CARA, coal miners, and A-Plant among items funded

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, held a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon to discuss the federal budget and items that will be funded through September with the agreement that is expected to get enough bipartisan support to pass the Senate.

Portman noted that opiate treatment funding, through the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), and opiate and mental health funding, through the CURES Act, will both continue under the agreement.

“I’ve been urging our appropriators to fund those,” Portman said.

In fact, funding under CURES actually increases from $187,000,000 to $217,000,000 under the agreement, but he explained, “only three out of eight programs are implemented,” before adding that he was, “pushing for the other five,” and would be speaking on opiates on the Senate floor later this week.

Portman also noted that the new budget agreement includes funding for coal miner’s health care that was set to expire. This healthcare was originally supposed to be funded through company pension programs, but with the bankruptcy of those companies many miners and their widows and dependents were looking at a loss of healthcare.

Portman said that the budget also includes sufficient funding to keep cleanup and decommissioning of contaminated materials “on track” at the old Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant facility in Piketon. Portman said that the funding temporarily helps “protect Piketon’s jobs and the cleanup,” but that a permanent solution was needed.

Without the funding, he explained, the facility “would have lost 75 to 150 jobs,” but this still isn’t a permanent fix to the funding problems the facility faces.

Portman said that he was “looking forward” to showing new energy secretary Rick Perry around the facility and working with Perry “to avoid layoffs in the next year.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, also released statements about both opioid crisis funding and healthcare benefits for mining families.

Brown, who held a roundtable with miners in Steubenville last month to discuss securing permanent healthcare coverage, was also supportive of the healthcare provision and vowed to continue looking for “a solution to secure miners’ failing pensions.”

“Our miners sacrificed their backs and lungs to power our country,” Brown said, “and we are finally making good on the promise made decades ago that their healthcare would always be there for them.”

“The miners are responsible for this victory,” he continued, “and it’s been an honor to stand with them throughout this fight. But we’ve got more work to do to ensure that these miners have access to the pensions they’ve earned.”

He also voiced his support for the CARA funding, among other efforts to battle the addiction crisis facing Ohio.

“As individuals, families and communities across the country continue to be devastated by the opioid epidemic, I’m glad to see more federal resources for individuals and families to get the treatment they need and for law enforcement to combat the flow of these deadly drugs into our communities,” Brown said.

“I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to make sure local communities have the resources they need as we work to tackle the opioid epidemic in Ohio,” he added.