The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) internal watchdog is reviewing whether the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is doing enough to clamp down on illegal opioid distribution.

On Thursday, the new review was posted to the “ongoing work” section of the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General’s website — an action that won praise from the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which had requested the investigation.

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In a press release, Sen. Claire McCaskill Claire Conner McCaskillMomentum growing among Republicans for Supreme Court vote before Election Day Democratic-linked group runs ads in Kansas GOP Senate primary Trump mocked for low attendance at rally MORE (D-Mo.) said she had “serious concerns that enforcement actions against opioid distributors have amounted to a slap on the wrist” and that “if there’s clear evidence that distributors or manufacturers have acted illegally there needs to be every effort to hold them fully accountable.”

Specifically, the DOJ’s watchdog is assessing whether or not the DEA’s regulatory activities and enforcement actions “effectively prevent” opioids from getting into the wrong hands.

The moves comes as the nation faces an opioid epidemic, with parts of the country suffering a dramatic increase in overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin.

In October, The Washington Post reported that, about a decade ago, the DEA began to crack down on wholesale companies distributing opioids to pharmacies and pill mills illegally selling the drugs, but that DEA officials later began to block and delay enforcement actions.

At the time, the DEA declined to discuss the charge, telling the newspaper that it combats “the opioid crisis in many ways: criminally, civilly, administratively, and through robust demand reduction efforts.”