▶ 0:24:08Chair Cruz: Good morning. The committee will come to order. We are here to talk about stopping deadly drugs crossing our maritime borders. You cannot stop illegal drugs from crossing the border if you don't believe in having them.
▶ 0:24:29Chair Cruz: The biden administration and former dhs secretary mayorkas deliberately ignored the painful connection between their open border policies and the devastation wrought by illegally trafficked drugs on families, communities, and our country. Trying to have a country without borders led to an influx of illegal aliens, drug smuggling, sex trafficking, and tragically far too many american lives lost.
▶ 0:24:57Chair Cruz: That dereliction of basic sovereignty left the coast guard in an impossible position. The coast guard has admitted it missed opportunities to intercept drugs because it was overwhelmed chasing and catching illegal immigrants. Despite the biden administration's lack of interest in border security, republicans were able to make some progress.
▶ 0:25:21Chair Cruz: In the coast guard authorization act of 2022, I secured funding for a blimp-based radar system to combat drug runners, poachers, and human traffickers. Today it is still protecting south texas. Similarly, my provision requiring data sharing between cbp and the coast guard is streamlining introductions in the southern -- interdiction at the southern maritime border.
▶ 0:25:47Chair Cruz: In contrast to democrat ambivalence about the border crisis, president trump and congressional republicans are making gains in border security through the coast guard. In the last month the coast guard interdicted a historic amount of illegal drugs. Just last week it offloaded 37,000 pounds of seized cocaine worth $279 million. That will make a real difference in keeping communities safe from criminals and addiction.
▶ 0:26:20Chair Cruz: Contacting americans from deadly narcotics extends beyond our borders. We need to reverse the biden administration's policies in the middle east where maritime drug running bankrolls iran's activities. Coast guard cutters caught advanced weapons originate from iran and bound for the who these -- houthis in yemen, including methamphetamines, heroin, and other illegal drugs from the arabian sea.
▶ 0:26:51Chair Cruz: The coast guard and other federal agencies have been catching and releasing iranian drug runners. There was no consequence beyond losing cargo for financing terrorism. Catch and release is a disgrace, an insult to those who lost their lives to iranian terrorism.
▶ 0:27:12Chair Cruz: That is why I have included language in the coast guard reauthorization act to empower the coast guard and navy to respond forcefully to running drugs and weapons when they have helped finance iranian terror. Under president trump, we need to pass the coast guard reauthorization act and end the catch and release approach the middle east drug enforcement.
▶ 0:27:36Chair Cruz: That legislation which has broad bipartisan and bicameral support would close a loophole in the ability to prosecute cartels for drug smuggling on remotely operated drone ships, like the one in the hearing room today.
▶ 0:27:51Chair Cruz: We need to enact the pay are coast guard act, which I will reintroduce this week along with senator cantwell, sullivan, baldwin, wicker, and blot on chester to make sure we are not the only arm service to the goes unpaid during a government shutdown. The coast guard deserves to be paid, without question, without delay.
▶ 0:28:18Chair Cruz: Finally, today we will hear powerful testimony from the unthinkable damage caused by illicit drugs like fentanyl to american families. Texan jena ehlinger will testify about the effects this crisis had on her own family. I'm grateful she is here today as she works to turn tragedy into progress. I look forward to hearing from Mrs. ehlinger and the rest of our witnesses about what law enforcement needs to protect communities.
▶ 0:28:49Chair Cruz: Another american lost touch fentanyl is one too many. Ranking member cantwell agrees with me on this point. That is why we are working together on legislation to stop illicit fentanyl smuggling. I'm grateful for her partnership in this endeavor. I now turn to her for opening statements.
▶ 0:29:07Sen. Cantwell: Thank you for having this very important hearing on five fentanyl and what -- on fentanyl and what our committee can do to stop the scourge of fentanyl. I appreciate the witnesses being here. The police chief of spokane, chief paul, and Mrs. ehlinger, I'm sorry for the loss of your son jake. You are a brave advocate in thank you. There are many great applicants -- advocates. You are making a difference so thank you for being here today.
▶ 0:29:39Sen. Cantwell: I look forward to working with you, Mr. chairman, as we fight this scourge and work within our jurisdiction. Of the 10 states with the highest number of drug-related overdoses, they all host major intermodal hubs. The states like mine, washington, and yours in texas are clear nexuse are clear nexusses.
▶ 0:30:06Sen. Cantwell: We will hear about how that allows for the distribution of fentanyl once they are across the border. An overdose death continues to rise in most western states, up 14% in washington just last year. The supply chain clear. The chinese triad sells chemicals to mexican drug cartels hidden on ships and air cargo. Then make fentanyl and smuggled into the U.S.
▶ 0:30:31Sen. Cantwell: They hide fentanyl in personal vehicles, trucks, planes, trains, even unmanned aerial vehicles. This is a danger to our national security and our transportation security. It is very highly toxic. It is, Mr. chairman, the jurisdiction of our committee to have oversight over transportation security. Last year I fought for more nonintrusive inspection technologies at U.S.
▶ 0:30:59Sen. Cantwell: Customs and border cbp, who we will hear from as well, about how a 370 -- ed now has 370 large nonintrusive inspection systems and more than 4000 small systems across various ports of entry.
▶ 0:31:16Sen. Cantwell: I have seen firsthand how this helps detect the next generation of technology developed by our pacific northwest lab and university of washington to increase even the speed and accuracy of this analysis. Our national labs vapor id accurately detects and identifies the vapors from illicit drugs and explosives in real-time and in extreme the small amounts.
▶ 0:31:43Sen. Cantwell: Rather than using surface swipes or the pulse of air for analysis, the system sniffs the vapors the way a trained canine can detect explosives. Our borders are not the only problem but this fentanyl detection is working. We need to do more. Fentanyl smuggling happens everyday within the borders of our country, on interstates, amtrak, bus terminals, airports, and concealed U.S. mail.
▶ 0:32:14Sen. Cantwell: We must track the activities of these transportation networks. Recent interdiction efforts in the state of washington illustrates the importance of joint law enforcement efforts at our transportation hubs and networks. Just last october, we had the largest coordinated drug trafficking bust in seattle. 600 officers from 10 different states, local law enforcement agencies. They disrupted a violent drug trafficking gang.
▶ 0:32:45Sen. Cantwell: It resulted from a wiretap investigation of a shipment of fentanyl into the seattle-tacoma international airport. A year-long investigation was led by homeland security, the seattle police, involving the U.S. attorney, fbi, dea, atf, cbp, washington state patrol, the king county sheriff's department and bellevue effort written police department in yakym on a card asked and gang task force members.
▶ 0:33:13Sen. Cantwell: In january 2023, law enforcement conducted busts, discovering more than 400,000 fentanyl pills in a checked baggage of drug couriers. Traffickers were smuggling millions of pills into puget sound. The port of seattle police department working with dea and canines seized the fentanyl in the phoenix the police department arrested the suspects in arizona.
▶ 0:33:39Sen. Cantwell: In 22 any fo -- 2024, more than one million fentanyl pills, meth, heroin, and hundreds of pounds of drugs on a semi truck from southern california into washington. We must give law enforcement more tools. More tools to attack these transportation networks and stop the flow of these drugs into our states.
▶ 0:34:09Sen. Cantwell: Chief kevin hall of the spokane police department is with us today and worked locally with federal, state, and local law enforcement for 30 years. He will speak to this experience in eastern washington and what he calls the superhighways for fentanyl distribution. As an enrolled member of the tribe, tribal communities have been hit by the fentanyl crisis. It is another place to hide these drugs.
▶ 0:34:31Sen. Cantwell: That is why last year I introduced the stop fentanyl smuggling act, largely supported by law enforcement, transportation, and forensic science groups, including the national high intensity area drug -- drug area. Shannon kelly is the director of the national high-end tent city drug trafficking program and member of the interdiction coordinator at the drug control policy.
▶ 0:35:00Sen. Cantwell: I look forward asking her about this in the ways which we can all work together to stop the flow of fentanyl. Accelerate the development of next-generation, nonintrusive inspection technology, and build science capabilities. I hope we all can work together collaboratively. I think it shows we can disrupt the trafficking. I'm very pleased to work with you, Mr. chairman, and all these issues. I appreciate your focused on the coast guard's critical role in this area.
▶ 0:35:31Sen. Cantwell: The coast guard has been working. We need to do more. I want to acknowledge the crew of the coast guard washee who interdicted 37,000 pounds of cocaine worth $275 million earlier this month. I'm also saddened to hear a crewmember was lost at sea. Our thoughts and prayers are with their family and friends.
▶ 0:35:55Sen. Cantwell: I think senator cruz, we have introduced this bipartisan coast guard reauthorization act which would increase authorization levels. I hope the coast guard's critical counter narcotics nation and other missions -- mission and other missions will be bolstered in our efforts. We need to do everything as you have displayed here. If you leave a territory unaddressed, that is where the drugs will flow. Attacking this at all levels is the right idea.
▶ 0:36:27Sen. Cantwell: I look forward to working with you as we in this committee tackle the transportation networks threatening the lives of young individuals and many more americans. Thank you.
▶ 0:36:38Chair Cruz: Thank you very much. I will not introduce the first panel. Joining us today is Mrs. jena ehlinger, the mother of jake ehlinger of texas. Mrs. ehlinger is a mom who turned unimaginable grief, the nightmare of every parent, and action. -- into action. After losing her son jake to fentanyl poisoning.
▶ 0:37:05Chair Cruz: She has fought tirelessly to raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl and advocate for stronger drug policies, and worked to ensure that no other family has to endure the same devastating loss. Our second witness is Mr. kevin hall, chief of police for the city of spokane. He's been on the front lines of the fight against the fentanyl crisis. Thank you for your service. Mrs. ehlinger, you are recognized for five minutes.
▶ 0:37:34Chair Cruz: You will start your testimony with a brief video. >> jake was a bundle of love and joy and happy from the day he was born. He loved sports. He loved being outdoors. He loved his friends. He had a very creative side.
▶ 0:38:03Chair Cruz: We said he gave the best hugs in the entire world. Just big bear hugs. He played football at the university of texas. Jake had a fire about him. It was a good way to release that fire. He was a finance major when he passed away. His anxiety was pretty high the last probably year of his life. I think it was just the pressure of school and football.
▶ 0:38:31Chair Cruz: We were in mexico at a friend's daughter's wedding when I got the news that jake had died. I was in complete utter shock. It is like an out of body experience. No, not my child. That can't be right. The problem is the medical examiners, finding someone dead, they know it is not suicide because it is obvious he not suicide.
▶ 0:39:00Chair Cruz: The only other box they have to check is accidental overdose. It is not an accidental overdose. It is poisoning. They are buying these pills thinking they are getting one thing and they're getting something else. I wish I could tell you we found the person who sold it to jake but we did not. The dea and the police were like, sorry, there is nothing we can do. We can help you. We were so confused. How in the world are people getting away with this?
▶ 0:39:30Chair Cruz: My four is if we don't do it -- horror is if we don't do anything, more kids will be dying every day. What house bill 6 does is anybody who is lacing drugs with fentanyl can now be charged and prosecuted, including for murder. The facts I wish the average parent knew about the dangers of fentanyl's do not --fentanyl is do not think it will be your kid.
▶ 0:40:01Chair Cruz: I never tramped jake would die of fentanyl poisoning. This is happening every day to so many teenagers and young adults. Do not put your head in the sand and think there is no way this will happen in my family, because it could.
▶ 0:40:23Mrs. Ehlinger: Good morning. My name is jena ehlinger. I never imagined I would be on the front lines of a war I knew nothing about. Then I received the life shattering call that my 20-year-old son jake had been poisoned with fentanyl. This photo of jake was taken 10 days before that call. Jake grew up in austin, texas. He was a gifted athlete who excelled in academics.
▶ 0:40:48Mrs. Ehlinger: A score of 35 out of 36 on the act exam, combined with his stellar high school grades and athleticism, jake was recruited to play linebacker a number of top-tier universities, including stanford, yale, brown, penn and dartmouth. He passed and those offers so he could play football at his dream school, the university of texas. His dad and I went to ut. His brother sam was then ut's quarterback. Jake wanted to play football with his brother on the team.
▶ 0:41:18Mrs. Ehlinger: He'd been an avid fan of it his entire life. Jake was admitted to the mccombs school of business as a finance major, became a member of the texas silver spurs, and a ut football player and a straight a student. In the spring of 2021 as a sophomore, he was looking forward to his upcoming summer internship at dell. His little sister morgan joining him at ut in the fall. On may 6, 20 21, I received the horrific call. Jacob taken a counterfeit xanax that had been laced with fentanyl.
▶ 0:41:50Mrs. Ehlinger: As with many things, until you have lived it, the reality of such devastation is difficult to fully understand. To our family's further devastation, on the death certificate was issued, the dea and austin police informed us they were closing their investigation because the manner of death on the death certificate was classified as an accident. Jake's death was not an accident. He was killed, literally poisoned to death.
▶ 0:42:18Mrs. Ehlinger: Labeling the poisoning is an accident resulted in the premature closing of federal and local law enforcement investigations, ensuring no one would ever be arrested for poisoning and killing jake, prevented the case from ever reaching prosecutors desks. I hope no other families have to live to the additional nightmare that their child's killer will never be arrested or prosecuted because the medical examiner labeled their child's poisoning as accident for statistical purposes.
▶ 0:42:48Mrs. Ehlinger: Through my experience I learned they were a few to no consequences for murdering someone by poisoning them with a fentanyl laced pill. Most laws address the larger quantities of drugs, not the mere two milligrams of fentanyl that is considered a lethal dose. As a result, those illegally manufacturing and disturbing fentanyl remained on the streets and continued killing our children, one pill at a time with little fear of prosecution. Thankfully, with the help of friends we were able to pass a law in texas addressing the vacuum in the law.
▶ 0:43:19Mrs. Ehlinger: Our legislation requires medical examiner's to classify death from a fentanyl-based substance as what it is, poisoning. It created a murder offense for the unlawful manufacture or distribution of fentanyl resulting in death. Including from just one pill.
▶ 0:43:37Mrs. Ehlinger: In the state of texas on the death or ticket it is described as fentanyl poisoning, thereby keeping law enforcement investigations from prematurely closing and illegally manufacturing or disturbing a fentanyl-based substance that results in death may be prosecuted as murder. And, those poisoning texans cannot kill without fear of arrest and prosecution are being taken off the streets.
▶ 0:44:05Mrs. Ehlinger: Other families may not have to live with the fact that no one will ever be prosecuted for killing their child or their loved one. The law has been affected -- been effective. Before they were note texas state murder charges for deaths from one fentanyl-laced pill. In the first eight months they were a 25 murder charges. To date, nearly 60 murder charges. We are just one state.
▶ 0:44:31Mrs. Ehlinger: We need federal laws to accomplish these goals and more nationwide, including stopping the distribution of fentanyl. Senators, our country is at war and we are losing the war. As evidenced by fentanyl becoming the number one killer in the united states for ages 18 to 45. It impacts all races, religions, social economic status is, and political affiliations. The lethal epidemic is killing young americans and destroying families.
▶ 0:45:00Mrs. Ehlinger: I'm just one mom who lost her precious son. You are among the most powerful people in this country. There is no higher use of that power then to save someone's child and perhaps even your own. Thank you for listening. God bless you all.
▶ 0:45:17Chair Cruz: Thank you, jena ehlinger. -- Mrs. ehlinger. Thank you for the difference you are making in our home state of texas and for speaking to the american people today. I hope congress hears your words today. Chief paul. -- hall.
▶ 0:45:38Chief Hall: Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the fentanyl crisis, then issue of national urgency that devastates communities, including my own in spokane, washington. My name is kevin hall. I'm honored to serve as police chief for the city of spokane, the second largest city in the state of washington. I was appointed in august of 2024 after serving more than 32 years in the tucson police department in tucson, arizona. For the last eight years as assistant chief.
▶ 0:46:08Chief Hall: My 33-year career has focused on violent crime, addressing the impacts of drugs and drug trafficking, and public safety of both local and national levels. Since 2019, the annual number of opioid drug overdoses has doubled in washington state. Spokane's death have surpassed the state's average. Recent reports by the cdc and dea touting declines are not the reality in washington state.
▶ 0:46:34Chief Hall: The calls for overdoses have increased 30% over the previous year. Like every other urban police agency in the country, the spokane please department continues to allocate more resources to address drug use, illegal drug overdoses, and the overall harm caused to the community by fentanyl. The spokane county medical examiner reported at least re-hundred 46 opioid-related deaths last year, over 75% involving fentanyl. The economic toll is staggering.
▶ 0:47:03Chief Hall: The senate's joint economic committee admitted to costly was $1.5 trillion in 2021. Fentanyl's impact stems from its potency. 40 to 50 times more lethal than heroin and it's alarming assess ability. From my experience I know that most fentanyl enters the U.S. through legal ports of entry concealed the commercial cargo trucks, passenger vehicles, trailers and rvs. Recent seizures highlight the scale of trafficking along transportation routes.
▶ 0:47:33Chief Hall: In tucson, law enforcement intercepted 1.7 million fentanyl pills and just two stops in late 2024. Spokane's supply chain follow similar patterns from mexico along interstate I-19, I 10, and I-5 before reaching eastern washington. Officers have recently encountered powdered fentanyl into -- a highly dangerous trend.
▶ 0:48:00Chief Hall: It has violent consequences was . Traffickers transported both fentanyl pills to spokane from the tri-cities area. Spokane pd and federal partners interdicted the trafficker, resulting in a violent midday shootout. Spokane spoendangers innocence, includig small children in the area. 2000 pills received from the car.
▶ 0:48:29Chief Hall: Elsewhere in washington, drug traffickers have used trucks, passenger rail and commercial airlines as seen in an investigation it seattle to, international airport where 400,000 fentanyl pills were found and checked baggage. The U.S. department of foaming security estimated drug traffickers were bringing millions of pills a month into the seattle region via couriers' checked luggage.
▶ 0:48:52Chief Hall: A separate investigation in the fall of 2024 culminated in the arrest of 12 violent fentanyl traffickers, the seizure of significant amounts of fentanyl, weapons. With the department of homeland security, seattle police department, U.S. attorney general's office among the agencies involved. The investigation stem from the previously mentioned checked baggage investigation at seatac airport.
▶ 0:49:19Chief Hall: Interdicting fentanyl requires strong partnerships between local, state, and federal, and tribal agencies. We must enhance these collaborations to improve technology and resources. That is whatever speckle he urged congress to pass the stop smuggling illicit synthetic drugs on U.S. transportation networks act. The legislation would expand nonintrusive inspection technology such as drive-thru and mobile x-ray sensors, specialized canine resources, vapor technology, the strengthen -- strengthen and disrupt fentanyl trafficking before it reaches our streets.
▶ 0:49:50Chief Hall: The fight against fentanyl is urgent, real. Strengthening our enforcement capability's will save lives. Thank you for your time and I welcome your questions.
▶ 0:49:59Chair Cruz: Thank you, chief. Mrs. ehlinger, I will start with you. Thank you for telling us about your son jake. My heart breaks for you, for what you have gone through, a nightmare that every parent and grandparent is terrified of experiencing. You have done an enormous amount in texas to help prevent more tragic deaths.
▶ 0:50:27Chair Cruz: What advice can you give to parents who might want to make a difference preventing future fentanyl poisons?
▶ 0:50:38Mrs. Ehlinger: The first thing I would say is that talk to your kids about drugs. Use the word fentanyl. Don't be afraid to talk about it. Share statistics. Explain how dangerous it is compared to when we were growing up. Also I would say for kids that might have a lot of pressure on them -- kids in our society have a higher rate of anxiety than ever before.
▶ 0:51:10Mrs. Ehlinger: To take the stigma away of it's ok if you need help. If you feel like you need some counseling or whatever that is, that it's ok to ask for some help and do not turn to a counterfeit, you know, drug to try to make you feel better.
▶ 0:51:33Chair Cruz: An illustration a dea agent told me in taxes of the potency of fentanyl. -- texas of the potency of fentanyl. He took a sweet mo packet and empty it out. Stick your finger inside of remove your finger and you have a couple of tiny specks sweet and low. That is enough to kill you.
▶ 0:52:01Chair Cruz: I can tell you I have done that with our girls and tried to convey the point. You are terrified a teenager, young adult at one party, somebody gives him some stupid pill and that is the last moment on earth. Through your hard work the texas penal code now criminalizes the delivery or manufacture of fentanyl that results in death. The code requires medical examiners to properly classify fentanyl poisoning deaths.
▶ 0:52:32Chair Cruz: As you noted, over 60 drug peddlers have been charged in texas with murder since the law went into effect. Have you spoken with others in texas about what the changes have been to them when the tragedy of fentanyl poisoning occurs? What have they told you?
▶ 0:52:52Mrs. Ehlinger: Yes. I have made a lot of new friends because of this tragedy. Pain is a really strong motivator. Any time there is a fentanyl death, whatever the seven degrees of separation, somebody will ask me can you talk to this person, they just lost their child to fentanyl. Absolutely.
▶ 0:53:18Mrs. Ehlinger: Send me their phone number and I can pull up my phone and just type in fentanyl and 30 names of people I have never knew before come up in my phone. They are extremely thankful. It's a very motivated group of people, as you can imagine. Parents that have lost their children. Probably one of the most motivated group of people. There is also in austin alone a group called angel moms.
▶ 0:53:47Mrs. Ehlinger: There are probably 60 of these mothers who have lost their children to fentanyl. , texas only -- that is in austin, texas only.
▶ 0:53:58Chair Cruz: You said you were unable to determine who sold the drugs to your son, jake. In the last congress passed legislation called the trank act for identifying fentanyl and other drugs. Senator cantwell and I are now working on new legislation in this space. How important is it for families to have the technology in place to track the origins and pathways these drugs travel into the country?
▶ 0:54:27Mrs. Ehlinger: It's extremely important. Yes, shockingly the dea could not open jake's phone to retrieve any information to find anyone responsible. My understanding is that these young adults are buying these counterfeit pills thinking they are getting one thing and then getting killed. Through social media platforms like snapchat and things like that. I know that is how they are coming through.
▶ 0:54:55Mrs. Ehlinger: I also know that they are being delivered through rideshare apps. There is definitely a problem between all the different social media and technology applications these young adults use and have their hands on, not understanding the dangers of them.
▶ 0:55:21Chair Cruz: The record illegal immigration flows have taken a toll on the coast guard's counter drug mission. I will submit to the hearing record a dhs office of inspector general report entitled, "the first card faces challenges interdicting noncommercial vessels smuggling drugs into the united states." this report notes the coast guard did not meet its cocaine interdiction goals because it did not have enough cutters available to perform the counter
▶ 0:55:51Chair Cruz: Drug mission. Those cutters have been diverted to interdict illegal immigrants. The dhs oig estimated the coast guard could have interdicted up to an additional 89 metric tons of cocaine had those cutters been performing the counter-drug mission. Without objection, so ordered into the record. With that, I recognize senator cantwell.
▶ 0:56:17Sen. Cantwell: Thank you for mentioning the trank act. I also supported that legislation. Mrs. ehlinger, again, we have had 11 regional meetings in my state. The stories are the same. The story is the same. The call is the same. We need more to alert.
▶ 0:56:43Sen. Cantwell: I will never forget the high school student in yakima, washington, telling me, you know, having innocently once a year is not enough. You should be telling high schoolers every day do not take anything given to you by anyone other than a health care provider. Just don't. We have to amplify on many different fronts.
▶ 0:57:09Sen. Cantwell: We have to fight discouraged scourge on many different fronts so we thank you for your willingness to continue to push on this. The jurisdiction of this committee is a little more on the transportation network. Your illumination of the problem shows you what distribution does to destroy families. I want to ask chief hall about those distribution networks. We hear a lot about the border and we want more security and detection at the border.
▶ 0:57:38Sen. Cantwell: It is clear these rings are so elaborate that by attacking the transportation network we can discover and illuminate and catch these rings. What have we learned about these networks and transportation system and why is interdiction, like you experienced in spokane or tucson, why do we need to expand the tools given to law enforcement to help with this?
▶ 0:58:10Chief Hall: Thank you, ranking never cantwell for the question -- ranking never cantwell for the question. There are different reasons why we need to do this. Primarily when I talked to might partners -- my partners, we are catching a fraction of the illegal narcotics in the country. Such a small amount.
▶ 0:58:33Chief Hall: It looks huge on the newspaper or frontpage when we post shots of it for the media, but that is just a fraction of what is actually entering the country. We are missing so much more. We know we are missing more. The investigations, particularly collaborative investigations with federal partners are where we are the most functional. We see the most success.
▶ 0:58:57Chief Hall: Bringing local, state, tribal, and federal partners together enhances or scales of the skill sets and brings in the resources of the federal government most of us don't have. The collaborating allows us to locate more, to utilize the intelligence base from the federal government on international or national transportation routes. And through rial.
▶ 0:59:31Chief Hall: And through rial, sea, air and the interstates. The investments by the cartels -- make no mistake, this is all cartel-driven -- it is such that they will completely disassemble a vehicle, a new vehicle. Put as much narcotics into every single void inside that vehicle and then assemble it again. They will go for that amount of energy. Put the vehicle back together and put it on the road. It is off on the freeways.
▶ 1:00:01Chief Hall: 1.7 million pills I referenced in my opening statement, that was in two vehicles. Two nondescriptive hands that -- nondescript sedans that had to be disassembled defined as narcotics.
▶ 1:00:15Sen. Cantwell: How did you discover those?
▶ 1:00:18Chief Hall: Investigations.
▶ 1:00:19Sen. Cantwell: Something told the? -- you? This is what I want a more collaborative effort. When you look at the technology at the border that is doing some of this detection, but like you said, they are tearing cars apart. What do you think a new vapor technology could help us to?
▶ 1:00:38Chief Hall: Any tool will help us down this road. Whether it is x-ray technology, vapor technology, even going good to old-school canine technology. They are all very effective in different ways. Having a layered approach and a cross sector approach, multifaceted, this is a complex problem. It requires complex solutions.
▶ 1:01:06Chief Hall: Having all the technologies and those different approaches is just going to enhance law enforcement's ability to detect and sees these narcotics -- sieze these narcotics.
▶ 1:01:20Sen. Cantwell: The challenge of getting a warrant is complex. When you're at one of our ports or transportation systems and you have a non-detected -- you can basically have noninvasive ways to detect the movement of fentanyl. That is what I want at every transportation hub. That will stop this flow. It will not stop all of it give us the tools you are talking about. How can we best help too on the labs and information?
▶ 1:01:50Sen. Cantwell: What is the gap there we are seeing?
▶ 1:01:52Chief Hall: The labs?
▶ 1:01:54Sen. Cantwell: Locally, how you have to do the work to detect and figure out what you acquired?
▶ 1:02:02Chief Hall: A lot of it is the sheer number, the backlog. We are working with the state lab to process the narcotics we sieze. We have to wait for the processing to charge. It is that kind of resource that is limited. I know from my time in arizona it was the same issue there. It is a capacity issue. There is so much illegal narcotics coming into the country.
▶ 1:02:32Chief Hall: So few people doing this work, including lab personnel, law enforcement, even harm reduction agencies. Going to an earlier point, we inform them. Everything you see on the street for marijuana to what you think is cocaine to what you think is a prescribed pill is going to have fentanyl and it. Everything -- in it. Everything we test has fentanyl in it.
▶ 1:03:03Chief Hall: Know what you are taking. It is fentanyl. >> there's roughly 1000 miles between my home in north carolina and the southern border. On average, nine north carolinians lose their lives every day to fentanyl. I want to thank you personally both for being here. When I talk to law enforcement officers in all 100 counties of north carolina I repeatedly hear that every single county is a border county.
▶ 1:03:33Chief Hall: Largely because of the prior administration's policies. I think we are on track to do much better. The county next to where I live, the sheriff said we just had a traffic stop. Like some of the picture shown earlier. There was enough in the trunk to kill 250,000 people. Unbelievable.
▶ 1:03:59Chief Hall: Chief, while you are here, is there anything congress can do to give local law enforcement tools to go after drug and human traffickers?
▶ 1:04:08Chief Hall: Resources are always scarce. Always scarce. I know currently the department of justice is holding up grants. I know they will come out sooner or later, but those types of grant funding helps us at the local level.
▶ 1:04:28Chief Hall: Helps at the state level and helps collaborations with different taskforces we have created with dea, the department of home insecurity, investigations. All those agencies. We are all facing the same scarcity of resources. >> thank you. Mrs. ehlinger, thank you for sharing your story of jake as well. I imagine our children are about the same age.
▶ 1:04:55Chief Hall: We don't sit up here, whether in this body or across the hall or in the house of representatives. We are all personally affected by this. When I first ran in 2016, right before the election I was given devastating news that a young volunteer staffer that was driving that they had lost his younger brother, about the same age as jake. It was from something he thought was something innocent, but it wasn't.
▶ 1:05:27Chief Hall: That brother that survived and was volunteering for me that day gave a speech two weeks ago regarding fentanyl, except it wasn't on that side of the dais. It was on the side. He is now a member of congress in the U.S. house of representatives. He's in the fight in the other chamber. We are not theorist. We are all affected by this. I think you both are what you do.
▶ 1:05:54Mrs. Ehlinger: Thank you. >> senator baldwin.
▶ 1:05:59Sen. Thune: Baldwin -- Sen.
▶ 1:06:03Baldwin: Thank you for being here to share your story about your family. I thank you for your tireless work to bring attention to this tragedy. I believe to my core your efforts are saving lives. I'm heartbroken for your family's tremendous loss.
▶ 1:06:30Baldwin: I heard from and sat with mothers in wisconsin who have shared stories just like yours. Fentanyl is devastating families and communities in my state. We know throughout our country. I am committed to finding -- fighting this deadly epidemic on all fronts. I know my colleagues, as you have already heard, are hearing similar demands from their constituents.
▶ 1:06:59Baldwin: Congress has taken a few important bipartisan steps in the right direction. Clearly there is so much more work for us to do. Mrs. ehlinger, it is thanks to the brave advocacy of people like you that this important issue remains really forefront in our work. I thank you for that.
▶ 1:07:22Baldwin: Chief hall, I want to thank you for your work both in tucson and now spokane on the front lines to protect americans. We have to make sure we are putting every resource possible towards protecting americans and stopping the movement of deadly fentanyl and illicit substances across our borders, but also throughout our communities.
▶ 1:07:49Baldwin: For that reason I worked with senator cantwell to introduce a bill that would stop smuggling of drugs throughout domestic transportation networks. We heard the bill elevated during this hearing. I am eager to collaborate with both senator cantwell and senator cruz to continue that work.
▶ 1:08:13Baldwin: I would love to hear your recommendations, chief hall, about actions the federal government can take to improve the coordination between local law enforcement and other levels of law enforcement. Also, additional resources that would help you and your colleagues detect and sieze illegal drugs in our streets.
▶ 1:08:40Baldwin: Like my colleagues, I have held many first responder roundtables throughout wisconsin. Sometimes there are challenges in the various levels that are looking at these distribution networks. These domestic cartels if you will.
▶ 1:09:04Baldwin: Tracking high-level cases versus the work you are doing to find individual perpetrators in a particular case. Can you share more about that?
▶ 1:09:14Chief Hall: Thank you, senator baldwin. I appreciate the question. I will try not to get myself in trouble here.
▶ 1:09:24Sen. Baldwin: Is a tough question.
▶ 1:09:26Chief Hall: There are 70 different things the federal government can do and have done in the past -- so many things the federal government can do. We have had good partnerships. Sometimes I would submit one of the first things to do is draw back a little and look at a wider perspective of what we are dealing with here. It is transportation networks.
▶ 1:09:52Chief Hall: Disrupting those networks in any way, shape, or form will disrupt the marketplace. The business model these cartels operate under. In that same fashion I think we can spend more time providing the training and resources for state and local and even federal law enforcement to look at how they are funnelingthis is a forn
▶ 1:10:22Chief Hall: This model. It is not giant loads of cash anymore. It is bitcoin and electronic wallets. Local and state and federal agencies don't have the physician -- sophistication to track that money and sieze the money and in a lot of cases it is completely on trackable -- untrackable.
▶ 1:10:51Chief Hall: We are just not going after those funds, illegal funds gained through, quite frankly, the killing of our children. That would be enormously helpful if we took a look at that, as well as the transportation networks. As I said before, this is a complex problem. It will need a complex solution that crosses sectors and is multidimensional. That is one way I can think of. We just had this discussion where I'm from.
▶ 1:11:20Chief Hall: How do we go after those wallets and those bitcoins being utilized to hide these illegal funds from the government?
▶ 1:11:31Sen. Baldwin: Thank you, chief. >> Mrs. ehlinger, thank you for being here. My youngest son is 26, which I guess is about jake's age today. I can't imagine honestly how you have been able to do that. God bless you. God bless you for your strength. Quite frankly, there's probably a part of you that is really pisse o pisse d off.
▶ 1:12:01Sen. Baldwin: Suppressing that down has to be really hard. I'm really pissed off too. I have seen the federal government do so little to attack this. He said something that stuck with me. We are at war and we are losing network. Do you feel that way?
▶ 1:12:15Mrs. Ehlinger: 100%. I'm so thankful for this administration and for being here today, because, as you said, it is so painful to live with not having jake everyday antigens no -- and to just know our amazing country was doing absolutely nothing. More and more children were dying every single day. It does not make sense.
▶ 1:12:44Mrs. Ehlinger: >> in ohio, we probably lose 4000 people a month fentanyl poisoning. Ok. If we are losing 4000 american kids every single year in ohio, 110,000 on the country, you would think that would be a 12 alarm fire in washington, D.C. in the last four years. What did we do? We didn't do anything at the border. Nothing. They sat on their hands while they knew this was going on.
▶ 1:13:18Mrs. Ehlinger: I get the sentiment today from the other side. Honestly, if also short. Number one, what did president trump do? Declare the exit can cartels foreign terrorist organizations. We should wipe those animals off the face of the earth. Yet the administration in the last four years did nothing about that. We should make anybody who distributes fentanyl and accessory to first-degree murder.
▶ 1:13:45Mrs. Ehlinger: If you are the ultimate supplier of that, you are a first-degree murder or. Federal charge recipient. Anyone involved in banking of that, the transportation of that. If you are a tech company and allowing the sale of these products, you, the executives of these companies are and accessory to first-degree murder. We cannot have half measures. If it was my son, I would not be able to sit through this.
▶ 1:14:14Mrs. Ehlinger: How you do it -- I will repeat it again -- god bless you for doing what you are doing. My democrat colleagues, I hope this isn't just worried about more government spending. Rather actual attacks on what we are seeing in the southern border. That we treat this as an existential threat to our country. You said, chief, you said this is a for-profit business. This is not just a for-profit business.
▶ 1:14:44Mrs. Ehlinger: This is a multibillion-dollar operation that this country is enabling. This country and this administration and the majority that have control of congress over the last four years, they made these drug cartel members so insanely wealthy. Those are the billionaires they should be talking about on the senate floor they are talking about. Chief, you said something, god bless the work that you do, all the law enforcement does, but pushing back on something you said.
▶ 1:15:15Mrs. Ehlinger: You said no sentinel comes across legal ports of entry. We don't know that. We have no idea how much fentanyl comes across nondesignated ports of entry because by definition we have no idea. When you look at with the border patrol agent's are doing what you have a surge of human trafficking on them one side, these fake asylum claims that mike collins will not even vote on a bill to say you cannot claim asylum through a nondesignated port of entry, they won't even agree to that.
▶ 1:15:45Mrs. Ehlinger: If you are going to claim asylum, you have to do it any legal port of entry. They want to parole these people into the country which is ic saying. The border patrol have to go to those nondesignated ports of entry. I was in del rio when the haitian surge happened. There were ports of entry that were wide open, streets that were available. We have no idea what comes across. We have to go right at the root cause and make the punishment so severe.
▶ 1:16:15Mrs. Ehlinger: I'm all for investing more money in the coast guard. We have a big lake in ohio. I hope what comes out of this testimony from both of you, and hopefully there are colleagues on the other side of the aisle that have kids that are your kids age and realize what is going on and that we take this moment to say we are not going to allow a 9/11 plane to crash every day in america and do something about it, pass
▶ 1:16:45Mrs. Ehlinger: Legislation to make this happen. So I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you abdicated your duties for the last four years. Step up and work with us to pass meaningful legislation to attack the billionaires that you enabled on the other side of our border to kill our kids. Thank you. >> senator sullivan, you are recognized.
▶ 1:17:09Sen. Sullivan: Appreciate the witnesses very much. I want to extend my condolences. I just read your testimony, sounded like jake was an amazing, gifted young man. I'm really sorry for your loss.
▶ 1:17:28Ms. Ehlinger: Thank you.
▶ 1:17:31Sen. Sullivan: Is that a ut uniform there?
▶ 1:17:37Ms. Ehlinger: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:17:39Sen. Sullivan: My mom went to ut, so longhorns fan for some time. Maybe you have met her. If you have not, it would be great. Very similar. We have a very courageous woman in alaska named sandy snodgrass.
▶ 1:17:58Sen. Sullivan: She has had the same experience that you have had, her son bruce killed by a fentanyl overdose, like jake, laced with something.
▶ 1:18:17Sen. Sullivan: She has done what you have done, which is take this horrible grief that most people cannot even imagine, used it in a way to push for public policy changes, state law. She has done that in alaska. She and I and our governor have teamed up in this big campaign we watched -- watched eight or nine months ago in alaska called one pill can kill.
▶ 1:18:46Sen. Sullivan: I don't know if you are familiar with that but when we are trying to do with that is get to prevention. Let the young people in alaska know, if you are taking a pill, smoking a joint, you might have no idea this is laced with fentanyl. In my state come the last two years, has had the highest rates of fentanyl overdoses in the country. Alaska. 4000 miles from the border.
▶ 1:19:16Sen. Sullivan: When people say what do you care in alaska, you are far away from the southern border? We care, because it is killing our kids, just like it is killing kids in texas. Are you familiar with the one pill can kill campaign, have you done it in texas? Really trying to get your sense of prevention.
▶ 1:19:37Sen. Sullivan: We put this big campaign together, all the high school kids, even junior high kids involved, doing psa's so they can learn from each other. I think it's most effective when they can learn peer to peer, not senators telling them. What is your sense on that? Again, really appreciate your courage for being here. I know every day that you are missing your wonderful son.
▶ 1:20:05Ms. Ehlinger: Thank you so much. Governor abbott and the state of texas had a one pill kills campaign. If you drive in the state of texas on any highway, you will see signs that say one pill kills. Many people have also put up billboards with their children's pictures on them saying fentanyl kills. All of those things help.
▶ 1:20:34Ms. Ehlinger: I would hundred percent agree with you that coming from the younger generation is coming -- is more impactful. Part of the frustration for me has been, is anyone thinking about the fact that this is our future? These young people that are dying, getting wiped out in large numbers, that is the future of our country. What is going to happen in 10 years when we have this horrific gap because we have lost so many of them?
▶ 1:21:04Ms. Ehlinger: My son is in the nfl, they do the cause for cleats -- cleats for a cause. One of his friends who he played with at ut wore the one pill kills fentanyl awareness cleats, got a great response from that. Like senator cantwell said earlier, we have to to come at this from every angle.
▶ 1:21:32Ms. Ehlinger: It cannot be let's just go here and look at this. Like we were saying, it is a war, and we are losing dad.
▶ 1:21:41Sen. Sullivan: If you have ideas from what you learned in texas on the one pill can kill campaign, prevention, so that young people are aware. A lot of young people are not aware at all that taking a pill like that that is not prescribed that they got from a pharmacist can be a russian roulette.
▶ 1:22:01Ms. Ehlinger: Exactly what I call it, russian roulette, it is in cocaine, pot, things that people in our generation could experiment with and had no fear of dying, just a stupid mistake.
▶ 1:22:15Sen. Sullivan: We might look at nationalizing some of these ideas of prevention. Chief, I just had a quick question. Two for you. You served in the pacific northwest area, not along the border. Any major differences? This is probably for the next panel but were always really frustrates me on this, xi jinping is a dictator. Nobody does anything in china without his permission.
▶ 1:22:47Sen. Sullivan: The flow that continues from china -- he did a deal with president trump, he did a deal with president biden to stop this flow. It is more of what we call promise fatigue with the chinese. They make big announcements and never keep their promises, even to our leaders. What is your sense on differences at the pacific northwest level that you have seen, and then any sense on the chinese ignoring it, killing young americans.
▶ 1:23:19Chief Hall: I will take the difference between arizona and washington first. The biggest difference I see is we would interdict massive loads in tucson, 60 miles north of the international port of entry. It was nonstop. It was not unusual to get hundreds of thousands of pills or bulk powder form in arizona. That is much less likely in washington.
▶ 1:23:50Chief Hall: It does happen, as we've seen, as I've testified, it happens but not nearly as often. That is because when it comes from the border, it gets distributed throughout the nation, so we are getting smaller amounts of their, but the smaller amounts are just as deadly and we have just as many fatal overdoses, just as many social problems that come from fentanyl as every other city.
▶ 1:24:14Chief Hall: When I look at downtown tucson, downtown spokane, if I didn't know where I was at, they would look very similar. That is the impact that fentanyl has.
▶ 1:24:23Sen. Sullivan: May be for the record, if you could answer the china question. I know it is a tough question. I just think they are flooding the zone on purpose.
▶ 1:24:33Chief Hall: Respectfully, senator, I'm going to stay out of the geopolitics. I know the precursor chemicals for the most part are coming from china. How we stop those, I don't know how we stop them because they are going to mexico. That would be the realm of you fine folks. >> senator sheehy, you are recognized. Sen. sheehy thank you for taking on this cause.
▶ 1:25:00Chief Hall: I know that you survived terrible tragedy with your family so thank you for turning that into productive advocacy because it will take a whole country to come together to fix this. Chief, question for you, I am montana, so not far, spent some time in your neck of the woods fighting wildfires, familiar with spokane and the surrounding area. What is your feeling on the northern border as far as impacting your communities regarding fentanyl and drug trafficking?
▶ 1:25:29Chief Hall: As far as the northern border, what we are seeing is very little coming south from canada. Almost everything we have seen, been able to track with our federal partners is all coming up from mexico through the interstates, I-19- I-5, I-90 into spokane, northern idaho. We are the urban hub of washington and it spreads out from there.
▶ 1:25:57Sen. Sheehy: We see the same in montana, coming over to butte. What interface are you seeing at all with the travel communities, the region, how they are being impacted by the fentanyl crisis?
▶ 1:26:14Chief Hall: In the tribal communities, it is more of an invisible epidemic because quite frankly the tribe for historical reasons are far more isolated and have less trust in the government. It is harder to get inroads into the tribes. I'm speaking from my personal experience as a tribal member.
▶ 1:26:42Chief Hall: I don't enforce the law on the tribes, have no jurisdiction. But it is probably far more tragic because it is far more isolated. It is not as well-known on the tribes just because of that.
▶ 1:26:55Sen. Sheehy: What do you feel a way ahead -- we feel the same issues in montana. We have reservation land, tribal communities across the state, and they are dealing with this crisis. First thing I hear from our tribal leaders is the fentanyl crisis is tearing up their communities. They fall into, as you know, a very unique law enforcement construct with their sovereignty but they still wants the streets cleaned up, their kids to be healthy.
▶ 1:27:26Sen. Sheehy: Given your experience in the region, what are some ways ahead where we could thread the needle, still respect the sovereignty of our tribal communities but still help them battle this epidemic?
▶ 1:27:36Chief Hall: Stronger and closer relationships with tribal authorities, local, state, federal authorities. I think we are getting there, at least in my spokane region. All of those tribes, we are getting to a point where our relationships are getting stronger, where we understand this is a common issue that is killing all of us. It doesn't matter if you are native or indigenous, from spokane, or if you are from old neck. It will still kill you.
▶ 1:28:08Chief Hall: We all need to come together. I am starting to see that cooperation amongst tribal folks, state, local, federal, as well.
▶ 1:28:16Sen. Sheehy: Thank you for making the trip out. >> senator markey.
▶ 1:28:22Sen. Markey: Thank, Mr. chairman. I want to begin by expressing my deep condolences for your tragic loss. So sorry. We want to do everything we can in the future to do a better job . You are right, we are in a war against fentanyl. That means we need every resource possible.
▶ 1:28:54Sen. Markey: We need to track every overdose death, need to have access to the locks own to reverse overdoses, providers, access to medications like methadone, suboxone for people struggling with addiction. We need communities, law enforcement to have funding to prevent fentanyl coming into their communities, respond once it is there.
▶ 1:29:22Sen. Markey: President trump and I had lunch in september 2017 as he was heading for a trip to china. I was the ranking committee member on that foreign relations and talked about how important it was to tell president xi to stop those precursor chemicals from coming from china. We are losing 80 to 100,000 people.
▶ 1:29:48Sen. Markey: I also recommended to him that we work together on a bill to have detection devices along the southern border, that there were devices in place that could detect that across the border. In february 2018, I stood with him and he gave me the pan as he signed the bill to provide those tens of millions of dollars. I know it is just such a very important issue that we have to deal with.
▶ 1:30:18Sen. Markey: Chief hall, does your police department have balance for responding to the fentanyl overdoses, how do you handle that?
▶ 1:30:29Chief Hall: It is a balance, senator. Thank you for the question. Once again, it is how we prioritize the workload. As you know, we are understaffed. Washington state is severely understaffed. I think it is number 50 out of the 50 states on a ratio of officers to the population. We struggle with that, allocating the appropriate amount of resources to addressing this issue.
▶ 1:31:01Chief Hall: However, it is an issue of life or death, so we take that on seriously.
▶ 1:31:06Sen. Markey: How important is it for you, chief, for spokane to continue to receive sustained and reliable funding for all of the work that you are doing to take on [inaudible] ?
▶ 1:31:24Chief Hall: Incredibly important. It is how we pay the officers come the technology we use, the programs, some of which are mentioned, including naloxone, our work and the harm reduction area, try to keep people alive.
▶ 1:31:41Sen. Markey: I am just so concerned. This trump administration is too busy making drastic, unfocused cuts, engaging in political stunts rather than actually focusing its energy addressing the fentanyl crisis. The reality is, cuts to federal research will slow down [inaudible] improving upon that.
▶ 1:32:14Sen. Markey: As you know, the border wall will not stop all of it. We are still going to need these additional resources in the community because it will come through legal ports of entry still to some degree no matter what happens. Disrupting funder to organization dedicated to responding to the overdose crisis, slowing down the life-saving efforts that you engage in. When we are talking about overdose and fentanyl, playing politics is not going to solve the problem.
▶ 1:32:45Sen. Markey: You need the resources to do it. That is why I worked with president trump to have the interdict act be signed, pragmatic, bipartisan with senator rubio, in order to put that in place. But we need more equipment, high tech equipment at the local level, more resources in your hands, which is why I introduced the stock fentanyl overdoses act, to enhance information sharing between health care providers, law enforcement, and
▶ 1:33:15Sen. Markey: To educate communities. Thank you, chief, Ms. ehlinger. You have come here with serious things you are recommending to us and you deserve a serious response. That is what I'm committed to having congress provide. Not just chainsaw solutions. We have to focus on where the needs are the greatest. >> thank you senator markey. Thank you both for being here.
▶ 1:33:47Sen. Markey: This has been very important, very helpful. Whether it is law enforcement or personal experience, it matters a lot to us. We want to come through this panel and want to welcome our next panel, if they would please come forward to the witness table now. Thank you both so much.
▶ 1:35:56Sen. Budd: Our second pedal of witnesses today includes Ms. shannon kelly, assistant director, office of national drug control policy, U.S. interdiction coordinator and director from national high intensity drug trafficking area program. Ms. kelly has more than two decades of counter drug experience and worked previously for the U.S. department of justice and national drug intelligence center. Thank you for being here. Rear admiral adam chamie, U.S.
▶ 1:36:25Sen. Budd: Assistant costar, dot or response policy. He is responsible for developing strategic response doctrine and policy guidance for all coast guard forces including cover and law enforcement activities and border maritime security. Lastly, Mr. jonathan miller, executive assistant commissioner, air marine operations with U.S. customs and border protection. His mission is to safeguard our nation by anticipating and confront things -- confronting security threats, aviation, maritime law enforcement.
▶ 1:36:58Sen. Budd: Ms. kelly, you are recognized for your opening statement.
▶ 1:36:59Ms. Kelly: Good afternoon. First I want to thank Ms. ehlinger's career justice for sharing her story with jake with us. Senator budd, this dooms members of the committee, I'm honored to speak with you today about the challenges and opportunities facing our law enforcement partners as they conduct illicit drug trafficking. I'm here today representing the white house office of national drug control policy where it is my privilege to serve as both the U.S.
▶ 1:37:28Ms. Kelly: Interdiction coordinator and the director of the national high intensity drug trafficking area program. As the U.S. interdiction coordinator, I advise the director as we create policy and coordinate activities to reduce the flow of illicit drugs that cross our borders and into our communities. Through its coordination function, we ensure a comprehensive and cogent approach to securing the nation's borders.
▶ 1:37:55Ms. Kelly: Supporting the president's executive orders on ensuring the territorial integrity of the united states and addressing the national emergency at the southern borders. To make this direction efficient and effective, I draft the applicable portions of the national drug control strategy, national interdiction command and control plan, and border interdiction strategies for the southern, northern, and caribbean borders of the united states.
▶ 1:38:18Ms. Kelly: The centerpiece of my team's work is the hitda program which provides grant funds to every determined to be critical drug trafficking regions of the united states. Hitda allocate nearly $300 million in federal funding to support the strategies developed and implemented by coalitions of federal, state, local, tribal, territorial partners. I deeply appreciate congresses strong bipartisan support of the hitda program and want to personally thank you for the hitda program.
▶ 1:38:47Ms. Kelly: This support is critical because as we speak america is facing the deadliest drug threat in its history. Over the past 25 years, number of fatal overdoses involving synthetic drugs including fentanyl have increased nearly 100 times. And the illicit drug threat continues to transform. We must dismantle the supply chains of illicit drugs and the raw materials and attacked the global criminal networks fueling these american deaths.
▶ 1:39:12Ms. Kelly: This includes the drug cartels that have inundated the united states with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs. Our federal, state, local, tribal, territorial partners work tirelessly to interdict illicit drugs, weapons, and proceeds and to dismantle criminal network wherever they reside. I look forward to tell you more about the outstanding work of these tireless patriots.
▶ 1:39:38Ms. Kelly: As a result of the recent executive order designating cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated mobile terrorists, we expect to see additional authorities for law enforcement to investigate and dismantle these networks in place new pressure and threat of prosecution on entities that support and enable the cartels. Law enforcement working to disrupt drug trafficking networks need access to telecommunications, automated license plate readers, financial transactions, and illicit firearms data.
▶ 1:40:10Ms. Kelly: Developing and applying these technologies is critical to investigative success. It is equally important these tools are used to maximize it investigative efficacy while minimizing any risks to the privacy of innocent americans. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and to share the perspective from the office of national drug control policy. Protecting americans from illicit drugs and the traffickers who harm them is our mission.
▶ 1:40:36Ms. Kelly: Our strong interagency partners as represented by my fellow panelists from the coast guard and customs and border protection today are key to disrupting and dismantling criminal networking organizations. Collectively our work is leading to real progress under president trump's leadership and with your support I'm confident we will continue to stop traffickers and save lives. I'm happy to respond to any questions.
▶ 1:40:59Sen. Budd: Thank you, Ms. kelly. Adm. Chamie, you are recognized for your opening statement.
▶ 1:41:05Radm. Chamie: Good afternoon, senator budd, just in which members of the committee. I request my written testimony be submitted for the record. Thank you for your continued support of the united states coast guard and the young men and women who selflessly volunteer to serve our nation throughout our 234-year career our workforce has always been our greatest strength and I'm incredibly proud to serve alongside them.
▶ 1:41:30Radm. Chamie: I very much appreciate the title of this hearing, a view from the front lines. It is a good reminder of why I'm here today to share with you the successes and challenges of our crews who do the mission every day. Throughout my time in uniform, the best part of my job has always been bragging about my cruise. Now sitting before you, I'm honored to share just two of their success stories over the past month.
▶ 1:41:57Radm. Chamie: On february 2, coast guard cut joseph doyle and coast guard aircraft were patrolling south of the U.S. virgin islands. The cutter stopped and boarded a go fast vessel, seizing 2000 pounds of cocaine and attaining three venezuelan smugglers. Thanks to the crew of that cutter and aircraft, they kept over $16 million of drugs off american streets.
▶ 1:42:22Radm. Chamie: On january 23, the crew of coast guard cut was patrolling far off the coast of mexico when the crew spotted a go fast vessel with three outboard engines. The coast guard helicopter employed their position marksman to shoot the outboards and the boarding team seized six tons of cocaine valued at almost $100 million, and they detained 10 smugglers from mexico and ecuador.
▶ 1:42:48Radm. Chamie: In all the fiscal year 2024, the coast guard interdicted 106 tons of cocaine with a street value of $3.2 billion, and attained 212 smugglers. That sounds good but I would call it an average year. This year, our crews have interdicted over 18 tons of cocaine and already surpassed last year's total only five months into the fiscal year. This pace however is not sustainable.
▶ 1:43:18Radm. Chamie: For every drug interdiction, each crew has countless stories of engine casualties, electronics failures, and just last week, one cutter discovered a hole in the side of the ship with seawater pouring in. Making our crews' lives even tougher, when the order the part to make repairs, sometimes we don't have them on the shelf or they are not available. And sometimes we take the parts off of a ship returning to port so another ship can go out to see.
▶ 1:43:47Radm. Chamie: Our crews know we are the world's best coast guard but we need to do a better job to make them feel that way. I have talked a lot about cocaine because bulk cocaine is smuggled at sea. He interdiction of cocaine matters because the same cartels who smuggle cocaine produce and smuggle fentanyl.
▶ 1:44:08Radm. Chamie: When we interdict no smugglers at sea, we work with our interagency partners and intelligence community to determine who these criminals are, which cartels employ them, and how and where these cartels operate. Cocaine is the cash crop for transnational criminal organizations, the cartels. There are huge profits from cocaine found other nefarious activities like smuggling, weapons trafficking, and production of synthetic drugs like sentinel.
▶ 1:44:38Radm. Chamie: -- fentanyl. Fentanyl is the leading cause of drug related deaths in our country but cocaine still kills upwards of 25,000 americans every year. Although we rarely encounter fentanyl at sea, the coast guard is act -- actively finding new ways to get after this problem. We are working alongside federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners to protect the american people and ensure our national security remains strong. The coast guard does a lot of things but we don't do it alone.
▶ 1:45:09Radm. Chamie: Whether in the field, in a skif, or in a courtroom, we count on each other every day to achieve mission success. We proudly serve alongside the department of defense, many homeland components like customs and border protection and homeland security investigations , and with the department of state and department of justice just to name a few.
▶ 1:45:31Radm. Chamie: On behalf of our out thing, don and our entire workforce, active duty, reserve, civilian, auxiliary, thank you for your enduring support of the united states coast guard. I look forward to your questions. >> Mr. miller, you are recognized.
▶ 1:45:50Mr. Miller: Senator blackburn, chairman cruz, ranking member cantwell, distillers members of the committee, it's an honor to appear before you today on behalf of the men and women of air and marine operation to discuss our critical role in interdicting illegal drugs in maritime waters as part of U.S. customs and border protection's copperheads of approach to border security. We have existed in our current form for less than 20 years but origins trace back to U.S.
▶ 1:46:20Mr. Miller: Customs service and we continue to meet a long-standing need for specialized air and maritime border security capabilities. Our operators are sworn federal lot for agents with a broad range of authorities to conduct counter narcotics operations across land, air, and sea domains. Maritime domain presents unique national security challenges, unlike air and land environments, coastal waters are vast, less restrictive spaces. Countless vessels enter or operate in U.S.
▶ 1:46:47Mr. Miller: Territorial waters every day, making detection of illegal activity and apprehending of smugglers challenging. Many smuggling crafts hide in plain sight amongst legitimate traffic while others transit remote areas far offshore trying to elude detection altogether.
▶ 1:47:06Mr. Miller: Smugglers also use a variety of vessels tailored to the area and amount of contraband they are smuggling to best evade detection including modified fishing boats, go fast vessels, low-profile vessels, and semi-submersibles. Vessels are also much faster than they were 20 years ago, I often leading law enforcement little time to interdict them before reaching our shores. Drug smuggling activity in the maritime environment is a perpetual and dangerous threat to U.S. security.
▶ 1:47:33Mr. Miller: Of the 234 pounds of drugs amo seized in fy 24, approximately 76% occurred in the maritime environment. In addition to drug interdiction rates, smuggle addiction, violence has also been on the rise. Since 2006, amo has fired on the engines of fleeing vessels really 350 times, with more than half of those happening in the last four years.
▶ 1:47:59Mr. Miller: November 2020 2, 3 of our marine interdiction agents were shot, and one, michael, was killed during a vessel stop with smugglers off the coast of puerto rico. The threat of illicit maritime activity is persistent and dynamic. Amo is dedicated and adaptable. We are continually finding our acute abilities and adjusting our tactics to stay ahead of these ever evolving threats.
▶ 1:48:21Mr. Miller: Amo deploys a fleet of what I believed to be some of the most important interceptors in the world, evolving to meet today's threats, we recently repowered these vessels and made other modifications for a perfect mix of speed, agility, and agent safety. Amo also maintains a fleet of aircraft designed and outfitted for maritime detection and surveillance.
▶ 1:48:42Mr. Miller: Our p3's, aircraft provide long-range high endurance capabilities in remote transit zones while the super king multirole enforcement aircraft further expands aerial surveillance in the united states and the caribbean.
▶ 1:49:03Mr. Miller: Amo is heavily invested in a variety of tethered air stats and tactical assists in providing ground-based radar and capabilities increasing our awareness along out of the torah borders. The florida straits, U.S. virgin islands, northern border. The scale and complexity of countering drug trafficking in the maritime environment requires partnerships and operational collaboration. In addition to the U.S.
▶ 1:49:31Mr. Miller: Coast guard, amo routinely work with federal, state, local, and foreign partners and is one of the largest contributors of flight hours to join interagency task force south supporting counter narcotics operations in the vast 42 million square mile transit zone. With a fleet designed for rapid interdiction, airborne and ground assets that provide critical domain awareness and agents with extensive law enforcement experience, amo brings unique capability to detect and disrupt modeling operations before they reach our shores.
▶ 1:50:02Mr. Miller: With few exceptions, amo's read law enforcement authority is limited to customs waters of a 12 nautical miles from the coastline of the united states. Cbp continues to work with congress on legislative changes to extend the customs waters from 12 to 24 nautical miles. This extension of law enforcement authorities would enable amo to more effectively enforce he was lost at sea, expand our counter narcotics operations, support our partners, and carry out our board security mission.
▶ 1:50:32Mr. Miller: Senator blackburn, recommender cantwell, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answer your questions. Several blackwell thank you. Ms. kelly, I want to come to you with my first question. I'm looking forward to introducing a bill that would reauthorize hitda at an increased funding level.
▶ 1:50:55Mr. Miller: In tennessee I have heard from so many of our law enforcement personnel, how important this is. I want you to speak for about 30 seconds, what would happen if we did not have this?
▶ 1:51:07Ms. Kelly: Thank you so much, senator blackburn for your support to the question. What we have heard persistently in particular from state and local partners is that the hitda program is essential for the coordination of federal, state, local taskforces.
▶ 1:51:26Ms. Kelly: We heard from the first panel how important it is for the federal government to engage with the partners, the 18,000 sheriffs departments, police departments across the nation, who otherwise, without the framework and structure of the hitda program, may not be equipped to share information to coordinate on these cases, to make sure we have a holistic, whole scope of government response to dismantling the criminal networks that are trafficking fentanyl a the southwest border all the way
▶ 1:51:57Ms. Kelly: Through the interior united states into every state and territory across the country.
▶ 1:52:04Sen. Blackburn: I appreciate that you all talked about our borders. And what is coming in in shipping containers from china, and what we are seeing in our reports, but in tennessee, we have got the mississippi or and the port in memphis.
▶ 1:52:31Sen. Blackburn: What I would like to hear from you is what we can do, how your agencies are working on these inland rivers. I know the fbi put a memo out morning of the increased china influence on the mississippi or. Mr. miller, I will start with you and just go down the line. I would like to hear what you all are doing when it comes to our inland waterways?
▶ 1:53:00Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. Amo has marine units in the gulf. I would say the biggest impact in terms of our inland waterways is the support that we provide to state and local agencies in the area to include taskforces.
▶ 1:53:20Mr. Miller: We provide aerial surveillance, enforcement helicopters with specific capabilities, to track narcotics smugglers or any kind of trafficking that state and local agencies are working. We provide greater officer safety during bust operations or high-risk operations.
▶ 1:53:47Radm. Chamie: Good afternoon, senator. Man, we were across the inter-agency with our partners the right homeland, state and local, federal, tribal ticket after a lot of these problems. The coast guard is a multi mission service, so many of the same crewmembers who might be doing a search and rescue case one moment could be boarding a vessel coming in potentially with illegal narcotics. The ability to shift between missions is a critical capability of the coast guard.
▶ 1:54:17Radm. Chamie: That is fed by intelligence. The coast guard is a member of the intelligence community and we work across the ic to put our cutters and crews in places where we know the worst problem will be so we can effectively respond.
▶ 1:54:33Sen. Blackburn: Ms. kelly.
▶ 1:54:37Ms. Kelly: I appreciate my co-panelists have both mentioned information sharing. Hitda, as you know, is a key framework for sharing information from our federal partners down through our state and locals, who in many instances are the ones enforcing the drug laws, particularly in the more rural and remote areas.
▶ 1:54:56Sen. Blackburn: Rear admiral, I would like to come to you on this. I think it is helpful that president trump has identified the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. As we look at dealing with these cartels, is there any further authority that the coast guard needs in order to apprehend and to work in this process with the ic?
▶ 1:55:24Radm. Chamie: Good afternoon, senator. I am very appreciative the president has designated these cartels as terrorist organizations. I think that sends a message that we as a government are deadly serious, bringing all of our assets and resources to bear to get after this problem. I would be happy to answer the question for the record with a list of additional authorities that we might be able to use to get after that.
▶ 1:55:49Sen. Blackburn: That will be helpful, the kind of information we need. My time has expired. Senator cantwell, you are recognized.
▶ 1:55:58Sen. Cantwell: Thank you, madam chair, thank you to the second group of witnesses fighting this on the front lines. Appreciate you being here today. I wanted to start with you, director kelly, just in comments about the legislation we introduced last year, you were supportive of that. This whole area of how to build capacity and attacking the transportation networks.
▶ 1:56:24Sen. Cantwell: We heard from spokane chief hall about why this -- what it does work in the sense of the transportation networks on the border. You think you can easily grow that capacity within your organization, is that right? Support for our legislation which requires the stop fentanyl smuggling transportation network strategy?
▶ 1:56:53Ms. Kelly: Thank you so much for the question, ranking member cantwell. We share your keen interest in ensuring all modalities of our transportation network are secure. That has been a particular challenge in the past. We have focused increasing efforts on ensuring that we are hitting all points through our partners at the U.S.
▶ 1:57:14Ms. Kelly: Postal inspection service, in securing our parcel systems, also attacking transportation on the rail, via air, passenger, and cargo. We share your interest as well in a fentanyl strategy. Certainly at the office of national drug control policy, by annually, we prepare the drug strategy, and the next one is due in 2026.
▶ 1:57:42Ms. Kelly: We certainly appreciate the focus that a fentanyl strategy would bring. We are happy to engage with our partners at the national security council and lead that effort.
▶ 1:57:51Sen. Cantwell: Once we had that in your authority, you could plug this into the current system and then just leverage this extra local law enforcement effort to go after these transportation networks?
▶ 1:58:05Ms. Kelly: I think we would have to build out a complete plan for this, but certainly, using the existing framework would make great sense. .
▶ 1:58:15Sen. Cantwell: I just wanted to clarify that because I feel like we are already somewhat there, but this is about growing the capacity to target these transportation modes. Did you want to comment anything about the technology, how important a breakthrough that could be?
▶ 1:58:36Ms. Kelly: Absolutely. I think we are very interested in ensuring we are using bleeding and technology where and when possible. I would also mention, we want to make sure we maintain robust support for all dimensions of interdiction, which would include ensuring that we have manpower who are trained appropriately, who are well equipped at detecting suspicious behavior when they pull someone over as part of a roadside
▶ 1:59:08Ms. Kelly: Interdiction, making sure that we are also funding canines. This is a much more basic foundational effort, but in some places we are still here from state and local agencies that they don't have resources like that. I think we want to hit it at all fronts with both high tech solutions but also the more nuts and bolts solutions, as well.
▶ 1:59:28Sen. Cantwell: You will not find a bigger supporter of the canines than myself. Talking to sea-tac, people walk in, they see the canines and they leave. It is a deterrent in and of itself. But the noninvasive technology issue is just a way to say to the bus stations, airports, we are going to catch you. Hopefully, help us in that effort. I wanted to ask Mr.
▶ 1:59:54Sen. Cantwell: Miller about cbp's use of safe boats, apparently that structure works well.
▶ 2:00:04Mr. Miller: Thank you, ranking member cantwell. The safe boats we have, and I have visited where they make them for us. Multiple times. We have two varieties, a center console version that we were her two hours of a coastal interceptor vessel, 40 feet, custom-designed specifically for our needs. Then we have a closed cabin version called the all weather interceptor. We use that in more of our cold-weather locations.
▶ 2:00:34Mr. Miller: Both of them have been game changers in our fleet. Legacy customs, we use to have go fast vessels that we basically turned into law enforcement vessels. These are the first ones custom tailored for law enforcement. These are helping us on our --Sen. cantwell: these are helping us on our waterways detect.
▶ 2:00:56Mr. Miller: Absolutely. We have recently repowered them. We have done recent modification to make them safer for our agents during high risk pursuits and boardings.
▶ 2:01:07Sen. Cantwell: Thank you. I will have some thing for the record. Very much support the coast guard increasing capacity for them. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:01:19Sen. Budd: Admiral, you mentioned in your testimony the coast guard is using small unmanned aircraft as part of the package for interdiction. What kind of vehicles are they using rna honors -- any others that the coast guard is not currently employed but you looking?
▶ 2:01:43Radm. Chamie: I don't use the term game changer a lot but when he started utilizing the unmanned aircraft on the cutters, he changed the game for us. The way that we pursue drug smugglers on the high seas is with a package of a cutter with a helicopter that can shoot out the engines and in a maritime patrol aircraft overhead to find them, cue the cutter to get after it with its fast boat.
▶ 2:02:14Radm. Chamie: When you can launch that from the flight deck of the cutter and put that out there, you don't have to rely on scarce long-range aircraft from either cbp or coast guard. It is indeed a game changer.
▶ 2:02:25Sen Budd.: Is that fuel, electric?
▶ 2:02:31Mr. Miller: I would have to get the specs on it. >> the central hub of the coast guard's aviation program. In addition to conducting heavy maintenance on the existing fleet, the alc is also instrumental in the fleets transmission to both the c-130j and mh60.
▶ 2:02:55Mr. Miller: As the coast guard experiences interdiction missions, are there additional needs in the coast guard aviation fleet, alc specifically that the commission should be thinking of?
▶ 2:03:03Radm. Chamie: Yes, senator, and thank you for your support of the aviation logistics center. Work they are doing their two missionize aircraft and then to do the depot maintenance on our 60 aircraft, to get them up and flying for longer as part of their service life extension program, is absolutely critical to the organization. Sir, the bigger answer is we need more aircraft.
▶ 2:03:29Radm. Chamie: We are constrained by the resources we have, both the fixed wing like the c-130 j's, and moving forward we need to figure out a way how to get more rotary aircraft to deploy on both our cutters to get after drug smugglers, and also for shore-based missions. We need to raise our topline. Sir, we've been saying for a while now, we are a $20 billion coast guard on a $12 billion budget. Though sort of topline increases will help us get after aviation and everything else we need.
▶ 2:03:59Sen. Budd: Thank you. Mr. miller, your testimony mentions in november 2022 incident in which three air and marine operations, interdiction agents was shot, one tragically killed. You also reported that amo enforcement resulted in the seizure of more than 1500 weapons in fiscal year 2024. Does your office have any record how often amo agents are subject to incoming fire while carrying out their missions?
▶ 2:04:30Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. The event in 2022 when mike was killed was tragic, game changer for air marine operations. We have seen an increase in violence, noncompliant boardings. We have changed our training significantly. We have outfitted -- I mentioned we outfitted our vessels differently with different safety equipment, armaments.
▶ 2:05:05Mr. Miller: We have also equipped our ages differently as well. I think you'll see the most capable air marine agents to date.
▶ 2:05:13Sen. Budd: Thank you. Continuing on from Mr. kelly, your testimony mentions your work with the interdiction committee to continue drug interdiction efforts across the federal government. Dod has several members on the interdiction committee. Do you think more direct engagement from the dod along the southern border would be helpful in stopping the flow of illegal immigration and illicit drugs particularly now that president trump has designated many of the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations?
▶ 2:05:43Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. We work closely with dod, northcom, we are coordinating with them currently on any kind of additional force laydown that may come on the southwest border. We welcome any assistance in that effort.
▶ 2:06:01Sen. Budd: Thank you. Senator kim, you are recognized.
▶ 2:06:05Sen. Kim: Thank you. Appreciate all of you coming out to talk with us. Director kelly, I would like to start with you. All of us here recognize we want to have a conference of approach to this. That includes some of these efforts to go after the cartels, on immigration. Also a statistic that I came across and I wanted to ask you if this was correct. U.S. citizens made up 80% of individuals with fentanyl seized at ports of entry.
▶ 2:06:37Sen. Kim: I wanted to ask you, does that sound correct to you? Roughly?
▶ 2:06:42Ms. Kelly: I would certainly defer to our partners at dhs which would be the source of Dr. sister, but generally correct.
▶ 2:06:50Sen. Kim: To whatever extent Mr. miller, you want to jump in as well, but we have an understanding of who these americans are, in affiliation with criminal operations, other things of that nature? Mr. miller, I wanted to check with you if you have thoughts.
▶ 2:07:07Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. I would definitely say the cartels are running all the narcotics operations on the southwest border. They will utilize anyone.
▶ 2:07:19Sen. Kim: They are recruiting americans to help this get across the border, is that what you believe is happening?
▶ 2:07:27Mr. Miller: No doubt of that, senator.
▶ 2:07:30Sen. Kim: I'm just sticking through this, the different ways that we can disrupt this operation and engage, understand how that recruitment might be occurring, other types of ways in which we can engage. Director we can engage. Director kelly, engage. Director kelly, youage. Director kelly, you ge. Director kelly, you talked about the bleeding edge tech that is a component of that. You also mentioned a number of other aspects important when it comes to interdiction.
▶ 2:07:54Sen. Kim: On the leading edge tech, I wanted to ask you, as I'm trying to explain to the people in new jersey what we we should be putting our priorities, certainly heard a lot about scanning technologies but what are the other types of technologies that are proven to be best practices and where are we at in terms of scaling back to the level that we need?
▶ 2:08:13Ms. Kelly: Thank you, senator kim, for the question. I think we have two dimensions we have to consider and responding to that. Part of it is developing the technology and the other part is making sure that it can be deployed to all of the partners that we need. We are recognizing that we are relying in large part here on the work of our 18,000 sheriff's officers and police department across the country.
▶ 2:08:39Ms. Kelly: For them, this bleeding edge tech, even if we have it, may never be in reach. So we have to think about what makes sense in terms of broad scale investment and how much of that can be in the hands of upstate local officers. On the first point, I would defer to our experts here on the actual border, cbp.
▶ 2:09:06Ms. Kelly: I know leads a lot of the technological development for the southwest border and also for the maritime space. What I think we might be want to be thinking about talking about state and local deployment, may be second generation technology, thinking about handheld scanners.
▶ 2:09:23Ms. Kelly: We are thinking about ensuring they are trained so that they can properly question drivers on roadside stops so that they are not taking the personal risk, thinking about state patrol officers, about pulling over a tractor-trailer with a hidden compartment. Thinking about delaying the schedule of commerce in the united states.
▶ 2:09:47Ms. Kelly: It is a broad range depending on what you're talking about, federal investment directly or talking about something that is deployable to state and locals.
▶ 2:09:54Sen. Kim: Appreciated earlier that you raised the importance of ensuring that we have enough canine investment as well. So often, here in congress, we get caught up in the tech, but it is the manpower as well as these other types of tools. Mr. miller, I wanted to turn to you if you have anything further. Help us understand, where should we be when it comes to the leading edge tech, where do you think we are at right now? Your understanding of the delta.
▶ 2:10:24Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. As the assistant director mentioned, at the ports of entry, technology is vital. In between the ports of entry, I think any kind of technology that assists in domain awareness is critical, whether that is our use of radar, arrow stats, cameras, use of artificial intelligence, machine learning.
▶ 2:10:54Mr. Miller: Another critical gap that cbp has that we are working through, trying to catch up with is the counter uas threat. That is a threat along the border to our agents. Whether it is surveillance of our operations from the south side of the border, flying contraband in small loads across the border, we have seen what the cartels do to each other using small drones, dropping
▶ 2:11:24Mr. Miller: Explosives. Of course with amo collision of risk with aircraft. Legacy customs readers along the border were meant to detect aircraft and ultralights, not meter or less size targets operating extremely low or slow. We are catching up without technology, deploying tools that can detect and mitigate this new emerging threat.
▶ 2:11:49Sen. Kim: Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 2:11:52Sen. Budd: Thank you, senator kim. Senator fischer.
▶ 2:11:59Sen. Fischer: Thank you, senator budd. Ms., a key step in addressing the illicit drug threat is ensuring the existing programs within the government are working. As you know, the high intensity drug trafficking areas program known as hitda is a cornerstone at how we combat regional drug trafficking throughout the united states.
▶ 2:12:20Sen. Fischer: I have seen firsthand in my state of nebraska, especially for law enforcement in rural areas with fewer local resources, how important this is. For example, hitda is the primary resource for the winged task force that covers 11 of our panhandle counties. Through hitda, the task force has developed a uniquely cooperative and investigative program that is helping western nebraska law enforcement more actively manage narcotic and criminal investigations.
▶ 2:12:53Sen. Fischer: In your view, how would you evaluate hitda's effectiveness nationwide?
▶ 2:12:59Ms. Kelly: Thank you so much, senator fischer, for your support and question. We are extremely proud of the work that we are doing. For every dollar invested in the hitda program, the rate of return is $63, which is pretty phenomenal testament to the success of the program overall. In 2023, hitda's collectively disrupted or dismantled more than 3000 drug trafficking organizations, money laundering organizations.
▶ 2:13:31Ms. Kelly: Collectively seized more than 2000 metric tons of drugs. Which also I think completes the narrative. Often when we talk about drug interdiction, we have a focus on ports of entry and the border which is critical to our overall success, but we also like to point to the hitdas interdicting drugs in the interior of the united states, and the success rate there has been phenomenal as well.
▶ 2:13:59Ms. Kelly: >> what challenges do you see or anticipate in the future in meeting your goals that you have there?
▶ 2:14:07Ms. Kelly: Thank you, senator for asking the question. We face a myriad of challenges. In some communities, the focus on drug trafficking is often subordinate to other threats. Which is certainly a challenge in terms of making sure that there are state and local resources to put on hitda taskforces. I would also say fatigue is a huge element for us.
▶ 2:14:32Ms. Kelly: It is why the focus on border security and interdiction at the ports of entry and at the borders is key because I think we are asking an awful lot of our state and local task force officers when they are being asked to interdict drugs that did invade the borders and when they're being asked to investigate the types of networks that are directly linked to cartels. It's a huge challenge, it's a training challenge, it's a resource challenge for all of our taskforces.
▶ 2:15:00Ms. Kelly: >> you brought up the border and obviously that southern border is a major disruption zone. In years past, we have struggled with all the different agencies out there using different intel, using different maps, whether it is dea or fbi or cbp or the department of defense, as well.
▶ 2:15:24Ms. Kelly: I think we have to have a shared c1 I think we have to have a shared map to identify the threats we have had. In your testimony, you noted efforts by the drug enforcement administration, you map out this data comprehensively. Can you speak about that further?
▶ 2:15:40Ms. Kelly: Thank you so much for that question, senator fischer. I agree. I think we have the common operating fixture is imperative. And a big challenge for us is making sure that we are in a place where we can share information from the icy, all the way down to our state and local partners.
▶ 2:16:01Ms. Kelly: This is where we really rely on the work of our federal agencies to be the bridge so that as you say, the map, the common operating picture can be not just conceived but communicated from top to bottom.
▶ 2:16:14Sen. Fischer: And how do we achieve that?
▶ 2:16:19Ms. Kelly: How we achieve it is a work in progress. I would -- it is a challenge in terms of security levels but it is also a challenge in terms of culture and promoting information sharing. We are talking about people who are accustomed to building trust with each other as people, to share information.
▶ 2:16:43Ms. Kelly: When we are working cross community like that, we have to figure out not just one bridge but multiple ways to bridge that gap.
▶ 2:16:52Sen. Fischer: Thank you very much. >> thank you, senator fischer. Senator lujan.
▶ 2:16:57Sen. Lujan: Fentanyl is devastating communities across the country. Stopping at the border is critical. Advanced technology is one of our strongest tools in this fight. Ghost fentanyl enters land or the united states through land ports of entry. Which is why I have advocated for getting 100% screening using nonintrusive inspection technology.
▶ 2:17:22Sen. Lujan: Nii has helped cdp intercept massive amounts of fentanyl and vehicles, over 200 count -- 200,000 pounds the last three years. I know it is outside the jurisdiction of this committee, we need to invest in these technologies to save lives, shrink the border security and ensure law enforcement has the tools they need to fight the fentanyl crisis. Mr.
▶ 2:17:45Sen. Lujan: Miller, your testimony states the air and maritime operations has integrated artificial intelligence to detect illicit activity, but cartels appear to be exploiting gaps in our enforcement capabilities to evade detection and find ways to move the fentanyl our waters. It has the potential to revolutionize patterns in improving real-time threat detection.
▶ 2:18:13Sen. Lujan: What is ammo doing to fully leverage ai and next-generation technology, before drugs reach our communities?
▶ 2:18:23Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. Ai has changed the game. For example, some of our radars, when they are tracking targets in the maritime approaches, some of the areas that are more remote, a mere presence in an area is suspicious. Other areas such as the florida straits, a purchase going into miami or fort lauderdale, where you have a high concentration of recreational vessels.
▶ 2:18:51Mr. Miller: You need to have something else to assist in filtering nefarious from recreational that is where we use ai, machine learning, building algorithms that can identify patterns to point out or at least lessen the clutter of the sheer volumes of targets on the radar.
▶ 2:19:13Sen. Lujan: What partnerships exist between cbp and dea, fbi and dod to enhance technology sharing and leverage advanced technologies already deployed?
▶ 2:19:25Mr. Miller: Like assistant director kelly mentioned, I don't think we have ever had a better common operational picture with the partners, with the capabilities that we have. We have our air marine operations center for example in riverside, california that can adjust all of the radar feeds, or individual camera feeds, or even pictures agents are taking on their cameras, and share that with a community where you literally have a single pane of glass of partners working together.
▶ 2:19:59Sen. Lujan: Last year, the commander for the U.S. northern command told another senate committee that as many as 1000 unmanned jones crossed the U.S. southern border every month. As I mentioned, dea data indicates most shipments of fentanyl come across the border through land ports of entry. Yes or no, this the threat coming from the air and our land ports of entry?
▶ 2:20:22Mr. Miller: Thank you, senator. As was mentioned earlier, we really don't know, because we are catching such a small percentage. I will tell you the vast majority of seizures are coming through the land ports. We have not seen fentanyl being smuggled in drown crossings along the border. That doesn't mean it isn't happening.
▶ 2:20:47Sen. Lujan: What percentage of passenger vehicles are screened through the southern border?
▶ 2:20:52Mr. Miller: I do not have that .
▶ 2:20:58Sen. Lujan: I can submit that a little bit later. I know it is not 100%. I don't even think it is 50%. Back in 2008, 2009, it was like 5% or something. Some ridiculously small number if 90% of the fentanyl that the U.S.
▶ 2:21:15Sen. Lujan: Is found in the southern vehicles -- and we still randomly look at cars and we are still screening a small percentage of them, again, 100% screening of inbound and outbound passenger vehicles, and I would argue cargo, and I would point to the water portals well. That there is much more we could be doing with modernizing water points of entry.
▶ 2:21:42Sen. Lujan: I am reminded of a report that came out from the department of homeland security under president trump's first turn and president biden's term as well. That suggested that there were precursor chemicals that were being intercepted, stolen, after they would get on land, off the ship, on land and they would be taken to the screening facility between the water port and the screening facility. They were getting stolen. They were being driven to mexico. They were coming back to the united states. How in the world is that happening?
▶ 2:22:14Sen. Lujan: 100% screening, stopping what is happening in these cargo containers will make a big difference. I have several other questions. My time has run out. I will submit them to the record. I appreciate this important hearing and I hope there are ways we can get this adopted into good policy and get it funded. Thank you for the time. >> thank you, senator. Senator klobuchar.
▶ 2:22:35Sen. Klobuchar: Thank you all for your work. I have been going between agriculture and judiciary. I wanted to be here for the tail end of this. We have had a lot of issues with fentanyl in our state. I have worked a lot on the social media side of it with a number of other senators to try to cut down on that. A lot of kids, especially, are purchasing pills that way.
▶ 2:23:00Sen. Klobuchar: We also need to stop these illicit drugs and fake pills from entering our borders in the first place. Thank you for your work. Director kelly, your written testimony referenced the governments efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking through the mail, including 3800 pounds of fentanyl seized by the postal inspection service.
▶ 2:23:20Sen. Klobuchar: I lead bipartisan legislation known as the stop act 2.0, which builds on the original stop act that senator portman and I did and acted by president trump in 2018. Can I count on ondcp support as we work to build on legislation to crack down on fentanyl through the mail?
▶ 2:23:37Ms. Kelly: Thank you so much for the question. We absolutely agree that stopping flow of fentanyl through the U.S. mail is key, and we write heavily on their partners from the U.S. postal inspection service to do that work. We would also add that fentanyl flow-through express consignment carriers, private industry partners like ups, fedex and dhl's, is equally key.
▶ 2:24:01Sen. Klobuchar: Very good. I want to note, I know senator blackburn asked you about hitda program, and it is very important in our state to our narcotics efforts. Used to be a prosecutor, and it is coordination on how important that is. Rear admiral, I know the coast guard plays a major role here. We love the coast guard in minnesota.
▶ 2:24:33Sen. Klobuchar: We especially love icebreakers up on lake superior. Could you talk about what you would need in terms of coast guard cutters to bring down the cocaine we are getting in?
▶ 2:24:43Mr. Chamie: Good afternoon, senator. Yes, ma'am. In short, we need more of them. We are currently building new offshore patrol cutters, finishing up the control for the fast cutters, we are still running our older ships. 10 years ago, I was a commanding officer of a cutter that was almost 50 years old then, and we are still operating it today. We have trouble getting parts for those ships.
▶ 2:25:11Mr. Chamie: When we have a scheduled maintenance period, we don't even have the funding to be able to take that ship and make sure it can continue to operate. I mentioned in my opener, we had a ship with a hole in the side of it with water rushing in last week. That ship was built in the 80's. We are running these old ships --
▶ 2:25:29Sen. Klobuchar: Back with cabbage patch dolls and walkman were popular.
▶ 2:25:34Mr. Chamie: Yes, ma'am. Those are the ships that we are using. We need new ships and aircraft to replace those so we can get after today's threats.
▶ 2:25:44Sen. Klobuchar: Thank you. Can you talk about how working cooperatively with our allies strengthens american law enforcement and national security interest? I always think -- I will not go out to some of the issues we are having now with our allies, but I think people don't realize sometimes the law enforcement coordination that goes on.
▶ 2:26:03Mr. Chamie: Yes. I think people probably don't realize that right now, we have a touch ship patrolling in the caribbean with the U.S. coast guard law enforcement attachment on board. In the last two weeks, they have had two drug introductions of cocaine. We are able to prosecute those cases because we had a U.S. law enforcement attachment make that interdiction. So the U.S. attorney will take the case, we can hold those people accountable.
▶ 2:26:32Mr. Chamie: More importantly, we can get the intelligence from that case, use that to feed the intel cycle, and figure out how to dismantle the cartels because of it.
▶ 2:26:40Sen. Klobuchar: Very good. I'm going to end a little early. Thank you. >> senator rosen.
▶ 2:26:47Sen. Rosen: Thank you, chair. And thank, senator klobuchar, for giving me a little bit more of your time. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. It is a really important hearing. I want to talk about the impact of the current administration's actions on your ability to do your jobs. Ms. kelly, I don't need to tell you or other members of this committee of how vital the work you do at hitda.
▶ 2:27:19Sen. Rosen: How important that program is. In nevada, we have two high intensity drug trafficking areas. According to the southern nevada health district, between 2022 -- 2020 and 2023, the number of fentanyl overdoses among residents of our state's largest county increased by 97%. That is why programs like hitda are needed now more than ever. I strongly support your annual appropriation.
▶ 2:27:50Sen. Rosen: Unfortunately, according to several reports and lawsuits filed by state attorneys general's, both the omb hiring freeze and subsequent pausing and reallocation of resources that impacted funding for the hitda program. Ms. kelly, can you talk about how these actions have impacted the work you do, your ability to stop the drugs from coming? Are you currently receiving the necessary support and funding to carry out your crucial work?
▶ 2:28:13Ms. Kelly: Thank you, senator rosen, for the question and for your support for the hitda program. We appreciate it. Happily for us, the funding freeze our grants program was subject to was fairly short-lived. It was rescinded within about four hours. We were in a position where we had to pause, but it was a very brief pause and we are happy that hitda's are back and running as usual.
▶ 2:28:37Sen. Rosen: Thank you. I'm going to move on. I know senator klobuchar talked about international cooperation. Minnesota, on the canadian border there. I want to talk about south come. Because I sit on armed services committee.
▶ 2:28:54Sen. Rosen: In our hearing with commander richardson, the general spoke about our armed forces success in detecting in seizing maritime drug shipments, including the imports of work -- importance of working with partner nations to increase our drug seizures.
▶ 2:29:11Sen. Rosen: Admiral chamie, how can we work together and leverage our international partners, not just with canada, but to improve the detection of precursor chemicals of allowing us to shift our efforts earlier in the fentanyl production process? How can we best equip the coast guard to do that?
▶ 2:29:30Mr. Chamie: Good afternoon, senator. With south,, they have a component command in florida called the joint interagency south force. It performs the dod detection and monitoring a function. Basically helps get the intel and tells coast guard and other allied partners where we should be patrolling. And where we can focus. Under the indo-pacific region, the indo pain, has a component for the task force west.
▶ 2:30:00Mr. Chamie: They do similar functions over there to focus on the larger ships that might be bringing fentanyl precursors into the united states. And in fact, not too long ago, they worked and had an interdiction of a commercial vessel bringing precursors into mexico. They were able to work with mexico to seize those precursors when they entered port.
▶ 2:30:30Mr. Chamie: This type of international relationships in working with both components for indo pay and southcom are critical to us.
▶ 2:30:35Sen. Rosen: I appreciate your work there. In the last minute or so, I want to talk about our borders. And the nonintrusive scanners that we can use. Last year, during a hearing on dhs fy 25 budget, it was mentioned how critical it was for funding duty be included for the installation of the new nonintrusive scanner technologies, like the low energy portal, scanning systems that stop the flow of fentanyl
▶ 2:31:05Sen. Rosen: Into the united states through land ports of entries, which is of course some of the most common ways that fentanyl is smuggled across the border into our country. It was also discussed at the time that a number of high-tech scanners that have been provided to cbp officers to identify and stop fentanyl were sitting unused in warehouses. Mr. miller, are similar scanners being used at maritime ports of entry? Are they operational?
▶ 2:31:36Sen. Rosen: Is there a way for us to adopt this technology and use every tool in the toolbox to stop these deadly drugs from coming in? Tell us what you might need, please.
▶ 2:31:43Mr. Miller: Thank you. I would defer that to the experts that use that technology and customs of border protections. I will tell you that is nonintrusive inspection technology, it is part of the multilayered enforcement strategy at our borders, into include our ports. The x-ray, gammaray, other sensing technologies is invaluable in discovering smuggled items.
▶ 2:32:12Mr. Miller: They also have mobile systems as well that they bring along to the nss e's that we participate and provide security with as well, super bowls, events in the ncr, etc.
▶ 2:32:24Sen. Rosen: Thank you. I think it is important we use all of these. And I would just want to add that when we do think about adding these new technologies, we need to add improved wi-fi, different kinds of spaces, make sure the surrounding infrastructure is there for these capabilities. Thank you for allowing me to go over my time. >> take you, senator rosen. And I thank each of you all as part of the panel today. Mr.
▶ 2:32:52Sen. Rosen: Miller, and your dialogue earlier, we used acronyms like aml and incidents, and you referred to mike. Having lost his life. Again, we are thankful for him, for his service and we are thankful to his family as well. This is a dangerous business you all are in. We are grateful for each and every one of you. Senators will have until the closing of business on march 5 to submit questions for the record.
▶ 2:33:18Sen. Rosen: The witnesses will have until the end of the day on wednesday, march 19, to respond to those questions. This concludes today's hearing. The committee stands adjourned.