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Finding the fentanyl needle in the haystack: As co-chair of the Select Committee on China’s bipartisan Fentanyl Working Group, I am drafting legislation aimed at sanctioning Chinese fentanyl manufacturers. We are also working to establish a Joint Task Force - Counter Opioid that brings a whole-of-government, presidentially accountable, congressionally sanctioned focus to stopping fentanyl imports.
Last week, the working group met with experts to discuss how port security plays a role in fentanyl interdiction. The vast majority of illicit fentanyl — close to 90 percent — is seized at official border crossings. Immigration authorities say nearly all of the fentanyl seized at these crossings are smuggled by people who are legally authorized to cross the border, and of that, more than half by U.S. citizens.
It’s a needle-in-a-haystack problem: a soda bottle’s worth of fentanyl precursors can create thousands of pills, so the shipments can be small. Customs & Border Protection is increasingly using sophisticated technology to detect the fentanyl ‘needle’, but the ‘haystack’ of packages is immense. For that reason, Congress must make the haystack smaller by reforming the ‘de minimis’ tariff exemption that has led to a surge of small packages from China, many for fast-fashion items, in contravention of US trade policy.
Questioning the FAA Administrator on flights to Israel: In a Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearing earlier this week, I asked the Federal Aviation Administrator whether the FAA has warned US airlines to suspend flights into Tel Aviv.
The FAA administrator told me that they have not. The airlines that are refusing to fly into Israel are making their own operational decisions. Early in my first term, I worked to secure a direct flight to Israel from Massachusetts. I will continue to work now to resume direct flights to our closest economic and cultural partner in the Middle East.
Leading bipartisan lawmakers on campus antisemitism report: Too many college campuses have been ransacked with antisemitism since October 7th. With the start of the new school year, I co-led a bipartisan letter to the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) requesting an independent panel to investigate the state of antisemitism on college campuses.
Universities are responsible for upholding their Title XI obligations to ensure a suitable learning environment for Jewish and Israeli students. Jewish and Israeli students have been subject to harassment, physical intimidation, and an overall deterioration of their sense of safety and belonging. This letter calls on the USCCR to investigate the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, as it last did in 2004, and provide recommendations to Congress and the administration to address the issue. Read the full letter here.
This effort is complementary to my work to secure more funding for the Office of Civil Rights, at the Department of Education, to pursue legal accountability for any institution of higher education that discriminates against students or faculty for religion or nation of origin.
Standing with Israel against Iran’s proxy terror forces: Israel is surrounded by a ring of fire with Hamas to its south, Hezbollah to its north, and more terror groups in Iraq & Syria to its east.
This ring of fire is fueled by Iran. America must stand with Israel as it defends itself and seeks an expansion of the Abraham Accords. It should also work with our ally for Palestinian-led, Arab-supported, Western-backed reconstruction of Gaza that excludes Hamas from governance.
As Congress prepares for a new term, lawmakers in both parties should also commit themselves to fashion a new Iran strategy devised from first principles. It must not be anchored to the failed approaches that have guided policy since the 2003 invasion of Iraq created a vacuum for Iran to fill. Going forward, the United States should seek to wedge Iran from China, marginalize its hardliners, and uplift its moderate middle class.
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Dads in Congress working to restore family time versus screen time: For last week’s meeting of the Congressional Dads Caucus, where I serve as Chair of the Technology, Media and the Family Working Group, I brought together experts Jonathan Haidt, author of Anxious Generation, and Myrieme Churchill, Founder of Parents for Peace, to discuss the online universe in which American children are growing up. As the parent of a four-year-old, three-year-old, and a one-year-old, I convened this briefing and discussion to build shared conviction with my fellow congressional dads that legislative action against social media corporations is imperative. These trillion-dollar platforms are monetizing our children’s attention spans and undermining their sense of self and society. Parents can’t take them on alone.
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who advocates for restoring a play-based childhood over a phone-based childhood. He expressed his support for my bill, the Verifying Kids' Online Privacy Act, which would raise the federal age of internet adulthood from 13 to 16 to prevent middle-schoolers from being engulfed in online bullying and compare-and-despair cycles.
Myrieme Churchill, the Executive Director of Parents for Peace (P4P), joined me at this year’s State of the Union and returned to Dads Caucus to discuss her work helping families whose sons or daughters have fallen into a vortex of online extremism. She offered important insight to my bipartisan legislation, the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, that holds social media corporations liable for platforming deepfake intimate privacy violations, defamation, and other torts.
Fighting back against health-insurers to lower Rx drug costs: In July, I introduced the bipartisan Pharmacists Fight Back Act to tackle price gouging abuses by the middlemen of prescription drug pricing, Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). Since then, I’ve received an outpouring of support from hundreds of patients and pharmacists around the country who have been subjected to high markups for prescription drugs at the hands of PBMs. I was joined by bipartisan lawmakers, including Representative Diana Harshbarger, a pharmacist herself, and independent pharmacists from 10 states for a press conference on Capitol Hill to build momentum for our goal of 50 co-sponsors by Thanksgiving.
PBMs have taken money directly out of the pockets of patients, taxpayers, and pharmacists, capturing $300 billion from the U.S. healthcare system. My legislation, Pharmacists Fight Back, is currently the most muscular reform ever introduced on the federal level. It will restore transparent, cost-based pricing to the market and curb the self-dealing tactics of the Fortune 20 health insurers that own the PBMs.
I also met with Bil and Shanon Shmidtknecht, the parents of Cole Schmidtknecht, in my office. Cole died from complications of an asthma attack when a PBM suddenly increased the price of his daily asthma medication to nearly the cost of his rent, forcing him to forgo it. Bil and Shanon have since become staunch advocates for PBM reform. They joined the press conference to share Cole’s story, and spread awareness about PBM price gouging to ensure no other family has to face a "death by formulary."
I have heard from pharmacists that just the introduction of this bill has given them hope to keep their doors open as PBMs try to drive them out of business. This week, we reached 30 co-sponsors on Pharmacists Fight Back: 15 Republicans and 15 Democrats. With the House now out of session, these independent pharmacists and I are on a mission to reach 50 co-sponsors by Thanksgiving.
Make your voice heard → I want to hear from you.
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