Congress. President trumps date of the Union Address, tuesday at five on cspan. Live on the free cspan radio and alive on your tablet at cspan. Org. The Senate Permanent subcommittee on investigation held a hearing yesterday on how drug traffickers get opioid and other drugs through the us postal system. Witnesses at the hearing from work from the state department and Border Protection, Drug Enforcement administration and immigration and Customs Enforcement. This hearing will come to order. Thank you all for being here. Todays hearing continues the permit subcommittee on investigations work to combat the Opioid Epidemic that is ripping our communities across the country. The last congress subcommittee issued a bipartisan report on opioid related fraud and abuse in the Medicare Part b program. This Congress Committee held a hearing on the growing problem of individuals by illicit opioids over the internet and shipping them to the United States through the mail. The Opioid Crisis sadly continues to get worse, not better. Last month the center for , Disease Control reported more than 63,000 americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses. That number increased in 2017. These Overdose Deaths were shocking. The number of deaths continue to grow, my own home state of ohio we were told recently is now second in the country in terms of Overdose Deaths. Its heartbreaking and increasingly, these overdoses are due to a synthetic heroine, illegal versions of fentanyl, a drug that is 50 to 100 times stronger than heroine. In ohio, fentanyl and its variations were involved in 60 percent of the Overdose Deaths last year. So its become the number one killer in ohio. The vast majority of illegal fentanyl is purchased online. In last in china and shipped to the United States through the mail. We edwill hear from the Drug Enforcement agency about that. But i think its shocking to people when they find out this is coming to through our us mail system. Last night the subcommittee released its bipartisan report, on how criminals exploit vulnerabilities International Mail and use the u. S. Postal service to ship opioids into our country. Without objection, i would lose the subcommittees report be read into the record. After our initial 2017 hearing, we set out to find out how easy it is to purchase fentanyl online. Y and how it was shipped to the United States. What we discovered course was the shockingly easy to do so. All you had to do was search fentanyl for sale. Thats simple search return hundreds of websites affiliated with chinese labs all openly advertising Illegal Drugs. The field was narrowed to six websites and we sent emails asking basic questions about how to purchase and ship fentanyl. These Online Sellers were quick to respond, unafraid of getting caught apparently and r ready to make a deal. You will see that in the report. They offer discounts for all purchases, even try to upsell us to a more powerful synthetic heroine that is so strong is used as an elephant tranquilizer. Ordering these drugs was easy as buying any other product. I must note our subcommittee never completed the purchase of drugs online. It was too dangerous to riskexposing someone to delay fentanyl during delivery. We used the Online SellersPayment Information to determine if others were buying. And of course we found out they were, just from these websites alone,they identify more than 500 payments , of all my sailors by more than 300 americans. Totaling 230,000, most of which occurred over the last two years. Though this is just a small, only six websites and frankly use just one Payment System to be able to identify some of these buyers. The 300 people by way were located in 43 different states with individuals in my home state of ohio, pennsylvania and florida. The map we have back here behind us shows the concentration of where most purchases were made. Thats also in the report. We also asked how the Online Sellers would ship the drawings to us. Every single sone of them referred to use the u. S. Postal service. They didnt want to use the private carriers like dhl, fedex, ups, they wanted to use the Postal Service. They told us they use the Postal Service because the chances of the drugs getting seized were so insignificant thatdelivery was essentially guaranteed. We were also able to track hundreds of packages related to these online purchases. We identified seven people out of the 300 who died in fentanyl related overdoses after sending money to and receiving packages on the sellers. When these individuals who died was a 49yearold ohio and in cleveland who had about 2500 bucks and a seller received 15 packages through the Postal Service over a 10 month period. We confirmed that he died from acute intoxication weeks after he omreceived a package from this online seller. By analyzing more than 2 million lines of shipment data obtained in our investigation, we located three individuals who are likely disturbing these drugs. We identified more than 120 from people spending a payment to Online Sellers in china and a day or two later receiving a passage from one single address. The person at this address by the way was working with the online seller domestically transshipment purchases. Shipping data review during the course of the investigation indicated other individuals who purchase items to make bills including chemical bonding agents and fellow casings. Not t surprising that people ordering fentanyl online themselves. The Profit Margins are staggering. Based on dea estimates, the street value of the Online Transactions just to six websites, the subcommittee investigated translates to about 760 million in fentanyl pills in our communities. We are working with Law Enforcement authorities to make sure the dealers can be brought to justice will continue to do so after this hearing. But our findings today show the crucial role advanced electronic data can play in protecting our country and fighting theOpioid Epidemic. We also need some legislative changes. Last year the Postal Service received advanced electronic data on 36 percent of the more than 498 Million International packages coming into our country. So about 500 million packages a year and only about 36 percent have the advanced electronic data that allows Law Enforcement to identify these suspicious packages. This means 318 Million International packages came here with nodata , therefore no abilityfor customs and Border Protection. Law enforcement targeted these packages for screening. We didnt know with regard to 318 million packages, in the senate where it was going. And this is a massive loophole thats undermining safety and security of our country. In addition, the data we get from the foreign post that we reviewed during our investigation appears to be of questionable quality. Its only 36 percent but even much of that data is not helpful. Times the data was nothing more than lines of letters and characters entered by someone who didnt understand how to construct an address. Even when the customs and Border Protection have the data, the Postal Service failed to locate it, about 20 percent of the time. So again, i, 36 percent, much of that data is not helpful. And even when Law Enforcement says weve got a package that looks like it suspicious, wed like to look at it, 20 percent of the time we cant find the package. It gets through. What we are left with as thefederal governments policies and procedures are wholly inadequate. Without the use of International Mail, shifting legal synthetic opioids into the United States. In contrast, are Postal Service revised data on about 90 percent of the packages that ships to foreign post so 90 percent of what we send out sent by electronic data to the government. Efforts september 11, 2001, and the terrorist 1 attacks on that day, collecting advanced electronic data was identified as a National Priority for all the right reasons. In 2002 in fact congress required private carriers to collect this data. That x, dhs and others were required to collect it. It was left up to the discretion of the postmaster general and treasury regarding the postalservice. They were encouraged to do it , study it, but it was left up to their discretion and more than a dozen years Nothing Happened essentially, leaving customs and Border Protection tomanually inspect packages and finding a needle in a haystack. They announced 500 million packages and it wasnt that many. To their credit, the Postal Service started a Pilot Program in late 2015 to target suspicious packages from china using advanced electronic data. Our investigation found a lack of planning, Different Missions of the agencies and personality conflicts hampered the success either of the Pilot Programs started in 2015. That Pilot Program by the way started at jfk where investigators were able to see that in action. Despite these problems, the Postal Service has had a Global Compliance trade road allowing them to put a positive spin on stopping opioids. While both cpd and the Postal Service agreed the pilot should be rolled out to all facilities, they only started back after the subcommittee held its 2017 hearing. Im glad they did it. Im glad they had the sense to do it. We learn this process was completed in advance of this hearing so earlier this week, i think this hearing probably motivated action which is good. But it should have been a priority without having to hold this hearing. It shouldnt take a congressional investigation into the Postal Service and whats happening with International Mail will get our government to do its job. One part of the solution is more data. Thats why weve introduced a synthetic trafficking and Overdose Prevention act which would require the advanced electronic data on International Packages shipped to the Postal Services. Currently we have 29 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle and i know this hearing will put pressure on us in the senate to take action. I want to thank senator carter and his staff were working with us so closely on this investigation. Theres a lot more to be done to turn the tide of the opioid addiction. But stopping these deadly drugs from reaching our street is a good start. As the coauthor of the comprehensive recovery act ive focused most of my career over the last 20 years on prevention and treatment. Longerterm recovery. Thats all important. But to keep this poison from coming into our communities, is something we cant do. Just in the past week in toledo ohio fiveindividuals overdosed. From fentanyl related overdoses. Its so bad officials issued an opioid advisory warning to the public begging them to stay away from what was surely a bad batch of opioids from northwest ohio. How many more people have to die before this poison stops coming into our communities . Before we take the steps, the simple steps to at least understand where the suspicion are and how to get them offline and not delivered to a po box in america . How many people have to die before this happens . Yes, the Postal Service is in desperate need of comprehensive reform and nobody has been more involved than senator carter but its shocking we are still so unprepared to police the mail arriving into our country. Again, i want to thank senator carter for working so closely with the chairman of the full committee who has joined us, senator johnson and i would ask if he has any remarks and i would turn it over to Ranking Member senatorcarter. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you for your ongoing leadership. Its about an important issue facing our nation. I like to be joined by our full Committee Chairman today too. I want to thank our staff, democrat and republican for their good discussion about how we dont Work Together on this issue. And theres no space between us on this issue and frankly on a lot of others. I think our witnesses for joining us today for the work that you do and the work done by the people and your colleagues. An oversight hearing, this results in an investigation. A big part of our job is oversight. This is oversight and investigation on something that we all care deeply m about. No state has been immune to the damage that these drugs have caused. Including my home state of ohio, navy rochester, youd think it was a town north of columbus but turned out to be a whole state and ive been fortunate to be able to represent them for a while but whether its ohio or the state, its an enormous challenge that we face and it all ends. Its all hands on deck. It requires and all of the above strategy. Its not enough to deal with the symptoms of the problems. Where we talk a little bit about that, a lot of that today but also the root cause of these problems, you got to get them both. According to the division of Forensic Science in my state, more delaware indians are dying from overdose each year. 2014 we lost 122 people. 2015 we lost 228 people. 2016 we lost 308 people. Theyre not just numbers, they are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and grandparents, this last month it was reported Emergency Responders in our largest county only had three, the largest county where my wife and i live, New Castle County we were dispatched toa overdose every 80 minutes. By early november of last year, paramedics administered naloxone, john drug that can block the adverse effects of c an opioid overdose to nearly 600 patients. Opioids are now the leading cost of debts killing 4032 people nationwide. Last year our subcommittee set out to learn what the federal government is doing to stop these drugs entering our country. May, we heard testimony from officials from the posterior service, state department and several experts and First Responders on the ground in ohio. Delaware and elsewhere, grapple every day with the impact opioids are having on our communities. They told us how opioids are getting into our communities through the mail and how they are working together to stop it. Unfortunately i left that hearing concerned that the response was proven to be insufficient. Our investigations show progress has been made but also that we have much, much more to do. In fact, the findings are alarming. We found that fentanyl and other stronger synthetic opioids are available for sale at the chairman said on the internet, especially for anyone who knows how to shop online. Purchase, these drugs arrive in early from china through the International Mail system g. Sellers often prefer the Postal Service, they often offers shipment through private carriers like dhl and ubs. Through our work we obtained key payments and shipping to a that enable staff rank Online Sellers in fentanyl related deaths. Drugrelated arrests were even found what appears to be a major opioid distributor in pennsylvania where delaware indians get most of their from. Its tvps mission in partnership with the Postal Service and fight shippers to keep these drugs from entering our country. That mission has unfortunately become increasingly more difficult as the number of inbound International Packages have skyrocketed. I like to say the german mentioned needle in a haystack. When you have eda needle in, what makes the needle bigger is make the haystacks smaller. We need to do both of those. But the Postal Service alone volume has double. Going from 150 million pieces in fiscal 2013 to nearly 500 million and counting in the calendar year 2017. So recently cvt was forced to sit through this massive number of packages from the Postal Service manually. Today automation and the use of advanced electronic data has impro