from the opioid crisis, they sponsored a bill that current and former officials say undermine their efforts to stop the flow of pain pills. congressman reynaud was recently nominated by president trump to head the office of national drug control policy.yesterday on the senate floor, minority leader tumor and utah senator or in addressed the article and the marino nomination. under schumer's remarks start with comments on health care and tax reform. >>. >> vacuum and president. last week first on the issue of healthcare, last week president trump made a to ask of pointless sanitized to our nation's health care. he signed an executive order that was give insurers more

latitude to sell temporary junk plans that are not only incredibly risky to the consumer but undermine the rest of the healthcare market like drawing healthy americans out of the pool. even worse, president trump decided to stop the cost sharing program that reduces premiums, deductibles and co-pays for 7 million americans a year. there's literally no outside to the president's decision to end the cost sharing program. because of the president's t actions, premiums will go up between 20 and 25 percent according to cbo. just today in pennsylvania we saw premiums rise by 30 percent as a direct result of the president's actions. out-of-pocket costs will go up by thousands of dollars. deficits will rise by $194 billion. >> because the government will have to pay more in subsidies, make up for the lack of cost-sharing and marketplaces will be less stable because more people

will go uninsured. republican governors of nevada and sandoval may have said it best. quote, it's going to hurt people.t it's going to hurt kids, it's going to hurt families, it's going to hurtindividuals , it's going to hurt people with mental health issues, it's going to veterans and it's going to hurt everybody. that's a republican governor, brian sandoval. another point the president shouldhear , nearly 70 percent of americans benefit from these cost-sharing payments within states that donald trump one in the election. so make no mistake about the president deliberately undermining our healthcare system with these actions. when premiums go up, because of this action of lame will fall on his shoulders. there's a way out. >> the layout of all of this is for congress to aggressively pursue a bipartisan health care bill

that will take cost-sharing out of the presidents hands by locking in the payments. for many months, democrats have been pushing to stabilize the market, and work toward a bipartisan agreement that would keep premiums down for millions of americans. there's alexander and oumurray negotiating a package that would include cost-sharing as well as some provisions that republicans want these negotiations became, began long before the president's decision to end cost-sharing last week. i'm encouraged by the progress in negotiations and i'm hopeful we are nearing an agreement that makes clear we have enno intention of supporting the president's reckless actions at sanitized. if president trump is now supported an agreement that stabilizes and improves the existing system under the affordable care, we certainly

welcome the change of heart. >> and we been asking for this for a long time. both s with our colleagues on the other side of the island realizing the damage the president has done will join us in strengthening, not sabotaging the healthcare system. now, a word on the republican tax plan. this week the republican majority will likely move to pass a budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. amazingly, it also includes a total of $1.5 trillion in medicare and medicaid. >> taxes on the wealthy, paid for by cutting medicare and medicaid. how many americans utwant that. >> democrat, republican, liberal, conservative. >> gop budget makes it clear as day that republicans will

try to pay for massive cuts for the wealthy area but medicare and medicaid. >> same formula used for healthcare. putting healthcare to pay for tax us to the rich. the american people rose up against that plan and it failed. this land should fail the same exact reason. and now, the white house is out with a new report today say that giant tax for big corporations will increase wages for middle-class americans. >> president trump claims about the news, this is fake math. and it's as bad as any of the so-called news the president has complained about. this is a deliberate manipulation of numbers and facts that quite frankly is appalling. >> history shows that tax cuts like these benefit the wealthy and powerful to the

exclusion of the middle class . history shows that corporations will use tax cuts as ceo bonuses, stock dividends rather than increasing worker pay or new jobs. none other than goldman sachs concluded that shareholders, not workers, quote, typically get most of the benefits of tax cuts. this is not a liberal think tank or chuck schumer talking, this is goldman sachs who represents shareholders. a former employer of the two authors of this plan, gary cohen and steve mnuchin are from goldman sachs. even goldman sachs would say that the cuts will create massive growth for new jobs or higher wages. in fact, another recent

report by goldman-sachs predicts only the most minor growth effect from these tax cuts. not more than .1 4.2 percent. as the president likes to point out, the stock market is at record highs and companies are raking in unprecedented profits and wages have remained relatively flat. so the companies are already plus with money. record profits they're not creating jobs . they're enriching their shareholders. and enhancing their ceo salaries with stock buybacks. it's proof positive that companies have the cash reserves but don't use it to boost wages. it's the opposite, giving corporations and the wealthy a tax cut leads to higher

middle-class wages, belies the facts and the districts and it is a blatant attempt to fool americans into am thinking the plan would benefit then whenin reality it's to stop the rich . no wonder our republicans can't talk about what the plan does. >> cut taxes on the wealthy and powerful, they have to hide and say this is job growth. >> fake numbers. >> and i like my friends on the side of the aisle to admit that they believe in trickle-down economics. but that's what their plan is all about. to assert that giving corporations and the wealthy a tax cut is just not true. so rather than helping the biggest corporations avoid paying their fair share, tax reform ought to reward those companies that create jobs and raise wages at home.

similarly, tax reform ought to directly benefit the middle class. republican tax plans /the key middle-class deductions in the form of state and local deductibility. let's talk about vice president pens. he's visiting buffalo new york. the city i love in my home state. this vice president pens is traveling to buffalo. i thought i'd share some numbers. about how the elimination of state and local deductions affects new york. in representative collins district, toward rochester, 29 percent of the residents claim the state local deduction. they get an average deduction n of $12,125. >> and representative higgins district in the heart of buffalo, 27 percent of the residents claim state and

local. with an average deduction of $12,083. and representative lees district, south and east of buffalo, 22 residents claim state and local deductions with an average deduction of $11,716. their constituents get clobbered as do just about all new yorkers, with so many in the rest of the country. when you eliminate state and local deductibility and it affects the middle-class and the upper-class. the state and local deduction eliminations is a diner to the heart not just of buffalo and of rochester, syracuse, albany and all above state new york, will president president pens have the courage to answer questions about this deduction eliminations? will he tell middle-class new

yorkers that they are going to get a huge tax increase under this bill? when the vice president arrives in buffalo, i hope he explains why he wants the tax , why he wants to hike taxes for thousands of middle-class families in the buffalo area, the rochester area, the syracuse area and the albany area by eliminating state and local deductions. it hurts the middle-class. and it hammers the new york economy. businesses, they don't have and local deduction and they're not likely to relocate in buffalo or rochester or syracuse. and it hurts homeowners. make no mistake about it, get rid of the state and local deduction, values and homes

will go hedown. that's why the homeowners are opposed to this elimination. that's not just in new york or california or new jersey, f it's true across the whole country and my dear friend and chairman of the finance committee state of utah, i state of great charity, 35 percent of the taxpayers will get a huge, huge increase in their taxes with the elimination of state and local deductibility. many of them don't use the standard deduction because it's so terrible but they are penalized. so eliminating the state and local deduction slashing taxes for the wealthy and

huge corporationswill hurt middle-class taxpayers . there's effort to compromise state and local deductibility, they don't work . some have proposed okay, let's give taxpayers a choice n between getting rid of the mortgage deduction and the state and local deduction. that's like saying should i chop off your left hand or right, mister middle-class taxpayer? others have said let's limit it to people say below 100,000. lots of people are at risk in high-priced areas like long island and it reduces, doesn't reduce the deficit by much. a large percentage of the deficit would still go up. so it makes no sense to eliminate state and local deductibility. vice president pens ought to go to western new york but better than visiting a small business, he should go to a

middle-class family. in amherst or in orchard park . or in tonawanda. tell them he's there to tell them he's going to raise their taxes. >> finally mister president, i'd like to address president trumps nominee to leave the office of the national drug control policy, representative marino. in an article in yesterday's washington post, he described representative marino's in a law that may have prevented the dea, the drug enforcement agency from knowing after the worst practices of drug distributors. >> is a profoundly troubling revelation about the man who was tax to lead the primary agency in our government focused on stopping the opioid crisis. the opioid crisis fueled by holes sale drug distributors, ending millions of unnecessary bills into

communities. >> as my friend editor mansion has pointed out, one company shipped 20 million doses of opioids to pharmacies in his state of ma west virginia over a five-year period.. instituted 11 million doses sent to mingo county west virginia. >> population 25,000. >> 11 million pills in the county of 25,000 people over a five-year period. >> no wonder there's a crisis. washington, what the washington post revealed yesterday was that representative marino's, representative marino works at a bill in 2016 that made it close, virtually impossible for the dea to freeze suspicious narcotic paymentsshipments , and confirming representative marino, our nations drugs are

, by putting the wolf in charge of the ahenhouse. >> the american people deserve someone totally committed to fighting the opioid crisis r, not someone who has labored on the half of the drug industry. so tonight i am calling on president trump to withdraw the nomination of representative marino for the on pcp. we can do better. senator mansion has made such a call, he's right. resident trump ought to withdraw senator marino's nomination and if the president presses forward, it will be another long the trail, long line of betrayals on issues near and dear to rural america. the presidents health care proposals would have been baggers into the heart of 's

rural america, designating medicaid and rural hospitals. the president's tax plan set is the wealthy and the big corporations but does little to the working man or woman in rural america. president promised months ago to label the opioid crisis a national emergency and yet he still hasn't done it. he said this afternoon he will finally do it next week we will see. >> by now, the idea that the president is sticking up for the forgotten man and forgotten woman or the forgotten parts of america, rural america. president trump seems to have forgotten that those forgotten parts of america and the lack of action, we don't need talk, we need action on the opioid crisis and his nomination of brett marino is another example. and before i yield the floor i know my colleagues from

utah is waiting, i can set my additional comments on the wildfire west the inserted into the record . >> over the weekend, the post ran an article about a piece of legislation i helped negotiate last congress. the insuring patient access and effective drug enforcement act, it was intended to encourage collaboration between apa and the regulated community in the fight against opioid abuse. this article was critical of this legislation. suggesting that effectively ended the epa's ability to do se its job. it also suggested the pharmaceutical industry but one over on congress. i rise today to set the record straight on these allegations and provide a full account ofthis legislation the site . l >> first, some background. the act requires drug distributors to obtain a quote, registration from the dea. in order to distribute

controlled substances including prescription drugs. >> may act further authorizes dea to suspend a distributors to registration in certain circumstances such as where distributors have been convicted of a crime involving a controlled substance or had a state license suspended. of course suspending a registration the dea must issue a order directing the distributor to explain why it's registration should not be suspended. >> the court then decide whether dea is better suspending the registration. the controlled substances and powers dea to test a standard suspension process in cases where dea determines there is quote, an imminent danger to the public health or safety. in such cases, dea can issue an intermediate extension order that immediately and without prior process

terminates the distributors ability to distribute prescription drugs. prior to last congress, the controlled substance act did not define what constituted imminent danger to the public health or safety. >> this left the dea's ability to suspend the party's ability to distribute prescription drugs essentially unfettered.>> with unfettered discretion concerns facing advocacy and drug manufacturing committee because the immediate suspension order cuts off all drugs and from a distributor including those intended for legitimate users. a balance is needed to ensure that individuals need prescription drugs for treatment receive them by, but that such drugs are not diverted for improper purposes. so the bill i have negotiated by congress for the first time defines what constitutes

in danger to the public health or safety. >> in doing so, it created a standard for when dea may suspend a party's registration to distribute prescription drugs. without any prior court process. standard is that there must be a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat that death, serious bodily harm or use of a controlled substance will occur and in the absence of an immediate suspension. >> inin both committee and floor statements, i made clear that the standard is intended to cover situations where evidence of divergent indicates there is a substantial likelihood that abuse of a controlled substance or of any controlled substances will occur.

the post article glosses over much of this background. it does not explain that the suspension order is intended a to be an extraordinary su measure. it does not explain nthat prior to the bill, the dea basically has carte blanche authority to impose this matter. it does not explain the dea has other enforcement tools available. including show cause order which are supposed to be the agency standard operating procedure.equally problematic, the article barely mentions the patient advocacy concerns. that motivated the bill to begin with. >> i want to quote from a letter that a coalition of health advocacy groups sent to congress in supportof the legislation . >> federal agencies, law enforcement, industry participants and prescribers nteach play a role in working diligently to prevent drug abuse.

and divergent. however, it's also imperative that legitimate patients are able to obtain their prescriptions not disrupted. new legislation addresses both goals by fostering cooperation and communication and transparency between industry stakeholders and regulators, meeting to more abuse without protecting patients. the letter was signed by among others the american patio payment management, fibromyalgia and chronic pain support network . and a drug-free america foundation.i ask unanimous consent to enter this letter into the record at this point. >> without objection. >> virtually none of this asserts to congress cut out dea's legs from underneath it through a sinister conspiracy of deep-pocketed drug companies sand their cunning allies in congress.

nothing could be further from the truth. >> madam president, i spent four years of my life in the senate fighting the scourge of drug abuse. i stood side-by-side with ronaldreagan in the war on drugs .0 i cooperated a drug treatment in 2000, one of the first efforts in congress to address the opioid epidemic. last year i led negotiations on the addiction recovery act , a landmark piece of ga legislation that's making a difference in the fight against opioids and heroine abuse. and currently i'm working on legislation to address opioid addiction in the veterans mm candidacy. i have transparency when it comes to drug abuse, prescription or otherwise. neither are my colleagues.

forgive me for a moment, let's take senator whitehouse who helped me negotiate the bill with the dea and doj. i will agree with the former rhode island attorney, a crusader against corporate interests is somehow in the pocket of the drug companies? of course not. the charge is laughable on its face. but this bill passed both houses by unanimous consent. with the entirety of the united states congress decide to side with the sinister intent of this legislation? did the judiciary committee which approved the bill by voice vote decide the other way? this is a committee that includes former prosecutors, state attorney general and us attorneys that at the time included both a current attorney general of the united states and current senate minority leader.ty madame president, are we seriously expected to believe

jeff sessions, the toughest fighter i've ever known in my life sat on his hands while congress administrated the dea's enforcement authority? ofcourse not . the reason of these allegations is to make clear how ridiculous they really are. >> by one senator a number of the house opposed this bill and do you know why? >> because dea, the very agency thatsupposedly can no longer do its job because of this legislation , agreed to let it go forth. >> and let's be clear, the dea could have stopped this bill. >> at any time.e stopped it in fact, it did stop a previous version in 2014 that had different language. i spent months negotiating with dea and with doj to the

point where they were comfortable about the vote to proceed. if they had asked me to hold the bill as it continued negotiations, i would have done so. >> the breath of the markup after dea and doj agreed with me on a path forward. >> anyone who claims that i or anyone else enrolled dea on this bill, is neither ignorant or willfully poor. that brings me to another point that's larger than all the insinuations in the post article, purportedly the bill eviscerated the dea's enforcement power m. that is the requirement that the ddo show a substantial requirement of a threat before issuing a suspension order was written by dea and doj. >> lawyers. >> and provided the hill

staff with the proposed compromise.>> so let's get this straight. congress language that dea and doj wrote, inserted the bill, now congress is the bad guy? other aspects of dea and doj's language changed, but that the phrase, substantial likelihood of an immediate threat, a phrase that critics point to as budding dea's enforcement authority came from dea and the doj. matt president, president obama signed the bill into law. on the advice of his own dea administrator.madame president, i think we need to be candid about what's going on here. proponents of the current administration are trying to derail the presidents nominee

to the office of national drug control policy. representative tom marino of course, by mischaracterizing and trying to rewrite the history of the bill that we champion. >> there being aided in their efforts a group of former dea employees. who took an extremely hard line against drug companies when they were the committee and were upset that dea chose to pursue a more collaborative approach after they left. >> i don't fault these individuals for their passion or for their passion. but i do reject the notion there was some sort of conspiracy at play and i find it unconscionable that critics of the bill and of representative marino would try to go and say that this bill motivated my personal

involvement with it. i think this bill was a sop to the drug industry, tell that to the fibromyalgia, tell that to the american academy of pain management. tell that to the drug-free america foundation.we're going to make this bill a political football and try to use it to sink representative marino's nomination. let's tell the whole story. let's be fair. let's at least be honest. let's not gin up a one-sided narrative based on what they're telling you, the statements of former agency officials who disagreed with the change in leadership. no matter how you try to spin it, this is not the latest episode of the house of cards. let's be clear that members t of this body negotiated this bill in good faith with the dea and doj, the department of justice.

let's be clear that dea and doj themselves generated the language that critics claim is so problematic. let's remember this bill passed by unanimous consent and that every single member of this body at the house of representatives, let's remember also the dea and doj could have stopped this bill at any time if they had wanted to but instead chose to allow it to proceed. they stopped an earlier version in 2014 that had different language. they could have stopped it again. and even after the bill passed congress, they could have devised or advised obama not to sign on. the bill bears the signature. let's not pretend that the dea, both houses of congress and the obama white house all somehow wilted under representative marino's nefarious influences.

madame president, if i read the headlines and page hits that this should be based on the full story. it should be based on all the facts . a single news article that drove them to the story should not be a nominee who has a wrong history of fighting illegal drug use and helping individuals with chronic conditions obtain treatment. let's not ignore the full story. in the rush toward politics. >> madam, i yield the floor and thanked you. >> u.s. senate about the gavel in to consider the nomination of david trachtenberg to be principal deputy under secretary of defense for the confirmation vote set for half an hour from now. senators will recess between 12:30 for their weekly party meeting and we are hoping to bring you comments live from

senate leaders during that time. no business set for the afternoon but majority leader john cornyn, told reporters that the senate will likely consider the 2018 budget resolution and house pass the hurricane relief bill this week. now the live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. >> the senate will come to order. >> the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, the fountain of all wisdom and power, we're grateful that you still rule in heaven. may our lawmakers continue to