Sessions to speak at conference sponsored by program White House may eliminate
Attorney General Jeff Sessions will appear at the Drug Enforcement Administration's "360 Heroin and Opioid Response Summit" on Thursday, which is sponsored in part by one of the organizations the Office of Budget and Management recently proposed to eliminate.
The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), which is co-sponsoring the West Virginia event that Sessions will headline, is on the chopping block. According to a draft budget memo obtained by CBS News last week, a 95 percent cut may be made to the Office of National Drug Policy (ONDCP) in President Donald Trump's budget for the next fiscal year.
The draft memo proposes that funding from the ONDCP to CADCA, which supports the Drug-Free Communities Program and their local coalitions around the country, be completely eliminated. The proposed cuts are still subject to congressional approval.
The Drug-Free Communities Program funds over 5,000 local anti-drug community coalitions around the country that work to reduce substance abuse and raise awareness. Advocates say that the proposed cut would be devastating to states wracked by the heroin epidemic.
Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, sent a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney on Tuesday calling the proposal to gut funding to the Drug-Free Communities program "reckless and senseless." Portman helped create the Drug Free Communities Program through legislation he authored with Rep. Sander Levin, D-Michigan, over 20 years ago.
CADCA is a partner in the DEA's "360 Strategy" to combat the opioid epidemic. As a headliner, Sessions may have to awkwardly tout the effectiveness of a program that might be killed by the administration.
The timing is coincidental: Thursday's joint event with the Justice Department has been in the makings for over a year. The Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
Gen. Arthur Dean, the Chairman and CEO of CADCA, told CBS News that he only found out about the proposal to eliminate his organization through the news last week, saying it "concerns us a great deal."
"We have reached out to many of our supporters in both parties," Dean said. "Members of congress are very supportive and understand the need to continue the kind of work that we do. We are hopeful the administration will understand the critical role that we play and this will be recommended so cuts will not materialize."
A spokesperson for CADCA, Angelique Wilkins, told CBS News that they are hopeful that this is only a draft budget and that the administration will maintain current funding levels through 2018.
Referring to the leaked budget memo, Mr. Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on Fox News Sunday that "nothing is final in this debate." However, he also said that there are "duplicative services" provided by the federal government, an argument made by the OMB in its proposal to slash the ONDCP's budget.