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Washington, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul gave the following remarks at a full committee markup of H.R. 3205. 

 

WATCH HERE. 

– Remarks as Delivered –

First, I’d like to start by recognizing the reprehensible actions committed against our colleague Mr. Connolly from Virginia. The recent attacks against his office staff are completely out of bounds, and I condemn them in the strongest terms. 

I hope your staff will make a quick recovery – we are praying for them and wishing them the best.

Now to the topic at hand: We are facing a drug epidemic, the likes of which we’ve never seen. Fentanyl is being trafficked over our southern border from Mexico. 

It’s killing thousands of Americans and ravaging communities like the ones in my home state. 

My children have seen the effects of this carnage firsthand – my son has attended multiple funerals, and my oldest daughter.  

Synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl — killed more than 100,000 Americans last year alone. That’s nearly double the number of deaths in the entire Vietnam War over 2 decades.

We know where this is coming from: Communist China is supplying the illicit precursors that are used to produce fentanyl.

The CCP is flooding Mexican ports like Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas with these precursors. 

Once they’re transported into the interior, the cartels use clandestine labs to produce this chemical weapon and then traffic fentanyl across our border.

I used that term ‘weapon’ for a reason. 

It’s time to classify illicit fentanyls for what they are – chemical weapons, which Communist China purposefully turns a blind eye to, and drug cartels use to perpetrate the mass killing of Americans. 

My bill today will start that process by ensuring the Secretary of State takes steps to schedule fentanyl and its precursors under the chemical weapons convention. 

This is about putting pressure on Russia – where in 2002, security forces used synthetic opioids and killed almost 200 people during a hostage crisis. It’s also about putting pressure on China in the international fora. 

It’s about holding them accountable. 

Fentanyl is a national security threat, but it has also caused an epidemic that’s taken the lives of so many of the most vulnerable in society – our children.

I would like to recognize one family that knows this better than the rest of us. Mrs. Deena Loudoun is in the audience today with her sister Ms. Paula Butler. Deena and Paula, would you please stand and be recognized?

Thank you.

Deena’s son Matthew was a graduate of Montgomery County Public Schools and had a bright, promising future ahead of him. Deena has described him as her quote “pride and joy . . . a great son, brother, and friend who often put the needs of others before his own.” 

In 2020, Matthew had just turned 21 years old, when he took what he thought was Percocet. It was not what he thought it was. It was fentanyl, and he tragically passed away. He simply didn’t wake up.

Deena, I know we can’t compensate you for your loss, but I want you to know there is a strong bipartisan effort in this Congress to end this epidemic and hold those responsible, accountable.

We will continue to do everything we can to end the flow of illicit narcotics into this country.

I’d also like to recognize members of S.O.U.L. – Surviving Our Ultimate Loss, a support group for mothers who have lost a child to a drug overdose.

Roxanne Wood, who’s also with us here today, is one of the founding mothers of SOUL. Her son Donnie was a graduate of Salisbury University and died of an opioid overdose in 2015 at the age of 32. We’re so sorry for your loss.

Finally, Marie Bell is the mother of Amelia Jane Bell-Andrews. Amelia was a 28-year-old, who earned a scholarship to Georgetown University and wanted to become a neuroscientist. She died of fentanyl poisoning in 2021. Roxanne and Marie, thank you for standing to be recognized.

Thank you for sharing your stories and having the courage to come here today for this important markup. You are the reason we are here today. And I assure you that none of my colleagues take your loss – or this problem – lightly. 

My legislation has been endorsed by the Victims of Illicit Drugs, also known as VOID, and I’d like to offer a statement of support from them into the record. 

I’d also like to submit a separate letter from 18 state attorneys general – both Republican and Democrat – who asked President Biden to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. 

They said that waiting to do this would quote “be the same type of reasoning that kept the government from investigating foreign nationals learning to fly, but not land planes in the lead up to September 11th.” End quote.

The bill takes several actions.

First, as mentioned, it directs the Secretary of State to seek to amend the Chemical Weapons Convention to include fentanyl substances. 

By adding these chemicals to the treaty, we are not calling for all precursors to be banned outright, but rather ensuring that they receive a heightened level of scrutiny because they can be incredibly dangerous.

This bill also assists the Mexican Government in disrupting the fentanyl supply chain by authorizing certain law enforcement programs and requiring strict accounting on the effectiveness of them.

Lastly, this legislation also provides for the ability to sanction banks, individuals, and transnational criminal organizations complicit in the trafficking of this chemical weapon.

This is a generational crisis that requires bold action and thinking outside the box. 

That’s what we’re doing. This is not Deena Loudon’s fight, or S.O.U.L’s fight alone – it’s all of ours to fight.

And with that, I want to thank you, the family members for being here today, and with that I yield back, and the ranking member is now recognized.

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