Two Mexican cartels have foot soldiers in every U.S. state and “pose the greatest criminal drug threat the United States has ever faced,” a top Drug Enforcement Administration official told a House panel Wednesday as it debated ways to stop the fentanyl crisis killing tens of thousands of Americans per year.

The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels control the supply chain for illicit fentanyl by obtaining precursor chemicals from China. They turn the chemicals into finished fentanyl and other synthetic drugs in clandestine labs and press it into fake prescription pills and ship it as powder — alone or cut with drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, according to Jon C. DeLena, the DEA’s associate administrator for business operations.

“These ruthless, violent criminal organizations have associates, facilitators and brokers in all 50 states as well as in more than 40 countries around the world,” Mr. DeLena told the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “I have seen firsthand what the Mexican cartels have done to our great country. The cartels are destroying families and communities with callous indifference and greed.”

Exactly how to stop the cartels and their smuggling operations divided the panel along partisan lines Wednesday.

Rep. Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the subcommittee, wants Congress to pass a bill from Rep. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican, that would permanently place fentanyl and its analogs on the list of Schedule I drugs with a high risk of abuse and no accepted medical purpose. The idea is to make sure every dangerous compound is covered so cartels don’t skirt the law by tweaking molecules in deadly drugs, while ensuring that bans on drugs never expire.

“These continued temporary solutions are not sustainable,” Mr. Guthrie said. “We need a permanent solution and must pass the HALT Fentanyl Act now. Doing so will be my top priority as long as I’m chairman of his health subcommittee.”

The White House submitted a proposal last year to permanently put fentanyl-related substances on Schedule I but said the drugs should be exempted from quantity-based mandatory minimum criminal penalties.

“We’ve learned time and time again that we cannot incarcerate our way out of a public health crisis and that a broader public health approach is needed to address what is at its root a health problem,” Rep. Frank Pallone, New Jersey Democrat, said Wednesday.

Rep. Tony Cardenas, California Democrat, said he is concerned that classwide scheduling would set a precedent of “guilty until proven innocent.”

“The proposal put forth by my Republican colleagues goes all in on applying harsh federal penalties, but lays almost no groundwork to test for the potential harmlessness of these fentanyl-related substances or even their potential therapeutic value,” he said.

The White House plan says mandatory minimum terms would still apply to cases where death or serious bodily injury can be directly linked to the drugs.

Republicans said their plan has exemptions for researchers, noting that the Democratic side is extending too many carve-outs for potential traffickers.

“The administration supports exempting the entire class from mandatory minimums that are typically imposed upon drug traffickers, preventing law enforcement from stopping those who bring deadly substances into our communities,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington Republican and chairwoman of the full committee.

Mr. Pallone said the committee should focus on a separate bill that would help former prisoners enter drug treatment through easy signups on Medicaid coverage before they leave incarceration.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, California Democrat, said efforts should focus on stopping the supply of drugs from abroad and argued lax gun laws were to blame, pointing to Mexican cartels that have traded illicit fentanyl for “readily available American guns.”

“Scheduling doesn’t stop deaths,” Ms. Eshoo said. “We have to do much more to save lives.”

Overdose deaths involving a synthetic opioid have soared from nearly 10,000 in 2015 and 20,000 in 2016 — the period when fentanyl started to infiltrate the U.S. drug supply — to 56,000 in 2020 and over 70,000 in 2021, according to the most recent federal figures available based on death certificates.

The staggering and steady rise in U.S. overdose deaths accelerated during the COVID-19 years, as drug users were cut off from support networks, and Washington focused much of its attention on the virus as its most pressing health crisis.

There has been some progress in recent months.

About 110,000 people died of overdoses from any drug in the 12 months ended in March before the rate plateaued and eased slightly over the next several months. Roughly 107,000 people died of drug overdoses in the 12 months ended in August, the most recent month for which federal data is available.

“There are signs of hope, but we have a very long way to go,” Kemp Chester, a senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the House subcommittee.

Mr. Chester said the White House is pursuing a two-pronged approach of treating addiction and attacking the supply chain that lets fentanyl circulate around the country.

He said the Treasury Department is imposing new sanctions on people involved in the illicit drug trade and that U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 15,000 pounds of fentanyl in 2022.

“These are drugs permanently removed from the illicit supply chain, not killing our citizens,” said Mr. Chester, who oversees international relations and supply reduction.

Diplomatic efforts to stop the flow of fentanyl focus on Mexico, China and India.

Mr. Chester said the U.S. relationship with China “doesn’t move in a straight line” but Washington was able to get Beijing to permanently schedule fentanyl on its most restrictive class in 2019 under pressure from the Trump administration.

He said since then, not much finished-product fentanyl has been flowing from China, though plenty of precursor chemicals are still diverted to Mexico.

“Mexico became the locus of illicit fentanyl production,” Mr. Chester said. “What we’re asking [China] to do now is to exert more oversight over their shipping industries and chemical industries that divert these chemicals for production.”

Mr. DeLena said Mexican leaders also need to step up their game.

“Those two specific cartels, Jalisco and Sinaloa, that are causing all of this harm are operating virtually with impunity,” he said. “We need the Mexican government to lean in and do a lot more.”

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.