During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) spoke about the HALT Fentanyl Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, just last week in my home state of North Carolina, narcotics investigators
00:06from the Iredell County Sheriff's Office and the Gaston Police Department seized five
00:11pounds of fentanyl that was in possession of an illegal alien.
00:16It was enough to kill over a million people.
00:19That's nothing short of a weapon of mass destruction.
00:23Now the reality is that's not just a public health crisis.
00:26It's a nightmare that is destroying families, shattering communities, and devastating our
00:31country.
00:33On average, nine North Carolinians die every single day from fentanyl overdoses.
00:38Enough fentanyl claims nearly 200 lives across every day.
00:44Fentanyl claims 200 lives across our country.
00:46And just last year, this silent killer took more than 70,000 Americans.
00:52But they're not just numbers.
00:54These are sons and daughters, they're parents and siblings.
00:58These are our friends and our neighbors.
01:00These are people who should be living full, meaningful lives but instead have become statistics.
01:07So let's put this into perspective.
01:10Just two milligrams of fentanyl, similar to seven grains of salt, it's enough to kill
01:16a person.
01:19Just two, I mean if it's a sugar packet and you pour it in your morning coffee and it
01:24were to be filled with fentanyl, I mean it could take the lives of 500 people.
01:29The quantity equal to a sugar packet.
01:33Now if it was a standard four pound bag of granulated sugar, the kind that we all have
01:38in our pantries, if it were filled with fentanyl it would wipe out 905,000 individuals.
01:47This deadly drug, it's flooding our communities and it's not by accident.
01:51When I talk to law enforcement across all 100 counties in North Carolina, I repeatedly
01:57hear the same alarming message.
01:59Every single county is a border county.
02:03North Carolina is roughly 1,000 miles from the southern border, yet the fentanyl pouring
02:08into our country, it knows no distance and no boundaries.
02:14This is a direct consequence of the Biden administration's reckless open border policies
02:21that allowed the drug cartels to exploit our immigration system and to flood our communities
02:26with illegal drugs.
02:28President Trump, however, is taking necessary steps to restore our border, restore order
02:35and dismantle the criminal networks profiting off of human suffering.
02:40But the consequences of President Biden's open borders and lack of action to mitigate
02:45the fentanyl crisis in our country remain the deadly reality facing our communities
02:51every day.
02:53This was not just a failure of policy by the previous administration, it was a betrayal
02:58of the American people to put political agendas over our public safety.
03:03Now, even in the face of these staggering losses, Democrats continue to block bipartisan
03:09efforts to dismantle the criminal networks fueling the crisis.
03:12They refused to support measures that would cut off the supply, crack down on traffickers
03:18and strengthen our border security.
03:21So I asked my colleagues, how many more lives are you willing to sacrifice before standing
03:26up and saying enough?
03:28We can't afford to turn a blind eye to the sobering reality and traumatic consequences
03:35of this crisis.
03:37We need to make our streets safer and we need to do it right now.
03:42That's why I proudly stand with my colleague, Senator Cassidy, in supporting the HALT Fentanyl
03:46Act.
03:47It's common sense, bipartisan legislation that will give law enforcement the tools they
03:51need to close loopholes and stop criminals from evading the law by simply doing two things.
03:59First, permanently classifying fentanyl and related substances under Schedule 1.
04:04And second, increasing the sentences for fentanyl traffickers.
04:09This bill has already passed the House with strong bipartisan support and now it's time
04:13for the Senate to do the same.
04:16So let's secure our streets.
04:17Let's stop the flow of fentanyl.
04:19Let's protect the American people.
04:21And let's do it before another innocent life is lost.
04:25I yield the floor.