Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff released the following statement in response to an NPR report that the Trump Administration has frozen funding for the CDC’s efforts to prevent fentanyl overdoses.
“There isn’t a family or community in Georgia that hasn’t been touched by the fentanyl crisis. Georgia’s CDC is doing vital work to save lives and prevent fentanyl overdoses. If this report is accurate, I call on the administration to unfreeze CDC efforts to prevent fentanyl deaths.”
According to NPR, the Trump Administration has delayed and “may cancel” $140 million in grants through the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program to fund fentanyl overdose response efforts across the country.
Sen. Ossoff has long worked to combat the fentanyl epidemic and prevent deadly drugs from coming across the border.
Last December, Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan bill to crack down on fentanyl trafficking across the Southern Border was signed into law to strengthen the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s capacity to detect fentanyl and xylazine at ports of entry and better prevent it from crossing the border.
Last fall, Sens. Ossoff and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the bipartisan Border Smuggling Crackdown Act to strengthen Federal prosecution of human smugglers and protect innocent victims.
Last spring, the Sen. Ossoff-backed bipartisan Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act became law, which will sanction drug cartels and combat money laundering by the criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking.
In 2022, Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan Rural Opioid Abuse Prevention Act was signed into law to help rural communities experiencing high rates of opioid overdoses respond to the crisis.
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