House Ways and Means Approves Opioid Bill Requiring Advance Data for International Mail

A bill that would require the postal service to get advance electronic information about international mail packages and share that with CBP passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on May 16. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., and Trade Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., introduced the Securing the International Mail Against Opioids Act of 2018, H.R. 5788, on May 15. The committee considered the bill, which combines several pieces of legislation meant to fight opioid abuse, during a May 16 markup.

Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said private express carriers have been providing this kind of advance electronic data for more than a decade. "This legislation will protect Americans and make it harder for criminals to bring harmful substances into this country by holding the Postal Service and CBP accountable for more effectively screening international mail," Brady said in a statement. The Americans for Securing All Packages voiced some concerns with the bill, instead advocating for the Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act.

Both chambers are responding to the flood of fentanyl coming through the mail. The Senate committee in charge of health issues also recently passed, on April 24, a bipartisan bill that upgrades the capacity of the Food and Drug Administration and CBP to inspect international mail, with the goal of curtailing illicit fentanyl imports. This was one of many planks in the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 (S. 2680), which does not yet have a House companion bill. The CBP portion of the bill would verify testing equipment at ports of entry is interoperable, upgrade equipment to detect synthetic opioids at international mail facilities, make upgrades to labs that test imports, and make sure more officers and drug detection dogs are added at the agencies. Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said one of the bill's provisions "clarifies that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is on the flagpole for destroying controlled substances found at the border, and would strengthen FDA's authority to refuse admission of illegal drugs from bad actors." The bill would ask the agencies to report on progress on interoperability and information sharing six months after the bill becomes law.