Goodlatte Floor Statement on the "Transnational Drug Trafficking Act"

Chairman Goodlatte: International drug traffickers are profiting off the misery of American citizens, including our children.  In recent years, our nation has experienced an epidemic of opioid abuse.  A significant part of that epidemic involves the trafficking of illicit heroin across our borders, and into our communities and homes.  Every Member in this chamber today has heard a heartbreaking story about a constituent, or a constituent’s child, who has been lost to this scourge. The irony, Mr. Speaker, is that international drug traffickers know our drug trafficking laws as well, if not better, than most Americans do.  And they know that, if they simply employ a middleman to take the drugs from them and transport them into the U.S., it makes it much harder, if not impossible, for U.S. law enforcement to prosecute them under those drug trafficking laws. Why is it more difficult, you might ask?  Because under current law, the government must prove that a trafficker knew the drugs were headed for the United States.  Drug trafficking organizations in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and other Central and South American “source nations” sell their illicit products to Mexican traffickers, who in turn traffic the drugs into the United States. This makes it difficult, under current law, for federal prosecutors to make cases against such “source-nation” manufacturers, wholesale distributors, brokers, and transporters, since direct evidence of their intent that the drugs are bound for the United States is difficult, if not impossible, to develop.  The result is that “source-nation” malefactors, who produce and distribute illegal narcotics, escape prosecution under U.S. law because they feign ignorance of the drugs’ ultimate destination.  This has happened with increasing regularity over the past several years, and it is Congress’s responsibility to address this problem. S. 32, the “Transnational Drug Trafficking Act of 2015,” is identical to H.R. 3380, legislation that was introduced by my Judiciary Committee colleagues Congressman Tom Marino of Pennsylvania and Congressman Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico.  This bill makes crucial changes to our federal drug laws to give law enforcement additional tools to combat extraterritorial drug trafficking. It does this by amending the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act to stipulate that when a narcotics trafficker or manufacturer has a “reasonable cause to believe” that the illegal narcotics he produces or traffics will be sent into the U.S., then the U.S. may prosecute him.  This amendment will permit federal prosecutors to pursue extraterritorial drug traffickers who are not directly smuggling drugs into the United States, but who facilitate it. S. 32 also amends the Import/Export Actto address the increasingly prevalent problem of trafficking in “listed chemicals,” which are chemicals regulated by the DEA because they are used in the manufacture of controlled substances.  During a recent CODEL to South and Central America, several of my colleagues and I heard firsthand how drug trafficking organizations have relied upon shadowy chemical suppliers in the manufacture of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and other dangerous narcotics.  S. 32 would enable federal prosecutors to reach chemical traffickers who knowingly facilitate and benefit from the illicit production and smuggling of listed chemicals. Both of these amendments will allow federal law enforcement to go after, not the lowly drug mules moving drugs into the United States, but the criminals who facilitate at a high level, within the source nation, the trafficking of narcotics and precursor chemicals into the United States.  As one law enforcement official has said to me, it is better to fight this battle there than here. In addition to these important reforms, S. 32 also amends the criminal counterfeit law to include an intent requirement for trafficking in counterfeit drugs. I am pleased the House is taking up this important bill, which the Senate has already passed unanimously, so it can move expeditiously to the President’s desk. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time. ###