A Senate vote on a bill to address addiction and overdose from opioids planned for this week has been postponed due to the impending hurricane.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put out a schedule for this week that included only Wednesday night votes, and the slate did not include the opioid package, a collection of 70 different bills known as the Opioid Crisis Response Act.
McConnell praised the legislation from the Senate floor and said a vote would be “very soon.” The Senate is scheduled to be in session next week. Hurricane Florence is expected to make landfall in the Carolinas later this week.
The legislation provides more access to medical treatment for addiction, authorizes additional funding for states to carry out their programs, and gives the National Institutes of Health more power to carry out research on treatment for pain and addiction. It allows the Food and Drug Administration to limit how many prescription opioids, such as OxyContin, doctors are allowed to give patients, and to set guidelines for how they can be packaged so that they are harder for children to get.
The vote would follow that of a similar bill passed by the House in June.
If the two chambers are able to hash out legislation to send to President Trump’s desk – the lower chamber passed its massive opioid package in June – it would be a rare win for both Democrats and Republicans as they head into November’s midterm elections.
