New York Senator Chuck Schumer came to CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh to call on his colleagues in Congress to take steps that he says could significantly reduce the amount of illegal fentanyl that’s crossing our borders and causing thousands of overdose deaths. The Senate Majority Leader is asking members of the U.S. House to join the Senate in declaring fentanyl trafficking a national emergency and pass a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would give the president the authority to impose tough sanctions on China & Mexico, the two countries that Schumer says supply & manufacture much of the Fentanyl being smuggled into the United States. The House passed its own version of the National Defense bill in July, but now that it’s passed in the Senate, lawmakers will need to reconcile a compromise that can pass both chambers by the end of the year. Schumer says other legislation passed last year by Congress included billions of dollars in funding that has expanded access to substance abuse treatment. But he says additional steps, including declaring a national emergency, are needed, to address the overdose epidemic in New York and across the country where 83% of the fatal overdoses in the past year involved Fentanyl.