Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote against the confirmation of Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

CMS oversees the administration of the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. These programs provide healthcare coverage to grandparents, people with disabilities, foster kids, seniors living in nursing homes, single mothers, and babies. CMS is also in charge of implementing many parts of the Affordable Care Act and making sure that the protections guaranteed in the law are enforced.

In other words, CMS is the part of government that we entrust with carrying out the commitments we have made to protect our health and our access to healthcare. We need someone to run these programs who is a champion for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act and someone who can stand up to Republicans in Congress and stand up to the Trump administration when they try to burn these promises and turn their backs on the people who need help.

On Monday night, the Republicans finally revealed their latest plan to rip health insurance away from millions of Americans. After years of railing about how the ACA was too long and too complicated, the Republicans spent weeks working on a secret plan--locked in a room, hidden somewhere in the United States Capitol. They didn't want anyone to see it. Here is a news flash: If you have to hide your plans from the American public, that is a pretty good sign that you are headed in the wrong direction.

Now we know why they were so afraid to let anyone else take a look at the plan. The plan is ugly--really, really, ugly. The Republicans' plan would rip health insurance away from millions of Americans.

Right off the top, the bill will end the Medicaid expansion established in the ACA. Right now, 11 million adults are covered by that expansion, and the Republican plan will end it. That is right--end it. Millions more Americans are using ACA subsidies to buy their health insurance. For the families who need it most, those subsidies will be cut. For seniors, prices will rise, and that means millions more people will not be able to afford health insurance.

The Republican bill promises tax credits to help people pay for their insurance, but this is an empty promise because the tax credits are designed to be too small to actually cover the costs of paying for healthcare. If you have a 2-month break in your health insurance coverage, no matter the reason, the Republican bill would let insurance companies charge you a 30-percent penalty on top of your premium for an entire year. That is right. If you lose your job and scramble to find a new plan, you have exactly 62 days to lock down that plan because 1 day longer than that, and you are slapped with a 30-percent penalty.

By the way, it is not a penalty paid to the government to help finance healthcare. No. It is a penalty paid to a $1 billion insurance company. Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.

Too bad if being able to buy affordable coverage on the ACA exchange has given you access to health insurance while you start your small business. Too bad if your healthcare has given you free cancer screening. Too bad if your healthcare has given you access to treatment for substance abuse disorder. All that is gone under the Republican plan.

So there it is--the Republicans' plan to take away health insurance for millions and millions of Americans. The Republican plan is cruel, and it gets worse.

The Republican healthcare plan gets worse because it also delivers a gut punch to the rest of the Medicaid Program--the part that predates the ACA by decades. It does so by putting a cap on overall funding that States can receive and then strictly limiting the growth in that cap. This growth rate is deliberately set lower than the actual growth rate in medical costs for Medicaid beneficiaries. Why? So Republicans can cut the Federal Government's commitment to Medicaid without using the word ``cut.''

I don't know if they think we are just too dumb to notice, but they are cutting Medicaid. Of course, people will still get sick and will still need medical care, so what the Republicans are doing is shifting hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid costs to State governments, which will struggle to pick up the tab, or shifting those costs to hospitals and doctors, who will not get paid, or shifting it to the families themselves, who will try to manage those bills.

Understand what that means. Right now, if you qualify for Medicaid coverage, you get Medicaid coverage. That has been the law for decades, but the Republicans want to change that. With the cap, if you qualify for Medicaid coverage, you will get something. Nobody is really sure what. All we know is that it will not cover your expected costs of care. Think about the impact of that.

The reckless Republican plan will blow huge holes in State budgets. The Republican plan will blow huge holes in rural hospitals' budgets and in the budgets of opioid treatment centers and community health centers all across this country.

Massachusetts is using some of its Medicaid funding right now to fight the opioid crisis, but the Republican plan makes it harder to wage that fight in Massachusetts and in every other State that is battling this terrible epidemic.

The Republican plan will leave millions of people who have decent Medicaid coverage holding the bag when they get sick. That is not healthcare; that is a con job.

But it gets even worse. The bill cuts funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides maternity care and birth control. It gives insurance companies the green light to jack up costs for people over 50, blowing up the limits that were established in the ACA to make sure seniors could afford healthcare.

But there is one more very, very ugly reason the Republicans should be ashamed, and that is because while they are gutting Medicaid, slashing health coverage for sick Americans, and slapping penalties on people who lose insurance through no fault of their own, Republicans are also handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts to rich people and giving a special gift to insurance company CEOs.

The Republican plan repeals two Medicare taxes that apply only to high-income taxpayers. Who benefits most from this repeal? Millionaires. They get a full 80-percent of the tax cut. It is a benefit that is worth an average of $50,000 each. That is right. The tax cut that millionaires will get from the Republican plan to rip up healthcare is more than many families make in a year.

The Republican plan also hurts Medicare by taking money away from the Medicare trust fund, where it really belongs.

Right now, the law says insurance companies can deduct only $500,000 in executive compensation, but the Republicans think that is too hard on insurance companies and their CEOs. So sad. So they have lifted the cap to a full $1 million. The Republicans are determined to help boost the pay of insurance company CEOs. No wonder the Republicans didn't want to let anyone see this plan.

This is literally a backroom deal to strip away lifesaving healthcare from babies, to drive the costs out of sight for seniors, to deny help for people with disabilities, and to make insurance more expensive for hard-working entrepreneurs. In exchange, insurance company CEOs and millionaires get giant tax deductions. Unbelievable. Less health insurance for people who need it; more tax cuts for wealthy insurance company CEOs. This is the deal it took Republicans years to come up with? They should be ashamed.

I have received letters and emails and calls from families in Massachusetts who depend on Medicaid and the ACA. These families are shouting as loudly as they can about how important Medicaid and the ACA are to them. We need someone running the CMS who is listening and someone who has their backs, who will tell Republican politicians that their secret deals are terrible, who will tell them that their plans to take away coverage will hurt people, who will tell them that their recklessness will blow up State budgets.

Seema Verma has a deep knowledge of the Medicaid Program, having worked at the State level to design and implement Medicaid waivers. Ms. Verma says she wants to help States like Massachusetts invest in innovative ways to improve care for Medicaid beneficiaries while lowering costs--improve care and lower costs. That sounds great, but she has also advocated for changes to Medicaid that violate the fundamental principles of the program. She has designed Medicaid plans that impose work requirements as a condition of receiving Medicaid coverage even when they make no sense. She has sought to increase the out-of-pocket costs that Medicaid beneficiaries must pay and has put in place rules that lock people out of the program just at the moment they most need coverage.

We need a CMS Administrator who will stand up to the backroom bullies who are plotting to gut Medicaid, not one who wants to sneak cuts into the very programs that need to be defended. For that reason, I oppose Ms. Verma's nomination.

One of my constituents who receives Medicaid coverage in Massachusetts, Lee from Holliston, wrote me to say: ``I just need to know it is going to be okay.''

Lee, I wish I could tell you that it is going to be OK, but I cannot tell you that. What I can tell you is that you are not alone. Americans depend on the ACA and Medicaid to provide healthcare coverage. They depend on it when they get sick, and they depend on it to stay alive. Now that the Republican politicians have finally emerged from their secret basement room and unveiled their ugly plans, I promise you I am in this fight all the way. We need millions of people like you all across this Nation to make their voices heard so that Republican politicians do not destroy your healthcare.

In January, Senator Stabenow and I held a forum for the then-nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price. At this forum, we heard from individuals who were concerned about the impact that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid would have on their lives. I would like to share some of my interactions with a few of these individuals back in January by reading from the transcript Senator Stabenow introduced into the record at Congressman Price's hearing before the Finance Committee.

I started by thanking everyone for being there and said this about where we were:

Yesterday at the hearing for Congressman Price to be

Secretary of HHS, I asked him about the cuts that he has

proposed to Medicare and Medicaid. He's already proposed $449

billion in cuts to Medicare and over $1 trillion in cuts to

the Medicaid program. And so I asked him if he would commit

to follow through on Donald Trump's promise, ``I won't cut

Medicare or Medicaid.''

There was a lot of dancing back and forth, but the bottom line is that no, he would not make that commitment, which I suppose should not have been a surprise.

What I want to do as briefly as I can is to focus just a little bit on down the line and put a face on that, what it means to put those kinds of cuts into the system.

I started with Ms. Fleming, and here is what I asked her.

I said: ``You used to work at United Airlines. . . . How many years did you pay into the Medicare system?''

Ms. Fleming said: ``Thirty-nine years.''

I asked: ``How long have you worked there?''

Ms. Fleming said: ``Thirty-nine years.''

I said: ``Thirty-nine years that you paid into the Medicare system. Where else is it we need to spend $449 billion so that you can spend more out-of-pocket? So that money can go somewhere else--like tax cuts for rich people?''

I asked Ms. Jensen:

Just because I want to be clear about this, one of the

things that Medicaid does is make sure you get access to

mental health services. If you lose that access, what happens

in your life?

So I had asked Ms. Fleming about the Medicare cuts. Here is what Ms. Jensen told me about the Medicaid cuts:

That would entirely change my life. I wouldn't be able to

afford the services I need. My medications alone, right now,

run about as much as my rent. And I know that weekly

counseling or therapy sessions would really be out of reach.

It would threaten not only the growth of my business but the

existence of my business.

She runs her own small business.

She said:

Basically: no Medicaid, no business. That would kind of be

the end of one of my dreams. And untreated disorders--my

untreated disorder--I know I would retreat from society. I

would retreat from my loved ones. I would not be a productive

citizen. I would probably get into trouble and cost the

taxpayers some money. Mental and behavioral health is no

joke. There are fatal consequences, and it's a matter of life

and death for a lot of people, including me.

Then I turned to the third of our witnesses, Ms. Serafin. She has dealt with both systems--both Medicare and Medicaid--and I asked her to focus just for a minute on the Medicaid part of that. She was taking care of her elderly mother.

I said:

Your mother--after your father passed--your mother

declined, needed full time care. And she was supported by

Medicaid during that period of time. She was able to be in a

facility that could take care of her.

If Medicaid had not been available to you, if there had

been a trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid, what would have

happened to you and your husband?

Here is what Ms. Serafin said:

Well, physically, I could not take care of anyone else.

She had her own disabling medical problems. She said:

I can hardly take care of myself. So, we would have had to

hire someone, or we would have had to move because our home

was not accommodating for another person with a disability.

Secondly, the care my mother received in the nursing home

was so personally gratifying. I could sleep at night. My

mother was a really strong woman. She could have been a CEO.

She was born in the wrong era. But as a daughter--as mothers

and daughters often do--we didn't always see eye to eye on

everything!

The people in the nursing home loved her--they loved her

feisty manner, they loved the things she would say. And I

would think, ``Oh, God, I would never say that!'' But they

thought she was wonderful.

I made the point that my mother was a little like that too.

Ms. Serafin said:

I would sleep at night. I could feel good. Because I cannot

do things as it is for myself, and there were loving people

who would go to her and say, ``I love you, Anita,'' and it

just made my heart feel that wonderful feeling.

So that is the face of Medicaid.

We had one more witness, and this witness was Ms. Ornella, who had her son Sam with her.

I said:

Sam is the happy face of Medicaid. Sam is a little boy who

was born with multiple difficulties and who flourishes and

who receives support from Medicaid.

So I asked:

If there's a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, and Sam

is not able to get the help he needs through Medicaid, what

happens to Sam?

Ms. Ornella said:

We barely qualified for Medicaid as it was, so if there

were any cuts to it, we would have been in that group of

people who I believe wouldn't have qualified. Medicaid has

provided him to be able to go to his kidney doctors and keep

his status check on his kidneys, which is what we think his

long-term issues are going to be.

Medicaid has been there to cover tests for swallowing, for

swallowing functions, for all the different parts of his body

that are affected by his disorder. So my fear is, that if we

do get employer-based coverage, anything can happen in life--

what if my husband lost his job and then we didn't qualify

for Sam to get Medicaid anymore? How would we deal with that

double whammy of losing employer coverage and then not

qualifying for Medicaid for a medically complex child?

We heard from four people at this forum, and I am very grateful to all four of them for putting a face on what Medicare and Medicaid means. I suggested to Congressman Price that if he is confirmed to be the head of HHS, that he cut out the statement that Donald Trump had made, ``I will not cut Medicare or Medicaid,'' and that he tape it above his desk and look at it every single day. Because that is what the people at that hearing were all about.

They are the reason we must not cut Medicare and we must not cut Medicaid, and I thanked them all for being with us.

Alice, Sam, Diane, and Ann really put a face on the importance of Medicare and Medicaid at that forum.

I have heard from a number of hospitals, community health centers, and behavioral health organizations in Massachusetts about the importance of Medicaid to them for being able to provide essential services to the people who need it most, and I want to share some of the comments they have given to me.

John Nash, the CEO of Franciscan Children's Hospital, highlighted the importance of Medicaid in providing healthcare coverage for our children. Here is what he wrote to me:

Dear Senator Warren, at Franciscan Children's, our mission

is to provide a compassionate and positive environment where

children with complex medical, mental health, and educational

needs receive specialized care for people who are committed

to excellence, innovation, and family support, so that these

children can reach their fullest potential and live their

best lives. Located in the Boston metropolitan area, we are

one of four institutions in the country offering this unique

array of services to children with complex needs.

In Massachusetts, we are the only pediatric, post-acute

care provider that offers hospital-level care for children

with complex medical conditions. We are also one of the

largest pediatric mental health providers in Massachusetts,

offering a complete continuum of inpatient, residential, and

outpatient programming to ensure that children have access to

the services they desperately need.

Franciscan Children's is proud to be an independent,

unaffiliated provider that coordinates across the healthcare

system to deliver high-quality, low-cost, specialty services

to children who come to us from every major health system and

intensive care unit from across the State. Collectively

across our programs, we serve more than 12,000 children a

year.

Families who have had a child or children with special

needs often face tremendous financial burdens. Many

view hospitals like ours as a second home. Almost 60

percent of the families that we serve in our inpatient

medical program are on Medicaid.

In federal discussions about the Affordable Care Act, it is

crucial to realize that Medicaid is the most important health

coverage program for children. As many as 30 million children

nationally and 355,000 children in Massachusetts (29.6% of

the state population of children) are covered. Children

covered by Medicaid--compared with those who are uninsured--

generally go on to enjoy better health, lower rates of

mortality, and higher educational and economic outcomes as

they become adults.

Massachusetts is seeing the returns on investments made in

Medicaid. Our rate of uninsured children is at the lowest on

record. Cuts to Medicaid will have a negative impact on

children and may increase healthcare costs. Furthermore, any

cuts to the Medicaid program will threaten our institution's

long-term ability to serve children and their families who

may not receive care otherwise. As the population of children

with complex needs continues to grow at the rate of 5 percent

annually, these funds will be vital to our future and to

theirs.

We support the belief that access to affordable care is

essential for all individuals. Our families, whose resilience

and strength continues to inspire us every day, depend on

this principle being upheld. Our children deserve every

opportunity to reach their fullest potential and live their

best life.

This letter is just a reminder of who gets Medicaid and how Medicaid changes the lives of the children who need it most and of their families. We cannot cut this program without taking away the futures of these children. This is an economic issue, but it is also a moral issue.

I heard from the Behavioral and Health Network, a nonprofit community behavioral health agency in Western Massachusetts, and they shared with me an individual story they wanted to tell me about Tasha.

Tasha went from homelessness to addiction and then to recovery-- highlighting the importance of Medicaid funds in supporting individuals who are dealing with substance abuse disorder. The behavioral health network shared a story, and this is how they tell it:

Tasha M. recalls how her addiction started. She never

envisioned how and where it would end. As a teenager, she

remembers being homeless, her mom surrendering her to foster

care twice and living a dysfunctional life, leading to the

development of an eating disorder and hospitalization.

It was during that hospital stay where she was also

receiving treatment for an injured back, that she was

prescribed a bottle of painkillers. That started Tasha on the

road to addiction, and ultimately to BHN's, ``My Sister's

House''--and her eventual recovery.

Once addicted to pain pills she remembers ``hospital

hopping'' to feed the addiction. ``I felt so alone,'' she

said. Moving in with an aunt brought the prospect of turning

the page and leaving her addiction behind. Instead, Tasha

started to work as a bartender, ultimately succumbing to

alcohol and hitting bottom. Tasha says, ``I lost

everything.''

Moving back to Massachusetts, she ``tried to start anew.''

But instead she found herself back in the clubs and around

alcohol and, eventually, in a detox program through BHN's

Carlson Center. After that one-week stay, she entered Hope

Center, a BHN 30-day recovery addiction treatment program in

Springfield. Once released, the grip of addiction surfaced

again. ``I remember getting ready to go clubbing with my

boyfriend. We were in line to go into a club and I realized I

didn't have my ID. I went home and I found my ID lying on top

of my AA book. I thought, `wow, that's a sign'--and I need to

get back in the program.''

BHN assisted with entry into My Sister's House, a BHN

community-based program for women in recovery, where its

residents have daily therapy and support, peer meetings and

are connected to community resources.

It is also where Tasha met an intern who inspired her. ``I

remember I was one of her first clients. She said I couldn't

go back to my old ways . . . she really believed in me.''

Tasha's recovery has come full circle. After successful re-

entry into the community, she acquired a job as an

administrative assistant at a daycare center, and eventually

became a social worker helping mothers of children navigate

the complexities of parenting.

Tasha's story doesn't end there. Tasha was offered a

position at My Sister's House, where she assists other young

women who find themselves on the sometimes bumpy road to

recovery. ``For me, it's about giving back . . . I'm grateful

to them.''

About the new opportunity to help others at My Sister's

House, Tasha said: ``I always said to myself I was going to

come back to this House . . . this is my second home.''

Tasha's journey was supported by an organization whose

funding is 56 percent State and Federal contracts and 42

percent fees from Medicaid, Medicare and a small percentage

of private insurances. Clearly, the impact of affordable

insurance and funds from CMS and the State creates needed

access and opportunities for changing lives [like

Tasha's]. Individuals can embrace help, move beyond

despair and hardship, and establish meaningful life

experiences, employment and self-sufficiency. Without

affordable insurance, Medicaid and Federal and State

funds, that could not happen.

Thank you, Tasha, for telling your story. Thank you to the Behavioral Network for sharing your story. Thank you for all of the amazing work that you do every single day.

The Boston Medical Center, the State's largest safety net hospital, also shared their perspective on how changes and cuts to Medicaid would seriously impact the progress they have made in working to provide high-quality, cost-effective care to their patients. Here is what Boston Medical Center said:

At Boston Medical Center (BMC), our mission is to provide

Exceptional Care without Exception to all of our patients. As

the largest health safety net system in Massachusetts and in

New England, BMC and the patients we serve would be severely

impacted by major changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Massachusetts health care reform in 2008, and subsequently

the Affordable Care Act, supported our efforts to provide

high-quality, cost effective care to the many, formerly

uninsured, patients who became insured through Medicaid and

subsidized products. BMC has worked diligently with the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Center for Medicare and

Medicaid Services (CMS) to transition the payment and

delivery of Medicaid services in a more cost effective

manner. With a strong understanding of the need to ensure

that the future of Medicaid is sustainable, our collective

efforts have begun to produce encouraging results.

Medicaid--and access to affordable, subsidized health care

insurance--is an important federal/state partnership that

allows the most vulnerable in our population to receive the

health care they need. At BMC, we see firsthand how it

affects the lives of our patients. In addition to providing

funding for important primary care services, it is a lifeline

for those with chronic diseases and mental health and

substance abuse needs.

BMC has used Medicaid funding to develop and implement a

number of very promising programs aimed at improving the

quality of care for our low-income population and doing it in

a manner that is the most cost effective. We aim to keep our

patients out of the hospital while giving them the care

necessary to lead fulfilling lives.

Some of these efforts include innovative programs for

pregnant women and babies both before and after delivery.

Post-partum depression is an all-too-common issue for new

mothers. BMC has designed a program that embeds necessary

behavioral health services into the OB/GYN visit setting,

thereby allowing them to receive the necessary mental health

care along with their medical visit.

At the same time, we have several successful programs

focusing on newborn infants--ranging from babies born

prematurely to those born addicted to drugs. As New England's

largest trauma center, we routinely treat large numbers of

patients who have been victims of violence. In an effort to

help break the trend of violence in the inner city, BMC

offers many programs that help those victims break that cycle

through counseling, education and support.

Boston, like many cities across the country, has seen an

unacceptable level of opioid related deaths. Probably our

most critical efforts today include programs that

successfully treat opioid and other drug addictions while

guiding patients toward prevention of future drug abuse and a

life where they can hold a job and maintain their

relationships with their families.

Working with the Commonwealth, BMC has also used Medicaid

funding to redesign how health care is provided in a manner

that ensures the highest quality patient care in the most

affordable, patient-centric manner. The groundwork has been

laid over the last several years with Medicaid waiver

funding. As we prepare for implementation of the Medicaid

waiver extension, we have just begun to roll-out our Medicaid

Accountable Care Organization, (ACO). The ACO structure

requires that we will be accountable for the full cost of

each Medicaid patient's health care, while it will allow the

flexibility to provide the right care that might not have

previously been covered (e.g. purchase of humidifier for an

asthmatic child that will help prevent hospitalizations).

Patients will benefit through further integration of care

across the delivery system continuum,

while reimbursement for the cost of treating those patients

will be contained in a defined agreement.

These important Massachusetts efforts of transforming the

delivery and payment system for Medicaid will be dealt a

serious blow if the underlying Medicaid funding is changed.

Additionally, if Medicaid and subsidized healthcare

eligibility changes result in our patients losing access to

affordable health care, not only will the patient's quality

of life suffer, but the lack of funding will not allow [us]

to continue to provide those patients with many of these

critical services.

BMC is committed to maintaining the provision of

exceptional care without exception and it will require the

financial partnership with the federal and state government

to ensure that our low-income patients have access to that

care.

Boston Medical Center absolutely provides ``Exceptional Care without Exception,'' and Medicaid helps them carry out that critical work.

The Boston Center for Independent Living shared with me a story from a constituent named Ty who receives healthcare from One Care, a program in Massachusetts that integrates care for beneficiaries who are dually eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. So I will tell a little bit about Ty's story.

Ty Muto, a 39-year-old transgender man, was recovering from

colon surgery in 2014 when he stopped outside of his work and

was assaulted by three men yelling homophobic slurs. He

survived the attack with a traumatic brain injury and spinal

cord injury and is only alive thanks to several necessary,

timely medical interventions. A former mediator and American

Friends Service Committee volunteer, Ty is enrolled in One

Care with the Commonwealth Care Alliance. They provide

medical care, visiting nurse support, physical therapy, and

medical rides. His Care Manager helped him apply for Social

Security and find housing, which really improved his life! On

several occasions his visiting nurse has identified urgent

medical conditions and he has been able to take a medical

ride to the hospital where he receives care--avoiding lengthy

and expensive emergency room visits at local hospitals that

aren't equipped to care for his specific condition. Ty says

the only reason he's alive today is because of all of the

services and care he gets through One Care.

That is the work being done at the Boston Center for Independent Living, and it can only be done because they receive the support of Medicare and Medicaid.

The Boston Center for Independent Living also shared with me a story from another constituent named Olivia.

Olivia Richards is a 33-year-old woman on One Care and, as

she emphasizes, a lifelong Bruins fan! Her plan with CCA

allows her to be an active member of the community and her

care coordinator assists her in managing her seizure

disorder, paraplegia, PTSD, and ADHD. Olivia grew up in the

foster care system and, after college, rather than move in

with an abusive family member, she tried to make it on her

own and she ended up homeless. Left without insurance--and

trying to keep up with her di-lanthin, ADHD and asthma

medications from seven- to fourteen-day sample packs from a

free clinic--she went on and off medication and eventually

ended up in a psychiatric hospital for a month.

If she had been making that transition in the post-

Romneycare age, she would have maintained her health

insurance and been able to stay on MassHealth. Olivia raves

about her coordinated care manager (CCA) and how she's helped

stabilize Olivia's health--recognizing issues before they

become emergencies. Prior to One Care, Olivia went to the

emergency room every few months with a severe UTI that landed

her in the hospital. Her care coordinator recommended she see

an infectious disease doctor, who prescribed a preventive

antibiotic--something none of the many doctors she'd seen had

put together. Olivia hasn't been to the hospital for a UTI

since.

This time around, when Olivia needed emergency care, her

care coordinator sent community medics to her apartment--

providing her with better care and avoiding an expensive

emergency room visit and other complications. Before One

Care, Olivia was using a third-hand wheelchair with a bent

frame and a wheel that she had to weld back together every

few months. Medicare and Medicaid kept dodging responsibility

for wheelchair repairs. Olivia's care coordinator helped her

get a new chair.

That is a real quality-of-life improvement for Olivia.

I want to say a special thank you to both Ty and to Olivia for sharing their stories, for letting us make them public, and a very big thanks to the Boston Center for Independent Living for all that you are doing every single day to help the people of Massachusetts. We are all deeply grateful for your work, and we want to continue to support it here in Congress.

Many of my constituents have written to me, fearful of what changes to Medicare or Medicaid might actually mean to them. Jeffrey, who is from Gardner, wrote to me to share his constant worries about health insurance coverage. This is what he wrote:

Dear Senator Warren,

I hope this message finds you well, and I want to thank you

for your continued fight for the rights of everyone in

Massachusetts & the nation.

Unfortunately, this election has left me with some constant

worry, as I'm sure it has many. I'm a graduate student and

have a year and a half left until I complete my masters

degree in counseling psychology.

Obviously because of this, I work part-time, and am not

offered health insurance through my employer. I have been on

MassHealth (Tufts Network Health, to be exact) since 2013

when I decided to make a career change.

I have some issues that require prescriptions and doctors

visits monthly. I'm not sure if they can be deemed as

preexisting conditions, but these are prescriptions I can

certainly not go without, nor could I go without insurance

for a year and a half.

Obviously I don't enjoy being on MassHealth, but for right

now it's what is necessary. My question may be a difficult

one to answer, due to the fact that no one truly knows what

will happen after inauguration day. I do know Massachusetts

is better protected than other states to keep its citizens

insured, and I know that you and Governor Baker have vowed to

fight for this right, as well as for many others--which I

could not be more thankful for!

If the new establishment has their way and repeals federal

funding to Medicaid, will people in Massachusetts such as

myself be thrown off their insurance? I know we rely heavily

on a waiver that was signed recently, and it's a ``wait and

see matter,'' but I suppose my question is, will I be

protected since I have documented needs for insurance already

in place? Or are my conditions going to be deemed ``not

severe enough?''

All I can say, Jeffrey, is we don't know yet, but I can promise you that I am fighting to make sure you remain protected.

Elise from Scituate wrote to me about the importance of Medicare and Medicaid funds in supporting nursing homes, adult day health programs, and other needs of older adults. Here is what Elise had to say:

Dear Senator Warren,

I am writing to you because I am very concerned about the

direction of the incoming administration, President-Elect

Trump, and his cabinet choices. It was certainly a difficult

election period. The policies and direction of these

individuals is particularly troubling for those who are

older, or who may have mental illness, disabilities, or

developmental challenges.

As many are not aware, the federal rules, regulations, and

budget do affect the management of services in the states. As

a consultant in Massachusetts in both nursing homes and

adult day health programs, I see the strong need for

cooperative and supportive federal and state funding as

well as regulatory processes for ongoing care. Very few of

the individuals in these settings are paying privately.

Medicare and Medicaid--as well as the VA--are the major

funders for these programs.

In Massachusetts, we have 45,000 nursing home beds, or

approximately 400 skilled nursing facilities. Home care

incorporates adult day health, and we have roughly 14,600

participants in Massachusetts alone. Our population is aging,

and access to good services are critical to good care and

quality of life.

In addition, there are many programs that continue to need

commitment and funding to manage necessary services to

individuals. These include: housing (Section 8), elder and

those with disabilities home care, services to the blind, and

community mental health care--to name a few.

Changes in these benefits would jeopardize the delicate

balance of home and community care, rehabilitation, and

perhaps ultimately end up costing more for care. For example,

if we don't have resources to assist people to return to the

community, institutional care may be the only answer--and a

costly one.

The notion of having poor individuals pay for their

Medicaid benefits, and/or privatizing this to an insurance

base is ill-founded and often becomes costly to manage, as

well as lowers benefits. Aside from providing services to our

citizens, the reduction in these programs will drag the

overall economy down.

The healthcare industry (private enterprise) is dependent

upon a multitude of programs to generate profit. For example,

if Mr. X needs a wheel chair and Medicare does not pay for

one, Mr. X will not pay for a new wheel chair. He will either

borrow one, or purchase one used, or perhaps ``do without.''

This scenario, regardless of the product, will duplicate

itself throughout health care and service provision.

Companies that have dependency upon Medicare funds may have

to close or cut back. Service providers, such as Visiting

Nurses, will be facing similar results.

I have been in the older adult/health care/medical field

since 1969. I have seen changes over time to services from

government provisions to privatization. Privatization is the

one of the poor outcomes when government monies are used to

pay for services rendered. I remain a very strong advocate

for individuals and their families as they try to meet

the challenges of obtaining just and fair services.

Thank you, Elise. I appreciate your writing. Medicare and Medicaid provide critical funds to support nursing homes and senior citizens in Massachusetts. I agree that we must fight to protect these programs.

I have many constituents writing in. My constituents are shouting as loudly as they can about the need to protect Medicare and Medicaid. We need a CMS Administrator who will stand up for Tasha and for other individuals who are struggling with addiction, who will stand up for those who are relying on Medicare to help with Parkinson's, who will stand up for our hospitals and healthcare providers to ensure that they have the resources they need to adequately serve their patients. I am listening. I am fighting.

Republicans are trying to cut backroom deals to end these protections. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to prevent them from destroying your healthcare. That is why I am here.

Mr. President, I wish to address the resolution the Senate is now considering.

In 2015, 85 U.S. Senators voted for the law fixing No Child Left Behind, which reversed the trend to a national school board and restored decisions to classroom teachers, local school boards, and States. The Wall Street Journal said it was the ``largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter of a century.''

The Department of Education regulation this resolution seeks to overturn does exactly the reverse. It begins to restore the national school board, and it takes away responsibilities from classroom teachers, local school boards, and States. It does this in direct violation of the law that 85 Senators voted for just 15 months ago. So the question before us, today, is not only whether we believe in a national school board or local school boards. More important, perhaps, the question is: who writes the law? Does the U.S. Congress write the law, or does the U.S. Department of Education write the law? Article I of the U.S. Constitution says that the Congress, elected by the people, writes the law.

The purpose of this resolution is to overturn a regulation of the Department of Education that in 7 cases directly violates the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed just 15 months ago, and in 16 other cases exceeds the authority allowed by that law.

This regulation would say to States: Ignore the law 85 Senators passed 15 months ago. Ignore the law that President Obama called a Christmas miracle. Ignore the law that Governors, teachers, school boards, and superintendents all supported, and even ignore why they supported it. Instead, listen to the unelected bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Education.

This regulation issued by the Department of Education specifically does things or requires States to do things that Congress said, in our law fixing No Child Left Behind, that the Department of Education cannot do. Therefore, it violates the law.

In this law, Congress said to the Department: You cannot tell States exactly what to do about fixing low-performing schools; that is a State decision. But this regulation does that anyway.

Congress said to the Department: You cannot tell States exactly how to rate the public schools in your State. But this regulation does that anyway.

This is not a minor matter.

The remarkable consensus that developed in the 2015 bill in support of fixing No Child Left Behind was to reverse the trend toward a national school board and restore to States, classroom teachers, and school boards decisions about what to do about their children in 100,000 public schools. Teachers, Governors, and school board members were fed up with Washington telling them so much about what to do about the children in their schools. So this regulation, which contravenes the law specifically, goes to the heart of the bill fixing No Child Left Behind.

It is very unusual in Federal law to specifically prohibit a department from regulating on an issue, but that is exactly what Congress did in 2015. Here are seven specific examples of how the regulation which we seek to overturn violates prohibitions that Congress explicitly wrote into the law:

No. 1, the regulation prescribes the long-term goals and measurements of progress that States establish for student subgroups.

The law says, for example, that the Secretary may not tell a State that goals set for students of one race must improve their progress 20 percent better than the progress of a group of students of another race. Yet the regulation says that States must establish goals and measurements for lower performing subgroups who ``require greater rates of improvement,'' which would necessarily mean that students of one race would have to do better than students of another race.

No. 2, the regulation requires federally prescribed actions to be taken in schools that do not annually test at least 95 percent of students.

The law says that States must annually test not less than 95 percent of all students and each subgroup of students, but States determine how to hold schools accountable for ensuring that 95 percent of students participate on annual tests. The law says that the Secretary of Education may not prescribe ``the way in which the State factors'' the 95 percent testing requirement into their accountability system. Yet the regulation we seek to overturn prescribes four different specific ways that States must take action in schools that miss the 95 percent requirement.

No. 3, the regulation prescribes that schools with consistently underperforming subgroups of students be identified with a lower summative determination.

The law says that States are required to identify schools for targeted support when a subgroup of students is ``consistently underperforming'' in a manner ``as determined by the state.'' So under the law, the Secretary can't tell States how to identify the lowest performing schools or what a school's rating should be. Yet the regulation we are seeking to overturn says that States are required to ``demonstrate that a school with a consistently underperforming subgroup . . . receive a lower summative determination. . . . than it would have otherwise received.'' The Department of Education is meddling into the methodology of school ratings again, despite the fact that Congress said it could not.

No. 4, the regulation prescribes the timeline for identifying schools with consistently underperforming subgroups.

The law says that States are required to identify schools for targeted support when a subgroup of students is ``consistently underperforming'' in a manner ``as determined by the state.''

We had lengthy discussions about this. These issues in education are filled with conflict and filled with different opinions. I said many times during the debate that working on an education bill in the Senate is kind of like being in a football stadium on game day at Penn State or the University of Tennessee: Everybody in the stands has played football, and they know what play to call, and they usually do. So everybody had a point. We had to work these things out and we wrote down carefully the agreement we had. We wrote down that the Secretary of Education may not impose new requirements or criteria on State accountability systems, such as a timeline for the identification of lowest performing schools. Yet the regulation prescribes an exact timeline of 2 years.

No. 5, the regulation requires States to resubmit their plans to the Secretary every 4 years.

The law says that each State plan ``shall . . . be periodically reviewed and revised as necessary by the State educational agency.'' Yet the regulation says States must review and revise their State plans ``at least once every four years'' and ``submit its revisions to the Secretary for review and approval.''

No. 6, the regulation dictates exactly how school districts with significant numbers of low-performing schools must measure resources for students.

The law says States must ``periodically review resource allocation to support school improvement'' in districts that are serving a significant number of low-performing schools. The law says the Secretary cannot tell States what to review. Yet the regulation says that in addressing resource inequities, States must review differences in the following: rates of ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers; access to advanced coursework; access to full-day kindergarten and preschool programs; access to specialized instructional support personnel; and per-pupil expenditures of Federal, State, and local funds.

But the law said the Secretary could not tell States what to review.

No. 7, the regulation tells States how to count students in subgroups.

The law says each State decides the minimum number of students who should be included in the State's count of subgroups. So, a State might decide that for students to be included in the State's subgroup data, there needs to be at least 35 students, for example, of a subgroup in a school. The law says the Secretary may not impose new requirements or criteria on State accountability systems. Yet the regulation we are seeking to overturn says States must pick a number below 30 or States will have to explain themselves to the Secretary. That is in violation of a specific prohibition passed by this body with 85 votes and signed by the President of the United States.

Those are seven ways the regulation specifically violates prohibitions in the law that were intended to keep the Secretary from doing what the Secretary then turned around and did.

Here are 16 more ways the regulation exceeds the authority of the U.S. Department of Education. To some, this may seem minor. To some, it may seem dull. It is not dull to me. I don't think it is dull to most Senators. Article I of the Constitution isn't dull. We are elected to write the laws, and anytime we turn over to somebody else--whether it is the court, whether it is the executive branch--that constitutional prerogative, we violate our oath, in my opinion.

No. 1, the regulation limits how States measure school quality or student success. The law says States must include at least one measure of school quality or student success that has to be ``valid, reliable, comparable, and statewide.''

The Secretary cannot tell States what measures to use in their State accountability system. Yet the regulation tells States they can only choose indicators that meet the criteria the Department came up with.

No. 2, the regulation limits how States measure school quality or student success for indicators used specifically in high school.

The law says States must include at least one measure of school quality or student success, specific to high schools, and it has to be ``valid, reliable, comparable, and statewide.'' The Secretary cannot tell States what measures to use in their State accountability system. Yet the regulation tells States they can only choose indicators that meet criteria the Department came up with.

No. 3, the regulation tells schools marked as low-performing that they will always be low-performing unless they improve on indicators the U.S. Department of Education has identified.

The law says something different. The law says that tests and graduation rates have to count more in the State accountability systems than indicators of school quality or student success. The Secretary of Education may not prescribe ``the weight of any measure or indicator used to identify or meaningfully differentiate schools.''

The regulation says that a low-performing school must continue to be identified as low-performing unless it improves on tests and graduation rates, even if the school is making significant progress on other measures of school quality or student success, such as, for example, absenteeism or family engagement, something chosen by the State.

No. 4, the regulation requires school districts where schools aren't testing 95 percent of students to develop and implement a Federal improvement plan.

The law says States must annually test not less than 95 percent of all students and each subgroup of students. The law leaves it to States to determine what to do in school districts with schools that are failing to meet the participation requirement. Yet the regulation tells States how to address school districts where schools aren't testing 95 percent of students. It invents out of whole cloth the idea of a Federal improvement plan, and then it mandates it.

No. 5, similarly, the regulation requires schools that aren't testing 95 percent of students to develop and implement a Federal improvement plan.

The law says that States must annually test not less than 95 percent of all students and each subgroup of students. The law leaves it to States to determine what to do in schools that are failing to meet the participation requirement. Yet the regulation tells States how to address schools that aren't testing 95 percent of students.

Again, it invents out of whole cloth the idea of a Federal improvement plan with four federally prescribed elements, and then it mandates it.

No. 6, the regulation tells States how to measure high school graduation rates.

The law says each State will establish long-term goals for ``all students and each subgroup of students in the State,'' including the goal of high school graduation rates using either the ``four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate'' or ``at the State's discretion, the extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.'' Yet the regulation says States can only use the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate to identify low-performing schools in their accountability systems.

You can see that throughout these examples there appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Department of Education not to interpret the law but to ignore the law or, specifically, to contravene the law, to thumb the nose of regulation writers at the Congress and the President who passed and signed the law.

No. 7, the regulation requires each State to come up with a definition for an ``ineffective teacher.'' The law says each State will describe how low-income and minority children enrolled in schools are not served at disproportionate rates by ineffective teachers. Yet the regulations says States have to define ``ineffective teachers.'' It is going to make it nearly impossible for States not to implement an entire teacher evaluation system.

No. 8, in the same way, the regulation requires each State to come up with a definition of an ``out-of-field teacher.''

That is what the regulation does, but the law just says States will describe how low-income and minority children enrolled in schools are not served at disproportionate rates by ``out-of-field teachers.'' The regulation says you have to define that.

No. 9, the regulation requires each State to come up with a definition for an ``inexperienced teacher.''

The law simply says a State will describe how low-income and minority children are not served at disproportionate rates by ``inexperienced teachers.'' Yet the regulation goes on to require a definition.

No. 10, the regulation tells States to report on the number and percentage of all students and subgroups of students who are not included in the State's accountability system.

The law says each State will report a clear and concise description of the State's accountability system, including the minimum number of students that the State determines are necessary to be included in each of the subgroups of students. Yet the regulation requires States to provide new information outside of the scope of what is required by the law.

No. 11, the regulation tells States how to rate schools and that the State accountability system has to produce a single rating for each school.

That was not envisioned by the law. The law says that States must create a system of evaluating all public schools in the State. It says, further, that the Secretary of Education may not prescribe the specific methodology used by States to evaluate schools. Yet the regulation tells States that the results must lead to a ``single summative determination'' for each school.

A State might choose to do that or a State might choose not to do that. That was the decision of the Congress, but the Department decided differently.

No. 12, the regulation adds a requirement that the State's accountability system has to include at least three levels of performance.

The law says that States have the flexibility to establish a system of meaningful differentiation of schools without any parameters or federally prescribed methodology. That couldn't be clearer--without any parameters or federally described methodology. Yet the regulation prescribes a requirement that States use at least three distinct levels of performance for schools.

No. 13, the regulation prescribes when schools may exit from identification as the lowest-performing.

The law says States must establish statewide criteria for schools to exit from being identified as in need of improvement. The law says that the Secretary of Education may not prescribe what the exit criteria are. That is a decision left up to States, but the regulation narrows the States' ability to develop their own criteria for schools to no longer be identified as the lowest performing.

No. 14, the regulation prescribes how States intervene in school districts with schools that are labeled as the lowest-performing. The law says that if a low-performing school does not meet a State's criteria for no longer being identified as lowest-performing, then the State must take a ``more rigorous State-determined action.'' The Secretary of Education cannot prescribe, under the law, any specific strategies to improve schools. Yet the regulation requires the State to tell school districts to take interventions the Department has prescribed.

No. 15, the regulation prescribes how school districts intervene in schools that are labeled as low-performing.

The law says if a low-performing school does not meet statewide criteria for no longer being identified as lowest-performing, the State must take a ``more rigorous State-determined action.'' The Secretary cannot prescribe any specific strategies to improve schools. Yet the regulation requires a school to take federally prescribed actions.

We have already tried Federal one-size-fits-all actions under the School Improvement Grant program in No Child Left Behind. We rejected that. We don't think Washington should be in the business of telling schools how to fix themselves.

Finally, No. 16, the regulation limits how States award school improvement funding to school districts and schools.

The law says States must establish the method they will use to award school improvement funding to school districts. The regulation dictates to States how much they have to award to low-performing schools receiving school improvement funds.

Here is what this resolution overturning the regulation would do. The resolution would ensure that the law fixing No Child Left Behind is implemented as Congress wrote it. The regulation violates the law and its clear prohibitions on the Secretary by prescribing new requirements through regulation or as a condition of a State plan approval.

In the law we passed, Congress reached an agreement about requiring States to identify a certain number and types of schools that need to be improved, but we left it to the States to determine how to go about fixing those schools and how long they had to fix the schools. The regulation prescribes how States and school districts intervene in and improve schools that do not improve.

Secondly, this resolution restores State flexibility. The regulation is in direct conflict with the intent of the law to allow States and school districts

to have greater flexibility to implement the law, as Congress intended.

Congress reached an agreement that there are some essential elements of a State accountability plan that need to be included in a State plan. The other half of the agreement was that we left to the States the decisions about how to include these factors into their accountability systems. This is about article I of the Constitution.

Congress wrote the law with specific rules in mind. The Secretary of Education and his or her bureaucracy do not get to treat Congress as a minor impediment to the education system of their choosing. If they want to write the laws of the land, they should run for Congress and get themselves elected, draft a bill or an amendment--not wait for Congress to finish our work and try to undo it through a simple regulation.

This resolution, overturning the regulation, would preserve local decision-making. As I mentioned, the Wall Street Journal editorialized, when we passed the law, that it was ``the largest devolution of Federal control to States in a quarter-century.''

The regulation tried to restore Washington, DC, decision-making with mandates that States comply with specific requirements instead of letting States determine how to best proceed.

This resolution scuttles new and burdensome reporting requirements. The regulation created new reporting requirements on States and school districts that will drive up compliance costs and divert resources away from students and classrooms.

Let me conclude by dealing with some of the arguments and misinformation that I have been hearing about the resolution. No. 1, I want to make clear that this resolution overturning the regulation strengthens accountability in our public schools the way Congress determined to do it in the law fixing No Child Left Behind.

We transferred most of that responsibility for accountability from Washington, DC, to States and local school boards. We did not want a national school board.

The law also includes Federal guardrails to ensure a quality, public education for all students, including, for example, requiring States to identify and provide support to low-performing schools--at least the lowest performing bottom 5 percent of each State's schools--and requiring academic and English language proficiency indicators to be included in each State's accountability system. The law's Federal guardrails will shape how States design their accountability systems because a State plan would not be following the law if the State fails to include accountability provisions in their plan.

The repeal of this regulation does not let States--the ones who are supposed to be addressing accountability--off the hook by any means. Repealing this regulation simply ensures that individual States and their Governors, legislators, chief State school officers, local school boards, superintendents, principals, parents, and classroom teachers are responsible for these decisions.

This resolution, overturning the regulation, will allow States to implement the new law on the existing timeline to submit their plans and have the Department review and approve State plans.

U.S. Education Secretary DeVos has said that she favors the current timeline, the one established by former Secretary King. She said this at her confirmation hearing before our committee. She confirmed that again after taking office.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Secretary DeVos's letter of February 10 to the Chief State School Officers outlining the timeline be printed in the Record.

So there is no confusion, let me clearly state what that timeline is. No. 1, States should continue to submit State accountability plans by the April or September 2017 deadlines. No. 2, States should continue to implement a State accountability system in the 2017-2018 school year. No. 3, States should continue to identify the lowest performing schools in need of comprehensive support and improvement by the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.

To write these plans, States need simply to consult the law. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires States to submit a plan for peer review and approval by Secretary DeVos and the Education Department. The Department is committed to working with States by providing technical assistance, issuing non-regulatory guidance and other support materials.

If questions arise, there are a variety of ways to answer the questions. The Department will continue to provide States with clarification on how to comply with the law through the use of non- regulatory guidance, ``Dear Colleague'' letters, frequently asked questions documents, webinars, phone calls, and in-person conferences. In other words, if there are any questions about how to comply with the new law, there are plenty of ways for Chief State School Officers and others to ask the U.S. Department of Education to provide the answers.

It is important to emphasize that this resolution does not in any way give the Education Secretary a path to creating a new Federal voucher program. Some of my friends on the other side of this debate have been resorting to scare tactics and alleging Secretary DeVos will use this opportunity to regulate into existence a mandate that State and local school districts adopt a school voucher program. The Secretary of Education does not have that power, and this Secretary of Education has said she does not want it. Secretary DeVos has repeatedly affirmed her opposition to federally mandating school choice, saying that she does ``not and will not advocate for any Federal mandates requiring vouchers. States should determine the mechanism of choice, if any.''

A school choice program cannot be unilaterally created by the U.S. Department of Education. Only Congress could create a voucher program. I tried to do that on the floor of this Senate during the debate about fixing No Child Left Behind. I offered an amendment called Scholarships for Kids that would have allowed States to use existing Federal dollars to follow the children of low-income families to schools of their parents' choice. Senator Scott of South Carolina offered a similar amendment, but only 45 Senators voted for our proposals. If you pay attention around here, you know that the most important things usually take 60 votes to gain approval.

Also, the 2015 law that we passed actually includes provisions that would prohibit the Secretary from mandating, directing, or controlling a State, school district or school's allocation of State or local resources, and it bars the Department of Education from requiring States and districts to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under the law--for example, vouchers. Now I agree that previous Secretaries of Education have imposed their own personal, policy preferences on States and school districts. I opposed such mandates and worked against them. Congress writes the law, not the Secretary and not the bureaucracy.

Instead of using this scare tactic to rile up teachers and parents around the country, misleading them and confusing them about what the Secretary of Education might do, I would take that argument and turn it around. If Congress takes a stand here and now and says that this regulation exceeds the authority granted by Congress--the authority delegated to the Secretary of Education--because the Secretary imposed conditions on States not allowed by the law, then that means any current or future Secretary of Education would be similarly prevented from imposing their own conditions on States.

So there could be no legal method of forcing States to adopt a voucher program, unless Congress passes a new law. There could be no legal method of reinterpreting the Every Student Succeeds Act to impose the next good education idea--however well-intended--unless Congress acts first.

The suggestion has been made that this new law requires regulations. This regulation is not required by the law. The law does not specifically call for accountability regulations. The law allows for accountability regulations, but ``only to the extent that such regulations are necessary to ensure that there is compliance.'' So there is no requirement for this regulation. It is allowed, but it is not required.

Congress wrote prohibitions on the Secretary so that States would not be faced with a bunch of new mandates that ``add new requirements that are inconsistent with or outside the scope'' or ``add new criteria that are inconsistent with or outside the scope'' or are ``in excess of statutory authority granted to the Secretary.'' That is what Congress did. In the law, we laid out requirements for State plans. States can simply follow the law. A regulation isn't necessary.

Future Secretaries will still be able to write regulations on this subject. Under the Congressional Review Act, which is the procedure under which we are operating, if Congress overturns a regulation--as I hope it will in this case--the Department of Education is prevented from making final a new regulation that is ``substantially the same'' as the overturned regulation, unless Congress passes a new law to create an opportunity for that new regulation. But no court has defined what ``substantially the same'' means. But the commonsense interpretation of that is very simple: The Department simply can't turn right around and do the same thing Congress has just overturned. It could do something else by regulation, but it could not do precisely that.

So this is a question of whether we are going to restore the national school board that 85 Senators voted to reverse 15 months ago. And this is also a question of whether you believe that the U.S. Congress writes the law or the U.S. Department of Education writes the law. I believe that under article I of our Constitution, the U.S. Congress writes the law, and when signed by the President, then that is the law. The regulations must stay within it, and that is especially true when Congress has written explicit prohibitions about what a Secretary may do and may not do.

The remarkable consensus around the bill fixing No Child Left Behind was to reverse the trend to a national school board and restore to States, to classroom teachers, and to parents the decisions about what to do about their children in public schools. Teachers, Governors, school boards, and parents were all are fed up with Washington telling them so much about what to do with their children in 100,000 public schools.

So this regulation, which contravenes the law specifically, goes to the heart of the bill fixing No Child Left Behind, which received 85 votes here in the Senate. And this resolution to overturn that regulation upholds the law that received ``aye'' votes from those 85 Senators. I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution and to vote aye one more time.

I believe that overturning the regulation preserves the consensus and the compromise that we achieved when we enacted the law fixing No Child Left Behind.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest honors that I have had as a Member of Congress has been the opportunity to serve on the Education and the Workforce Committee and on the conference committee that put the Every Student Succeeds Act together in its final form.

Before coming to Congress, I chaired the Colorado State Board of Education; I founded two charter schools, the New America School and the Academy of Urban Learning; and I worked closely with educators, school board members, and parents across our State to improve the quality of our schools in Colorado.

I know firsthand the impact that Federal education policy has on States, on school districts, on schools, and on the families that they serve. So when I arrived in Congress, I was excited to roll up my sleeves and get to work on education policy.

One of the top issues in education when I arrived has always been the desire to replace No Child Left Behind, an outdated and inflexible law that, in many ways, set schools up for failure, with a new and better way of making sure that every student has the opportunity to succeed.

I heard from so many of my constituents that, under No Child Left Behind, schools were testing too much, districts lacked the flexibility they needed, and the Colorado Department of Education--like so many other State departments of education--was effectively at the whim of the U.S. Department of Education with regard to their State plans, effectively living waiver to waiver. That is no way to go about Federal education policy. It is why the Every Student Succeeds Act was so badly needed.

Now, early on, the work on the Every Student Succeeds Act wasn't as collegial as it should have been. Republicans introduced a hyperpartisan bill. It passed this Chamber with no Democrat votes and many Republicans voting against it as well. But throughout the process, one thing remained the same: Members were committed to moving past No Child Left Behind and replacing it with a bill that put the interests of students first. Finally that happened last Congress, 15 years after the passage of No Child Left Behind and almost 6 years after the expiration of the authorizing statute; but, finally, Congress did its job.

I am proud to say that everyone on the Education and the Workforce Committee has shown that we believe that every child deserves a great education. We may have different ideas at times about how to achieve that goal, and that is okay, but we all value the result of ensuring opportunity for every child in our country.

It was that very commitment and value, as well as our willingness to work together, that produced the Every Student Succeeds Act. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the majority Republican House and Senate, and was signed by our then-Democratic President. It was and continues to be a bright spot of the last Congress, and what too often seems a Congress that is overwhelmed by partisanship.

Unfortunately, the bipartisanship under ESSA potentially ends with this bill. House Republicans have filed the resolution using the Congressional Review Act to overturn a key regulation consistent with the law that was finalized by the Obama administration in December. Now, before diving into the details of this particular Congressional Review Act that is considered under this rule, I want to say a little bit about the process.

We should look no further than the U.S. Constitution in learning how separation of powers works. There are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. Each branch is separate, independent, and coequal, and different in how they function. That is an important background and a critical context in evaluating this legislation.

When Congress passed and the President signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in December of 2015, the process didn't end. Many bills, especially one as extensive as ESSA, require clarification from the Department of Education, the agency charged with executing the law. The text of the ESSA anticipated that. In fact, the law describes in detail how the Department of Education should and shouldn't write regulations. Frankly, that had been some of the problem under No Child Left Behind, is it lacked sufficient congressional direction with regard to the waiver process which was used effectively at the full discretion of then-Secretary of Education Duncan and President Obama.

It took the Department a year and a multistakeholder process, ensuring every voice was heard. Sure enough, a year after the legislation was passed, the Department of Education finalized its rules on accountability.

Last week, House Republicans took the first step towards taking a sledgehammer to that entire implementation. Rules that have extensive buy-in from stakeholders and are the blueprint for States in developing our State education plans would be thrown out

under this rule, effectively throwing public education into chaos across all 50 States and completely disregarding the hard work of educators, parents, school board members, superintendents, and principals over the last year.

The two education-related CRAs we are considering on the floor were introduced last Wednesday night. That is four legislative days between introduction and action. Once more, the CRAs weren't treated through the committee process. We did not consider them in the Education and the Workforce Committee. There were no hearings, no markups. In fact, the full Education and the Workforce Committee hasn't even had a markup yet with regard to a K-12 bill.

I am honored to be the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, which has jurisdiction over one of these three CRAs under this bill. We had no hearings or markups on this bill. It is really a disservice to the over 50 new Members of this Congress--no imprint on this bill--as well as the Members at large, that this committee avoids the regular process.

It is also counter to promises that were made by Republican leadership about returning to regular order. The actions today couldn't be further from regular order because Republicans have chosen to utilize the Congressional Review Act to move bills from introduction to the floor without going through committee.

Unfortunately, the Congressional Review Act not only overturns regulations, but it prevents the Department of Education from writing a new regulation that is similar to the regulation that was overturned.

Now, Mr. Byrne mentioned that there can be subsequent legislation that allows it. Let me point out that Every Student Succeeds Act was over 5 years overdue. It took Congress 5 years after the initial expiration of No Child Left Behind to even replace the authorizing statute. So if that is Congress' intent, we are putting the cart before the horse. We should alter or change the authorizing statute in a way that Democrats and Republicans agree, rather than throw out the work that has already occurred.

This statute would effectively tie the hands of the recently confirmed Secretary of Education DeVos and prevent her from implementing the will of this body through the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Over the past few weeks, my office has received hundreds of pieces of mail regarding education, largely in opposition to Secretary DeVos; but I think the issue is that Secretary DeVos, who was recently confirmed-- this CRA would prevent her from doing her job and implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Let me just say that this guidance on accountability isn't just for show. It is at the very heart of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which Democrats and Republicans supported. It has real impact.

I want to close my opening remarks with a story about that real impact from Christina in Pennsylvania, whose son has a learning disability. Christina's son has always had a tough time in school due to diagnosed dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD. While he is a smart and personable kid, when it came time to read and write, he could be thought of as the ``bad'' kid too often, and he acted out.

It would have been easy for the school to write him off without the protections that are offered under IDEA, but, luckily, he was required to participate in assessments. That accountability encouraged the school to work harder and to stick with it and to figure out why this otherwise smart student couldn't read simple words in different places on a page or demonstrate his achievement of knowledge.

If his school wasn't required to show student progress, there wouldn't have been the incentive for them to invest their time and money in helping his special needs. Without accountability, Christina's son's school would have had little incentive to set appropriate educational goals for him and offer the support necessary to reach them.

Accountability requirements inform school administrators, teachers, parents, students, and the community at large that all students have a learning goal and make sure that all students have the tools to get there.

Today, Christina's son is a college freshman majoring in biology with a 3.2 GPA. The accountability in this CRA that would be thrown out would undermine the very accountability that allowed not only Christina's son to succeed but so many other children across our country.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am seeing a lot of feigned indignation about the accountability provisions of this bill. It wasn't that long ago when we passed the Every Student Succeeds Act when Democrats and Republicans came down here and said we are giving the Secretary specific authority around accountability for preventing Secretaries from doing rogue things that both sides have perceived previous Secretaries had done, and the authorizing statute was passed by Democrats and Republicans.

Now, all of a sudden, we have Republicans coming down here gutting the very accountability provisions that they themselves lauded under the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed in this body overwhelmingly, as well as in the U.S. Senate.

It is a little hard to understand how Republicans are upset with the very authority around specific parameters around that authority that they specifically gave to the Secretary of Education. Again, if there are particular quibbles, there is a different Secretary of Education now. Those rules can be changed through a stakeholder process--and they may very well be--but now Republicans are seeking to tie the hands of the new Secretary of Education and throwing out all of the hard work that I got to see people in Colorado working on, and I know occurred in many other States, to come up with thoughtful, sensible accountability plans that met the legislative intent of Democrats and Republicans in this body.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), the chair of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Holocaust was an unspeakable atrocity resulting in the murder of more than 6 million Jews. As a Jewish American, it is very difficult to talk about. But, of course, in my own family, I can only imagine the grief that my grandparents and great grandparents had not knowing, not hearing from their relatives in the old country. And, of course, finding out the very worst--that they had disappeared.

I know my Uncle Henry, who lives in New York with his wife, Arlene, my dad's sister, who was able to escape Vienna on a Kindertransport, one of the very last ones, as a young man, effectively growing up as an orphan in Switzerland during the war and escaping the mass slaughter that killed most of

his family targeted, of course, merely because they were Jews.

The Holocaust was a deliberate and planned act of slaughter and genocide against the Jewish people; and the fact that it was targeted against the Jewish people, resulting in over 6 million deaths, cannot be delinked from our remembrance of one of the greatest horrors of modern history.

It is especially troubling in the current environment, where we have seen an increase in anti-Semitism and racism, generally, since the election of President Trump. Just last week, the Jewish Community Center in my district in Boulder, Colorado, had to close because of a bomb threat, the families and children sent home. We have seen swastikas on New York City subways and in our schools.

Frankly, I think many Jewish Americans are fearful about what the intentions are of the occupant of the White House and his top advisers and what we can do as a country to combat this; and it is exactly the wrong message to send on Holocaust Remembrance Day, to leave out the obvious truth that continues to be denied by anti-Semitic leaders around the world, including former Presidents of Iran and Supreme Leaders of Iran and others, that the Holocaust was a deliberate effort of terror and genocide directed against the Jewish people by the Nazi regime.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Mr. Crowley's resolution which would reiterate the fact that the Nazi regime targeted the Jewish people and calls on the executive branch to affirm this fact.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, over the last few years, one complaint I have heard over and over is how inconsistent education policy has been. States have been using waivers at the discretion of the Department of Education. Finally, educators, school board members, families, hope that ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, could provide more stability. Unfortunately for States, undoing the accountability CRA would only reenergize that uncertainty.

For months, States have been working on their State plans, and I have had the opportunity to join our Colorado group that has been working on that plan as required under the Every Student Succeeds Act. We have had guidance from the Department of Education since last November, and we have been writing our State plans with that in mind. Now, if this regulation is overturned, it would pull the rug out from States that have been working diligently to enact their plans.

Likewise, H.J. Res. 58, another education-related bill that would occur under this rule, would effectively unravel the Department of Education's teacher preparation regulations. In the Higher Education Act, States are required to assess the effectiveness of teacher prep programs, and this regulation simply provides guidance for how States can do that, making sure our teacher training programs work, making sure that we are improving the quality of our public educators.

This provision also requires that TEACH grant recipients attend high- performing teacher prep programs. It is not a matter of picking winners and losers; it is making sure that our taxpayer dollars are used effectively to train high-quality educators.

If money is going to be invested in future teachers at high-needs schools, we want to make sure that teachers are attending the highest quality programs available. At the end of the day, a great education starts with a great teacher in the classroom, and this requirement ensures that even the neediest students have access to a great teacher. Taken together, these two bills represent a strategic attempt by Republicans to undermine public education.

The other CRA, which is completely unrelated to the two education- related CRAs, is actually related to a land management issue. I want to describe why that is a bad idea as well.

I come from a Western State. My district that I represent is over 60 percent public lands, so this BLM plan will actually affect my district, and that is why I am so impassioned to speak here today and listen to others in my State about this rule.

A revision of this BLM plan is long overdue. Few plans or rules can remain relevant for decades, and BLM's planning was last drafted in 1983. Needing a new planning system may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but it is actually critical because it can impact everything from cultural to environmental resources, to jobs in the economy in our district which relate to our use of public lands. That is why I have been contacted by groups of sportsmen, county commissioners, outdoor recreation groups, and conservationists asking how Congress can be wasting their time repealing something that makes BLM's process more transparent and conclusive.

Local control and constituent input are top priorities for those of us who live in and around public land, particularly in the West, so it makes sense that many counties and groups in Colorado who have worked with BLM offices on land use are pleading with Congress not to use a CRA to repeal this commonsense rule and join their voices with ours in opposition to this rule and this bill. The kinds of groups opposed to this bill include the International Mountain Bicycling Association because they know that, even though the planning process isn't perfect and, of course, can be refined, it would be a huge mistake to throw out the whole thing and bar the BLM from making necessary modernizations moving forward, especially when the Republicans are in the driver's seat.

Hunting and fishing groups and outdoor industry businesses, like the Outdoor Industry Association, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, know that this planning process will give them the voice they need in the planning process without diminishing anyone else's role. I believe that those who have actually experienced and been part of the process are the voices that need to be heeded when we are determining if the planning has been a success.

Here are a few of the quotes from some counties in Western States that have been part of the process and support the new planning system. From Lewis and Clark County in Idaho:

A great example of the potential of Planning 2.0 can be

found in eastern and central Idaho, where the BLM is

preparing to engage in a land use planning process for public

lands from the big desert to the benches of the Salmon River.

At the behest of local BLM leadership, which has already been

operating under the spirit of Planning 2.0, a number of

sporting groups, conservation organizations, and Salmon

Valley stewardship have reached out to a wide-ranging

constituency of ranchers, loggers, motorized users,

sportsmen, and other groups. The benefit of this early

conversation can be very valuable to sportsmen. Take the

Donkey Hills at the headwaters of the Pahsimeroi River as an

example. There has been near unanimous agreement that the

critical elk calving area in the Donkey Hills needs

thoughtful consideration as a critical wildlife area.

From Missoula County, Montana:

Western Montana, where the Missoula BLM field offices

engaged in a land-use planning revision process for public

lands from the John Long Range to Joshua Park all the way to

the Garnet Range, through this process, BLM has piloted the

steps in Planning 2.0 to further engage the public in land

management decisions.

I include in the Record letters from both of these counties, as well as a letter from a group of outdoor industries asking for this body to oppose the CRA.

Lewis & Clark County,

Board of County Commissioners,

Helena, Montana.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg. 8674 (February

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The Lewis and Clark County Board of

County Commissioners offer this letter of support for

provisions of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's)

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

8674 (Feb. 25. 2016) (the Proposed Rules). We appreciate the

effort to improve opportunities for public involvement

earlier in the planning processes, including the chance to

review preliminary resource management alternatives and

preliminary rationales for those alternatives.

We value our relationship with our federal partners, and

our constituents are impacted

greatly by actions taken by your agency. Increasing access to

the planning process and targeting your efforts towards

greater public involvement enhances the relationship between

the people and their government, and we support your

initiative.

Additionally, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

ensure, to the extent available under federal law, that RMPs

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely.

Michael Murray,

Chairman

Susan Good Geise,

Vice Chair

Andy Hunthausen,

Member

Finally, in my home State of Colorado, a great example of stakeholders who know the new process is working is Park County, which I have the honor of representing part of. As part of revising the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan, the Royal Gorge Field Office in Colorado has already embraced and implemented some of the ideas for Planning 2.0, including recent envisioning sessions that involve multiple stakeholders.

I include in the Record a letter from Park County, Colorado.

County of Park,

Board of County Commissioners,

May 12, 2016.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg. 8674 (February

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The undersigned representatives of

local government are writing to share their support for

provisions of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's)

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

8674 (Feb. 25, 2016) (the Proposed Rules). In particular, we

support the provisions of the Proposed Rules that provide

additional opportunities for public involvement earlier in

the planning process, including the chance to review

preliminary resource management alternatives and preliminary

rationales for those alternatives.

Each of undersigned representatives come from local

jurisdictions whose land bases include substantial amounts of

public lands managed by BLM. The management of these public

lands is vitally important to the citizens we represent Our

citizens and local economies depend on these lands for

sustainable multiple uses, from outdoor recreation to

livestock grazing to mineral exploration and development.

The current BLM planning methodology lacks adequate

opportunities for public involvement, particularly early in

the process. It also lacks transparency. It often results in

a range of alternatives that fails to address the concerns of

all stakeholders. The proposed changes would provide the

public with

an opportunity to raise concerns and review potential

management alternatives before these alternatives become

solidified in a draft Resource Management Plan (RMP). This

early public involvement will hopefully help resolve

conflicts and produce RMPs that better reflect the needs of

our citizens as well as others who use the public lands and

have a stake in their future.

In addition, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

ensure, to the extent available under federal law, that RMPs

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely,

Mike Brazell,

Chairman, County of Park.

It reads, in part: ``The current BLM planning methodology lacks adequate opportunities for public involvement, particularly early in the process.''

This rule that the CRA would invalidate addresses some of the shortcomings in the current rule. This last point is especially important, that changes would provide the public with an opportunity to raise concerns and review potential management alternatives before those alternatives become solidified. By having an opportunity for early involvement, BLM can actually avoid expensive litigation after a plan is complete.

This legislation is not only good for transparency, public involvement, and environmental and wildlife protections, but it saves taxpayer dollars. I don't know how anyone can oppose that. The process has widespread support from those of us who live in and around public land, from people who are on the ground, including landowners, farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, and conservationists.

In a hearing in the Committee on Natural Resources, one of our witnesses was a rancher from my home State of Colorado, who eloquently spoke about how the old system was not working and how this desperately needed new system had worked well in its limited implementation.

BLM Planning 2.0 is working, and a CRA that will never allow the BLM to modernize its process, the process that has been locked in place since 1983, is simply thoughtless legislating for cheap political points.

Mr. Speaker, the resolutions before us today represent everything that is wrong with Washington. When our constituents sent us here to Washington, D.C., they weren't asking us to engage in partisan bickering and using brutal techniques to undo thoughtful, nuanced regulation. If Members of this body have problems with rules that have been promulgated, change the authorizing statutes; don't simply prevent the agencies from enacting the very things that this body has told them to do. It doesn't make sense.

We have not engaged in regular order. We have avoided a thoughtful, deliberative process, and, unfortunately, the resolutions before us are yet another example of that. These resolutions undermine the basic responsibility of the Department of Education and the Bureau of Land Management. They are a shortsighted strategy for governing that will have long-term negative consequences for our public lands and our use thereof, as well as for children in our schools and educators.

We should fix accountability and make it work in education rather than throw it out. We should make sure that our teacher training programs and those whom we support with your taxpayer money are the best possible teacher training programs; and, of course, we should have a multistakeholder process around use of our public lands, including recreationists, residents, county commissioners, and others.

For that reason, I strongly oppose the rules before us. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' I also urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can bring up Mr. Crowley's bill, which I think is a bill that would receive, hopefully, unanimous support in this body with regard to the remembrances of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. President, along with the Presiding Officer, I have the distinct honor of serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and am the ranking Democrat on that committee. There are many areas of challenge for our national security. We could talk about what we think is the greatest threat to the national security of the United States. Unfortunately, there are a lot of candidates.

One could certainly be China. China has been very provocative in the China Sea, raising concern about maintaining maritime security, which is so critically important to world commerce. Clearly China could be a candidate.

North Korea could be a candidate. We know that in North Korea, they have a nuclear capacity. We know their government will gas and poison people who disagree with them, including family. It is a repressive regime, and they are developing the capacity not only to have a nuclear weapon but the capacity to be able to deliver that nuclear weapon beyond just the region in which they are located. So we could pick North Korea.

We certainly could mention the threat of ISIS, which is a growing threat of terrorism that challenges not only the Middle East but our own country.

We could mention the security threat of Iran. Iran was one of the greatest sponsors of terrorism of any country in the world, which is causing major problems for the Sunni Gulf States, in Syria, and in the Middle East. Clearly Iran is a candidate for major interest in our national security.

But the country I would pick as the greatest threat to America's national security would be Russia. Russia has been very aggressive in trying to dominate beyond its own geographical borders. It has incurred into other countries and has attacked the United States of America.

I want to take us back to 1975 when the Helsinki Final Act was passed, through the leadership of the United States and the USSR.

I have had the opportunity through several Congresses to be either the chair or the cochair or the ranking member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. I have spent a lot of time on the Helsinki work.

What was remarkable about that document that was entered into in 1975 was that it recognized that security is beyond just military in that for a country to be secure, it must pay attention to its borders, yes, and its military, but it also must have economic security and must respect human rights.

What was also very unique in the Helsinki Final Act was the commitment that these standards we agreed to would not only be of internal interest to the member country but that any country to the Helsinki Final Act could challenge the actions of any other country. We have not only the right but the responsibility to call out countries that fail to adhere to the basic principles that were agreed to in 1975. The Helsinki Final Act now applies to about 56 countries--all of the countries of Europe, Canada, the United States, and all of the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Let me review with my colleagues the guiding principles that were agreed to in 1975 under the Helsinki Final Act, signed by Russia, so that they are bound by these principles. As I read through these 10 principles, let me talk about how Russia has violated every single one of the basic 10 principles they agreed to in Helsinki.

No. 1, sovereign equality and respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty.

No. 2, refraining from the threat or use of force.

No. 3, the inviolability of borders.

No. 4, the territorial integrity of states.

In each of these cases, Russia has violated these basic principles. They invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea, annexing it against the will of a sovereign country. They are interfering in the eastern part of Ukraine as we speak, violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia's troops are in Georgia, violating the sovereignty of that country. Russia's presence in Moldova is not respecting the territorial integrity of a member state. Russia has violated the basic principles of sovereignty that were brought out in the Helsinki Final Act.

Let me read some of the other principles.

No. 5, the peaceful settlement of disputes.

Russia shoots first. They took their troops into Ukraine. They took their troops into Georgia. They have not used peaceful methods.

The sixth principle is the non-intervention in internal affairs.

Russia attacked the United States of America in our free election system. That is not subject to any dispute today. They attacked America. They interfered with our internal affairs. They tried to influence our election. That is an attack against America and a violation of their basic commitments.

Let me read through the remaining.

No. 7, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Ask the people who have disagreed with the Russian Government and who have tried to form a party whether there is respect for human rights and fundamental freedom in Russia today. Ask independent journalists who are arrested and killed for trying to carry out their profession. Russia today is intimidating civil societies and NGOs, and anyone who disagrees with Mr. Putin is subject to arrest, torture, and perhaps death. We know that in the case of Mr. Magnitsky, which is a cause that has been taken up by this body with the passage of Magnitsky laws.

Another principle is equal rights and the self-determination of people. That is not present in Russia today.

No. 9, cooperation among states.

Let me conclude with the 10th principle: fulfillment in good faith of international legal obligations.

Russia entered into an agreement with regard to Ukraine's sovereignty, only to invade Ukraine a few years later. Ukraine gave up its nuclear stockpile, believing that Russia would

live up to its commitments. Russia has violated the Minsk agreements that were entered into to resolve the problems between Ukraine and Russia. Russia has not lived up to its international agreements.

Let me sort of summarize why I think Russia is the No. 1 candidate for concern with regard to our national security. They have violated the sovereignty of many countries of the world. They have violated the sovereignty of Ukraine and continue to do so. They have violated the sovereignty of Georgia and Moldova. They have attacked the United States of America through cyber. It may not have been a MiG, but it was a mouse, and its intended purpose was to bring down our democratic election system and to favor one candidate. That cannot go unanswered.

Today, Russia is engaged in Syria and supports the Assad regime, which attacks humanitarian convoys, uses the civilian population as an instrument of war, gases its own people--violating basic international human rights and committing war crimes. That is what President Putin is doing in Russia today.

Russia's human rights records are deplorable. Kara-Murza has been poisoned not once but twice. He is an opposition leader. He is now in the United States and is recovering from the second poisoning episode. The Russian authorities tried to kill him. Why? Because he dared to oppose the Putin regime.

We need to speak out. We need to know more about that. It does not end there. Russia is violating the INF, the International Nuclear Force agreement, which is a major concern to all of us.

Russia's bottom line is that they are trying to dismantle the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which has been the bulwark of security since the end of World War II, the relationship between Europe and the United States, providing a blanket of protection not just for our physical security, but providing international leadership in dealing with the development of democratic countries around the world. That is what Russia is trying to do today, is to dismantle that protection.

What should we do? We have identified Russia as our No. 1 concern, and I think most Members of the Senate would agree with that assessment. I have talked to many, particularly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What should we do? What is the role of Congress?

We know we are waiting for President Trump to give us his foreign policy as it relates to Russia, and that is an important thing for us to know--how the President intends to deal with a country that has done so many things against our national security interests.

We have a role. We are the first branch of government that is mentioned in the Constitution, article I. We have responsibilities to act. We need to take steps, and I have encouraged my colleagues.

There have been a lot of accusations made around here about Russia's contacts with Americans and that Russia is stealing information through cyber and planting that information through WikiLeaks in order to influence elections. There is the potential contact with General Flynn, what happened with the Russian Ambassador, and what happened as far as domestic wiretaps. There have been a lot of comments made around here, but we do not have the facts.

First and foremost, we need an independent commission that is similar to what the Congress constituted after the attack on 9/11 so that we get independent, nonpartisan experts, without restriction to jurisdiction or turf, who can determine exactly what Russia's game plan is and what steps we can take to protect ourselves in moving forward and what action we should take against Russia. That is the first thing we should do. Congress should also pass a resolution. I have introduced one that would set up that type of an independent commission to look at what Russia has done.

There is a second issue, though, that I want to bring to our attention, and I know the Presiding Officer is very familiar with it. It is the Countering Russian Hostilities Act, which is a bill I filed. I am very proud that this bill was not created by one Member, it was created by a group of us working together and recognizing that Congress needed to speak with a strong voice.

I am proud that, in addition to my sponsorship, Senator McCain helped draft this bill. Senator Menendez is a key leader on this bill. Senator Graham is one of the architects of the bill. We have Senator Shaheen, Senator Rubio, Senator Klobuchar, Senator Sasse, Senator Durbin, Senator Portman, Senator Murphy, Senator Gardner, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Sullivan, Senator Daines, Senator Donnelly, Senator Young, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Coons, and Senator Cornyn.

You might notice that I alternated between Democrats and Republicans because this is not a partisan effort. We all recognize the seriousness of what Russia has done to the United States. We all recognize that Congress needs to respond. When you are attacked, you don't stand by; if you do, you will get attacked again and the next time could be even more devastating. So we have to take action to protect ourselves.

So what the Counteracting Russian Hostilities Act does, first and foremost, is it codifies the sanctions currently imposed against Russia for its cyber attack on the U.S. election. Secondly, it extends those sanctions for what we call secondary sanctions--businesses doing business with those that are sanctioned--so we can enforce the sanctions.

The Presiding Officer recognized that when we were working on the North Korea sanctions law, we needed to strengthen that, and I congratulate the Presiding Officer on the work he did regarding North Korea, and I was pleased to join him. I am pleased he is joining with this group to see how we can strengthen our sanctions and pressure on Russia to know that they can't get away with this type of an attack against America, but then we go even further.

We recognize that Ukraine today--we have sanctions against Russia, but we can strengthen those sanctions. We can apply those sanctions to the energy sector. We can apply those sanctions to prevent American companies from financing the Russian economy through the moneys they need for sovereign debt or privatization. So we extend the program of sanctions to include those types of activities.

We take up two other major issues that I just want to share with my colleagues because these are contributions made by the Members who joined together to file this bill. We recognize that the rules of engagement have changed. Russia is using tactics today that we never thought would be used. They attack our country, get private information, give it to WikiLeaks, use it as part of a strategy to get news out there that could influence our elections. Then they develop fake news, use that fake news through social media to make it look like real news in an effort to try to affect our free election system in the United States. This is pretty frightening. We have to meet them. We have to protect ourselves.

So this legislation provides for a democracy initiative similar to what we have done on our security initiative with Europe. We have stationed NATO troops on the border countries of NATO with Russia to let them know we will not tolerate the invasion of a NATO country. We have done that. That is our security initiative. We have to have a democracy initiative to protect the democratic institutions of Western Europe because Russia will use the democratic institutions to try to undermine the democratic institutions--the free press, the opportunities of free speech, the opportunities to try to influence through their money the election process. They have done that. They tried to do it in Montenegro during the parliamentary elections to affect Montenegro's accession into NATO.

We have to protect the democratic institutions. This legislation would authorize that protection.

Then it sets up a resource so we can fight this propaganda, so we can find ways to counter Russia's use of propaganda in order to carry out their nefarious activities.

This is a comprehensive bill. I urge all of our colleagues to take a look at it. We are looking for input. We are looking to make sure this does exactly what we need it to do--to speak as one

voice in Congress to make it clear to Russia that it is not business as usual; that we intend to take action and be strong and let them know they cannot do this type of activity; that America will protect its national security.

There is another bill, let me just mention, that Senator Graham is the principal sponsor of that I have cosponsored and others have sponsored also. It is the Russia Sanctions Review Act. I mention that one because we had a great debate here in the last Congress on the Iran nuclear agreement, and part of the reasons we had a great debate is because the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was able to pass a review act and get broad consensus on it, get it signed by the President, which gave us a role. More importantly, it gave the American people a role in getting transparency on a very important agreement-- the Iran nuclear agreement. So we had time for public hearings. We had time for national debate. We had time for questions.

Because that law passed, I am convinced the agreement was stronger. The administration knew there were millions of eyes looking at what they were doing; they just couldn't do it in the dark of night. It helped us, I think, carry out our responsibility as the legislative branch of government.

So Senator Graham and I and others believe we should have a similar process, if there is going to be a fundamental change in the relationship between the United States and Russia; that the President should consult and work with Congress and give us an opportunity for transparency and for the American people to be heard. That is exactly what this bill does. It is a bill that I think is for good legislating, for good governance, and I would encourage my colleagues to take a look at this, and hopefully we will be able to get this done.

I will just say in conclusion that we have no issue with the Russian people. They are good people. We want to have a good relationship with the Russian people. It is Mr. Putin and his government that are directing this country to do things in interference with the sovereignty of other countries--in violating human rights, in supporting violations of human rights, in war crimes, and they should be held accountable for that and for what they are doing in Syria, and, of course, very personally, attacking our own country. That is what we are aimed at.

Mr. Khodorkovsky was in my office yesterday. I think my colleagues might recall that he was a leader in Russia--a great business leader. He made a lot of money. He decided Russia needed reforms to protect the rights of all people, that human rights were not strong enough, the right of expression was not strong enough, so he took up that cause as a successful businessperson. As a result, he was arrested, served 10 years in prison, and they tried to keep him out of politics because he did not represent Mr. Putin's politics.

Well, he has been very active. He no longer lives in Russia for fear of his own life. He has been here championing the cause for good governance within Russia and the importance for the international community to be engaged in that. As he left my office yesterday, he said: Please continue to speak out. He said: Please continue to speak out.

The United States must lead when a country driven by Mr. Putin does what it does. It is our responsibility to speak out about this outrageous conduct--threatening the integrity of so many countries and violating the human rights of so many people.

We can make a difference. The Congress can make a difference. It is for all of those reasons that we need to act.

I urge my colleagues to take a look at the legislation I have talked about on the floor and which so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have joined. Let's get together and let's speak with a united voice and let Russia know we are going to protect the national security of the United States of America, and we are going to protect the rights of our friends.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin, Senator Menendez, and Senator Coons for joining on the floor today to talk about the threat that Russia poses.

Senator Durbin is absolutely correct, and I thank him for his leadership on this. The only way the American people will have a full accounting of what Russia's intentions were and what they did in attacking our country is to have an independent commission.

We had such a commission after the attack on 9/11. Democrats and Republicans came together. There was no controversy about that. We wanted to find out what and how we were attacked, how they got through our intelligence network, how they put together the horrific attack on our country, and then we wanted to know how we could get recommendations to protect us moving forward.

I am going to tell you, that commission served a very important national security function because we learned a lot. We learned that we were stovepiping too much information. We weren't sharing it. The way the agencies were set up, it was more over turf than it was over mission. Congress acted on the recommendations, and we are safer today as a result of it.

We don't know what Russia's intentions are all about. We suspect that they are trying to undermine our democratic system of government. We suspect that Russia is interested in regaining its reputation of the former Soviet Union. They are looking for a greater geographical footprint. We see

that in their military operations, not just on their border countries such as Ukraine or what they are doing in Georgia or Moldova, but we see that also in the Middle East where they have a military presence today, and they want to have a footprint there.

We believe they want to become a greater Russia. We know they don't like democratic systems of government. Their government stays in power through making sure that there is no effective opposition. They have quelled any opportunity for a Democratic opposition and for the free press.

We know those--but what are their ultimate aspirations? What do they intend to do with the transatlantic partnership? We talked about that. We are safer today because of the transatlantic relations. NATO has made our Nation safer. The strength of the EU has made our Nation stronger.

We know Russia is trying to interfere with that. They interfered with the Montenegro election in an effort to prevent Montenegro from agreeing to join NATO. We know they are trying to pull other nations out of Europe. We know that.

What we need to have, though, is a full accounting as to what happened in the attack on our country and how we can prepare ourselves to defend ourselves. By the way, it might also give us a blueprint for what we need to do to show Russia we will not tolerate that type of activity.

Senator Durbin is absolutely right. We have responsibilities in Congress. The committee I serve on, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--our relationship with Russia, we have to have hearings. Senator Menendez was right in calling upon our committee to have additional hearings. What is Russia doing? How does it affect not only our relationship with Russia, but how do we deal with Europe? How do we deal with the authorization for use of military force? If we were attacked, can you use cyber as an attack vehicle? Does that require congressional authorization?

We have to be prepared in our committees. The Intelligence Committee has a responsibility to find out exactly what happened and whether we need to change our intelligence network because Russia was able to invade our country. They were able to get private information and then send it to WikiLeaks to use politically against us. They may compromise some of our classified information. We don't know. We need to find that out.

The Intelligence Committee has a function to play. The Judiciary Committee has a function to play. I know the subcommittee is doing some work under Senators Whitehouse and Graham. The Armed Services Committee certainly has a role to play.

There is only one way the American people will get a clear view of how serious this matter is and that we are taking every conceivable possible step to make sure we protect the national security of the United States and our Democratic institutions, which are part of our national security, and that is to have an independent commission.

There are no turf problems there. They can look at everything. They can have a transparent process, and the American people can get an eye as to what is happening. They can make the recommendations we need.

I thank Senator Durbin for underscoring that point. It is something I think we will ultimately get to. I was hoping we could get to it sooner rather than later because I think the American people would have a great deal more confidence.

I thank Senator Coons for putting this in historic perspective. He is absolutely right; we go back a long time as to what Russia's intentions are all about. I thought that was extremely helpful to fill in all of the aspects of what we are trying to do.

Senator Menendez's point was very critical; our reasons for being here and our reasons for wanting to take action are to protect our country, the American people. We are not talking about any one person or any one election. This is not challenging the results of this past election. This is all about making sure that we protect the integrity of our free election system and, particularly moving forward, knowing that Russia may very well be engaged, as we speak, in trying to interfere with the elections in the Netherlands and Germany and France. We need to have a better game plan on how to deal with this.

As Senator Menendez said--I think it is a very important point; I want to underscore this: You can't trust Russia. Let's be clear about that. Ask the Ukrainians. They signed the Budapest Declaration. The United States was part of that. They very clearly gave up their nuclear capacity, and in exchange they got the security from Russia on their jurisdiction, on their territory, on their sovereignty. Look how long that lasted before Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed part of Ukraine, and they continue to supply resources to disrupt the eastern part of Ukraine so Ukraine will have a very difficult time in its integration into Europe. That is what Russia is doing today in contravention to their written commitments with Ukraine.

Then I might tell my colleagues: Look at the Minsk agreement set up to try to end this hot war, and Russia has violated all the aspects of the Minsk agreement. You can't trust Russia's agreements.

As Senator Menendez pointed out--he is right--look at the INF. Look at the treaty obligations. Russia is violating their treaty obligations, which directly affect the security of Europe. These are pretty serious things. We counter this by unity.

That is why I am so proud that we have Democrats and Republicans working together. This is not one party. Both parties recognize the danger of Russia. Both parties recognize that we have to protect ourselves. I would just urge my colleagues to follow this vigorous strategy, where we can show the American people that unity and that resolve and that we will not allow Russia to attack our country, that we are going to prepare to make sure that we defend our democratic system of government and that we will be united in standing up to those types of activities that are against our national security interests.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I want to talk about an upcoming CRA that will be on the floor potentially this week that would cancel out an important regulation that is designed to build upon this country's history of making sure there is a marriage between civil rights and education to make sure that children in this country, regardless of their race, regardless of their learning ability, regardless of their religion, regardless of their income, get an equal chance at education.

Frankly, the whole reason the Federal Government is involved in the question of education is due to civil rights. This used to be a purely local concern, and the Federal Government stepped into the question of local education because Black kids throughout the South were not getting an equal education. They were living in segregated schools and getting an education that was of far lesser quality. So the Federal Government has always been involved in education because it is a matter of civil rights.

I want to talk about this issue through the prism of one individual. I am going to call him James, but this is a true story--a story, frankly, that could be told millions of times over across the country.

James went to school in an urban district in Connecticut. He was a 10th grader. At the beginning of James's 10th grade year, he had a habit of walking out of class. In the middle of class, he would just get up and walk out after 10 or 15 or 20 minutes, and he would wander the halls of this big, urban high school until inevitably he was met by a security officer or a teacher or an administrator. They would bring him down to the office, and they would call his grandmother, as he lived with her. He would get suspended for a couple of days, and then he would come back.

It played out so often--this cycle of James walking out of class, being brought down to the principal's office, being suspended--that somewhere around the end of October, during his sophomore year, he had been out of school more days than he had been in school.

One day, though, James goes through this cycle again. He is in the hallway, and he runs into an assistant principal. He is sort of sick and tired of this story playing out over and over again. He raises his voice. He has some words. James has never hurt anybody in his life, no history of violence, but the assistant principal decides to call the police. The police come and they arrest James for disorderly conduct, essentially for having words with an assistant principal. Now James, at 16 years old, has a criminal record. At the time, he was treated as an adult in Connecticut, so he has an adult criminal record.

It turns out that James was walking out of class every day because he couldn't read, and he was mortified. He was embarrassed because he had been socially promoted through the years. He had a learning disability that was going untreated, and he was in the 10th grade with the ability to only read at an elementary school level. No wonder he was walking out of class every day. He literally couldn't follow along. It was embarrassing. He didn't want to be called on by the teacher so he left. Nobody ever figured that out until he got arrested and finally got a legal aid lawyer, who happened to be my wife, who identified his disability and the fact that it was being unaddressed.

The fact is, a big part of this story is tied up in the fact that James was Black, and he was a big kid. So the police got calls maybe because he appeared to be threatening in a way that he simply was not. I can say that because the data backs up the fact that Black kids and disabled kids are treated very differently in schools today. Wherever you are, whether in Connecticut, in North Carolina, or in California, Black kids--especially Black boys--are suspended and expelled at a rate that is twice that of their White peers for the exact same behavior. Take mouthing off to a teacher. When that happens, Black kids, Black students, are twice as likely to be suspended for mouthing off to a teacher than a White student.

James's story is not unique. It is not unique because it happens in every State across the country, and it is not just in suspension and expulsion rates, it is also in achievement rates as well. We know the statistics. The graduation rate for African-American students is 16 percent lower than their White peers. I can go down the line and tell you about the different story when it comes to achievement and treatment of African-American students as compared to White students.

Racism isn't gone in this country. It might not be overt. Sometimes it might not even be conscious, but it is still there. Discrimination against kids who are different, whether they be poor or disabled, didn't vanish. It is still all over.

John Lewis is a civil rights icon. We celebrate him every day, Republicans and Democrats, in the U.S. Congress. He got mercilessly beaten over the head simply because he wanted to vote. John Lewis is still alive, but you know what, so are the people who beat him. We are only a generation removed from an era of open, unapologetic racism in this country. To think that we don't need civil rights protections for kids any longer is to deny reality. Racism doesn't look the same as it used to. Discrimination against kids who are different isn't as overt as it used to be, but the data is the data. It is still there.

No Child Left Behind got a lot wrong, but one of the things it got right was that it shed a light on this disparate treatment, these disparate outcomes between Black students, Hispanic students, disabled students, and their peers, because it forced States--and this was a Republican and Democratic accomplishment at the time--it forced States to disaggregate results. So you had to look at how were disabled students doing, how were Black students doing, and if they weren't measuring up and if they weren't getting closer to the performance of their nondisabled or White peers, then you had to do something to turn those students around, turn their performance around.

Now, the part that No Child Left Behind got wrong is big and significant. Part of it is that it required every single one of those kids to hit the 100-percent proficiency mark, when progress is important to measure as well. It also told States exactly what to do to turn around the experiences of those kids. It is not the same in Connecticut as it is in North Carolina, and it is not the same in an urban district as it is in a suburban district. So when we got together on this floor and passed, in a bipartisan way, the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we did something really important. We preserved those requirements to disaggregate results for Black kids and for Hispanic kids and for kids with disabilities, but then we left it up to States to decide what proficiency is, and we left it up to States as to how they would turn around the experience for these kids if they weren't meeting those State-set goals. We gave an enormous amount of discretion and flexibility to States, but we preserved the basic expectation that our education policy was still going to be civil rights policy: Pay attention to how those vulnerable populations with a history of discrimination levied against them performed and require States to pay attention to the interventions.

That was a bipartisan achievement, and when we did it, we knew the regulation was going to be needed because, as with many education statutes, they are very vague. Republicans and Democrats understood that there was going to have to be a regulation to provide some clarity to States on how you build these locally driven accountability systems.

So the regulation we are talking about here today was not one of these that came out of left field. It was not one of these regulations that was political in nature; no, it flows from a bipartisan act that preserved accountability requirements for kids.

It is important for a variety of reasons. One, it is important because there are some really vague terms in the statute that do need clarification. For instance, one of the things we voted for, Republicans and Democrats, is we voted to say you have to show that you are providing improvement for African-American students, let's say, and if they are not showing continuous improvement, then you have to have a turnaround plan. By the way, that turnaround plan is totally yours to decide; no sanctions from the Federal Government if it is not X turnaround plan or Y turnaround plan. That is the old law. The new law says it is yours to decide.

``Continuous improvement'' is a super vague term. It is one of those obvious terms that has to have some regulatory guardrails put around it because what if the State said ``continuous improvement'' is improvement over 20 years. Well, kids come in and out of schools in 2 or 3 or 4 years and a 20-year period of looking at a particular subgroup's performance is meaningless to kids.

So the regulation says continuous improvement means 2 years; look at how a kid does over 2 years. And then it says, if 2 years doesn't work for you, you can make it longer but just tell us why. That is an important protection, and it still preserves enormous flexibility for States.

States want this regulation because it also gives them other types of flexibilities. An example is, when you are looking at performance, the statute suggests that you can have students who are meeting goal or students who are not meeting goal. The regulation recognizes that is, frankly, a really arbitrary way to look at performance. So the statute says: Yes, that is what the regulation says. The statute says: Meeting goal and not meeting goal, but you can get extra credit for students who are close to meeting goal, who have shown growth. You can get credit for students who are way above goal, your high-achieving students. You don't have to measure your schools just based on how many students meet goal. That is flexibility States want, that they likely don't have without the regulation.

Another example, for English language learners, proficiency goals should vary based on where you started. If you start here with no English skills, then your proficiency target should be different than if you started with a pretty advanced understanding of the language. The statute just says you have to have a proficiency goal. It is unclear whether you can have different ones for different levels of learners. The regulation makes it clear: Give States that flexibility.

So that is why States didn't ask for this CRA. This is different than these other CRAs. States didn't ask for this CRA. All of the educational groups we listened to--teachers, superintendents, principals--they weighed in on this regulation. They didn't love every piece of it, but they were ready to implement it. None of these groups were coming up to the Congress asking for this regulation to be withdrawn. Would they have liked it to be fixed or tailored? Sure. But here is what they understood, and here is why I am really concerned.

Secretary DeVos could fix the things she doesn't like or Senator Alexander doesn't like through the regular notice and comment period. I think there is 80 percent of this regulation that everybody agrees on, that just dots the i's and crosses the t's on a bipartisan commitment to accountability, and maybe there is 20 percent or 10 percent that Senator Alexander and some other Members think goes a little bit too far, but when you pass a CRA, you don't allow for a regulation to be passed in the future that is substantially similar to the entirety of the regulation. The courts aren't going to look, or, frankly, even know, what parts of the regulation you didn't like and the 80 percent of the regulation you wanted to preserve.

The Department of Education can't pass anything that is similar to this

ever again. So one of the things the regulation says is that you get a 1-year delay because it is just too quick to come up with accountability systems for this coming school year. That is gone. When this CRA passes, every school district in the Nation has to develop an accountability system for this calendar year because without the regulation, you don't have that flexibility.

So what makes me, frankly, so disturbed about this CRA is that it could happen another way, which would preserve the pieces of the civil rights protections that all of us agree on, which is the majority of the regulation. To my mind, it violated the spirit of our agreement when we passed this law. Here was a really amazing achievement; that we were able to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law--essentially repeal it and replace it with something better--that Democrats and Republicans could agree upon. In my mind, that agreement was predicated upon the Department being able to enforce maybe the most important part of the law for big constituency groups in this country--the accountability section, the civil rights protections.

By passing this CRA, we are essentially making it impossible for any regulation ever again to be passed to implement the accountability sections and the civil rights protections in this law. Why? Because you can't pass anything that is substantially similar--substantially similar to the parts you like, substantially similar to the parts you don't like. This isn't like these other CRAs where Republicans didn't like any part of it, where Republicans didn't see any need for the regulation to go forward. This is different. We agree on 80 percent of this one, but the 80 percent is likely gone by passing this.

I guess part of what disturbs me here is that we worked, locked arm in arm, in passing this law. I really do believe that by passing this CRA, Republican leadership--HELP leadership--is violating the agreement we had to make sure this law went into force and effect in the way we all intended.

It happened in the context of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that isn't working this year like it used to work. I have such great respect for the chairman and the ranking member of that committee. They pulled off some big bipartisan wins during the time of their tenure, including the Workforce Investment Act, the rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act, and some other smaller wins that people didn't necessarily think as much about, and leading up to the end of last year, the passage of a major new commitment to reforming mental illness and mental health in this country.

That spirit of bipartisanship, which was present in the HELP Committee in a way that it wasn't present in other committees, is disappearing before our eyes. We were mad that we only got 5 minutes to question Betsy DeVos because it felt like the committee was hiding her from public view. Democrats were asking for more time to ask more questions, and we didn't get it. That rarely happens in that committee, where the minority party is just asking to be heard and is shut down.

We begged for the CRA not to come before this body because there was another way to get it done that didn't violate the spirit of our agreement around the rewrite of the No Child Left Behind law, but we were denied in that request. Now we are voting on a CRA that is potentially going to be devastating not just for kids out there who need protection but also for States that want this flexibility.

Finally, we are on a schedule, according to the majority leader, that is going to bring a healthcare bill that will rewrite the rules for one-sixth of the American economy to the floor of the Senate without any debate in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, without a single hearing on the bill, without a markup, and without any ability for amendment.

I listened for 6 years to my Republican friends tell me that the healthcare bill, or the Affordable Care Act, was rammed through Congress and that the biggest problem was the fact that it was done outside of the public view for expediency's sake. Now, I was there in the House of Representatives, and let me express the unbelievable irony of those complaints now that there will be no process for the committees to consider the replacement to the Affordable Care Act.

The House and the Senate had hundreds--hundreds--of meetings and hearings. The HELP Committee alone--I don't have the numbers in front of me--considered hundreds of amendments and adopted over 100 Republican amendments in the markup process. The Senate's session was the second longest in the history of the Senate, in for more than 20 days debating that bill. The reason there was so much tempest out in the American public over the Affordable Care Act was because it was open for debate for so long.

The Finance Committee had a full process. The HELP Committee had a full process. The Ways and Means Committee had a full process. The Energy and Commerce Committee had a full process.

None of that is happening here. This bill is being jammed through, as we speak, the Ways and Means and the Energy and Commerce Committees. This bill is going to be jammed onto the floor, perhaps without any committee process, in the Senate. The target is from introduction Monday to passage in the House in 3 weeks and perhaps just a few more weeks before it passes the Senate. So spare me the complaints about the Affordable Care Act being rushed into place when this process is going to make that look laborious in comparison.

What pains me is not just this CRA, which is unnecessary, but it doesn't have to happen this way. What pains me is a committee process that when I got here had a reputation for being truly bipartisan, for being one of the more functional, if not the most functional, committee processes. That is being blown up most significantly by the rush job-- the rush job on the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, which nobody in the American public is going to have enough time to look at it and see it.

I ask my colleagues one more time to reconsider their votes on this CRA. We are at our best when we come together around the idea that every kid in this country should have a chance at a quality education, no matter what color their skin is, no matter what their learning ability is. I know my colleagues have a couple problems with this regulation. I get it. But by passing this CRA, the regulation is gone and never coming back, and the States that want the flexibility, that are begging for the flexibility, won't get it. It will just be an unworkable section of the bill. A section that was supposed to be bipartisan now fundamentally won't work because we can't get a regulation passed that is at all substantially similar to the good parts or to the bad parts.

This body is at its best when we stand together--Republicans and Democrats--and say that no matter what you look like, no matter how well you learn, no matter how much money you have, you get a quality education. We did that when we voted together on ESSA, and we are going back on that bipartisan commitment by passing a CRA that is unnecessary. As to the bad stuff you don't like, it can be gone in a matter of months by a regular process of notice and comment in the Department of Education.

This is part of a disturbing new trend line in this committee toward partisanship and away from a history of commitment to our kids-- Republican and Democrat.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.