Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial Enhancement Act of 2009

Mr. President, today I am introducing, with great pride, the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act of 2009. I wish to point out that I and my staff have been working on this legislation for more than a year. It is designed to address a problem that we quite frankly do not spend enough attention on, I think, as we discuss the challenges of education in America. This is not the problem that is often discussed with respect to technical degrees or how we can compete with foreign countries in the number of engineers we are putting out, with those sorts of issues. It is the question of how we can assure basic competencies at the working level of a lot of American companies. I have started calling this the Second Chance Act for Education. There are a lot of people in this country who, for a variety of reasons, when they are in their teens or their late teens, cease their educational pursuits even before they finish high school. Perhaps someone might have a child, or get in trouble with the law, or get an independent streak and decide to leave school. Then when you get to the age of say 30 or beyond, you realize the disadvantage you have in attempting to compete in the marketplace.

There are very few provisions in our law and in our policies that address this situation. This bill is designed to address it. We seek to reform and increase investment in what we call adult education, which is that span of education that will bring people beyond a high school degree and hopefully into postsecondary education. We are looking at job training and other workforce programs that we need as a country to build a 21st century workforce. I am pleased to be joined in this initiative as a principal cosponsor with Senator Sherrod Brown. By almost any measure, our Nation faces a critical need to strengthen existing programs of adult education. Our current adult education system falls far short in preparing our people to compete in the global marketplace. In fact, it is estimated that only 2\1/2\ million of the 93 million people who could benefit from these types of services are actually receiving them today.

The American labor market has changed dramatically with the advent of new technology and with the loss of jobs in our manufacturing sector. The need for well-trained and highly skilled workers is obvious. It has increased. At the same time our adult education system, which should be effectively preparing low-skilled workers to meet the demands in this shifting economy, has not kept pace.

Since 2002, the Federal Government has consistently decreased spending on adult education. In addition, the Nation's primary Federal resource for adult education, job training and employment services, the Workforce Investment Act, has not been reauthorized for more than 10 years. One can imagine how the American economy and the American workforce has changed over the last 10 years.

There are other signs pointing to the need for a better approach to adult education. If we look at adult education enrollment rates, in 1998, there were more than 4 million individuals enrolled in these types of programs. By 2007, that number had dropped to only 2 million, basically a 40-percent drop from when the Workforce Investment Act was originally enacted.

One of the largest barriers to economic growth in many communities is the lack of a skilled workforce, particularly those with entry-level skills. It is critical that we increase the number of individuals who obtain a high school diploma and encourage them to go forward into postsecondary education. I am sure we can all agree that the best economic tool for any community is a well-educated, skilled workforce. A growing number of American skilled workers right now are facing retirement age, and the growth in skilled labor has actually stagnated. If we continue along the current path, we will see only a 19-percent increase in the number of postsecondary education equipped native-born workers, which is about one-seventh the rate of growth during the past two decades. By comparison, countries such as China and India are doubling and tripling the number of college graduates in their countries.

According to the Workforce Alliance, 80 percent of the jobs in today's economy require some sort of education past a high school degree, yet there are 8 million adults in the workforce today who have low literacy, limited English proficiency, or lack educational credentials beyond high school. With so many workers who are unemployed or underemployed, it is clear that we should be investing in the training or retraining of American workers to fill this growing gap. Our legislation begins that vital task by addressing these problems.

Today we are proposing a two-pronged approach to strengthen the Nation's workforce. First, we want to build on ramps for American workers who got off track, perhaps, in their teens and need new skills and a better education in order to improve their lives. Just as importantly, we want to encourage employers to help them by offering tax credits to businesses that invest in these employees. Our government has long provided employers with limited tax credits when they help their employees go to college or to graduate school. It is basic logic, and I believe to the national good, that we should provide similar incentives for this type of adult education.

This bill authorizes a rather modest $500 million increase in funding to invigorate State and local adult education programs nationwide in order to increase the number of adults with a high school diploma. As a result, the bill will inevitably increase the number of high school graduates who go on to college and update and expand the job skills of the American workforce writ large. All of this is relevant to my longstanding personal goal of promoting basic economic fairness in our society.

Other provisions in the bill will improve workers' readiness to meet the demands of a global workforce by providing pathways to obtain basic skills, job training, and adult education. It will provide workers with greater access to on-the-job training in adult education by encouraging public-private partnerships between government, business, and labor. It will increase the use of technology in workforce skills training. It will improve access to correctional educational programs to channel former offenders into productive endeavors and to reduce recidivism. It will encourage investment in lower-skilled workers by providing employers with a tax credit if they invest in their employees' education. This tax credit is aimed at encouraging general and transferable skills development that may be in the long-term interest of most of its employers but are not always so clearly rewarded by the marketplace.

This act focuses on addressing the unique needs of adults with limited basic skills, with no high school diploma, or with limited English proficiency. Those individuals who may have taken a different path early in their lives and who now find themselves eager to go back to school and receive additional job training and skills should be provided opportunities to get back on track.

My legislation also would bolster the President's just announced goal of ensuring that 5 million more Americans graduate from communities college by 2020 and updating curriculum to keep up with the skills needed in today's workforce.

I encourage my colleagues to support this important endeavor. I am very proud of the work my staff has done on this for more than a year. Our Nation's workforce and local communities will be stronger for it. It is my hope that this legislation could be passed in a timely manner.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill called the Families for Orphans Act that Senator Inhofe and I are sponsoring.

We are very fortunate, indeed, to have a Secretary of State who is quite knowledgeable about this subject. The office we seek to create would be housed within the Department of State under the watchful eye of Secretary Hillary Clinton, who did so much work on this subject when she was a Member of the Senate and even prior to her service in the Senate as First Lady of both Arkansas and the United States. So I am particularly happy we would be recommending what is, I think, a very appropriate establishment of an office within the Office of the Secretary of State.

This bill has been discussed for several years here. We have had several opportunities for debate on the floor. But a great coalition has come together, representing advocates for orphans around the world, to come together in a unified way to make a strong argument that this kind of office should indeed be established. There are some very compelling reasons why this should be.

First of all, right now in our system, there is no coordination in the Office of the Secretary of State or in the Department of State for policies related to orphans. This is an alarming situation because the number of orphans is growing exponentially in the world due to an increase in conflicts in many parts of the world; severe droughts and natural disasters that are causing families to be separated, children from adults; and the AIDS epidemic. Some people have referred to it as a factory that produces orphans. And you can understand the nature of that disease.

So the actions we take relative to trying to get a more coordinated policy are very important, and that is what this bill seeks to do.

It is, I think, understood among all Members of this body--I do not even hear one dissenting voice--that the most appropriate place for children to grow up is in a family.

We think there are over 130 million orphans in the world who have been deprived for whatever reason--death or war or famine or disease-- of their right to belong to a family. It is our obligation as the leaders of the world to try to find the best possible substitute family for these children.

Children don't do a very good job of raising themselves. That is a virtual impossibility. Our efforts, unfortunately, dealing with children have been focused on their survival, on just getting medical care and health care and food and nutrition. I don't think we are doing enough as a government to focus on reuniting children with whatever extended family might be possible for them to be raised by, and then looking out somewhere beyond the extended family opportunity to domestic families who would take in that child and their siblings. We most certainly have not made the kind of effort I think is appropriate and is a ready source of loving arms in families in terms of the international community that would like to step up and adopt many children who are unable to find families in their own countries. That is basically what this office would do.

It would coordinate efforts by the aid and development community that, as I said, are currently focused on nutrition, housing, education, and medical care, and would refocus efforts on that, plus reunification of families and then adoption opportunities.

First, as I said, the U.S. programs are disconnected. Secondly, the United States, right now, in our opinion, does not engage in enough proactive diplomacy on this issue. Third, the United States should be able to advise and support other countries in the development of their own child welfare systems. We know we have made so many mistakes in the United States. We hate to see countries making similar mistakes. Some of those mistakes would be terminating parental rights, not being aggressive enough in seeking placement within extended families, separating siblings in placement, and then, the worst of all--if those things aren't bad enough--the worst of all, leaving children who have had their parental rights terminated basically stuck in limbo for 10 or 12 or 14, and in some extreme cases, 18 years in foster care where they never have a permanent parent or a permanent family to call their own.

I would remind my colleagues, because I continue to remind myself, that a child is never too old to need a parent. We all think of adoption as adopting infants or toddlers or school-aged children, but I would suggest to this body and to those listening that you are never too old to need a father or a mother. At the age of 54, I continue to talk to my parents regularly. They continue to give me advice and counsel. I have been blessed to have grandparents well into my adult life. The thought of a child growing up at any age--18, 20, 5, 12-- without any permanent attachment to a family is tragic. The fact is there are methods and resources we can bring to bear to change that outcome for the millions of orphans who are in the world in our own country and around the world. That is what this office does.

The primary functions will be to act as a primary adviser to the Secretary of State and to the President to provide diplomatic representation, to develop an evidence-based, comprehensive global strategy, to support foreign governments through sound policy and technical assistance, to develop best practices with cultural sensitivity, and to support in-country family preservation, reunification, and permanency as primary solutions, using domestic adoption and international adoption as basically the last possibilities.

One of the most important things in the bill is to conduct a census because we don't know how many orphans there are in the world and in what countries. Until we get a handle on the numbers, it is very hard to find appropriate solutions and to mobilize the world community to act.

I contend there are millions and millions and millions of families who are able and willing and ready to take in orphans, to build their family through adoption, to add to the blessing of biological children, children who have come to their families through adoption. I have had personal experience myself with that issue. I am excited about the possibility of coordinating this effort and can think of no better person than Secretary Hillary Clinton to provide the leadership to establish this office as the Congress seeks to fund it and provide the resources to make it work.

So that is a description of the Families for Orphans Act. It is a bipartisan bill. We are getting extremely exciting feedback from our colleagues in the House. Representative Diane Watson from California and Representative John Boozman from Arkansas have introduced an identical bill, so we are very encouraged by the work the House has done on this subject and look forward to a quick hearing and quick passage.

Mr. President, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial Enhancement Act of 2009 would help increase visitor access to the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial on the former Concord Naval Weapons Station and ensure the long-term preservation of this important World War II site. The legislation is strongly supported by the National Park Service, a coalition of more than 37 civil rights organizations in California, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Friends of Port Chicago.

The Port Chicago Memorial marks the location of an explosion 65 years ago this week that killed and wounded numerous African American sailors and eventually paved the way for racial desegregation of the Armed Forces.

On the night of July 17, 1944, as sailors were loading ammunition at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, a terrible explosion occurred. More than 5,000 tons of ammunition ignited, sending a blast more than 12,000 feet into the sky. The explosion killed 320 sailors, wounded hundreds more, and destroyed the surrounding town of Port Chicago. Less than a month after the explosion, survivors were ordered to resume work at a new site. Most survivors refused, citing the need for improved supervision, training, and working conditions to prevent another disaster. In response, the Navy charged 50 men with conspiring to mutiny, and all were convicted. The majority of men killed in the explosion and all those convicted of mutiny were African-American.

Following the conviction, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who at the time was a lawyer with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, took up the case. Roughly a year later, the Navy began moving towards racial desegregation, and in 1948, President Truman issued an Executive Order desegregating all of the Armed Forces and guaranteeing ``equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.''

In 1992, Congress authorized the creation of a National Memorial at Port Chicago. However, under its current authorities, the National Park Service still has limited ability to provide visitor access to the Memorial or to assist with the site's preservation. My bill authorizes the Interior Department to work with the City of Concord and the East Bay Regional Park District to operate a visitor's center for the Memorial, allowing veterans, students, and other visitors to learn more about the events that transpired at Port Chicago. The bill also designates the Memorial as a unit of the National Park System, allowing the Park Service to become more actively involved in its preservation.

The bill specifically states that as much public access as possible will be provided ``without interfering with military needs,'' meaning that the timing and extent of public visitation will be adapted to accommodate military activities when they occur near the Memorial.

Eventually, when the Secretary of Defense determines that the land is excess to military needs, the bill authorizes the Secretaries of Defense and Interior to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding leading to the transfer of the Memorial to the National Park Service.

The Port Chicago National Memorial ensures that the stories of those who served and died at Port Chicago will not be forgotten. By enabling visitors to come to this site, future generations can continue to honor and learn from these brave sailors who selflessly served our Nation and who fought to overcome the barriers of racial segregation.

Mr. President, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial Enhancement Act of 2009 would help increase visitor access to the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial on the former Concord Naval Weapons Station and ensure the long-term preservation of this important World War II site. The legislation is strongly supported by the National Park Service, a coalition of more than 37 civil rights organizations in California, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Friends of Port Chicago.

The Port Chicago Memorial marks the location of an explosion 65 years ago this week that killed and wounded numerous African American sailors and eventually paved the way for racial desegregation of the Armed Forces.

On the night of July 17, 1944, as sailors were loading ammunition at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, a terrible explosion occurred. More than 5,000 tons of ammunition ignited, sending a blast more than 12,000 feet into the sky. The explosion killed 320 sailors, wounded hundreds more, and destroyed the surrounding town of Port Chicago. Less than a month after the explosion, survivors were ordered to resume work at a new site. Most survivors refused, citing the need for improved supervision, training, and working conditions to prevent another disaster. In response, the Navy charged 50 men with conspiring to mutiny, and all were convicted. The majority of men killed in the explosion and all those convicted of mutiny were African-American.

Following the conviction, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who at the time was a lawyer with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, took up the case. Roughly a year later, the Navy began moving towards racial desegregation, and in 1948, President Truman issued an Executive Order desegregating all of the Armed Forces and guaranteeing ``equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.''

In 1992, Congress authorized the creation of a National Memorial at Port Chicago. However, under its current authorities, the National Park Service still has limited ability to provide visitor access to the Memorial or to assist with the site's preservation. My bill authorizes the Interior Department to work with the City of Concord and the East Bay Regional Park District to operate a visitor's center for the Memorial, allowing veterans, students, and other visitors to learn more about the events that transpired at Port Chicago. The bill also designates the Memorial as a unit of the National Park System, allowing the Park Service to become more actively involved in its preservation.

The bill specifically states that as much public access as possible will be provided ``without interfering with military needs,'' meaning that the timing and extent of public visitation will be adapted to accommodate military activities when they occur near the Memorial.

Eventually, when the Secretary of Defense determines that the land is excess to military needs, the bill authorizes the Secretaries of Defense and Interior to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding leading to the transfer of the Memorial to the National Park Service.

The Port Chicago National Memorial ensures that the stories of those who served and died at Port Chicago will not be forgotten. By enabling visitors to come to this site, future generations can continue to honor and learn from these brave sailors who selflessly served our Nation and who fought to overcome the barriers of racial segregation.

Mr. President, today I rise to speak on the subject of organ donation. Every day in this country, 17 people die while waiting for a donated organ. Typically, people wait 3 to 5 years before an organ becomes available, and the organ waiting list grows at a rate five times faster than donations.

What we need are improvements to the organ donor registry system, to increase efficiency and share best practices between states. The Everson Walls and Ron Springs Gift for Life Act of 2009 is named in honor of two close friends and former NFL teammates, one of whom may not be here today were it not for the incredible generosity of ``living organ donation.'' Ron's struggle with diabetes led to the failure of both kidneys. Everson's decision to give Ron one of his kidneys, led them both to create the Gift for Life Foundation. The group spreads awareness of organ donation issues, particularly among minority communities, who suffer disproportionately from the organ shortage.

This act will establish a National Organ and Tissue Donor Registry Resource Center to provide technical assistance to state donor registries. The center will also serve as a State registry information clearinghouse for the evaluation and development of best practices for donor registries nationwide. Further, the act will codify minimum operating standards for donor registries, and establish a grant program to develop, expand, and evaluate State donor registries. Finally, the act will create a study on the feasibility of establishing a living donor database in order to track the short and long-term health effects for such individuals.

I urge the Senate to take action on this important issue. We must improve the functioning of our organ donation system. Thousands of lives hang in the balance.