Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act of 2014

Madam President, I first wish to say to the distinguished majority leader that the recent filibuster was supported by a number of Democratic Members, but most importantly it was supported by Members who did, in fact, favor the legislation. The reason they refused to go forward with the bill is because Senator Reid--in a dictatorial manner--has announced that he intends to control amendments. You don't get an amendment unless you grovel to the majority leader.

There is no reference to the majority leader in the Constitution of the United States. He doesn't get to tell an individual Senator they can't have an amendment on a bill. He has been doing that consistently, and it is not right. We have been on this bill long enough to cast 10 or 15 votes. It is not a question of time as to why he will not allow amendments.

The reason the majority leader will not allow amendments is because he wants to protect his Members from actually being held accountable by the voters of the United States of America by having to cast votes and choose sides. That is what it is all about. It has gone on way too long. It is demeaning to this Senate, and he demeans the loyal opposition who are doing the only thing they have as a tool, which is refusing to move forward with a bill because the majority leader is going to use parliamentary maneuvers to block anybody's amendment. I wish it were not true.

I will not go quietly and allow him to come down and blame others for the problem he has caused. We could have already had this bill up for final passage. It is not a question of time. It is a question of control and domination of the Senate, and the majority leader is not entitled to do that. He is not entitled to do that, and it is not going to continue. This will be broken sooner or later.

If the majority leader wants to move important legislation, he is going to

have to agree to a process that allows duly elected representatives of various States in America to be able to at least offer an amendment.

My remarks today are to discuss the nomination of Shaun Donovan to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. This is a very important office.

I voted against Mr. Donovan in the Budget Committee, and I wish to take this opportunity to share with my colleagues my concerns. My concerns are not related to his character or personality or decency but his experience and qualifications to serve as the Nation's chief financial manager--the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 76 why the Senate was assigned a role in the confirmation process:

It would be an excellent check upon the spirit of

favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to

prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State

prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment,

or from a view to popularity.

The President has the right to nominate, and his nominations should be given deference, but as Hamilton made clear, when the President's nominee does not have the fitness necessary for a critical position, the Senate should not provide its consent.

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is one of the most important positions in the entire government, entrusted to oversee our massive Federal bureaucracy and budget process during a time when the Nation is facing tremendous financial danger.

Only weeks ago the Director of the Congressional Budget Office reaffirmed in testimony before Congress that the debt of this country is on an ``unsustainable path,'' and he meant exactly that. He went on to say that America faces the ``risk of a fiscal crisis.'' He means Greece when he says ``a fiscal crisis.''

Whoever holds the job of budget director must be one of the toughest, strongest, most able, and disciplined managers in America. We ought to be looking for the very best. We need someone who already understands this massive Federal Government, the financial stresses we are under, where the problems arise, and how to manage it.

We need somebody with the capability and credibility to deal with strong-willed cabinet people who, as history shows, always want to spend more and need to be told no by the Office of Management and Budget.

Sadly, what has become clear is that the President did not choose Mr. Donovan because he met those criteria. That was not what he was looking for. Mr. Donovan does not come close to meeting those qualifications. He just does not. I enjoyed meeting with him, but I asked him questions that deal with fundamental issues everybody in Congress understands but he doesn't understand because he hasn't had experience with them. Instead, it would seem Mr. Donovan, as with the President's past Budget Directors, was chosen because he has good people skills and personality and is politically loyal and would defend the administration's goals and priorities even when the result might be unfavorable to the public's fiscal health.

We have seen this time and again in the President's Budget Office. His past Budget Directors have done more to conceal financial problems the Congressional Budget Office has told us we face than to illuminate those problems. They have steadfastly sought to avoid serious discussions about the unsustainable debt course we are on and to lay out any credible policies to fix that problem. They have been unresponsive to congressional inquiry. They make false statements about what their budget would actually do. Indeed, they have repeated--Mr. Lew did when he was Director--that our budget would pay down the debt when, in fact, there was not a single year in his 10-year budget that the deficit was less than $500 billion. They have tried to break spending caps that are agreed to by the President and are in law, and they refused to comply with legal requirements to submit a plan to prevent Medicare's insolvency--an edict the law requires him to do, and President Bush did.

The Office of Management and Budget should be one of the least political departments in government. Instead, the President has made it one of the most political. Shouldn't the American people be able to look to their Budget Director with confidence, knowing their tax dollars have been entrusted to someone with great wisdom and experience and independence? Shouldn't they be able to know their Budget Director will look the American people in the eye and tell them squarely what the true facts are we are facing today, and is someone who could lay out a plan that would actually work to fix the debt course we are on?

The President had the ability to scour the country for the most skilled, talented, disciplined, and gifted manager he could find for this office. Very few people of prominence would turn down a request from the President to fulfill that duty. A renowned manager of great financial acumen and recognized independence is what we are looking for--someone with a track record, a proven record of saving taxpayers' dollars, developing new efficiencies, taking on entrenched interest in the service of the public good, not the special interest good. They have to be capable of meeting with someone such as Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, to meet with members of the Budget Committee such as Senator Rob Portman who was also a former OMB Director; Senator Pat Toomey, Senator Chuck Grassley, Senator Ron Johnson, a businessman and an accountant. They know about these matters. They have been working on them. They have been negotiating and producing plans. Mr. Donovan has no knowledge of them. He cannot discuss it with them intelligently. He has no background in that. He has shown no interest in it. I suspect Mr. Donovan was stunned when he was offered this job. He certainly has not prepared himself for it. I am not criticizing him specifically as a person; I am saying this is not the kind of person we need today. There is nothing in his background to suggest he is up to the task this urgent hour requires.

More troublingly, Mr. Donovan himself has a poor record of financial management at HUD. He is the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. During his tenure HUD has received repeated and stark criticism from his own agency's inspector general. They appoint, within these Cabinet positions, an inspector general who analyzes and acts independently to advise the Secretary and the Congress if something is wrong. Well, I would suggest what I am going to say evidences that Mr. Donovan's skill is in spending money and making investments rather than saving dollars and managing money.

His record at HUD shows he spent money illegally, violating the Antideficiency Act--a very important act. On the great financial issue of our time--our Nation's crippling debt burden--I asked Mr. Donovan at the hearing in the Budget Committee about what he would propose to fix the unsustainable debt course. Shouldn't he do that? He offered no serious ideas to get our debt under control. Clearly, he has no intention of providing the leadership needed to reverse our disastrous current debt course.

For instance, the President's most recent 10-year budget plan he submitted would break the in-law spending limits he agreed to and increase our Nation's total debt by an average of $800 billion a year. Over the next 10 years, under his budget plan, we could be expected to average deficits of $800 billion a year, almost $1 trillion. Indeed, in the 10th year, it is virtually $1 trillion.

I asked Mr. Donovan about this and he replied:

The President's . . . budget includes fully-paid for,

fiscally responsible investments that will create jobs, grow

the economy, and expand opportunity for all Americans.

That is the answer we got. I submit that is not responsible. That is not serious. He is not in touch with reality.

When Mr. Donovan was forced to admit in follow-up written questions that the President's budget plan would add $6 trillion to the public debt over the next 10 years, he called the increase ``nominal.'' It is precisely this cavalier attitude from government elites that is leading our Nation to financial catastrophe. CBO says these deficits put us on a path to a fiscal crisis. Last year we paid $220 billion in interest on our $17 billion debt. But the

Congressional Budget Office projects that interest rates are going to return to more normal levels in a few years and we continue to add more deficits every year. They project that in 10 years, interest on the debt will be $800 billion. It will pass the defense budget--interest in 1 year will pass the size of the defense budget by 2019. This is dangerous. We cannot continue on this course.

I would also share that in talking to my colleagues about their discussions with Mr. Donovan, they expressed concern that when he met with them individually, he lacked basic knowledge about the fundamentals of the Federal budget. Consider the written testimony he later provided to the committee about his specific plans for entitlement reform--mandatory spending reform. He said:

I have not . . . written any papers or given any talks or

lectures that specifically lay out a comprehensive plan for

Medicare or Social Security.

So this is the person who is supposed to coordinate the effort to rein in spending and put us on a sound path. I would say not only has he not written any papers or given any lectures, I am not aware he has given any thought at all to fixing Medicare and Social Security, two of the biggest challenges this Nation faces. I don't think he has ever expressed a serious thought about these issues.

In response to one question about Medicare data, Mr. Donovan told me the data did not exist. But the data does, in fact, exist. And his response cited the very report from which the data was found. At his hearing, Mr. Donovan could not answer fundamental questions from Senator Johnson about the Social Security trust fund. That is very important. With only 2 years left in the President's Administration, the Nation needs to have someone at OMB who can hit the ground running, who knows these issues.

I asked him about defense. I am a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. He didn't understand the F-35 program. He is not able to converse intelligently about the troop levels we are talking about having to reduce. He couldn't talk about aircraft carriers--something he has never had any experience with whatsoever. That is why he couldn't talk about it, and he has never given any thought to it.

This lack of basic knowledge and professionalism is evidenced in the inspector general reports about his tenure at Housing and Urban Development. Here, for instance, is a representative example from an IG report issued on February 19 of this year about his multifamily project refinances program. They came up with a plan that supposedly refinanced housing loans and saved money. This is what the inspector general said:

HUD did not have adequate controls to ensure that all

Section 202 refinancing resulted in economical and efficient

outcomes.

They went on to say:

Specifically, (1) HUD did not ensure that at least half the

debt service savings that resulted from refinancing were used

to benefit tenants or reduce housing assistance payments, (2)

consistent accountability for the debt service savings was

not always maintained, and (3) some refinancing were

processed for projects that had negative debt service

savings--

In other words, instead of saving money, the refinancings cost money.

--which resulted in higher debt service costs than before the

refinancing.

It goes on to say:

These deficiencies were due to HUD's lack of adequate

oversight and inconsistent nationwide policy implementation

regarding debt service savings realized from Section 202

refinancing activities. As a result, millions of dollars in

debt service savings were not properly accounted for and

available, the savings may not have been used to benefit

tenants or for the reduction of housing assistance payments,

and some refinanced projects ended up costing HUD additional

housing assistance payments because of the additional cost

for debt service.

That is not the kind of glowing review one would hope to accompany a nominee to an office who would oversee the entire Government of the United States of America.

But the problems get worse. Every year, the HUD inspector general conducts an audit to determine if HUD's financial statements are in order. When an agency's financial statements are in order, that agency is awarded an unqualified or clean audit, meaning there are no material defects in the way the agency is managing its books. For the years 2012 and 2013, under Secretary Donovan's leadership, HUD received failing grades or a qualified audit, which means material problems were found with HUD's financial statements. Twenty-four agencies undergo the audit process every year. Only two failed in 2013: HUD and DOD. And we all know DOD has never yet reached the kind of accounting the government requires in that massive agency. So HUD is the only non-DOD agency that failed last year.

Whereas DOD has historically had problems with financial statements, HUD had, prior to Mr. Donovan, received clean reports. The inspector general, in failing Mr. Donovan, noted that HUD had improper budgetary accounting and lacked proper accounting for cash management. HUD, under Mr. Donovan's watch, was also recently charged with an Antideficiency Act violation by the inspector general--a big problem, in my opinion. It is serious.

The Antideficiency Act essentially prohibits government employees or agencies from spending money that has not been appropriated by Congress. No President, no Cabinet Secretary can spend money under the Constitution that has not been appropriated for that purpose by Congress.

So according to information received from the HUD inspector general, HUD, under Mr. Donovan's watch, has at least seven instances of violating the Antideficiency Act. These violations include overobligation of personnel or payroll funds, making student loan payments in excess of the funds allowed for that purpose, and obligating funds that were no longer available, and some of these were done after clear warnings to stop it.

In one of the most recent violations, HUD paid more than $620,000 to a senior adviser to Secretary Donovan--personally his adviser, his staff--but they paid for it not from Mr. Donovan's budget for that purpose--to hire staff with--they paid for it out of the Office of Public and Indian Housing funds even though Mr. Donovan's adviser in his office was not employed in the Office of Public and Indian Housing section. This adviser's pay was required to come from the funds in the secretary's office, his budget.

The inspector general found that HUD had ignored the advice of its own legal counsel and disregarded concerns that had been previously expressed by the House Appropriations Committee on antideficiency matters at HUD.

I do not see how he could not be aware of this. This is his own adviser. His own lawyer said: You should not pay for it out of the Office of Public and Indian Housing funds. But he did it anyway.

Congress had specifically addressed HUD's salary funding for the Secretary's senior advisers--it had been a subject of House discussion, which is unusual--and previous ADA violations. According to a July 26, 2010, House of Representatives report, ``all senior advisors to the Secretary should be funded directly through the Office of the Secretary.'' Of course. In addition, a HUD appropriations attorney in the HUD staff wrote in a January 13, 2011, email that a special adviser to the Office of the Secretary would need to be paid by that office-- the Secretary's office--and not another office within HUD. Despite the direction in the House report and guidance from his own appropriations attorney, HUD paid this adviser for his services from the Office of Public and Indian Housing program.

Subsequently, in June 2012, Congress again admonished HUD for the lack of staffing data it provided and had available internally. Congress wrote:

This lack of essential information led to multiple Anti-

Deficiency Act violations in fiscal year 2011, in which HUD

hired more people than it had resources to pay. To date, HUD

has not even tried to address these problems and thus the

Committee has no faith in HUD's ability to appropriately

staff its operations.

It is a very serious criticism of the management ability of the man now put in charge of managing an entire government. It is not the kind of activity that warrants a promotion.

Finally, I have to say this. I have to mention this little matter: Mr. Donovan's membership in the Owl Club at Harvard--an item many of our Democratic colleagues found most reprehensible when Justice Alito came up for

confirmation for the Supreme Court. This is a club the late Senator Ted Kennedy, resigned from because it did not admit female members. Indeed, Harvard kicked the club off campus in 1984, but that was the very year Mr. Donovan became a member and remained so until 1987. I have heard no complaints from my colleagues about Mr. Donovan's membership in the Owl Club even after it was kicked off campus, but they howled mightily when Justice Alito was found to be a member of a similar club at Princeton.

So I would ask my colleagues, in conclusion, does this sound like the background of someone who really is the right man for the job at this time? That is my fundamental concern. I do not believe his background, skills, and record indicate he is ready for one of the toughest jobs in government.

This President, even more than most Presidents in their second term-- and they all tend to do this--is surrounding himself closer and closer with a small group of political loyalists--Secretary Lew, Secretary Johnson, Secretary Perez. So do we need another loyalist who protects him better? Wouldn't the American people and the President himself be better off with a strong, capable manager who can see through all the fog and the political falderal and make good decisions, preserving the taxpayers' resources?

We need someone who will act independently on behalf of the President and the American people, who will respect the jurisdiction of Congress and legitimate congressional powers, who will follow the law and submit a Medicare plan, as the law requires, because it is going into default. The law says if it goes into default and the Medicare trustees send a notice--and they have--the President is supposed to submit a plan to fix it. OMB is the place that has always come from. It has come from there previously. And shouldn't he tell the White House no if he is asked to do something that is improper for the financial future of America?

Well, I do not like having to oppose Mr. Donovan. He seems like a nice person. But he is the wrong man for this important job. I think he has been chosen for the wrong reasons, not for the right reasons. I will oppose his nomination. The President himself, I truly believe, and the Nation would benefit from the most capable, strong, and competent nominee the country can produce at this critical time. That's not Mr. Donovan.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

We are here today to talk about energy--energy for our country but also energy for our allies. This is a discussion not just about energy, it is about jobs, good-paying jobs. It is also about economic growth. It is about generating tax revenues to help reduce the debt and the deficit without raising taxes. It is about national security--not only our national security but also working with our closest friend and ally, Canada, as well as our allies in Europe, the European Union, and working to help countries such as the Ukraine that very much need energy supply from sources other than Russia.

With the current events going on in the Ukraine, it is very clear that we need to play a long-term game, a long-term strategy--deploy a long-term strategy when it comes to helping our allies, not only in terms of our national security but working with our allies to make them stronger, their strength, their national security. The national security of allies also contributes to our strength and our security here at home. So that is what we are here to talk about. We are here to talk about the North Atlantic Energy Security Act, legislation we are introducing today--myself, Senator Barrasso, Senator McCain, and Senator Murkowski.

I am going to take a few minutes to talk about energy production, transportation, and export in terms of building our energy future in this country and working with our allies. Senator Barrasso is here, and he will be talking about the specific legislation. Senator McCain will join us as well to talk about the national security issues and implications.

I will start with the first chart.

Very simply, what we want to do is continue to produce more energy in our Nation, in the heartland of our Nation and throughout our country. We want to transport that increased production to market. That includes not only markets domestically but also markets where we can export it to our friends and allies in the European Union, to the Ukraine, and to Japan. That is the simple equation we are working on. Again, it is about energy. It is about jobs. It is about a growing economy. It is very much about national security.

That gas is produced throughout our country, more and more all the time. Right now we produce 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year. We only use 26 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year, so we are already producing more than we consume, and that number is growing.

What happens when you produce more than you consume and you do not have a market for that gas? In places such as North Dakota, we are flaring off that gas. Right now, just in my State alone, we flare $1.5 million a day of natural gas--$1.5 million a day. That is natural gas that we need to capture, that we need to get in gathering systems, that we need to transport to markets, and we need markets for that gas. This is just common sense.

How do we move gas from North Dakota to places such as Ukraine, where there is much need for a market? Well, we need both interstate and intrastate pipeline systems. On this chart, you can see that the purple is the interstate. That is how we move gas across State lines. But we also need intrastate gathering systems. A lot of oil wells produce natural gas as a byproduct; other wells are just gas wells. But you need gathering systems, the blue systems that go to all those wells so that gas can be gathered, put in the interstate system, and moved to markets--markets throughout the United States and markets overseas.

As I said a minute ago, we produce 30 trillion cubic feet a year, States such as North Dakota, Wyoming, and many others. That number is growing. We produce 30 trillion cubic feet a year, but we only consume 26 trillion, so we are flaring off that gas.

We need markets. As we work to build those gathering systems and those interstate pipelines, how do we get markets? Well, we move that product to overseas as liquefied natural gas, LNG. It is cooled and condensed, put on ships, and moved to other markets--the European Union, Ukraine, Japan--by ship. But we need the LNG facilities to do it. We do not have them. So that is a problem, right? Well, it is, except we have many companies that are not only ready and willing but anxious to build the facilities. Here are 16 right here, 16 applications.

Of the 26 applications that are pending, many of them have been pending for over a year waiting to get approval from the Department of Energy and from the FERC. So here we are flaring off natural gas, as I showed a minute ago--$1.5 million a day in my State--flaring it off because we produce more than we consume. We need markets. These applications are just sitting there and have been for more than a year.

If they get approved, what happens? Let's take an example. Here is one by a company everybody has heard of--Exxon. Exxon has an application. As you can see here, they have had an application in for over a year waiting to get approved at Sabine Pass, TX, which is right down in that gulf area. They are ready, willing, and able to spend $10 billion right now, today, to build that facility.

Where are they going to move the gas? They are going to move it to the United Kingdom so it can go right into the European system. We will touch on that European system and how it gets to places such as the Ukraine in a minute. But if they can get approval--

I have already talked to their CEO, Mr. Rex Tillerson. He indicates that within 36 to 40 months of approval, they can be moving gas into the European markets. Does that sound realistic? It certainly does. Obviously that is a very large company with the capabilities to do what they say they are willing and want to do.

Here is another example. Here is Cheniere. Same place--Sabine Pass. This is one that did get approved. This is one that did get approval. They intend to be delivering gas into the European market by the middle of next year--middle of next year. So this is not something that is going to take forever to happen.

We not only have the fact that we can start moving natural gas over here in a very reasonable amount of time, but think of the impact on the markets in Europe and the impact on Russia and gas prices when they know it is coming.

I am going to ask Senator McCain to step in here. I mentioned a minute ago that application I showed you that is pending from Exxon. They want to move that natural gas to market right here in the UK.

What this chart shows is the pipeline network throughout Europe that will enable them to move that product throughout Europe and even into Eastern Europe, including places such as Ukraine.

Right now where is all that gas coming from? Russia, Gazprom. All these pipelines are coming down from Russia and providing that gas to the European countries, to the European Union, and to the Ukraine. Of course, that makes them dependent on Russia and that enables Russia to engage in the kind of activity we have seen and we can't always be reacting short term. We need a long-term strategy to break that hold.

Here are some of the numbers. This shows not only Ukraine but look at the impact on other NATO countries, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, 100 percent of their gas coming from Russia. Think of the leverage that gives Russia in this situation.

The last chart is the North Atlantic Energy Security Act. Quite simply, we are going to cut the redtape that is holding up production and infrastructure, we are going to reduce flaring, and we are going to expedite LNG to our friends and allies, to countries such as the European Union, to Ukraine, to Japan. We reduce the redtape that is holding up production. We are producing 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and we can produce a lot more, but we have to cut through the redtape. We also enhance and expand our ability to build the gathering systems that move that natural gas to market, and we allow export.

We have an expedited process so we can export that gas to the markets we need, to our friends, and to our allies. Again, this is about energy, but it is about creating jobs, it is about growing our economy, it is about the national security of our country and our allies, and it is about having a long-term strategy that works, not going from crisis to crisis.

With that, I turn to my colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, to comment on some of the national security implications.

I thank the Senator from Arizona for his comments, his leadership, and for his willingness to work on this vitally important issue.

In terms of responding to his question: OK. What needs to happen--I wish to take a minute to give an overview of the legislation and then ask the Senator from Wyoming to comment in more detail.

As I said at the outset, and I actually have said several times, this is about more energy, it is about job creation, it is about growing the economy, and it is about national security.

It is also very much about environmental benefits. I showed you gas being flared off a well. This gas is just being flared.

Not only is that wasting a natural resource which we can capture and get value for, but when we capture that, we also create environmental benefits.

Nationally, we flare or vent, burn off, 212 billion cubic feet of gas a year--212 billion cubic feet of gas a year now being burned off.

Oh, boy. To convert it, it is billions, right, it is in the billions of dollars. I don't have the exact number, but it is a huge amount. It is $1.5 million a day in my State alone so the Senator can see we are talking billions of dollars. There are also tremendous environmental benefits as well.

But let's go to the legislation for a minute because I think this is responsive to the question asked by the Senator from Arizona about: OK. How do we make it happen?

The reality is we are producing the energy now, we can produce more, and this doesn't cost taxpayer money.

This creates revenues without raising taxes. This is going to create revenues to help address the debt and the deficit. This is enabling and empowering the private companies to make investments to create jobs, make investments to produce the energy.

Going back to this chart, Exxon wants to invest $10 billion today, creating thousands of jobs and a tremendous amount of revenue for the Federal Government to reduce the deficit and debt. It doesn't cost a penny. That is not what it is about. It is about streamlining the regulation, cutting the redtape. That means making sure we streamline and expedite the process to get wells approved. That is the first area of legislation that increases our production onshore. We can do it offshore as well. But we are talking about more production. As I say, we are already producing more than we consume.

Second, it is about building those gathering systems. It requires permits and approvals to build gathering systems, so we are not able to build those gathering systems. If you can't build a gathering system, what happens? You burn off the gas because you can't get it to market. So that process is being held up. Again, it is about cutting through the redtape, reducing the regulation and bureaucracy. It doesn't cost anything.

The final piece, the same thing--getting approval to export LNG. Right now there is one that has final approval from the DOE and FERC. There are 26 applications pending. One has final approval from the DOE--Department of Energy--and the FERC. Six have conditional approval and 26 are pending. It is as simple as getting the approvals and cutting through that redtape. This is not about spending taxpayer dollars; it is about generating revenues.

I would respond briefly to the Senator from Arizona and then turn to the Senator from Wyoming on that issue as well for more detail on the legislation. He has tremendous expertise in this area and has been working on it for a long time.

Clearly, it is a double win because not only are we no longer burning off or flaring that natural gas, but we are using natural gas, which is a very clean resource, for a whole range of energy uses, whether it is powering homes or many other uses. So it is a huge environmental win.

Absolutely an environmental win.

Madam President, I turn to the good Senator from Arizona for any final comments. Seeing that he doesn't have any, I thank him.

I also thank the good Senator from Wyoming and ask if there are any final comments he might have on the legislation. He has been an author of much of this legislation. I thank him for that tremendous work and for being part of this effort.

I thank the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia and appreciate his comments. He has a passion for this issue. It fits very well with what so many of us are trying to do in the Congress, which is to put in place policies that actually create more opportunities for our young people.

We are living through the weakest economic recovery we have had in this country since the Great Depression. I know we have seen some improvement recently in the job numbers, but in fact unemployment remains way too high. If we take into account folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether as compared to 4 or 5 years ago, we have unemployment rates at over 10 percent.

Among young people coming out of school it is far higher. It is double digits, about 12 or 13 percent for 18 to 25 year olds, we are told. Again, the real numbers are worse than that when we take out the folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether.

Our GDP growth, the growth of our economy, is too low. So there are a number of things we ought to do, in my view. One is, we have to deal with ensuring that we have a workforce that is trained for these 21st century jobs that are out there. We also need to reform our Tax Code. We need to put regulatory relief in place that is sensible. We need to do much more to take advantage of the energy resources we have in this country. We need to get back in the business of exporting and trade.

There are some things relatively quickly we could do to get the country back on track, but none is more important than having that workforce. Because we can have a great environment--which unfortunately we do not have now for many businesses because we have not created the climate for economic growth with good policy in Washington.

But if we had that--if we do not have the workers in this increasingly competitive global economy we are in, jobs will be created somewhere else. That is happening right now. It is happening partly because we do not have the skilled workers to be able to attract those jobs here, those businesses here, and to fill the jobs here in America.

Four and one-half million jobs are open right now, they say. That might surprise some people listening because they are thinking: Wow. I cannot get a job or my son or daughter cannot get a job or my neighbor cannot get a job. As I said, unemployment is high. Yet there are 4\1/2\ million jobs open. When we look at those jobs and what is available out there--and Senator Kaine talked some about this, a lot of them require skills that young people and workers who are shifting careers, maybe they have lost a job, are in their forties or fifties, skills they do not have.

So it is IT, it is high-tech jobs, it is health care jobs, it is bioscience jobs. Yes, it is manufacturing jobs. My own State of Ohio is a big manufacturing State. We are particularly sensitive to this. There are lots of manufacturers in Ohio who are saying: If we had the workers, we could add new jobs, new opportunities, grow this economy. The spinoff from that, all of the other jobs that are created through a successful manufacturing company that makes something is the backbone of our higher economy, international economy.

This is exciting for me to work with Senator Kaine and others who say: Let's take a piece of this, which is career and technical education, to encourage young people to get these skills, to be able to access these great jobs. Some of them, by the way, will do it right out of high school.

I was in Ohio on Monday. We had a roundtable on this. We had a bunch of employers there. We had some educators there. We had some students there. One was a senior in high school who is currently in career and technical school. For those who do not follow this closely, you probably are more familiar with the word ``vocational'' school, because that is typically what it has been called over the years. That is the same thing as the career and technical schools.

Again, Senator Kaine and I have cofounded this Career and Technical Education Caucus in the Senate over the last couple of months. We have a number of our colleagues now joining and so on. We are trying to raise this, let people know about this great opportunity out there.

This young man is a senior. He is going back to his high school and saying: You Guys are crazy not to do this CTE stuff because I am getting great skills, where I can get a great job, and I am getting college credit because they have one of those dual credit programs in this particular CTE program.

Then there were two students there who graduated earlier this year. They both have been in the CTE program. They both have been taking advantage of it to get the skills but also working part time as apprentices or interns--19 years old, two young men. Both of them are now out in the workforce, working for these manufacturers. One of their bosses was there, one of the executives from one of the small manufacturing companies.

These young men at 19 years old are making $50,000 a year. They have benefits on top of that. They have the opportunity now to run very sophisticated machines. Both of them started off learning as apprentices. Now they are both running machines. These machines are worth over $1 million apiece. These are in CNC machines. In one case it is a plastic injecting molding machine. It is very exciting. By the way, they now have been encouraged to go back to their high school and say: Hey, 4-year college or university, that is great if you want to do that, but here is another opportunity.

By the way, they may go back to school. They both have some credit where they could go back and maybe get an associate's degree or a 4- year degree or maybe a graduate engineering degree someday, but in the meantime they are providing the opportunities for these companies in Ohio to have skilled workers so they can compete globally. For them and their families, they are providing a tremendous opportunity, rather than graduating with a bunch of debt. The average debt is $20,000, $30,000 a year now. Instead of having debt, they are making money.

For the next 4 years, even if they are not promoted 0--0 which I think they will be, having met these two young men--that is $200,000 they are going to be making and spending and investing in our economy.

I am very excited about this opportunity to hold this up to say there is a way for us to help get this economy moving by helping to fill this skills gap. In Ohio alone, if you go on ohiomeansjobs.com right now, go on their Web site, you will see about 140,000 jobs open. Yet we have about 400,000 people out of work. If you look at these jobs, again, you will see a lot of them require skills that simply are not out there in the workforce now.

Help provide these skills and we are going to see some of these jobs get filled. That helps our economy, keeps businesses here, and expands businesses here. We did, as Senator Kaine said, just pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, so-called WIOA. I was very pleased about that. The House just passed it this week. The Senate passed it 2 weeks ago.

In that there is something called the CAREER Act that Senator Bennet and I have been promoting the last few years. We were able to include a number of our provisions in there to add more accountability, to add more performance measures to improve that legislation. I am happy that was done. That helps on retraining. That is critically important. We spend about $15 billion a year on that at the Federal Government level.

What we are talking about is starting with the career and technical education even before we get into the WIOA programs and the retraining money that is necessary when somebody loses a job and needs to move to another job. We are talking about young people coming up and having this opportunity. According to the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio is gaining jobs in manufacturing. That is great news. But we also hear, in the latest skills gap report by the Manufacturing Institute, 74 percent of manufacturers are experiencing workforce shortages or skill deficiencies that keep them from expanding their plant and operations and improving productivity--74 percent.

We could be doing much more to close that skills gap. The legislation that Senator Kaine and I talked about that we are introducing today is a very important step toward that. It is going to help open opportunities for the next generation of workers by ensuring that they have these skills to participate in the 21st century economy.

We were talking a moment ago, some of us, about high school graduation rates. Unfortunately, we have unacceptably high numbers of people who do not graduate from high schools in this country. So there was a lot of discussion about postsecondary and so on. But we have a real problem: Our high school graduation rate is way too low. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 81 percent of high school dropouts say real-world learning opportunities would have kept them in school. That is interesting. The average high school graduation rate is now about 80 percent--way too low. In fact, it is closer to 50 percent in some of our great cities and in some of our poorer rural areas. But even 80 percent is the average--way too low for high school graduation.

But what they say is they would have been more likely to stay in school if they had real-world learning opportunities. That is why the graduation rates for kids involved in CTE--

I would ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

For kids in CTE concentrations, it is a 90-percent graduation rate. That is because they are getting that real-world experience. So I think a good place to start, again, is with this legislation we are introducing today. This is legislation that begins with reforms to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It needs to be reauthorized. The reauthorization ought to include these reforms that Senator Kaine and I have talked about.

This is the major source of Federal support for the development of CTE skills. It was last reauthorized in 2006. So it has to be modernized to meet the demands of this workforce today to ensure that students have access to these programs.

It does a few different things. Senator Kaine has talked about it. It requires a more rigorous CTE curriculum, requiring Perkins grant participants to incorporate key elements into the programs; that is, things such as academic and technical skill assessments to measure student achievement, making sure they are actually accomplishing what they are supposed to be based on industry standards, making sure the CTE curriculum is in alignment with whatever the local and regional needs are in the workforce, what the demands are. Employers are looking for kids who have specific skills. We have to be sure we are providing them.

It also increases flexibility for States and localities, allowing them to use these Perkins grant funds to establish academies such as the one Governor Kaine started when he was in Virginia.

It also improves the link between high school and postsecondary education to ease the attainment of industry-recognized credentials, licensing, apprenticeship, postsecondary certificates. We do a lot of that in Ohio, the dual credit programs I talked about earlier.

It promotes partnerships between local businesses, regional industries, and other community stakeholders to create pathways for students through more internships, service opportunities, and so on.

I believe this legislation is urgently needed, and we have to move forward with it. If we do, we are going to be able to provide more opportunity for our young people and more jobs in this country because we will be filling that skills gap and we will be able to have more young people who will able to have this experience, such as these two young men I met earlier this week, where they are able to go out on their own, get a good job, good benefits, help themselves and their family, and help create a stronger economy for all of us.

I thank my colleague from Virginia for his hard work on this legislation, and I look forward to working with him toward its passage.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia and appreciate his comments. He has a passion for this issue. It fits very well with what so many of us are trying to do in the Congress, which is to put in place policies that actually create more opportunities for our young people.

We are living through the weakest economic recovery we have had in this country since the Great Depression. I know we have seen some improvement recently in the job numbers, but in fact unemployment remains way too high. If we take into account folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether as compared to 4 or 5 years ago, we have unemployment rates at over 10 percent.

Among young people coming out of school it is far higher. It is double digits, about 12 or 13 percent for 18 to 25 year olds, we are told. Again, the real numbers are worse than that when we take out the folks who have dropped out of the workforce altogether.

Our GDP growth, the growth of our economy, is too low. So there are a number of things we ought to do, in my view. One is, we have to deal with ensuring that we have a workforce that is trained for these 21st century jobs that are out there. We also need to reform our Tax Code. We need to put regulatory relief in place that is sensible. We need to do much more to take advantage of the energy resources we have in this country. We need to get back in the business of exporting and trade.

There are some things relatively quickly we could do to get the country back on track, but none is more important than having that workforce. Because we can have a great environment--which unfortunately we do not have now for many businesses because we have not created the climate for economic growth with good policy in Washington.

But if we had that--if we do not have the workers in this increasingly competitive global economy we are in, jobs will be created somewhere else. That is happening right now. It is happening partly because we do not have the skilled workers to be able to attract those jobs here, those businesses here, and to fill the jobs here in America.

Four and one-half million jobs are open right now, they say. That might surprise some people listening because they are thinking: Wow. I cannot get a job or my son or daughter cannot get a job or my neighbor cannot get a job. As I said, unemployment is high. Yet there are 4\1/2\ million jobs open. When we look at those jobs and what is available out there--and Senator Kaine talked some about this, a lot of them require skills that young people and workers who are shifting careers, maybe they have lost a job, are in their forties or fifties, skills they do not have.

So it is IT, it is high-tech jobs, it is health care jobs, it is bioscience jobs. Yes, it is manufacturing jobs. My own State of Ohio is a big manufacturing State. We are particularly sensitive to this. There are lots of manufacturers in Ohio who are saying: If we had the workers, we could add new jobs, new opportunities, grow this economy. The spinoff from that, all of the other jobs that are created through a successful manufacturing company that makes something is the backbone of our higher economy, international economy.

This is exciting for me to work with Senator Kaine and others who say: Let's take a piece of this, which is career and technical education, to encourage young people to get these skills, to be able to access these great jobs. Some of them, by the way, will do it right out of high school.

I was in Ohio on Monday. We had a roundtable on this. We had a bunch of employers there. We had some educators there. We had some students there. One was a senior in high school who is currently in career and technical school. For those who do not follow this closely, you probably are more familiar with the word ``vocational'' school, because that is typically what it has been called over the years. That is the same thing as the career and technical schools.

Again, Senator Kaine and I have cofounded this Career and Technical Education Caucus in the Senate over the last couple of months. We have a number of our colleagues now joining and so on. We are trying to raise this, let people know about this great opportunity out there.

This young man is a senior. He is going back to his high school and saying: You Guys are crazy not to do this CTE stuff because I am getting great skills, where I can get a great job, and I am getting college credit because they have one of those dual credit programs in this particular CTE program.

Then there were two students there who graduated earlier this year. They both have been in the CTE program. They both have been taking advantage of it to get the skills but also working part time as apprentices or interns--19 years old, two young men. Both of them are now out in the workforce, working for these manufacturers. One of their bosses was there, one of the executives from one of the small manufacturing companies.

These young men at 19 years old are making $50,000 a year. They have benefits on top of that. They have the opportunity now to run very sophisticated machines. Both of them started off learning as apprentices. Now they are both running machines. These machines are worth over $1 million apiece. These are in CNC machines. In one case it is a plastic injecting molding machine. It is very exciting. By the way, they now have been encouraged to go back to their high school and say: Hey, 4-year college or university, that is great if you want to do that, but here is another opportunity.

By the way, they may go back to school. They both have some credit where they could go back and maybe get an associate's degree or a 4- year degree or maybe a graduate engineering degree someday, but in the meantime they are providing the opportunities for these companies in Ohio to have skilled workers so they can compete globally. For them and their families, they are providing a tremendous opportunity, rather than graduating with a bunch of debt. The average debt is $20,000, $30,000 a year now. Instead of having debt, they are making money.

For the next 4 years, even if they are not promoted 0--0 which I think they will be, having met these two young men--that is $200,000 they are going to be making and spending and investing in our economy.

I am very excited about this opportunity to hold this up to say there is a way for us to help get this economy moving by helping to fill this skills gap. In Ohio alone, if you go on ohiomeansjobs.com right now, go on their Web site, you will see about 140,000 jobs open. Yet we have about 400,000 people out of work. If you look at these jobs, again, you will see a lot of them require skills that simply are not out there in the workforce now.

Help provide these skills and we are going to see some of these jobs get filled. That helps our economy, keeps businesses here, and expands businesses here. We did, as Senator Kaine said, just pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, so-called WIOA. I was very pleased about that. The House just passed it this week. The Senate passed it 2 weeks ago.

In that there is something called the CAREER Act that Senator Bennet and I have been promoting the last few years. We were able to include a number of our provisions in there to add more accountability, to add more performance measures to improve that legislation. I am happy that was done. That helps on retraining. That is critically important. We spend about $15 billion a year on that at the Federal Government level.

What we are talking about is starting with the career and technical education even before we get into the WIOA programs and the retraining money that is necessary when somebody loses a job and needs to move to another job. We are talking about young people coming up and having this opportunity. According to the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio is gaining jobs in manufacturing. That is great news. But we also hear, in the latest skills gap report by the Manufacturing Institute, 74 percent of manufacturers are experiencing workforce shortages or skill deficiencies that keep them from expanding their plant and operations and improving productivity--74 percent.

We could be doing much more to close that skills gap. The legislation that Senator Kaine and I talked about that we are introducing today is a very important step toward that. It is going to help open opportunities for the next generation of workers by ensuring that they have these skills to participate in the 21st century economy.

We were talking a moment ago, some of us, about high school graduation rates. Unfortunately, we have unacceptably high numbers of people who do not graduate from high schools in this country. So there was a lot of discussion about postsecondary and so on. But we have a real problem: Our high school graduation rate is way too low. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 81 percent of high school dropouts say real-world learning opportunities would have kept them in school. That is interesting. The average high school graduation rate is now about 80 percent--way too low. In fact, it is closer to 50 percent in some of our great cities and in some of our poorer rural areas. But even 80 percent is the average--way too low for high school graduation.

But what they say is they would have been more likely to stay in school if they had real-world learning opportunities. That is why the graduation rates for kids involved in CTE--

I would ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

For kids in CTE concentrations, it is a 90-percent graduation rate. That is because they are getting that real-world experience. So I think a good place to start, again, is with this legislation we are introducing today. This is legislation that begins with reforms to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It needs to be reauthorized. The reauthorization ought to include these reforms that Senator Kaine and I have talked about.

This is the major source of Federal support for the development of CTE skills. It was last reauthorized in 2006. So it has to be modernized to meet the demands of this workforce today to ensure that students have access to these programs.

It does a few different things. Senator Kaine has talked about it. It requires a more rigorous CTE curriculum, requiring Perkins grant participants to incorporate key elements into the programs; that is, things such as academic and technical skill assessments to measure student achievement, making sure they are actually accomplishing what they are supposed to be based on industry standards, making sure the CTE curriculum is in alignment with whatever the local and regional needs are in the workforce, what the demands are. Employers are looking for kids who have specific skills. We have to be sure we are providing them.

It also increases flexibility for States and localities, allowing them to use these Perkins grant funds to establish academies such as the one Governor Kaine started when he was in Virginia.

It also improves the link between high school and postsecondary education to ease the attainment of industry-recognized credentials, licensing, apprenticeship, postsecondary certificates. We do a lot of that in Ohio, the dual credit programs I talked about earlier.

It promotes partnerships between local businesses, regional industries, and other community stakeholders to create pathways for students through more internships, service opportunities, and so on.

I believe this legislation is urgently needed, and we have to move forward with it. If we do, we are going to be able to provide more opportunity for our young people and more jobs in this country because we will be filling that skills gap and we will be able to have more young people who will able to have this experience, such as these two young men I met earlier this week, where they are able to go out on their own, get a good job, good benefits, help themselves and their family, and help create a stronger economy for all of us.

I thank my colleague from Virginia for his hard work on this legislation, and I look forward to working with him toward its passage.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act of 2014. This is a bipartisan bill with Senator Portman, who will follow me on the floor today. Senator Portman and I are working together as cochairs of the Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus.

Let me first explain why career and technical education is important to me.

I grew up in a household in Kansas City where my dad ran a union- organized ironworking shop. He was the owner. Ironworkers and welders-- in a good year, eight employees; in a bad year, five employees. My mother and my brothers and I worked in my dad's shop, and I came to appreciate working in that ironworking shop, the tremendous craftsmanship and skill that went into being an ironworker. That lesson has stuck with me for the rest of my life, and I really credit my dad with my work ethic. In a manufacturing welding shop, you get up and you go to work early because you want to get the work done before it gets too hot in the middle of the day.

I then had the experience in 1980 to take a year off from Harvard Law School and go to Honduras, where I was the principal of the Instituto Tecnico Loyola, which was a school that taught kids to be welders and carpenters. I was able to use the trades I had learned in my dad's shop, and what I saw in Honduras was the same thing: that the acquisition of skills--whether it be welding or carpentry or other skills--is a great path to life's success.

But one thing I noticed about the education system in my country-- even

as I was working in my dad's shop, even as I was a principal of the school in Honduras--was in the United States we sort of downgrade career and technical education. When I was a kid, it was called vocational education. Often, in high schools especially, students who were thought to be kind of problems or not college material would kind of get trapped into vocational education curricula, and that would usually not be a good sign.

In fact, a friend of mine, who is a middle school teacher in southwest Virginia, told me that she would often see her students after they had gone to the high school and ask, ``Hey, tell me what you are up to.'' And when a student said ``I am in the vocational education program,'' the student would almost slump their shoulders, like ``I know you are going to be disappointed to hear this: I am in the vocational education program.''

Career and technical education is a very important pathway for life's success, and there should be no stigma surrounding career and technical education programs. But whether it is in our K-12 schools or in the higher ed world or in the mindset of parents or guidance counselors or even in the military--in the military today, our military members can get tuition assistance benefits, but they can only be used for college courses. You can get up to $4,500 a year in the military as a tuition assistance benefit, but you cannot use even $500 of it to take the certification exam from the American Welding Society to get your welding certificate. We still have a stigma against career and technical education, and we should not.

CTE integrates numerous aspects of liberal arts degrees for practical and applied purposes. CTE prepares students with industry-recognized credentials, professional certificates, occasionally college credits, and, most importantly, training for careers as varied as nursing, physician assistant, business administration, manufacturing, oil and natural gas exploration, automotive maintenance, agriculture, welding, software programming, culinary arts, and many other careers.

CTE happens in interesting places. CTE happens in K-12 school systems. It happens on community college campuses. It happens in 4-year colleges. It happens in stand-alone institutions such as the Newport News Shipbuilding apprenticeship program, where people learn to manufacturer the largest items on planet Earth: nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines in Newport News, VA. It happens online. It happens anywhere where there is somebody who wants to attain a skill and there is a qualified teacher or program that can convey and educate a student in that skill so they can get a good job.

CTE programs are proven solutions for creating jobs, for retraining workers, older workers who need to find new skills so they can be successful and fill open jobs in the market, and ensure that students of all ages and walks of life are ready for a successful career.

When I was Governor, I worked on a number of educational issues, but one I was very proud of was starting Governor's Career and Technical Academies. We had 17 in Virginia--Governor's schools--that were college prep, academic, regional, magnet public high schools. It started in the 1970s. But when I was running for Governor, I realized, wow, we do not have a single school in the State that is a career and technical education program that we have deemed fit to hang the Governor's label: This is a Governor's career and technical academy. I said this has to be just as important as college prep. So when I was Governor, we started Governor's Career and Technical Academies. By the end of my one term--and that is all you get in Virginia--we had nine. The Republican Governor who followed me liked the idea. By the end of his term, we had 22. The Democratic Governor who has followed him is continuing to expand it, and we now have academies around the Commonwealth, developed at partnerships among schools, employers, business organizations, and postsecondary institutions looking for these skills.

Last week, during our break week, I traveled in Virginia, and I heard the same message from employers and educators: Education has to be job relevant. It has to start at earlier grades. Completion rates need to be maximized. We need to make sure all of our students have the skills they will need to be able to build successful careers throughout their lives.

One entrepreneur even said to me: I am so glad I ended up going to the Valley Career and Technical Education Program in the Shenandoah Valley and went into CTE because it has enabled me to be my own boss.

I said: What do you mean by that?

He said: If I had gone to college, I would have gotten a good job offer from a good company and would have taken it, and I probably would still be there. I would have been having a good career, but somebody else would have been by boss. But by going to a career and technical program and learning a skill, it also encouraged me to be entrepreneurial. So I did not join somebody else's company; I started my own company. CTE promotes entrepreneurial activity.

It is essential for the United States to invest in creating a world- class system of education across the spectrum to ensure the technically skilled and well-trained workforce we need. That is why we are introducing this bill--Senator Portman and I--the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act.

Here is what the legislation does.

It takes the existing Carl D. Perkins career and technical education program, which is the major source for Federal funding for programs that connect education to real-world careers, and it amends it by doing a couple of things.

First, it ensures that students have access to high-quality CTE programs in their schools so they can prepare to be college and career ready. Second, it defines what a rigorous program of study for CTE students is that links secondary and postsecondary education, to culminate in a degree or a credit or a credential or a license or an apprenticeship or a postsecondary certificate.

It emphasizes the opportunities for secondary students to earn college or postsecondary credits while they are in high school. I was able to graduate from college in 3 years because of credits I earned in high school. That was at a time when it was critically important financially for my family that I was able to get through college in 3 years.

This dual enrollment piece of our bill is a piece that Senator Portman worked very hard to make sure was included. The legislation allows the Perkins funding to be used by States that want to establish CTE academies as we did in Virginia and ensures that the academies are of a high quality.

Finally, the bill promotes the kinds of partnerships we need between businesses, industries, postsecondary and other community stakeholders. Partnerships are important to connect people to the workforce. The Southern Regional Education Board cites that students with highly integrated CTE programs, where the CTE programs and the academic programs are integrated together, that those schools have significantly higher achievement rates in reading, mathematics, and sciences than students at schools that do not have integrated programs.

In closing, and then I defer to my colleague from Ohio, I noticed something when I was mayor of Richmond and Governor that was a change in the kind of economic development world. As mayor, I was often trying to get a business to come to Richmond. I was competing against Savannah or against the county next door. What I found was in these competitions, the closing factor was always the incentive package: Mr. Mayor, how much money can you put on the table? What kind of tax incentives can you put on the table?

Oh, you either beat the other guy or you don't. But by the time I--5, 6, 7 years later I was Governor, the last issue now was not the incentive package anymore. The deciding issue for companies that were choosing whether to come to Virginia or South Carolina or Singapore was not the tax incentives, it was the workforce.

Tell me, Governor, that we will have the kind of people we need when we open the door tomorrow. Give me confidence that we will have the kind of people we need 20 years from now. Long after the ribbon has been cut and the photos have been taken, are we still going to have the kinds of people we need to do to the kind of work that has to be done?

In today's world, talent is the most precious asset--more than oil, more

than water, more than rare Earth minerals. It is talent and human capital that is precious. Recently we did something good in this body, Democrats and Republicans together. We passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. It was passed in the House yesterday.

This looks at the Nation's workforce programs and makes them stronger. Now we have to make the policy changes that go into our education programs and match what we did in the WIOA reauthorization to prepare our students for a 21st century workforce. I very much hope the Senate moves forward on the Carl D. Perkins Act this year. I look forward to promoting this bill as part of that reauthorization. I am honored to have Senator Portman, my cochair on the CTE caucus, as the cosponsor of this legislation.

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