Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) speaks during a news conference in October. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), had a fairly easy time at Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where his efforts to change the opaque culture of the agency won praise.

Then it was Sen. Richard J. Durbin’s time to ask questions.

The Illinois Democrat wasted little time with niceties. He wanted to know if DEA is one of the bad guys in the fight against opioid addiction.

“Who is responsible when it comes to decisions made that have created this and made it worse?” he asked.

The DEA, according to Durbin.

He quoted Rosenberg’s testimony about DEA’s enforcement activities against “the violent cartels and drug trafficking gangs responsible for feeding the heroin and prescription drug epidemic in our communities.” But that strategy has “one key element missing and it is an element that you have responsibility for,” he told Rosenberg. “That is the over-production of opioids by the pharmaceutical industry.”

The numbers are staggering.

In 2014 alone, the industry put 14 billion opioid pills on the market with DEA approval, “enough for every adult in American to have a one-month prescription,” Durbin said. More than 28,000 people overdosed and died from prescription opioid and heroin, an illegal opioid, that year. Many heroin addicts started with prescription opioids.

DEA sets annual production quotas for opioids, which is a class of pain relievers. Between 1993 and 2015, oxycodone production jumped from 3.5 tons to 150 tons, according to Durban. During that same period, he said the production of hydrocodone increased 12-fold, hydromorphone 23-fold and fentanyl, the drug that killed Prince, 25-fold.

“You’ve said all the right things, after the fact,” Durbin told Rosenberg. “What your agency has failed to concede is that they have been the gatekeepers who have opened the gate wide…Do you accept responsibility as an agency for being part of the problem?”

“I think we’re part of the problem,” Rosenberg said, with the directness that characterized much his testimony.

But he pushed back when Durbin said the DEA “has decided to flood America with opioid pills, far beyond any medical purpose. Why?”

Rosenberg said the agency is trying to meet legitimate industry needs that are fueled by physician requests.