The White House is asking Congress to approve $2.7 billion in new funding to stop illegal fentanyl at the border and to help states deal with the consequences of addiction.

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., spoke to reporters on a conference call Wednesday about the initiative. The plan calls for $1.2 billion to combat fentanyl trafficking at the southwest border and $1.5 billion for a state opioid response grant program for addiction treatment and overdose prevention.

From the grant program, Alabama’s share would be $14 million. Gupta said state shares were based on a formula that includes population and the level of need.

Casey said he was hopeful the plan could pass despite deep divisions in Congress.

“We still have a ways to go to get it through the heads of people in Washington about how important it is to vote for the funding,” Casey said. “Not to give speeches and blow a lot of hot air. But to vote for the damn money.”

Casey said most illegal fentanyl crosses the southwest border at ports of entry, such as road crossings. The $1.2 billion would be used to purchase 123 large scale scanners to check vehicles entering the country, the White House said. The White House said the technology is a practical and efficient way to increase the percentage of passenger and cargo vehicles that are screened.

The money would also support adding 1,300 border patrol agents to the 20,000 agent positions already funded in the budget, the White House said.

In Jefferson County alone, about 400 people died of overdoses in 2021, an increase of one-third over the previous record of 302 in 2020, and fentanyl was a cause in more than three-fourths of the deaths. According to the CDC, 107,375 people died of drug overdoses and drug poisonings in the 12-month period ending in January 2022. Of those, 67 percent involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

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