Law would target drugs, but could stop other crime

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, spoke with reporters on Tuesday about his Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act. The STOP Act seeks to curb deaths associated with fentanyl overdoses by requiring shippers using the U.S. Postal Service to provide electronic data declaring who and where the package is being shipped from, where it is being shipped to, and what items it contains.

Commercial shippers like FedEx and UPS already use this sort of system, but the USPS does not.

Portman, who explained that he toured a UPS hub last week to see how they use the system to screen the packages, stated that Columbus was seeing “on average, one overdose death per day.”

He said that those statistics were similar in other cities like Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo. He said that, while the STOP Act doesn’t directly stop drug abuse, it could help prevent overdoses related to fentanyl, which can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

When asked about privacy concerns related to the provisions in the STOP Act, Portman acknowledged that contraband other than drugs could be intercepted with the program. He said that law enforcement saw this as a “positive” as well.

Portman also discussed the ongoing debate about healthcare and the replacement of the Affordable Care Act, calling the bill proposed by the House “inadequate to meet expanded Medicaid” and the opioid and mental health treatment provided under that expansion.

“Up to 50 percent of expanded Medicaid in Ohio is just for this (type of treatment),” Portman said.
Portman also voiced his support for legislation that would track prescriptions of narcotic drugs across state lines, noting that this would help prevent the propagation of pill mills, a problem that has plagued Ohio in the past.

“This is important, to have this information,” Portman said of the bill, which would require the monitoring in all states that receive federal funding.

Portman told reporters what is really needed, however, is research by pharmaceutical manufacturers into non-addictive painkillers as well as a hard look at their encouragement of over prescription.

“What message are they sending out (by encouraging over prescription)?” Portman asked.

Portman also discussed plans to encourage the use of more U.S. steel in American construction projects, noting that the federal government still hasn’t addressed all uses adequately.

“With pipe and tube, we still have some work to do,” he said.

The Keystone XL pipeline, for example, is not required to use U.S. produced steel pipes.

Portman also discussed the overturn of clean power rules, stating that he had been opposed to the clean power rules from the Obama administration, considering them “an over reach.”

“I think there are better ways to get at the same objectives,” Portman said, citing as an example legislation currently being worked on to provide tax incentives for the capture and sequestering of CO2.

Portman also said that he was confident that the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court would be approved and told reporters that he believed an investigation in potential Russian influence in the 2016 election process was “absolutely necessary,” saying he supported both the Senate Intelligence Committee and FBI investigations into the matter.