[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 19, 2023)] [Senate] [Pages S1227-S1236] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-19
Chamber: SENATE
Mr. RICKETTS: I rise today to join my colleagues who are continuing to sound the alarm about the ongoing drug crisis we have here in our country. I will reiterate what my colleague said with regard to the fact that the leading cause of death of Americans age 18 to 45 today is fentanyl. In 2021, 106,000 Americans died of a drug overdose, 70,000 because of fentanyl. Now, let's think about if a terrorist attacked our country and killed 106,000 Americans. We would be up in arms. We would be mobilizing the country. Yet we do not see that response out of the Biden administration. Fentanyl is a drug that is coming to us from across the border. The precursors of it are manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico, where the cartels then, in illegal labs, create the fentanyl that they ship across the border. When it comes across the border, it does not stay there; it goes all across our country. The last 2 years I was Governor--the first 2 years of the Biden administration--we saw the increase in the drugs the Nebraska State Patrol was confiscating go up dramatically. We saw twice the amount of methamphetamine confiscated, 3 times the amount of fentanyl, and 10 times the amount of cocaine. In 2019, Nebraska law enforcement confiscated 46 pills--46. In the first 6 months of 2021, that number had grown to 151,000 pills confiscated--unbelievable. It is killing people in my State, as it is across the country. I have talked on this floor before about Taryn Lee Griffith, a 24-year-old mom of two. She was out with friends when she took a pill she thought was Percocet, but it was laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl. She died that night. Now, her two little girls are going to have to learn about their mom through pictures and stories from family. This is shameful, and it must end. It is impacting people all across this country. As I have said before on this floor, if this is not our job, to fix this, I don't know what is. So what more can we do? Well, first of all, we can address the southern border. I have had the opportunity to go to the southern border several times, and when I talk to Customs and Border Protection officials, they tell us they need three things: They need infrastructure--wall, build a wall; they need more technology, like better drones; and they need more personnel. This Congress needs to provide Customs and Border Protection the resources they need to be able to stop the flow of drugs coming into this country. Another thing we can do--unbelievably, if you distribute fentanyl and it kills somebody, that is not a murder charge. However, I am proud to cosign on Senator Marco Rubio's bill, the Felony Murder for Deadly Fentanyl Distribution Act, which would make it a Federal felony murder charge to distribute fentanyl and then have somebody die from it. This is a very serious crime that is going on. It needs serious consequences. We need to make this a felony murder charge. And let me tell you, the families are asking for this. One of the other things we periodically do here is we put fentanyl on the schedule I drug list, but it is temporary. We need to make that permanent. We know fentanyl and the analogues are dangerous and need to be schedule I drugs that have no medical purpose. So let's do that. And that is why I have cosponsored Senator Johnson's Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues Act, otherwise known as SOFA. This is a drug crisis. It is killing our young people in this Nation. I call on my colleagues to act, to take these steps to combat this crisis. Too many Americans are dying because of what is going on. We need to act. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.