barer than they used to be. there is a bottleneck and this legislation helps in that regard. it provides funding for infrastructure, including our ports, our ports of entry, our land ports but also our seaports that are now in a situation where they are jammed with more and more container ships and yet they can't process them quickly enough. so what the experts tell me is the $2 billion in the infrastructure bill will help to improve those facilities, improve their operation, improve the intermodal connections, the truck and train connections to our ports and help move along this supply chain issue we're facing, this helps in regard to freight, rail, it helps with regard to our waterways, which carry a lot of freight in our country. so it would be helpful in all three areas, inflation, natural disasters, and also our supply

chain issues. at the same time, again, it's just needed because our infrastructure has fallen behind, particularly fallen behind other countries, therefore making our country more efficient and productive. it's why it got 69 votes in the united states senate and why we need to pass it. it is totally different from the tax and spend reconciliation bill. which is massive new spending, massive tax increases, which will add to inflation. at a time when we have such high debts and deficits, it will add to our record level of debt and deficits. its large tax increases will hurt our economy at a time when we cannot afford it. we just got the numbers in from the economic growth in the last quarter. they just came in today. .5% growth. very disappointing. well blow expectations. so we know economic growth is slowing. we know inflation is rising. we know that this is not the time for us to put forward this

kind of legislation because it will aggravate the inflationary pressures, but it also causes us at the time of debt and deficits to see big increases in spending and finally, again, at a time when our economy is unfortunately not performing the way we would like to see it. it's slowing down. the worst economic quarter we have had since 2000. we need to be sure we're not adding new taxes to our economy at this time. so the timing is bad. by the way, the infrastructure bill has no new tax increases. the infrastructure bill is not about immediate spending. it's about long-term spending over five, ten, 15 years for capital assets. again, counterinflationary. so they are very different proposals, aren't they? i call on my colleagues in the house tonight to pass this legislation, get the infrastructure bill done. don't hold it hostage to something else. that's not how we operate. do the right thing for your constituents and for our country. the other focus that i had tonight was on our opioid and more broadly drug addiction

crisis we face in this country. and unfortunately at a time with the pandemic causing huge health care problems, that has distracted a lot of our attention, understandably. but underneath that pandemic, there has been this epidemic that has been growing, and that's again this addiction issue. back in 2018, we saw a reduction in addiction and specifically in the way it's typically measured, which is the number of overdose deaths that occur in our states. it was great news. 22% decrease in overdose deaths in my home state of ohio after decades of increases every single year. 22% reduction in one year. 2019 was also a good year where we saw significant success in getting people into treatment, getting people into recovery, reducing the use of drugs through prevention, all the things that we had been wanting to do. so much of that came from work that was done in this chamber

because we did enact new legislation and provided billions of more dollars for prevention, for treatment, for recovery. and we had a lot of great activity going on at the state level, at our local levels as well, building on that. we had more narcan being provided to our communities which reverses the effects of an overdose. we had very good success in getting more people, not just into treatment but into longer term recovery where there is a greater chance of them succeeding and not relapsing. we did that through some legislation called the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, bipartisan legislation passed here in this chamber. senator whitehouse joined with me on that as the co-authors. and we also passed additional legislation to give more money directly to the states. and we found that we were again making progress. and then the pandemic hit. unfortunately we now know from the latest data from the centers

for disease control, the c.d.c., that under the cover of this pandemic, the drug epidemic has not only not gone away, it's actually gotten much worse. overdose deaths rose by nearly 30% between march, 2020, and march, 2021, the latest year for which we have data. 30% increase in overdose deaths. this is very discouraging and heart breaking, really, because that means much more devastation for our communities, families being broken apart, people not being able to achieve their god-given ability in life. thousands more being lost. 96,779 more individuals, moms and dads, sons and daughters, friends and loved ones, lost their lives to overdose deaths during that yearlong period, the most recent year that we have data for. it's the worst year we have had in the history of our country in terms of overdose deaths.

again, we have been rightfully focused op covid-19, but particularly as the pandemic, the covid pandemic is beginning to get better, the delta variant finally beginning to affect our communities less, we have got to refocus ourselves on this addiction issue. if we don't do it, we're going to continue to see this tragic epidemic take away more lives. in 47 states and in the district of columbia, the overdose rate went up during this last year, including a 26% increase in my home state of ohio. in some states, by the way, the increase was as high as 85%. and i know the members of the senate who represent those states are well aware of that and would join me in saying we have got to figure out a way. we have got to figure out a way. so what is the way forward? well, part of it is getting back to what we know works.

the congressional review act and a -- the comprehensive addiction and recovery act again provided billions of new dollars for prevention, for treatment, for longer term recovery, for narcan to help our first responders, and that worked and we made progress. so let's get back to that and redouble our efforts there. but we need to do more. we have new legislation we have introduced we think will do that. it's called the comprehensive addiction and recovery act 2.0 -- i'm sorry. 3.0. we have already done the first bill and 2.0. now we're at 3.0. it provides additional help. but it also has some new provisions in addition to funding those that we know work. that's extremely important as well. by the way, in these overdose deaths, we know that increasingly, it's synthetic opioids that is causing the

deadly outcome. fentanyl in particular, which is a synthetic form of heroin or other opioid that for a long time was being produced in china and then sent to our shores, and this poison was coming into our communities by our own u.s. postal service. so several years ago, we wrote legislation to deal with that called the stop act, and it's actually been quite effective to keep these drugs from coming in through the united states mail system. at that time our mail system didn't provide the kind of screening that private carriers did like fedex or u.p.s. or d.h.l. so people who were traffickers chose to use our own postal service. maddening. and they were doing it successfully. but it's kind of like whack-a-mole. once we dealt with the stop act and dealt with the fentanyl coming in from china directly through the mail system, it started to show up where? through our southern border. so today what the experts will

tell you is that deadly fentanyl is coming in primarily through the u.s.-mexico border. it is cheaper than ever. very inexpensive. sometimes it's produced in mexico using precursors that come from china. it's being pressed into bills often. so people don't know that it's fentanyl. the pill may be xanax, the pill may be percocet. people think they are getting pain relief or anxiety relief when in fact they are getting fentanyl. the tragic result of that is again more and more overdose deaths. we had a roundtable discussion recently where we talked about the issue of the border and what was happening and the fact that so many people now are coming across the border but also so much contraband including these drugs, and we had a witness whose name was virginia krieger. this was last week. virginia told us her very tragic

story about her daughter who thought she was taking a percocet for pain because that's what the pill said. and she died of an overdose. and it was determined after the fact that, in fact, she had died of fentanyl because some evil scientist, perhaps in mexico, had pressed these pills, made these pills, probably to try to get her addicted to this powerful drug fentanyl, and in fact she had ingested it, taken it, and it had caused her to overdose and die. virginia, god bless her, has taken the death of her daughter, tiffany leigh robinson, and channeled that grief into something positive. she is going out to the schools now and talking to young people. i see our pages are here tonight. and saying every drug, every pill that's not from a pharmacy that you might find on the streets is potentially deadly.

they can kill you. so be cautious. don't ever take a pill if you don't know that it's coming from a pharmacy, that it is what it says it is. my heart goes out to virginia, her family, and all those who have lost loved ones to these deadly substances. we need to be sure that we reduce the supply of these drugs, and we also do much more in terms of the demand reduction one way we can start to address the supply of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids is to make sure that they are illegal. that might seem obvious to you, but we have had a hard time here in this country dealing with this issue because -- think about it -- it's a sympathetic form of an opioid which can be changed by one of these evil scientists fairly easily, maybe just one molecule changes, and suddenly it's not on the list of controlled substances and not

illegal. so in order to avoid this problem and be sure that people are properly prosecuted for illegal drugs, we are putting together legislation and trying to pass it that ensures that there is a permanent classification of these drugs as being illegal. the drug enforcement agency back in 2018 used its authority to temporarily classify all fentanyl-related drugs, all of them as schedule 1 substances, meaning illegal at the highest level, which allows law enforcement to aggressively intercept and destroy those substances. unfortunately, that was only temporary, so that designation needs to be made permanent. we have successfully tax-and-spend the -- extended the temporary designation a few times here, but it's going to expire again at the end of january. so in just a couple of months, once again, we'll have an expiration of that designation.

until we make these fentanyl-related drugs permanently illegal, law enforcement will not have the certainty they need to go after the criminals moving these deadly substances and fewer lives will be lost. the legislation is called the fight fentanyl act. it's bipartisan. i introduced it with senator manchin. again, it fixes this problem by permanently classifying these drugs that are fentanyl related as schedule 1. it also gives our law enforcement the certainty they need to go after sympathetic opioids in all forms and show we are committed to addressing the threat posed by this particularly dangerous class of drugs. so my hope is my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will work with us to get this done before the end of january. there is no reason we should do it at the last minute. we should provide that certainty and predictability. at the same time, i continue to believe that the most progress can be made on the demand side. so yes, we need to do a better

job at the southern border. it's outrageous what is happening now. so many drugs are coming across at record levels. the apprehensions of fentanyl are at record levels. in fact, enough fentanyl has been apprehended this year alone to kill every man, woman, and child in america. that's how deadly the drug is. but ultimately, we have to deal with the demand for that drug in this country. as long as we have this insatiable demand, it's going to be difficult to stop it through the supply-side or even -- the supply side or even making these drugs illegal. so that's why i think we need new legislation to build on the comprehensive addiction recovery act, to build on what we have done previously, and this kara o do that. it addresses research and education, treatment and recovery, and criminal justice reform. first it will bolster our work

to prevent drug abuse before it happens through funding the research and education. to me, it's time for a national awareness campaign. it would be money well spent, and i believe we could use the money that we would appropriate here to leverage a lot more private interests than this, get the private companies like the pharmaceutical companies to step forward and to help us in a true national drug awareness campaign. second, research and development. we need to have better pain relief drugs in this country. we're still relying on things like percocet, as i mentioned, and other opioids, prescription forms that we have been relying on for decades. it's time to actually move forward with the research and development of alternative pain treatments that don't lead to addiction as opioids do. there has been some progress there but not nearly enough, and it needs more help. second, in terms of treating substance abuse, our bill builds

on what works by doubling down on proven evidence-based addiction treatment methods while expanding treatment options for groups particularly vulnerable to addiction, including young people, new and expecting moms, rural communities, communities of color. and it will make permanent the current expanded telehealth options for addiction treatment that would temporarily create -- that were temporarily created in response to the social distancing required by covid-19. this is an exciting opportunity. as it turns out, during covid-19 when we had to rely more on telehealth, there was actually a lot of success in getting people into treatment. now, it wasn't as good as having your recovery coach there with you and your perhaps other recovering addicts with you to give you the support you need, but for some people who couldn't travel because of the covid-19 restrictions and now perhaps can't travel for other reasons, telehealth is something that was determined to be quite successful in many cases.

so we should continue that. and we have to change laws to do that because it's about whether that would be reimbursed particularly under medicaid and medicare. care 3.0 will also bolster efforts for funding to support recovery support networks. it will enable physicians to provide medication-assisted treatment like methadone to a greater number of patients and change the law to allow those drugs to be prescribed via telehealth for greater ease of access. so part of the telehealth we're looking for is if puff a medicaid-assisted treatment program, that you can use telehealth -- in other words, over the internet -- in order to get your prescription. there needs to be safeguards in that. you need to be sure that at first time a prescription is given that there is a face-to-face contact to make sure that it's not being abused. this can be quite helpful.

finally, cara 3.0 reforms our criminal justice system to ensure that those struggling with our addiction system are treated with fairness and compassion with the law, putting them on a path to recovery instead of a downward spiral of substance abuse. when someone comes out of one of our prisons or jails and comes out as an addict and there's not treatment provided, way too often that person of course relapses and begins to use again and gets back into criminal activity and is right back into the criminal justice system. that doesn't help anybody. certainly doesn't help the taxpayer because the cost is $30,000, $35,000, probably more, at the federal level to incarcerate someone, and when they get out, they're just creating more crimes, that's creating more crime in had the community. so it's worth putting some emphasis on treatment while someone is in prison if they are suffering from addiction and certainly when they get out, getting them into treatment and

into recovery programs to get them back on their feet. by the way, we need these people in our workforce right now. we've always needed them. but we particularly do now. so this is a win-win for our economy, certainly for the addict. cara and cara 2.0 have given states and local authorities the ability to make a real difference in our states. cara 3.0, this new bill, renews and strengthens those provisions. and provides a significant boost in funding as well when added with existing cara programs authorized through 2023, we would be investing over $1 billion per year to address the epidemic. putting us on a path toward a brighter future. free from addiction. it's money well spent in my view. it's necessary. again, it's going to help to bring our families back together, get people back to work, ensure that our communities are not being

devastated by crime that's knitted in relation -- that's committed in relation to these drug issues. i believe these two bills -- the fight fentanyl act and cara 3.0 -- will make a difference in fighting the addiction that our country faces that has been made worse during the time of the pandemic. a lot of our victims of this addiction crisis are suffering in silence. i urge my colleagues, let's act now. let's bring this to the light. let's allow more people to get into treatment, longer-term recovery. let's be sure that we are making fentanyl illegal in all of its forms. let's, without delay, go to work to once again do what we know works because we turned the tide on addiction. we began to turn it in 2018, 2019. let's get back to that. we'll save lives and give so many more americans the ability to achieve their god-given

potential. i yield back my time.

mr. kaine: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the

following nominations -- calendar items 499, 500, 502, 503, and all the nominations on the secretary's desk in the navy, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's actions, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: i ask unanimous consent that the senate receives a message from the house of representatives, that it has passed the surface transportation authorization extension that is identical to the text of s. 3122, that the bill be considered read a third time and deemed passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 3:00 p.m.,

monday, november 1, that following the prayer and pledge, the mourning hour be deemed -- the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be conserved for use later in the day and morning business be closed, that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the davidson nomination. further that at 5:30 p.m. the senate vote on the confirmation of the robinson and heytens nomination in the order lists. if any nominations are confirmed during monday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

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cspan, cspan now, download today. >> before the meeting of the house rules committee, house speaker nancy pelosi spoke about the agreed-upon framework to present biden's build back better agenda and calling it historic and transformative and the speaker spoke about the investments will be made. [inaudible].