Booker cited testimony Tuesday from parents who lost their children to fentanyl overdoses during his remarks, but the same grieving parents he pointed to are calling on Congress to quit stalling the move to permanently schedule fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances.
"Continuing resolutions to accommodate the scheduling aspect of fentanyl analogs is simply a method of kicking the can further down the road," Jaime Puerta, who lost his son, Daniel, in 2020 to a fentanyl overdose, wrote in a letter to Booker Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital. "Fentanyl and its analogs have been the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States, with synthetic opioids accounting for over 74,000 fatalities in 2023 alone. Your reluctance to support the HALT Fentanyl Act disregards the escalating death toll and the devastating impact on families and communities nationwide."
Another parent who lost their child to fentanyl in 2014, Lauri Badura, wrote in a separate letter to the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that if they can't pass the HALT Act "how can the public hold out hope Congress will fix the larger problem of illicit fentanyl crossing our borders every single day?"
An estimated 58,000 fentanyl pills packed inside gallon-sized plastic bags were seized, authorities said. (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office )
"Law Enforcement needs permanence. It needs a definitive change to combat the opioid crisis and to go after the criminals flooding communities with deadly drugs," said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., a former physician who introduced the HALT Act alongside Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. "Congress' inaction only emboldens China, drug cartels and other criminals who exploit our communities."
But some Democrats, like Booker, want more done.
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"This can't be all Congress does. The whole bill cannot be our only response, because the whole bill permanently schedules what we have already scheduled temporarily," Booker said Tuesday. "I've watched now, for at least three congresses that I've worked on trying to get a larger approach to meet the fentanyl crisis," he continued. "And three congresses, this body has failed to rise to the challenge. I'm dying to be here when my colleague tells me, 'I told you so" – and I give him permission to do that – that this body will do something beyond just scheduling."
Fox News Digital reached out to Booker and other Democrats for purposes of this story, including Whitehouse and Markey, but did not receive any responses by publication time.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grieving-parents-dems-bipartisan-fentanyl-bill-soros-backed-group