Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R) and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro (D) are celebrating a legislative victory as their DISPOSE Act was signed into law. The anti-fentanyl bill was included in the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2025, which President Joe Biden (D) signed into law.
The bipartisan bill, called the Destruction Initiative for Stored Precursors Overseas and Safe Enforcement Act, passed both Houses of Congress in December after passing with unanimous support in the House Foreign Affairs Committee in September.
Rep. Salazar released a statement, expressing that “our federal authorities will have the tools they need to crush the fentanyl crisis before it reaches Miami and the United States” now that the DISPOSE Act has been signed into law. “The DISPOSE Act will save countless American lives and cut off a major source of income for the cartels trying to destroy our communities,” she added.
The bill establishes the Precursor Chemical Destruction Initiative, which will fight drug trafficking with allies in the Western Hemisphere. Working directly with partner countries, the initiative will:
- Increase rates of seizure and destruction of listed chemicals in beneficiary countries;
- Alleviate the backlog of seized chemicals and dispose them in an environmentally safe and effective manner;
- Ensure that the seized chemicals are not reintroduced into the illicit drug production network within beneficiary countries;
- Free up storage space for future chemical seizures within beneficiary countries; and
- Reduce the chemicals’ negative environmental impact.
In September, when the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously voted to pass the bill, Texas Rep. Castro, issued a statement, discussing how Texans have dealt with the threat of fentanyl as well as how the DISPOSE Act will address the opioid crisis.
“The DISPOSE Act is an important step forward to support our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere as they work to curb the trafficking of fentanyl within their own nations,” he said. “This bill will save lives at home and abroad,” Rep. Castro added.
Reps. Salazar and Castro are the highest-ranking Republican and Democrat, respectively, on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
