COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN...
Shelley Moore Capito (Republican, WV) \u2014 2019-10-30

I think it is very impactful for us to be discussing today a problem that has hit all of our States. prgtoken Senator Blunt, in his great work not just on the Appropriations Committee but in his State of Missouri, has been very active. I think we all have. It is a problem that knows no political boundaries. prgtoken Certainly, my State of West Virginia has one of the deepest, strongest, and toughest problem. We have the highest rate of opioid- related deaths per capita. It is not something we wear proudly, but it is something that has really forced us to try many innovative things and to try to be the leader in the solutions. prgtoken That is a lot of what I am going to talk about today because a lot of what we have seen in the SUPPORT Act, from all of our individual States, has been incorporated into a national response to what is an epidemic around our country that is frightening, scary, and, in my view, could almost lead us to losing a generation. This powerful reaction we have had to the three pieces of legislation is absolutely critical. prgtoken We passed the SUPPORT Act. It was signed into law a little bit over a year ago. That was really as an add-on to the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that we passed several years before that, but as my part of this discussion today, I want to share the successes that have worked in our State and how I think they have been able to be incorporated around the country. prgtoken After CARA, we realized that while we did great with money for rehab facilities and helping our first responders with Narcan and other more immediate problems, there were other things we didn't focus on that we really needed to focus on in order to have a comprehensive solution, and that is the children--the children who are impacted in a home of addiction or exposure to addiction and also the jobs that are being lost because of it. So we went back to the drawing board, and we came up with the SUPPORT Act, which is landmark legislation where we are seeing real results. prgtoken For instance, in my State of West Virginia, the State opioid response grants are the grants that really go to every State in a formula fashion, where you are supporting treatment centers, drug courts, and other responses to the addiction issue, but under the old rule, the money was divided up according to your population size. So I started talking with Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire--a small State impacted more critically, like our State of West Virginia--and saying: Wait a minute. Our smaller States are really not getting enough in the State opioid response grants to make an impact and to be part of the solution. So we pushed hard to change this funding so States that are more acutely affected, that have smaller populations, like Montana, West Virginia, and New Hampshire, are able to get more funding so we can attack the problem where it is the deepest and the most acute. prgtoken It helps with