dea with an operating future of each cartel that enables us to the everevolving threat. We added a third team in 2023 to focus on the elaborate illicit finance of the cartels. This team is providing the dea with a detailed financial picture of the cartels, including their global moneylaundering operations. I am sure we will talk more about this today, but we are tracking billions of dollars being moved by cartels across the globe. The work of this team has allowed us to open a significant number of new Money Laundering investigations targeting these cartels. 2023, dea action against every single part of the global retinal supply chain run by the fat no run by the cartels. In april we had just filed charges against suppliers, chemical brokers, Laboratory Managers and weapons traffickers, assessment and smugglers in a network of the Sinaloa Cartel that are responsible for bringing fentanyl to the u. S. In may of last year we arrested 3377 people across the United States for working in partnership with the two cartels to sell deadly fat no in our communities and a social media. Those investigations showed us that half of all cases were directly linked to the sale of fentanyl on social media. In june and october last year as part of our investigations into chinese chemical companies, dea charged 12 chinese chemical companies, 24 chinese nationals, and took two chinese nationals into custody. These were the first ever charges to be brought against Chinese Companies for fentanyl trafficking and they demonstrate that precursor chemicals are being sold, they are cheap, they are being sold online on websites. They are shipped through common carriers and payment for those chemicals are being made to group cryptocurrency, bitcoin, western union, paypal, alibaba and other sources. In 2024 dea continues to , innovate and to work with urgency to save american lives. The insights we have learned from our counter threat teams, we are taking them and building the next step in the global fight against the trident directorate. This directorate consists of two dealed joined a personal task force is staffed by individuals from across u. S. Law enforcement, military and intelligence communities. Trident will allow us to leverage all of deas critical information on the cartels with our state, local, federal, intelligence and defense partners. We very much Hope Congress will continue to support this work and help us defeat the cartels. Before i close, i imagine you have read press reports regarding the doj proposal to reschedule marijuana. Because the formal rulemaking process is ongoing, and my role in the process is to determine the scheduling of drugs, they would be inappropriate for me to respond to questions on this rescheduling matter. I also want to take a moment and offer my deep thanks to every member of the subcommittee of the work that you do on this National Fentanyl awareness day. The linen limit of the dea are working tirelessly every day to defeat the cartels and save american lives and we all thank you for your support in fiscal year 2024. The threat continues, and the work continues. Thank you. Thank you, administrator. We are now going to proceed under the 5minute rule with questions for the witness and i will begin by recognizing myself. Administrator milgram, i understand that as of last month, dea has approximately 13 visas pending mexican approval. This has resulted in some dea employees waiting 68 months for visa approval to work in mexico. Additionally, there are 13 dea warrants pending extradition from the Mexican Government. Do you believe your agents would say they are pleased with our Law Enforcement relationship with mexico . The same way the fbi director did . Thank you so much, congressman. If i can, let me start by talking about the Global Supply chain that the two cartels operate. Those two cartels are based in mexico the, cartels are sourcing chemicals from china, bringing those chemicals along with pill presses, dyes and molds into mexico, producing fentanyl in mexico, and then bringing it across into the United States. So the role that mexico plays and then they are involved in illicit finance and Money Laundering to get money back for their profits. So the role that mexico plays across the global fentanyl supply chain is obviously a significant and critical one. As i said before this committee, we are relentlessly focused on this. Let me Say Something about mexico and the issue you raised. First we are committed to working shouldertoshoulder with anyone across the globe who will work with d. A. In partnership on this fight. The second, i thought director wray said it very well when he said that cooperation has been uneven and that we need much more. I would echo that. We have had some extraditions. We have seen mexican Law Enforcement destroy some labs, but there is more work to be done and we very much would like to partner with mexico in doing this. Finally, when you talk about visas, just a moment to recognize the incredible work that is happening by the recognize the incredible work by men and women in dea across 69 countries including mexico. That work is hard. They work relentlessly. We are waiting on those 13 visas. One has been pending for eight months. Unfortunately, for everyone sitting in this room, we know the price we pay in the country when we wait that long. Mr. Rogers let me ask again. Are you pleased with our relationship with mexico on this matter . Administrator milgram congressman, i would describe myself, and say this clearly on National Fentanyl awareness day that there is so much more work that needs to be done with urgency to stop this threat. Mr. Rogers so you are not pleased . Administrator milgram i could not have higher regard for the men and women of dea and the way they are carrying out our mission. I believe we need more assistance globally as we fight this threat. We also are doing more internally to meet this moment and i couldnt say enough to you. My position as i will never look a Family Member who is lost a loved one in the eyes and tell them i didnt do everything i could to stop the threat from happening. Chair rogers i gather you are not pleased. Administrator milgram there is much more work to be done. Chair rogers you are not pleased . Administrator milgram congressman, here is one i will be pleased. When there are no more american deaths from fentanyl. Thats what i think we will all be able to say we have succeeded. Chair rogers i understand mexico has created approval committees, but these appear to amount to bureaucratic hurdles that didnt previously exist. What steps have the department and administration taken as a whole to improve deas relationship with mexico . Have you observed any progress . Administrator milgram congressman, i am not familiar with those committees. I do know that the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general have gone frequently to mexico and are often advocating on our behalf for extraditions, and for our ability to work jointly on operations together. Chair rogers with so much fentanyl flowing across our southern border from mexico and all the new limitations mexico has placed on dea, how would you respond to americans who view our counterfentanyl efforts as a war . And the Mexican Government complicit with the cartels . Administrator milgram what i say often, congressman, is right now were in a fight to save american lives. This is a significant a fight as i think we have ever seen. You have heard me say this before but we are losing the same number of americans every 11 days that we lost on 911. It would