Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, an opioid epidemic is sweeping the country. More than 60,000 Americans are dying from opioid overdoses every year--more than the number of Americans who died in all 20 years of the Vietnam war. What a staggering fact that is, but behind each number is a tragedy for a family who loses their loved one.
Today, I want to tell the story of the Hacala family from Rogers, AR. It is a story of love, persistence, courage, and, I hope, a story that will save other families from the tragedy they felt.
Betty and Steve Hacala are joining us in the Gallery today. I met Betty and Steve 3 weeks ago at a roundtable on the opioid epidemic in Little Rock with Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, State and local law enforcement, and the families of opioid victims. The news is full of tragic deaths from heroin, fentanyl, and prescription drugs. I met families that day whose children died from those well-known drugs, but I learned from the Hacalas about another killer: unwashed poppy seeds.
Their son, Stephen Junior, died in his sleep from an overdose 2 years ago. Stephen was only 24 years old and was a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas. He loved to play guitar, and he was very accomplished at it. He was the joy of his parents' life, and he was the joy of his sisters Christina and Lauren's lives. His sudden death came as a shock to them, but they got another shock when an autopsy determined that Stephen died of morphine intoxication. There were no drugs in his apartment--no pill bottles, no needles, nothing. What had been found was a 5-pound bag of unwashed poppy seeds. Stephen had ordered the seeds on Amazon. The Arkansas crime lab soon determined that the poppy seeds were the source of the morphine that killed Stephen.
Stephen's death resulted in part because of a dangerous gap in our Nation's drug laws. It has been well known for ages that poppies are dangerous, both addictive and toxic. That is why it is illegal to grow or own almost any part of the poppy--the straw, the pod, the latex. There is an exception, of course, for poppy seeds, which many people enjoy on bagels, muffins, cakes, and other pastries. The seed itself isn't addictive, but unwashed seeds tend to still have bits of the plant on them, which can be washed off and used to create a powerful narcotic.
To give a sense of just how deadly poppy seed tea can be, a lethal dose of morphine is about 200 milligrams, but researchers at Sam Houston State University, commissioned by the Hacalas, concluded that there were about 6,000 milligrams of morphine in that 5-pound bag of seeds that Stephen bought. That is over 30 times the lethal dose. Stephen had no way of knowing just how toxic these seeds were.
While there are plenty of legitimate uses for washed poppy seeds, there are no legitimate uses for unwashed seeds. Yet drug dealers and unscrupulous merchants are abusing the legal status of washed seeds to profit and to push unwashed seeds, which are widely available through online retailers. And when you read the user comments, you can easily find instructions for how to brew poppy seed tea and a description of its narcotic effects.
So there is no question of these unwashed seeds being used for grandma's poppy seed cake; it is plain they are being used to smuggle the banned drug into our homes, and the manufacturers and distributors should know that. And Betty and Steve made sure they did. It is hard to imagine the grief they feel. It would have been easy to despair, but they did not. They want to save other families from their fate, to be sure Stephen's death would have meaning. They researched the issue, commissioning that report from Sam Houston State and studying the market for unwashed poppy seeds. They also became advocates, meeting with community leaders and elected officials. As I said, I only learned about the danger of unwashed poppy seeds by meeting the Hacalas.
After that meeting, I put in a call to the leadership of Walmart and Amazon, which at the time both allowed unwashed poppy seeds to be sold on their websites. They listened to our case and quickly agreed to stop selling poppy seeds that are labeled as unwashed. This is important. The two behemoths of online commerce agreeing to take down those seeds was a victory and a testament to what normal citizens like Steve and Betty can accomplish.
This is more than a labeling problem. In fact, some of the most potent and deadly seeds, which we know about thanks to the work of Steve and Betty, are not labeled as unwashed and are still available for purchase. Therefore, I will work in the Senate and with the Drug Enforcement Agency to ban unwashed seeds entirely. But today I do want to take a moment to thank Amazon and Walmart for taking an important first step for our country, for our State, and for the Hacalas and families like theirs.
It is always hard to lose a loved one, and a child is the hardest loss of all. I suspect nothing can assuage that kind of grief. But because of the Hacalas's courage and determination, we can hope that a few more families will be spared it. That is an act of true love for Stephen and for their fellow Americans.
Mr. President, the office of Secretary of State has always held a place of special prominence in the President's Cabinet. The conduct of foreign policy is the highest craft of statesmanship. In the Secretary's hands rest matters of the most sensitive, delicate, and consequential nature, affairs of war and--we always hope--peace. President Kennedy put it simply when he said: ``Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.'' That is why Presidents across the ages have filled the office of Secretary of State with some of the most distinguished statesmen in our history, names such as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Clay, Webster, Marshall, Kissinger.
Now we will add the name of Mike Pompeo. Very soon, the Senate will confirm Mike to be our 70th Secretary of State. I strongly support his nomination, as I have made widely known in recent days. Before we vote, I want to emphasize what a truly impressive nominee he is--a man of noble character whose name future generations, I suspect, will include on the roster of those great statesmen.
Mike has succeeded at every stage of life. He graduated first in his class at West Point and then joined the 2nd Cavalry on the frontline of freedom in West Germany. After his military service, he excelled at Harvard Law School. He later started one business and served as president of another. He became a respected community leader in his adopted home of Wichita, where his fellow Kansans elected him in repeated landslides to serve them in the House of Representatives. Wichita is also where he had his biggest victory of all--winning the hand of his bride, Susan. Of course, he has served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the past 15 months after being confirmed by the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 66 to 32. Since then, I have watched Mike lead the CIA, boost its morale, and put the right people in the right places, driving them to succeed and holding them accountable.
None of this surprises me because I have known Mike for as long as I have been in public life. When I was an unknown candidate for the House, he called me out of the blue to encourage me and offer support. He was one of my best friends in the House and one of my strongest supporters and smartest advisers in my Senate campaign. As Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, we traveled the world together to learn, to conduct oversight, and to engage with foreign leaders.
Mike and I have collaborated on several occasions to highlight gathering threats to our Nation. In 2013 we wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling on our party to support a strike against Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons. It was a lonely place for Republicans to be, but we were right then, and we are right now. I only wish more Republicans and President Obama had heeded our call.
In 2015 we traveled to Vienna, where we discovered and revealed Iran's secret side deals with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In 2016, after a trip to Norway and Sweden, we wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal drawing attention to Europe's growing challenges with mass migration and what it means for our own country.
Mike has gone from one success to another because he is a consummate professional--a man who treats everyone with respect but who doesn't pull a punch or shade a view to please his audience.
Democrats don't deny his professionalism. The senior Senator from Montana has said that he has led an ``exemplary career in public service.'' The junior Senator from Delaware said he would be a ``good advocate for the career professionals at the State Department and USAID.'' Even former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright have expressed their hope that he would reinvigorate the State Department, and nonpartisan experts agree that Mike Pompeo's integrity and record of accomplishments cannot be denied. As ADM James Stavridis has said, Mike is ``a solid, thoughtful and accomplished leader.'' It is why 30 national security professionals--including former NSA Director Keith Alexander, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, and former Attorney General Mike Mukasey--submitted a letter endorsing Mike's nomination.
Unfortunately, many Democratic Senators are opposing Mike's nomination, and they have given their reasons. But I have to say that these reasons don't hold up very well under scrutiny. Some say Mike is adverse to diplomacy. In fact, he simply knows that diplomacy is most effective when it is backed with a credible military threat. As Frederick the Great said, ``Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.''
He also knows that some situations may not be susceptible to diplomatic solutions no matter how much one might wish it so. That is a fact of life. It is not a reason to oppose Mike's nomination.
I would add that he recently demonstrated his commitment to diplomacy by meeting with Kim Jong Un to lay the groundwork for the President's upcoming summit. It is hard to think of a worse regime than North Korea, but Mike was willing to sit down with Kim to try to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. That should show us all, definitively, that he is committed to diplomacy.
Others say they are opposing Mike because they disagree with him on social issues. Here I would simply note that most Republicans surely disagree with Hillary Clinton's and John Kerry's views on these issues. Yet they still voted to confirm them. For that matter, Hillary Clinton opposed same-sex marriage when the Democrats voted to confirm her back in 2009. So it hardly seems fair to hold Mike Pompeo to a different standard.
Still, others oppose Mike's nomination because he refused to say that he would resign if President Trump fired Special Counsel Robert Mueller. I have to say, that is quite a stretch for a Secretary of State nomination. This isn't the Department of Justice. On the merits, I would ask: Do they think it would have been a good idea for Henry Kissinger and Jim Schlesinger to resign in 1973 or 1974? Would it help or hurt America to have our top diplomat suddenly leave the world stage at a time of domestic turmoil? And if that is to be the standard, have those Democrats asked Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis that question? I bet they haven't.
Finally, there are those who worry that he will not be a check on the President. But since when is a Cabinet member supposed to do that? Regular elections, the separation of powers, and all that entails are the checks on the executive branch under our Constitution. The President's Cabinet owes him candid advice, especially when he doesn't want to hear it, but they aren't supposed to undermine him. The State Department, in particular, is the last place for open conflict between the President and a Cabinet member. If the world doesn't believe that the Secretary has the President's confidence and conducts foreign policy on his behalf, he is of little use to the President or the country.
In fact, I would say it is the President's confidence in Mike that cinches his readiness for the job. When Mike Pompeo speaks, the world will know that the Secretary of State speaks for the President. He is well respected by the President's national security team, and he is well respected by the world.
I know Mike Pompeo will excel as our Secretary of State, and I regret some Senators will oppose him for shortsighted, political reasons, but since they all profess grave concerns about the lack of personnel at the State Department, I look forward to them all confirming Secretary Pompeo's sub-Cabinet nominees promptly once he submits them.
But even better is to put politics aside and to do the right thing for our country. Mike Pompeo has served his country with distinction. He is eminently qualified to be Secretary of State, and we need him on the job now. I call on every Senator to vote for confirmation and to send to the State Department a strong leader, a wise counselor, and a good man--Mike Pompeo.
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