Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009

Mr. President, I rise today, along with Senators Reid, Dodd, Murray, Reed, Brown, Casey, Merkley, and Franken, to introduce the Graduation Promise Act of 2009, or GPA. This bill would create Federal-State-local partnerships to improve this nation's graduation rates, and to help transform our lowest-performing high schools.

Twenty years ago, the Nation's governors met with the first President Bush in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a groundbreaking education summit. They agreed to set high expectations for education for the coming decade, including an increase in the national high school graduation rate to 90 percent by the year 2000. Today, we are not even close to achieving that goal.

Indeed, the Nation's high school graduation rate has stagnated at around 70 percent. Graduation rates for students of color are even lower. In my own home state of New Mexico, the graduation rate is only 54 percent. Yet Federal education policy and funding have focused primarily upon elementary and postsecondary education. Only about 8 percent of all Title I dollars go to high schools.

The economic cost of the high school dropout crisis is significant. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, if the students who dropped out of the Class of 2009 had graduated, the nation's economy would have benefited from nearly $335 billion in additional income over the course of these students' lifetimes. Failing to address the nation's dropout crisis fails our students and our country because too few young Americans are prepared to enter the workforce, which harms our economy and our standing in the world. If we don't improve our graduation rates, we will lose our competitive edge.

But low graduation rates are only one broad indicator of the crisis affecting our Nation's high schools. Even if a student makes it to graduation, only a third of all students who enter the 9th grade will graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college or the modern workplace. They are not receiving the kind of quality education that permits a seamless transition to a job or postsecondary education.

Fortunately, research is available to help us better understand the factors behind low graduation rates and poor student performance in high school. We can use research-based tools to identify the high schools that are producing the majority of dropouts across the country. These high schools, roughly 2,000 in all, or 15 percent of all high schools, have persistently low rates of grade promotion and graduation. If you look at the typical senior class at one of these high schools, it will have decreased in size by at least 40 percent since these students entered the school 4 years earlier.

Research has also shed light on the specific risk factors that predict who will drop out of high school. We can identify future dropouts with a high degree of certainty by looking at such predictors as course failure, poor attendance, behavior problems, and retention in earlier grades. Students who enter high school significantly lagging behind in their academics and who show clear signs of disengagement are likely to drop out unless additional supports are put in place.

Research-based solutions, with solid evidence of success, are transforming high schools with low graduation rates. Restructuring schools into smaller, more personalized learning environments ensures that students become engaged from the time they enter 9th grade. Sustained efforts to boost attendance ensure that they don't fall further behind. Partnerships with community-based and education organizations help facilitate successful school transformations.

Schools that have combined these efforts with high-quality curriculum and instructional improvements have been successful in improving student achievement and increasing graduation rates: transitional math and English to 9th graders helps them catch up; challenging curricula and tangible, contextual applications of learning rekindle their interest; and teaching teams and professional development targeted to the needs of the school bolster teachers' effectiveness in identifying, managing, and engaging students at risk of dropping out. In combination, these interventions are proven to improve student achievement and increase graduation rates.

In essence, we know which schools have the highest dropout rates; we know the risk factors that predict to a high degree of certainty which students will drop out; and we know which sets of interventions work to turn around failing schools and failing students. The task before us is to partner with states and local school districts to enhance and expand these efforts. By appropriately extending its education focus to include the needs of students in middle and high schools, the Federal Government can move the nation from ``no child left behind'' to ``every student a graduate.''

To meet this critical goal, I am introducing, along with my colleagues Senators Reid, Dodd, Murray, Reed, Brown, Casey, Merkley, and Franken, the Graduation Promise Act of 2009.

The Graduation Promise Act will help build state and local capacity for secondary school improvement by providing states and local school districts with resources to identify and target high schools with the greatest needs. GPA recognizes that high school reform needs to start with experts on the ground--in the states and local districts where struggling high schools exist.

It also recognizes that reform efforts must be targeted to address the unique challenges each school faces in raising achievement and graduation levels. As such, GPA would provide resources to states to establish differentiated high school improvement systems and ensure that locally-driven school improvement actions are based upon the amount and type of supports necessary to turn such schools around.

In order to be eligible to receive funds to implement these school improvement plans, local school districts would work with the school improvement teams to assess the capacity of the high school to implement the plan, as well as identify the existing resources available to the district and the school. These assessments would be used to determine the amount of resources and technical assistance needed to successfully implement the high school improvement plan.

GPA also emphasizes transparency and accountability. Both state applications and local school improvement plans would be subject to a rigorous peer-review process. Schools needing targeted interventions, whole school reform, or replacement would be required to meet measurable and meaningful benchmarks of improvement.

The cost of raising student performance and graduation rates at our chronically underperforming high schools is considerable, yet it is a necessary investment in our Nation's future economic strength. The Graduation Promise Act authorizes $2.5 billion per year to meet this challenge, with the bulk of funding directed to states and local school districts to help turn around the high schools with the lowest student achievement and lowest graduation rates.

I submit that we cannot afford to let struggling high schools continue to push students off the path to prosperity. We must ensure the continued prosperity of our country by promising each high school student a chance to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue their dreams and succeed.

I want to thank my Senate cosponsors for their commitment to improving high schools and increasing graduation rates in this country, and I am pleased to be working with them and other Senate colleagues on this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Energy Security Through Transparency Act of 2009 on behalf of myself, Senator Cardin, Senator Schumer, Senator Wicker, and Senator Feingold. The Energy Security Through Transparency, ESTT, bill takes important steps towards reversing the resource curse by revealing payments made here and abroad to governments for oil, gas and minerals.

The Energy Security Through Transparency Act builds on the findings of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report entitled the ``Petroleum and Poverty Paradox: Assessing U.S. and International Community Efforts to Fight the Resource Curse'' which noted that many resource-rich countries that should be well-off are, in fact, terribly poor. History shows that oil, gas reserves and minerals frequently can be a bane, not a blessing, for poor countries, leading to corruption, wasteful spending, military adventurism, and instability. Too often, oil money intended for a nation's poor lines the pockets of the rich, or is squandered on showcase projects instead of productive investments.

A classic case is Nigeria, the eighth-largest oil exporter. Despite half a trillion dollars in revenues since the 1960s, poverty has increased, corruption is rife, and violence roils the oil-rich Niger Delta.

The ``resource curse'' affects us as well as producing countries. It exacerbates global poverty which can be a seedbed for terrorism, it empowers autocrats and dictators, and it can crimp world petroleum supplies by breeding instability.

ESTT expresses the Sense of Congress that the administration should undertake to become an `implementing' country of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, EITI. EITI is a major international transparency effort which sets a global framework for companies to publish what they pay and for governments to disclose what they receive. EITI's revenue data is intended to provide citizens with basic but crucial information necessary to effectively monitor government stewardship of natural resource revenues; hold decision-makers accountable for the use of public funds; and signal investors that a given country offers a transparent, rule of law-based business environment. The Bush administration supported the EITI through its participation on the board through the initiative's critical first several years.

As an implementing country, the U.S. would commit to disclosing payments from companies for oil, gas and minerals extracted from federal lands. Norway has recently signed up to become an implementing country, along with thirty developing countries. The U.S. commitment to implementing EITI would add to our current commitment to EITI as a supporting country. This bill would ensure that not only was the U.S. promoting EITI with other countries, but that we were benefitting from the structured transparency here at home.

This bill commits the Department of Interior to disclosing extractive payments received for resources derived from federal lands. In a letter I received from Secretary Salazar on June 19, 2009, he wrote that ``the Department of the Interior is in agreement with the goals set forth in the EITI especially concerning transparency in the management of extraction of minerals from Federal Lands.'' He went on to add that ``the DOI is committed to an ongoing effort to improve the quality of our services by taking accountability for our actions and fulfilling our commitments to the public and all our customers in an open, transparent manner.''

ESTT requires companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to disclose in their regular SEC filings their extractive payments to foreign governments for oil, gas and mining which builds on the EITI requirement that all extractive companies operating in an EITI implementing country must report their payments to the government. This would allow investors to better evaluate the potential country risk faced by companies. It would also allow people to have information about the funds sent to their governments in non-EITI implementing countries.

An issue has been raised over whether this would impose a burdensome reporting requirement on the companies and whether the payments made by companies to extractive countries are relevant to investors looking into finances of those companies. This bill would not require the companies to collect any new information, but to report publically financial figures they already maintain. Many oil companies who work in EITI countries already file this information in the form required by EITI. It is expected that the SEC will follow the reporting requirements established under EITI, which were developed in conjunction with the oil industry. The legislation also gives the SEC some discretion, which should ensure ease of compliance. Regarding materiality, many analysts say that among the root causes of the current financial crisis were a failure by investors to have access to sufficient information about their investments, and an excessive reliance on the judgments of the ratings agencies, which proved to be highly faulty. That experience argues strongly for more disclosure and information. Considering the well-established link between oil payments and the business climate, many investors might be interested in this information--particularly socially responsible investors.

This legislation also encourages the President to work with members of the G-8, G-20, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to promote similar disclosure through their exchanges and jurisdictions. As Secretary Clinton noted in her questions for the record on January 12, 2009, ``President-Elect Obama has put a high priority on promoting transparency in government more broadly. I look forward to working with the President-Elect and the Treasury Department to promote greater transparency at the G-8 and now G-20 as well.''

In developing this legislation, my staff consulted with the Security and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, energy companies, mining companies, the industry representatives, and non-governmental organizations.

When financial markets see stable economic growth and political organization in resource rich countries, supplies are more reliable and risk premiums factored into process at the gas pump are diminished. Information is critical to maintaining healthy economies and of healthy political systems. I ask for your support on passage of this bill.

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

Mr. President, I rise today with my friend Senator Bingaman, a longtime champion on the issue of dropout prevention and improving graduation rates, to introduce the Graduation Promise Act-- comprehensive legislation to help improve graduation rates in this country and transform some of our lowest performing high schools. I am so pleased to be joined by Senators Dodd, Murray, Reed, Brown, Casey, Merkley, and Franken in introducing this legislation.

During the August recess, I was honored to welcome the Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, to Nevada. We held a meeting with education leaders, teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders from across Nevada to discuss the issue of dropout prevention and turning around low performing schools.

In his remarks, Secretary Duncan said something that really put the issue of high school dropouts in perspective. Four years ago, he said, there were 36,000 ninth graders in Nevada. Last year, that same class of students, was down to 22,000 twelfth graders. Where, Secretary Duncan asked, did those other 14,000 students go?

Keeping those 14,000 Nevada students in school and on track to graduate from high school is why I have joined Senator Bingaman and my colleagues in this effort.

Of course this issue is not just a problem in Nevada; it is a nationwide crisis. Nearly one in three high school students in the U.S. fail to graduate. For African-American and Latino students, less than 50 percent complete high school on time. In total, approximately 1.3 million students drop out each year--that is more than 7,000 a day. For those that do graduate, fewer than half are fully prepared for college or the workforce.

These statistics confirm that millions of young Americans are being robbed of their best chances to succeed.

The social and economic implications of the dropout crisis are severe and lasting. Let me illustrate with data from Nevada's class of 2008-- the 14,000 Nevada students that Secretary Duncan referred to--those who started school with the class of 2008 but did not graduate with their peers.

These students will cost the State's economy an estimated $5 billion in lost wages over the course of their lifetimes. They will earn an average of almost $10,000 less each year compared to their classmates who finished high school. They are also more likely to become parents before they are ready, become incarcerated, or need public assistance.

This fate is particularly true of students concentrated in those high schools where 60 percent or fewer of the entering freshmen actually graduate as seniors 4 years later. Research shows that there are currently about 2,000 high schools across the Nation that collectively produce almost half of America's dropouts. Year after year, students in these schools fall further and further behind.

Where the United States once ranked at or near the top among industrial democracies in high school graduation rates, today we are 19th. In today's global economy, a high school diploma is the minimum qualification needed for jobs in the fastest-growing sectors. This situation is not only economically untenable, it is morally unacceptable.

Tackling the dropout crisis requires a comprehensive solution. As this is a nationwide problem, it requires a more robust role for the federal government. Since the No Child Left Behind Act, federal support for education has increased significantly. Yet despite these additional resources, less than 10 percent of federal education funding goes to our nation's high schools.

The legislation we introduce today would provide that needed support to struggling high schools across the country. The Graduation Promise Act would authorize $2.4 billion to create a ``High School Improvement and Dropout Reduction Fund'' in order to turn

around America's lowest performing high schools and ensure students graduate from high school ready for college or a career. The fund would support states and school districts as they develop comprehensive high school improvement systems.

In order to help those students who are most at risk of dropping out of school, federal resources would be directed to the lowest-performing schools. These resources would support proven school improvement activities and strategies based on each school's needs.

Schools across Nevada are already implementing proven strategies in the schools that need them the most--strategies like extending the school day or year; dividing large urban schools into smaller, more personal learning academies; expanding summer learning opportunities; or partnering schools with colleges and universities to allow high school students to take and receive credit for college-level courses.

At Valley High School in Las Vegas, the school that recently hosted Secretary Duncan, strategies like extended learning time, weekend and after-school enrichment, smaller learning communities, and magnet programs, turned the school around and will most certainly help more students graduate on time and ready for college or the workforce.

In the Clark County Schools District in southern Nevada, some of the most cutting-edge career and technical academies in the country have recently opened. These programs--in engineering and design, medical occupations and media communications--have been recognized for helping to increase graduation rates.

In northern Nevada, the Washoe County School District has teamed up with one of the local community colleges. The Truckee Meadows Community College High School now allows students to take a combination of college and high school courses, and they get credit on both levels. Not only do these students complete more challenging, college-level coursework, but they are laying the groundwork for success in college and the workforce.

The bottom line is that all of these strategies keep students engaged and help prevent them from dropping out. The Graduation Promise Act will allow schools to replicate these strategies so that all students can achieve their full potential. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important bill.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act. I am introducing this bill with the support of Senator Risch, and I thank my colleague for joining me in this bipartisan effort.

This bill would provide funding flexibility to the States to help construct and maintain needed shooting ranges--safe and designated areas where people can sharpen their marksmanship and enjoy recreational shooting.

For a variety of reasons, the number of places where people can safely engage in recreational shooting and target practicing has steadily dwindled. This includes areas on our national public lands. In an effort to establish, maintain and promote safe and established areas for such activities, this legislation would allow States to allocate a greater proportion of their Federal wildlife funds for these purposes.

Currently, states are allocated funds for a variety of wildlife purposes under the Pittman-Robertson Act. This Act, which established a 10 percent excise tax on sporting equipment and ammunition, distributes these funds to States for specific purposes. One of these purposes includes hunter safety programs and the development and maintenance of shooting ranges. However, the Act currently contains certain limitations on the use of these funds for the purpose of shooting ranges.

The Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act would amend the Pittman-Robertson Act by adjusting the funding limitations so that States have more funds available for the creation and maintenance of shooting ranges. Specifically, the bill would do a number of things.

First, it would authorize States to charge up to 90 percent instead of the current 75 percent of the costs for acquiring land for, expanding, or constructing a public target range on Federal or non- federal land to its allotted Pittman-Robertson allocations, and therefore States would only need to find 10 percent match, as opposed to 25 percent.

Second, it would allow the Pittman-Robertson funds allotted to a State to remain available for 5 fiscal years, instead of the current 1 fiscal year, for use in acquiring land for, expanding, or constructing a public target range on Federal or non-federal land.

Third, it would limit the liability exposure to the Federal land agencies, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, regarding the use of Federal land for target practice or marksmanship training.

Fourth, it would encourage the Federal land agencies, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, to cooperate with State and local authorities to maintain target ranges on Federal land so as to encourage their continued use.

To be clear, the bill would not allocate any new funding to the construction of shooting ranges, it would not raise any fees or taxes, nor would it require States to apply their allocated Pittman-Robertson funds to shooting ranges. Instead, by reducing the State matching requirements--and allowing States to ``bank'' these funds for 5 years, the bill allows States to use their Pittman-Robertson funds as they think best while also allowing them to

extend their existing license fee revenue and other State generated funds on other important programs, such as wildlife habitat.

I would like to thank the following groups who have expressed support for this legislation: the National Rifle Association, the National Governing Body for the Olympic Shooting Sports, the Colorado Firearms Coalition, the Colorado Wildlife Federation, the Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society.

I believe that hunting and recreational shooting are legitimate activities--activities that also are appropriate where not prohibited on our public lands. This bill is designed to maintain these activities in a save and convenient manner. It is my hope that the public lands agencies continue to work with the States, sportsmen and hunters, the recreational shooting interests, nearby communities, and others so that these opportunities are safe and available.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing my second bill, the Household Product Labeling Act. This legislation will enable consumers to determine whether potentially harmful chemicals are present in the household cleaning products they use every day. I want to first thank my colleague in the House, Representative Israel of New York's 2nd District, for his leadership on this issue and for the tremendous work he put into helping to craft this bill.

In many households across the country, the entire family pitches in on household cleaning chores. The effort is obviously intended to keep everyone healthy by cutting down on germs, bacteria, and mold. But unfortunately, many of the ingredients in commonly used cleaning products may be dangerous themselves. Current law requires that product labels list immediately hazardous ingredients, but there is no labeling requirement for ingredients that may cause harm over time.

Many chemicals contained in household products have been shown to produce harmful health effects. Consumers have a right to know which of these potentially harmful chemicals might be present in their kitchen and bathroom cupboards. This information is particularly important to families with small children, who as we all know have more direct contact with floors and household surfaces. This legislation simply makes that information readily available to consumers, giving them the opportunity to make an informed choice about the chemicals they bring into their homes.

How many times have you heard on the news or read in the paper about a new drug or chemical that has been recently linked to health or environmental hazards? It happens all the time. An ingredient that a company claims is ``perfectly safe'' today could be reclassified as ``dangerous'' tomorrow. And an ingredient that is safe for most people could be a major irritant for a child with asthma. Eventually, I hope that manufacturers will take pre-emptive action and eliminate potentially harmful chemicals from their products. In the meantime, this legislation is a common sense step in the right direction.

I urge my colleagues to support the ``Household Product Labeling Act'' and give consumers the right to shield their families from potentially harmful household products.

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