WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress passed a bill Friday cracking down on fentanyl trafficking — legislation that U.S. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said will cripple cartels smuggling the drug into the country at the southern border.
“They’re running scared. We need to keep them on the run. Now is the time to turn up the heat,” said the Senate’s second-ranking Republican.
He made the remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, when a vote had been scheduled for later that day before it was was pushed to Friday. The bill passed 84-16 with U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, joining Barrasso in the largely bipartisan majority.
The House passed the bill in February with support from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming. The Senate vote effectively sends the legislation to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature.
The Senate version of the bill was amended, though, and it was not immediately clear if a conference committee made up of members of the House and Senate will be needed to reconcile differences in the two chambers' versions before the bill finally goes to Trump.
‘Poisoning And Killing’
The bill classifies fentanyl as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act and stiffens penalties on dealers.
The Drug Enforcement Administration currently lists fentanyl under Schedule II. According to Barrasso, the agency briefly moved it to Schedule I in 2018.
Also, Congress previously passed short-term measures putting fentanyl under Schedule I, according to Barrasso. This new bill, when signed into law as expected, will make that listing permanent, barring a repeal.
The bill redefines fentanyl-related drugs to close a loophole. Dealers sometimes change the chemical composition of the drugs slightly in order to elude prosecution if they are arrested, lawmakers say, and the new definition makes prosecutions easier.
Barrasso, who had a long career practicing medicine in Casper, said fentanyl overdosing is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
“Illicit fentanyl is poisoning and killing Americans every day,” he said in his floor speech Wednesday. “More than 74,000 Americans died last year as a result of this poison.”
Lummis: Biden At Fault
The bill is called the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act — or the HALT Fentanyl Act, for short. It contains provisions allowing for medical research, though its main aim is to battle the contraband versions of the drug.
Lummis blamed former President Joe Biden’s administration for the wide availability of illicit fentanyl in the United States.
“For years, the Biden administration’s open-border policies enabled cartels to flood our communities with lethal drugs,” Lummis told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday. “The HALT Act gives law enforcement the tools necessary to protect lives and combat this crisis.”
She added: “Sadly, every state has been impacted by these illicit drugs. We must pass the HALT Act today and continue to do all we can to end this heartbreaking crisis.”
Hageman called the bill a “crucial step toward eradicating fentanyl in our communities.”
Most From Mexico
Barrasso said “no community has been spared” by the drug’s ravages.
“We’re losing our sons and our daughters, our brothers and our sisters, friends and neighbors, our fellow citizens,” he said.
Like Lummis, Barrasso pointed the finger at Biden’s border policies.
“The border crisis of the last four years is what fueled the fentanyl crisis,” Barrasso said. “Most of the fentanyl in the United States actually comes from Mexico. It is produced, it is transported, and it is sold by transnational criminal cartels. They import chemicals to make the poison from communist China, and then traffic it into the United States.”
Cartels’ ‘Bottom Line’
He said the bill complements Trump’s broader border-security efforts.
“The secure border that President Trump is delivering does take a chunk out of the cartels’ bottom line — and they notice it,” Barrasso said. “Cartels are actually having to shut down their drug labs.”
But more must be done, he said.
Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said Wednesday the bill fails to take into account U.S.-made guns winding up in the hands of Mexican cartels. He also said it does nothing to curb internet access to the drug.
Still, Durbin said he planned to vote for the bill.
Others said the bill goes too far in punishing low-level dealers.
House Passage
The House passed the bill last month on a 312-108 tally, drawing support from nearly all the Republicans including Hageman and a little under half of the Democrats. Ten Democrats and three Republicans did not vote.
“Biden’s soft-on-crime stance and open-border policies fueled the fentanyl crisis devastating the nation,” Hageman told Cowboy State Daily. “I voted for the HALT Fentanyl Act, which reclassifies fentanyl as a Schedule I drug, equipping law enforcement to combat trafficking and support research to understand its harmful effects on people’s health.”
Hageman added: “Combined with the strong border policies implemented by President Trump, this bill is a crucial step toward eradicating fentanyl in our communities.”
Tariffs Connection
Trump has linked fentanyl trafficking to his on-again, off-again announcements of tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China. The administration has partly justified tariffs as a tool to get better cooperation from those countries on keeping the drug out of the United States.
But some Democrats including U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire have said the amount of fentanyl crossing into the U.S. from Canada is extremely low.
Trump has also cited what he calls unfair trade practices by those countries as a reason for the tariffs.
