WASHINGTON, DC – Today, as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) delivered opening remarks in a hearing entitled “Combatting the Opioid Crisis: Oversight of the Implementation of the STOP Act.” The hearing followed up on Senator Portman’s bipartisan Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, which became law in 2018. The STOP Act is working to help reduce the supply of fentanyl shipped into the United States through the U.S. Postal Service, and the hearing focused on how well federal agencies are implementing the requirements.
As the Chairman and Ranking Member of PSI, Portman and Carper conducted an 18-month investigation into this issue and released a stunning bipartisan report detailing how drug traffickers exploit vulnerabilities in our international mail system to easily ship synthetic drugs like fentanyl from China into the United States through the U.S. Postal Service. The STOP Act closes this loophole by requiring advance electronic data on all inbound international packages, including packages coming from China. Starting January 1, 2021, the STOP Act requires the Postal Service to refuse any inbound international packages without advance electronic data.
