the heart of downtown cleveland sits an 11-story tall half block wide symbol of law and order, the cuyahoga county correction center. >> face the bars! >> about 30,000 men and women from the city and outlying areas are booked into this jail each year. the majority will be released within 24 hours. but about 2,200 occupied beds here for an indefinite period, most are only accused of crimes and are awaiting trial for resolution of their cases. and like cleveland itself, the jail can be said to have tough neighborhoods of its own, especially the tenth floor. >> this is our maximum security floor. for the most part, that is where we house all of our problematic inmates, whether it's inmates in some type of disciplinary lockup and we have our individuals that are here on high-profile charges. >> the floor is managed by the special response team or sert, a tactical unit trained in the use of riot gear and controlling high risk inmates. >> we like to keep the sert team close to our problems. that's kind of why they manage the floor. >> and problems do occur here. sert has just been called to a fig

the cuyahoga county correction center. about 30,000 men and women from the city and outlying areas are booked into this jail each year. the majority will be released within 24 hours, but about 2200 occupied beds here for an indefinite period. most are only accused of crimes that are awaiting trial and the resolution of their cases. and like cleveland itself, the jail can be said to have some tough neighborhoods of its own, especially the tenth floor. >> this is our maximum security floor. >> this is where we have the problematic inmates, inmates in disciplinary lock up, administrative segregation. we have individuals here on high profile charges. >> the floor is managed by the special response team or sert. a tactical unit trained in riot gear, nonlethal wepz and controlling high inmates. >> we like to keep the sert close to our problems. >> problems do occur here. sert has just been called to a fight. little do they know they might have been sabotaged. >> f 1. >> proceed with caution. the floor is wet. >> there was so muc

. >> he's known at the cuyahoga county correction center in downtown cleveland as big sam. >> you used him. who's the victim? you sit here won't even open your mouth to tell me nothing about what these guys did -- >> we quickly learned gang investigator sam mclaren had a personality to match his physique. >> big sam's style was one of dedication and passion. >> you have that candy -- >> sweet. >> i'll see you later. >> thank you. >> you take care of yourself. >> he could be very caring and heartfelt in his communication, but he could also be very loud and bombastic when he felt he was being disrespected or lied to. >> this ain't no game! ain't no deals! personally going to see you, my friend. because i've been laughing since i've seen you. >> a change in these young men's lives. one example of how sam cared about the inmates, inmate tony goodwin. someone's story we have been following for a while. everybody expected him to be convicted of a murder charge and face a long term in prison. >>> we, the jury, fine the defendant not guilty of aggravated murder. >> but tony got a lesser convic

. >> reporter: and it appears to be getting worth, with 70 deaths in cuyahoga county so far this year, 18 in the last three days. dr. thomas gilson is the medical examiner. his brother-in-law died of an overdose. the numbers are huge, and we're only in february. >> last year, we saw almost 100% increase in the total number of overdose deaths in our county alone. that's a shocking number of people. >> reporter: the deaths are blamed almost entirely on powerful new opiods, like fentanyl. >> heroin is four to five times the potency of morphine. >> reporter: and carfentanyl, the latest drug to flood the market s100 times more powerful than fentanyl. dr. joan papp works in the emergency room at metrohealth medical center. >> so this is naloxone. >> reporter: she found a project to lower the death toll by distributing naloxone, which reverses overdoses in a matter of minutes. since the program began in 2013, more than 700 lives have been saved. but still... >> we're seeing an increased number of overdose deaths in our emergency department that we truly never faced before. >> reporter: last

. >> reporter: and it appears to be getting worse, with 70 deaths in cuyahoga county so far this year, 18 in the last three days. dr. thomas gilson is the medical examiner. his brother-in-law died of an overdose. only in february. >> last year, we saw almost 100% increase in the total number of overdose deaths in our county alone. that's a shocking number of people. >> reporter: the deaths are blamed almost entirely on powerful new opioids, like fentanyl. >> heroin is four to five times the potency of morphine. fentanyl is about 100 times the >> reporter: and carfentanyl, the latest drug to flood the market is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl. dr. joan papp works in the emergency room at metrohealth medical center. >> so this is naloxone. >> reporter: she found a project to lower the death toll by distributing naloxone, which reverses overdoses in a matter of minutes. since the program began in 2013, more than 700 lives have been saved. but still -- >> we're seeing an increased number of overdose deaths in our emergency department that we truly never faced before. >> reporter: la

our rivers, including the cuyahoga river in cleveland caught on fire. schools were built on toxic chemical dumps. i know the thought of public health risks like these sound preposterous today but this was all the case back before the e.p.a. it took parents and regular citizens standing up and demanding better to finally force action and in 1970, president richard nixon and the democratic congress worked in a bipartisan manner to create the e.p.a. now let me be clear. the e.p.a. is not perfect. there are many instances where i have stood up to the agency because i felt its actions were not in the best interests of minnesotans. that said, since the creation of the agency, the e.p.a. has significantly improved our public health and environment by cleaning up our air and cleaning up our water. we still have a lot of work left to do and yet we are now faced with a president and e.p.a. nominee who want to gut the agency and reverse the progress that we have made. president trump has repeatedly attacked environmental protection and the e.p.a. he has called to

at ohio state, a midshipman there, i remember a time up north of us in cleveland, ohio, when the cuyahoga river caught on fire. and the kind of smog we had and other parts of the country. i was stationed in california in the navy for a while. there were days when i ran, i knew i wasn't doing a good thing for my lungs. we have done a lot better than that. while we have cleaned up rivers like the cuyahoga river and cleaned up a lot of places around the country, we still have work to do. but we have made those improvements and developed technologies that we have been able to sell all over the world, all over the world, and that's a good thing. i thank my friend for getting up at this hour of the day and for joining us here, for his leadership, not just in indiana but here in the senate. it's been a joy. thank you. i want to go back to what i was talking about earlier, scott pruitt's views. i think they're extreme, uninformed views on mercury regulation. but, madam president, mr. pruitt's views on core clean air and clean water laws and the somewhat misleading and oftentimes evasive answers h

i think it was a year or two before that that the cuyahoga had indeed caught on fire. i believe houston's ship channel had the same issue. we knew we were there to really deal with substantial problems, and we were going to meet with immediate pushback. for the next 40 years, the e.p.a. would build a legacy of preserving and protecting the country's air, water and natural resources, working to make our country a better place to live. and i just want to say that whatever the final disposition of this nomination ends up beinh as hard as we possibly can for the delay of this decision until we are able to see the contents of mr. pruitt's e-mails as directed by the court this afternoon. but whatever the decision is of the senate under advice and consent, it's really important that this be said. e.p.a. employees still have an obligation under federal law to do their job, to protect air and water, to administer the clean air and clean water act, to enforce the endangered species act. we are confirming a head of an agency, but this new head of an agency is not the emperor of t

>> there were 14 deaths in cuyahoga county due to opiate overdoses.eter this is still a question. but he spoke about it during the election. tom price says there should be access to these things however if the aca is eliminated, we don't know how that will work out. it's still an open question and the problem is not going away. >> good luck in addressing that issue. as we go to break, just a quick glimpse, one more time. new england patriots celebrating the super bowl victory. mr. brady there. some in new england call him a different term. hambone! sally! 22! hut hut! tiki barber running a barber shop? yes!!! surprising. yes!!! what's not surprising? how much money david saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. who's next? >>> hello. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. thanks for joining us. we're following breaking news. live pictures coming in from the white house briefing room. shortly, we'll be seeing the press secretary sean spicer at the lectern at this hour to take questions from reporters. spicer will li

the idea of federal protection of our environment really started to take hold when the cuyahoga river caught fire. again, in june of 1969. the public outrage that rightfully followed this near spontaneous combustion of a river helped lead to the e.p.a.'s creation in 1970 and the passage of the clean air act the same year and the clean water act in 1972. now, nearly a half-century lairkts it's precisely because these laws and others like them have been successful in making us healthier and safer that it's easy to forget why we need them. but institutions like the e.p.a. does run themselves. the environment doesn't protect itself, and a big oil and gas and coal companies certainly don't police themselves. that is why the e.p.a. exists. and you would certainly hope that at the very least the administrator of that agency would support that core mission. yet we are this evening considering the nomination of someone whose main experience with environment protection at the federal level is filing lawsuits against the federal environmental protection agency. in fact, he's filed 14 of those la

the county of cuyahoga and erie and lorain couldn't clean it up. the state of ohio didn't have the resources to clean it up. it was only the terrible fire in cleveland where bridge trestles caught on fire that got the nixon to move and create the e.p.a. and then we cleaned up lake erie, one of the great accomplishments in our country's history. environmental and otherwise, one of the great accomplishments. it was a republican administration with a democratic congress, back when good environmental policy was bipartisan, when republicans as well as democrats believed in being stewards of the earth in following a number of the teachings of the new testament about being stewards of the earth. it was a sustained effort by kitts and by elected officials in both parties to protect our public health. the e.p.a. affects the water that comes into our children's drinking fountains. it affects the small businesses that rely on tourists and lakes and beaches. it affects farmers who feed the nation. but according to dr. asparna bowle, a pediatric specialist at u

the cuyahoga river which used to catch on fire? the l.a. smog that was so bad that when i would run, it would hurt my lungs? some say it is impossible to have clean air and clean water, it will destroy the environment. that's nonsense. we can have both. when richard nixon signed the e.p.a. into law, the g.d.p. has grown by 200% or more. since losing five million jobs in the great recession, we've added 16 million jobs, the unemployment rate is down by half. we still have work to do, my friends. there are communities in the united states where water is unsafe to drink, millions of kids who have asthma. sea-level rise -- sea level is rising up and down the east coast. state route one in my state, a major highway, shut town again, not -- shut down, not because of a huge storm, but because of sea-level rise. when our grandchildren ask us, what did we do about it? i want to telltal tell the righ. we owe it to those people and this planet to overcome those challenges. please join us in voting no on the motion for cloture vote. -- on the motion fo