President Joe Biden is prodding Congress to help him do more to combat the scourge of fentanyl before he leaves office.
The Democratic administration is making the new policy push as former President Donald Trump steps up attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, painting her as Biden’s feckless lieutenant in the battle to slow the illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico.
The White House on Wednesday announced a series of proposals from Biden aimed at curbing the ongoing drug epidemic.
These include a push on Congress to pass legislation to establish a pill press and tableting machine registry and enhance penalties against convicted drug smugglers and traffickers of fentanyl.
Biden also wants to tighten rules on importers shipping small packages into the United States, requiring shippers to provide additional information to Customs and Border Protection officials.
The move is aimed at improving the detection of fentanyl precursor chemicals that frequently find their way into the United States in relatively low-value shipments that aren’t subject to customs and trade barriers.
The president’s new efforts at combating fentanyl may also benefit Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, as Trump and his surrogates are trying to cast her as a central player in the Biden administration’s struggles at the U.S.-Mexico border throughout his term.
“Still, far too many of our fellow Americans continue to lose loved ones to fentanyl,” Biden said in a statement. “This is a time to act. And this is a time to stand together — for all those we have lost, and for all the lives we can still save.”
Biden said he will also sign a national security memorandum on Wednesday aimed at improving the sharing of information between law enforcement and federal agencies to improve understanding about the flows of production and smuggling of the synthetic opioid that has ravaged huge swaths of America. In the last five months, more than 442 million doses of fentanyl were seized at U.S. borders, according to the White House.
