quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. a senator: mr. president, i would ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: i guess i would also ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: the senate is in a period of morning business. a senator: tank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise today to address an issue that we're confronting here in the senate and it's an issue that folks in pennsylvania and across the country are dealing with every day. mr. casey: that's the opioid crisis. there are a lot of ways to describe this crisis. i'm pleased to be able to talk about this issue today with two of my colleagues who will be following me in succession after my remarks are concluded. i do want to thank in a particular way senator

whitehouse, senator shaheen and our leadership for bringing this issue to the forefront within our caucus and here in the senate. and i know the effort to pass the comprehensive addiction recovery act known by the acronym cara, c-a-r-a, is a bipartisan effort. i certainly appreciate that. in the case of senator whitehouse, he brings a deep reservoir of experience as a federal prosecutor, united states attorney as well as the attorney general of rhode island. so he brings both a law enforcement set of experiences as well as his care and concern about those who have addiction issues. so we appreciate his leadership. senator brown as well has worked on this for many years here in the senate and as a member of the house of representatives.

so this is an issue that confronts all of us in our states. we have to -- i think our efforts have to be commensurate with the match of the severity of the problem. the senate missed an important opportunity to invest substantial resources into our nation's heroin crisis. the amendment offered by senators shaheen and whitehouse would have added $600 million in emergency funding to aid public health professionals and to aid law enforcement. the two main segments of our society who deal with the challenge of addiction on a daily basis. that amendment was defeated, and i think that was the wrong conclusion for the senate. i think wrong for the country. while the senate failed to act on this amendment, there's no

reason why we shouldn't find other opportunities to invest in antiheroin strategies or expressed another way, strategies that will lessen or reduce the likelihood that more people will be addicted to some opioid which often leads to other kinds of challenges with regard to heroin and far too often leads not just to addiction and the darkness of addiction but literally the darkness of death itself. so we have some work to do. and we know that he we can pass the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, the cara act. that's good but that's not nearly enough. we have to do more than simply pass good legislation that will authorize policy to better confront the challenge.

that will not be enough, though. if we -- if we have this in place, new programs, new approaches, new strategies, that's a measure of progress, but we can't ask pursuant to that medical professionals to do more to treat addiction if they don't have the resources or ask law enforcement to do more if they don't have the resources. heroin overdose deaths have increased 244% from 2007 to 2013. so roughly a six-year time frame , heroin overdose deaths are up 244%. it's hard to even comprehend that kind of an increase of a death statistic, not a -- just a number but a number that indicates the increase in the number of deaths. that alone should motivate us to do everything possible, to do

whatever it takes, whatever authority, whatever policy, whatever dollars we need to invest in this, we've got to do that. but there are lots of other numbers, and sometimes we can get lost in reciting the numbers. i'll mention a few here that are relevant to pennsylvania before i conclude. in addition to just passing the bill, the so-called cara bill, we ought to be focused on taking measurable steps to indeed solve the crisis. we don't want to just address this issue, confront the challenge. we want to solve the crisis. and it won't happen in one year. it won't happen because of one bill or one policy. but we've got to put every possible resource or tool on the table to actually solve the crisis. there are lots of ways to illustrate the degree of the problem. i'll talk about a couple of communities in pennsylvania just by way of example. "the washington post," a great

newspaper here went to washington, pennsylvania. we have a county and a city just below the city of pittsburgh, just south of pittsburgh. it's washington county and the city of washington. so the "post "went there last summer, began to interview people at the local level. here's, i think, maybe one of the more stunning statistics that they found in their reporting. in 70 minutes, there were eight overdoses related to heroin. in this case not yet deaths but overdoses. so a newspaper could track in an hour and ten minutes, eight overdoses in one community in one state. then they tracked it over a two dai-day -- two-daytime frame. there were 25 overdoses in washington county and three deaths in a 48-hour period. i cite that not just for the

compelling nature of those numbers but because of where it happened. this is not happening in communities that we used to think of as having a major heroin or addiction -- drug addiction problem. we tend to think of it, at least in my lifetime, as being an urban issue. big cities have this problem but small towns less so and rural areas or suburban communities have it. unfortunately in this case, this is a horror, an evil that knows no geographic boundaries or class boundaries. it's happening in big cities. it's happening in very small towns in pennsylvania. it's happen ng suburban comiewn -- happening in suburban communities, in high income communities, low income communities, middle-income communities. it's happening to everyone. there's no escaping it. if it's happening in places like

washington county which is not the city of washington, it's not a big city. it's a moderate size city. in other parts of the county, it tends to be a more rural county or at least small town to rural. so it's happening there in those kinds of numbers. in 70 minutes or 48 hours, overdoses and overdose deaths, that gives you an indication of the gravity of the problem. the coroners association in pennsylvania that have to track of course the number of deaths in their county reported that over -- just a few years in pennsylvania, the number of deaths from overdoses went from less than 50 to hundreds, hundreds of deaths in just a couple of years. so the gravity of this problem is i think self-evident. but it's not good enough to diagnose the problem and recite statistics. we've got as i said before solve

the crisis. there's no doubt that this is a huge issue for the country. by not passing the funding that we tried to pass, we're missing a chance to support, for example, the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant, so-called s.a.b. -- s.a.b.g. block grant. that's an existing block grant program that works. the only good news here in this debate about what policy to put in place is local officials know what they're doing. addiction in medical professionals know what to do. they know exactly what they need. what they're asking for us for is a little bit of policy, or a significant bit of policy, maybe but tear a also asking -- but

they're also asking for resources. i will conclude with the following: we know that good treatment works. all the professionals tell us it works. we know so much more today than we did 25 years ago about what works. we know that good treatment works. it takes long time. there is a he no 90-day -- there's no 90-day program here. this takes a lot longer than that. so we know that for sure. there is a he no dispute about that. we also know that good treatment costs money. you can't just have good intentions here. lifesaving overdose reversal drugs like naloxone cost money. the good news is, we have a drug to reverse the adverse impact of an overdose, and yet a lot of communities cannot afford to get this very important drug called naloxone. so-called reversal drug, as some call it. intercepting drugs before they reach our streets costs money.

the worse this epidemic gets, the more these services are in demand. so congress, the united states senate and the united states house of representatives, must provide additional funding to make sure local communities can meet the demand, and we know that investing in programs that treat addiction and save lives is an abiding obligation -- the presiding officer: the senator is time has expired. mr. casey: 30 seconds, if i could ask consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: -- is an abiding obligation we must fulfill. so we must tackle this program. we can't do it without resources. with that, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i'm delighted to join senator casey, the senator from pennsylvania, and senator brown, the senator from ohio, on the floor this morning to applaud what appears to be the imminent passage of the comprehensive addiction and recovery act. so far we have had less than a

handful of votes against this bill at any stage through the voting on it, and i suspect that some of those votes may have had to do with amendments and so forth. we might even do better than that on final passage. so i want to thank my cosponso cosponsors. this was not a bill that was just dreamed up in back offices. we had five national seminars here in washington bringing people in from all around the country to share their experiences, to share their advice, to share their best practices, and to inform the development of this bill. it has been years of work in the making, and on our side of the aisle, senator klobuchar has been an extremely valuable colleague. and on the other side of the aisle, senator portman and senator ayotte were our coconspirators on this bill. and i want to thank them and extend my appreciation to all of

them. this truly is a comprehensive bill. everything from at the point of overdose, getting naloxone into the hands of first responders so that lives can be saved, through the prescribing process and the prescription drug monitoring process, throw a whole variety of -- through a whole variety of new treatment programs, through intervention for people who are incarcerated and prevention of incarceration, particularly for people in veterans courts and so forth, who can be diverted out of the prison system, through new means of treatment like medically assisted treatment that is emerging as a really promising new strategy, and all the way to ultimately disposal of excess drugs, this truly is a comprehensive bill. it'it's only faults are ones --s only faults are ones that

senators in a position of leadership are able to remedy. there is no new funding to support any of these new programs that i have described. the funding for the accounts in question was determined months and months and months ago in the appropriations committee before anybody could know what this bill was going to look like on the floor. and when the final deal was reached, the numbers actually matched the president's budget. and the president's budget was i should even before the appropriations measure came out of its relevant subcommittee. so the president's budget folks would have had to have been astonishing masters of prediction in order to put in money for programs that weren't even law at that time. there has been considerable

commentary from the other side that there is funding for this, but what they overlook is that, yeah, there's funding for these programs, but you would have to take it away from other treatment and recovery programs to fund these. it would be robbing peter to pay paul. now, an argument could be made that under this bill paul will be a more effective program than the pre pre-cara peter would hae been. but, please, let's not pretend that there is money for this. if there is no one indication of how there really isn't new money for this, it's the fact that our friends on the other side can't agree how much money there is for this. some senators have said there's $78 million funding cara. the majority leader has said that there's $400 million to fund cara. the deputy majority leader has said that there is $517 million to fund cara.

if the money were real, i suspect they could agree on the amount of it. i think the fact of the matter is that there is no new money for this, and the sooner we can get this funded, the sooner it will save lives. the second problem is that the house, under republican leadership, has taken new action on this i will about. -- has taken no action on this bill. so i will take this opportunity to call on the leadership here and in the house to put money where their proverbial mouth is, to pass this bill, to get some funding behind it -- senator shaheen's measure would have been terrific -- and to get some action out of their colleagues in the house. because if we pass it in the senate and the house takes no action, then this will have been a sham, and that will have been a shame. and with that, i yield the floor to senator brown. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, madam president.

and thank you to my colleagues for the terrific work that they've done on such an important issue that, you know, kind of began -- nig in my statt began in sort of the most rural areas of my straight and spread and spread and spread and spread. this is the right kind of comprehensive response for this. but as the senator just said, it means real funding for cara and what we're doing. i'm happy we're coming together in a bipartisan way overall finally taking action on the opioid addiction epidemic that is devastating communities across our country. we know some of the statistics. more people died in my state and in the country as a whole in 2015 from opioid overdoses than did from auto accidents. we're experiencing record number of fatal overdoses. there is a he no state and probably no county untouched by this scourge. we need to remember the human cost of addiction. in warren, ohio, a couple of weeks ago a woman -- a

middle-aged woman who has a child now in his mid-20's who has suffered addiction for a dozen years and has been in and out and doing better, then falls back, has gotten his -- his family is affluent, so his treatment is better than some. but she says when there is addiction, it affects -- it afflicts the whole family. nobody is really exempt. in my state, 2,500 ohio families in one year lost a loved one to addiction. thousands more continue to struggle with opioid abuse or with a family member's addiction. it is not an individual problem. it is not an individual problem or a character flaw. it is a chronic disease. right now it's placing an unbearable burden on families, communities, on our health care system. that's why we need to tackle at the national level, tackle this. that's with why i'm encouraged to see us debating the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, the cara act.

the ideas in this bill are an important first step to tackling the epidemic, but they're just a first step. on their own, they are a not enough to put a dent in this epidemic. here is the key point that both senators made. it is going to mean little without additional funding to back them up. my colleague from new hampshire and senator whitehouse introduced and amendment that would have provided an additional $600 million to fight the opioid epidemic. that would be a serious commitment in putting the ideas in this bill into place, into action. but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked this investment. again, they want to do things on the cheap. they want to pass things to pat ourselves on the back but not provide the funding to actually accomplish things. and it would block the investment in health professionals and comiewntsdzs who are on the front lines of this battle. you simply can't do a rowrnts -a round table with health

professionals without hearing from them they need resources locally. the states aren't coming up with it adequately. they need resources and they need real investment and pre-essential programs. we need real investment in treatment options that help patients not just get cleared but stay clean. earlier this year i introduced the heroin and prescription drug abuse and prevention act. our bill would imriewrve tools for crisis response. it would add -- expand access to treatment, provide support for lifelong recovery. the kind of serious investment we need to back up our rhetoric. in public health emergencies we're sometimes, somehow able to come up with necessary money. swine flu, ebola, zika virus. but addiction is not a public health emergency. addiction is a public health problem, but one we need to fund in an on-going way. you can look at the spike in the

number of deaths. you can conclude nothing else but that it's a long-term public health problem. too many lives have been destroyed. too many communities have been devastated. i'm just puzzled why my colleagues won't come up with $00 million for -- with $600 million for this very important public health program. it is time to get serious and call it what it is, the public health crisis that demands real immediate investment, not more empty rhetoric, not more empty gestures. i yield the floor. mr. barrasso: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent at that i get to speak for up to ten mustn't is in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you. i come to the floor to talk about when i'm hearing from people in wyoming about the issue whether president obama should nominate the next supreme court justice.

this past weekend i was around the state of wyoming in rock springs, in rollins, in casper the weekend before that, cheyenne, big piney, and i'm hearing the same thing from people all around the state of wyoming. what i'm hearing is that the president obama should not be the one to put another nominee on the supreme court and that it should come down to the people. give the people a voice. that's what i'm hearing from back home. and as the chairman of the judiciary committee, senator grassley, he is doing exactly what the people in wyoming are insisting upon. the right thing -- he's doing the right thing bin sissing -- by insisting that the american people decide. i think senator grassley is doing a great service to this body and to the american people and also to whom ever the next president nominates for the

supreme court. on monday, after traveling around the state of wyoming, senator enzi, who had also traveled around the state of wyoming this past weekend, he and i held jontzly a telephone -- jointly a telephone town hall meetings. folks at home are very familiar with these. we do these just about every month, have a chance to visit with people about what's on their mind. there is a way to do a poll during that meeting. 88% of the people of wyoming agree with senator grassley, agree with senator enzi and with me about the next supreme court justice and giving the people a voice. now, democrats want to turn this all around into a fight on the senate floor. they want this to be a backroom deal between the president and the special interest groups. these are the groups that are pushing the president a point someone who will rule the way they want. but that's not what the american people want. the american people and certainly the people in wyoming want this to be a fight about what happens and what they

decide in the voting booth come november. when an election is just months away, the people should be allowed to consider possible supreme court nominees as one factor in deciding who they'll support for president. this shouldn't even l really be controversial. democrats in the past have come to the floor and they said it would be a bad idea to let the president make a lifetime appointment in his last months in office. it was said right here on this floor. in 1992, senator joe biden came down to the senate floor to explain his rule -- call it the biden rule -- and it had to do with supreme court nominations. on the senate floor, joe biden, now the vice president, former chairman of the judiciary committee, said that once the presidential election is underway -- and i can tell you, madam president, the presidential election is underway -- that once the presidential election is underway, he said action on the supreme court nomination must be put off until after the election

campaign is over. those are joe biden's words. senator biden said that a temporary vacancy on the court was, he said, quite minor, quite minor compared to the cost that the nominee, the senate and the president and our nation would have to pay for what would surely be a bitter fight. that's what senator biden at the time was worried about. he was worried a bitter fight over a nominee would do damage to the nominee and to the senate. he knew that there would be senators who would come to the floor and try to politicize this process for their own purposes, and we are seeing the democrats doing that right now. he knew it because that's what democrats have done for years. this is politics as usual for the democrats. it's the way they tend to live their lives here on the senate floor, talking this way. it's exactly what democrats did when robert bork was nominated to serve on the supreme court and vice president biden, former

senator biden understands it completely. it's what they did when miguel estrada was nominated to the circuit court. what democrats did when samuel alito was nominated. democrats filibustered justice alito when he was the nominee. ne did everything they could to slander good, qualified people to try to score political points. it's what they do. there is no need for us to have this bitter fight joe biden worried about. republicans said there should not be a bitter political fight. we have called on the president to spare the country this fight. the best way to avoid the fight is to agree to let the people decide, give the people a voice. let the next president put forth the nomination. that's certainly what the people of wyoming want us to do. it's what i heard along with senator enzi on monday and what i heard as i traveled around the state of wyoming the past

several weekends. i'll be back in wyoming this weekend and expect to hear the same thing as i travel to buffalo, the health fair and communities around the state. that's what the american people are saying, give the people a voice. they're saying a seat on the supreme court should not be just another political payoff to score points in an election year. they're saying it should not be a decision for a lame-duck president with one foot out the door. it's too important for that. the supreme court is functioning just fine with eight justices right now, and that's just not me saying it. there are justices of the supreme court who are saying the same thing. since justice scalia died last month, the court has heard oral arguments in ten cases. they released written opinions in five cases. they've scheduled more cases for the rest of their term, and they are doing their jobs. that's exactly what justice breyer said that they would do. he's a liberal supreme court justice who was pointed by president bill clinton. a reporter asked justice breyer about the death of justice

scalia and he said we'll miss him, but we will do our work. he said for the most part, it will not change. so there is no urgency to fill this vacancy on the supreme court right now. there's no danger in waiting for the next president to act. there is tremendous danger, however, if we rush through a nomination in the last fuel months of a presidential election. there is a risk to the nominee, to the senate, to the nation just like joe biden said 24 years ago. the stakes are very high, too high to let that. the people are telling us what they want. 88% of the people in wyoming involved in our telephone town hall meeting on monday said exactly that. give the people a voice. we must let the people decide. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of s. 524, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 369, s. 524, a bill to authorize the attorney general to award grants to address the national epidemics of prescription opioid abuse and heroin use. the presiding officer: under the previous order the time until 11:30 a.m. will be equally divided between the two manager or their designees. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. cochran: i understand we're on the bill, but there are no speakers presently. i would just like to address the chair and my colleagues for a few moments about the matter that my colleague from wyoming was discussing just now, and that is the very serious matter of how we will fill the vacancy

of justice scalia. i want to read to my colleagues, madam president, a message that i got from one of my constituents in columbus, mississippi. as you can imagine, we've all received quite a bit of opinion from the people that put us in office. but i think this constituent really hits it on the head when she says, "the next appointment is probably the most crucial in our history and will have ramifications on future generations." i really agree with that, and i think it's such a profound decision that i think we ought to feel comfortable as the senator from wyoming just said, in letting the people decide. we're in the midst of a great debate about the direction our country will take.

the executive branch will take over the next four and possibly eight years. the court has been relatively balanced with a slight 5-4 tilt toward the conservative side. clearly there is an effort in this city on the part of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle to shift that balance. but it -- i think it's l reasonable to conclude there's so much involved, and with the ramifications on future generations, as my constituent has said, i think it's very appropriate that this be a matter of debate in this presidential election and, frankly, in the senate elections also. and so i'm, i will realize there's a lot of heat and light on this issue, but i would

simply suggest that we're on the right track at letting the american people speak to this. now there's another matter in this regard that i have been reluctant to bring to the attention of my colleagues until today. but i think it's gotten to the point where we need to be reminded that there are rules of decorum that apply to this debate and to all debates that we have on the senate floor, and i would direct the chair's attention and the attention of my colleagues to rule 19 of the standing rules of the senate. and paragraph 2 of that rule states -- and i quote -- "no senator in debate shall directly or indirectly, by any form of

words, impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator." and i read that paragraph in its entirety because it is quite obvious to me, to my colleagues on this side of the aisle and i think to objective observers that what has ensued over the last week or two has been a concerted effort to impugn the reputation and honor of the chairman of the judiciary committee, the distinguished senator from iowa, senator grassley. and i would just suggest to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and particularly to my friend the distinguished

minority leader, that in reviewing some of the statementn my opinion hand. i will not read them again to the chair because they're in the record. but in reviewing statements that have been made on this floor, particularly those coming from the very top leadership of the other side of the aisle, there have been statement -- there has been statement after statement that crosses the line, that is prohibited under the rules. it is a breach of our rules to suggest about any other senator motives unworthy or unbecoming of a senator. and so i hope we can continue this debate, and certainly we will. but i hope we will confine it to

the merits of the issue, and there are merits on both sides. this is not the place to conduct an election or reelection campaign. the floor of the senate is not that place. and it seems to me that in recent days that line has been crossed and crossed repeatedly. so i get back to my original point, we're prepared to let the american people speak on this issue. and it is of vital importance not just for the next four years but perhaps for the next decade, two decades or three decades. and so i would ask us to dial the rhetoric back, dial the heat back and stay to the issues. and we're comfortable making the case that this is a decision that should be left to the american people.

i thank the chair for giving me the time. madam president, i'm told we need to go into a quorum call. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. cotton: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be

lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cotton: madam president, i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cotton: i yield back. the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. and the question occurs on s. 524, as amended. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: