Senate Judiciary advances HALT Fentanyl Act; adopts manager’s amendment and approves test-strip amendment

The Senate Judiciary Committee on an unspecified date considered S.331, the HALT (HALT All Lethal Trafficking and Fentanyl) Act, adopting a manager’s amendment and approving an amendment to clarify legal treatment of fentanyl test strips while debate continued over social-media and research-related changes.

Chairman Chuck Grassley opened the markup saying the bill “does 3 things”: it would make permanent class-wide scheduling of fentanyl-related substances, confirm the sentencing framework federal courts have applied for those substances, and relax certain registration requirements for researchers studying Schedule I substances. He moved adoption of a manager’s amendment (No. 25160) to correct a typo in the bill text; the committee approved it by voice vote.

The committee heard emotional video testimony from parents who lost children to fentanyl overdoses. One parent in the recorded remarks said, “Please keep this bill clean. Do not attach any amendments to them. We need action, and we need it now.” Those statements were entered as part of the hearing record and were cited by multiple senators as part of the urgency to act.

Ranking Member Dick…