The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration office that regulates pharmaceutical opioids told senators Tuesday that a 2016 law has made enforcement more difficult in urgent circumstances and should be revised.

Demetra Ashley, who leads the agency’s Diversion Control Division, said Congress should choose between repealing and amending the law. But she said the DEA agrees with the Justice Department that it should be altered to help curb the ongoing opioid epidemic.

Since passage of the law, Ashley said, DEA investigators have faced a greater challenge showing that a company’s conduct poses an immediate danger of death or harm to shut down shipments of painkillers from a distributor to a pharmacy. That burden has moved the agency away from its traditional posture of preventing harm, she said.

“The DEA, along with the Department of Justice, believes that has to change,” she said.

During an oversight hearing, Ashley told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the agency continues to do its job, relying on tools other than the “immediate suspension orders” reserved for the most egregious cases.

Those tools include forcing doctors, pharmacists and others to surrender their DEA licenses, bringing them to hearings and seeking civil penalties.

Senators broke down largely — but not completely — along party lines about whether changes are needed. “In my view, this bill has done harm,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the committee’s ranking Democrat. “It seems to me that we should look very closely at repeal.”

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