WASHINGTON – Today in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s annual open hearing on worldwide threats, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns on ways the Intelligence Community can prevent cartels from trafficking fentanyl made with precursors from China into the U.S. Excerpts are below, and video can be found here.

CORNYN: “Last year alone, we lost 108,000 Americans to drugs that are coming across the southwestern border… Roughly 71,000 of those deaths were caused by synthetic opioids, fentanyl.”

“This is like losing a large passenger jet every day for more than a year.”

“If, in fact, passenger jets were falling out of the sky each day for a year, we would react in an overwhelming fashion, yet the Attorney General of the United States has said he’s doing everything he can.”

“I’d like to hear maybe starting with you, Director Haines, and then I’d like to have Director Burns address the question, what additional authorities, what additional resources do we need in order to save American lives from this threat?”

HAINES: “One of the things I’ve learned in the two years that I’ve been there is that we do not have as deep a bench of analysts on these issues.”

“That’s something that we’ve been building, and that’s something that we need to continue to build.”

CORNYN: “I agree with you that we are losing, and what I want to know is what do we need to win? Director Burns, would you address that?”

BURNS: “We’ve tried to transform our strategy through our Counter Narcotics Center, working with partners across the Intelligence Community, and domestic and foreign partners as well, focusing on the entire network that you described: in other words, precursor chemicals, financial flows, the production of fentanyl pills and the equipment that goes into that, as well as disrupting that trafficking as well.”

“Section 702, I think that has helped us to illuminate that network and has helped us in some successful actions recently with which foreign intelligence collected by CIA has contributed to both recent successes that our Mexican partners have had against the Sinaloa Cartel, and also recent successes against fentanyl production and processing equipment in Mexico and in the United States.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more about the severity of this problem. For all of us, protecting American lives is our highest priority.”