Agriculture Disaster Assistance Improvement Act of 2022

Mr. President, literacy opens the door for lifelong opportunity and economic success. But in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a lot of work to do to help kids catch up. The National Assessment of Education Progress results show the terrible toll the pandemic has taken on students' literacy skills. Reading scores for 9-year-olds, dropped by five points, the steepest decline since 1990. We need urgent action to ensure that all children have the means and the right to read. That is why I am pleased to join Congressman Raul Grijalva in introducing the Right to Read Act.

The Right to Read Act will require States and school districts to have policies protecting the right to read, which includes access to evidence-based reading instruction, access to effective school libraries, access to developmentally and linguistically appropriate materials, reading materials at home, family literacy support, and the freedom to choose reading materials.

The Right to Read Act will ensure that low-income, minority children, English learners, and students with disabilities are not disproportionately enrolled in schools that lack effective school libraries. This is a matter of equity. Data shows that school libraries make a big difference in giving kids the skills and inspiration to become proficient and enthusiastic readers. Students who utilize school libraries have 73 percent higher literacy rates than students who do not, and the positive impact of effective school libraries is highest for marginalized groups, including students experiencing poverty, students of color, and students with disabilities. But not every student has access to library services. The U.S. Department of Education reports that 2.5 million students are enrolled in districts where there are no school libraries. An estimated 1 out of 10 schools in America does not have a school library, and 30 percent of U.S. public schools do not have full time librarians. Students experiencing the highest levels of poverty are 30 percent more likely to attend a school without a school library. And while school libraries are most effective when they offer resources that resonate, engage, and empower students and that align with their first amendment rights, 32 States have enacted bans on books that disproportionately limit access to titles with LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color.

The Right to Read Act will address the disparities in access to school library resources. It supports the development of effective school libraries, including the recruitment, retention, and professional development of State-certified school librarians. It will also increase the Federal investment in literacy by reauthorizing Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grants at $500 million and the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program at $100 million, targeting critical literacy resources in high need communities. Critically, the bill protects access to quality reading materials and provides the resources needed to create a foundation for learning and student success.

In developing this legislation, Congressman Grijalva and I worked closely with the library community, including the American Library Association and the American Association of School Librarians. These are the experts in helping kids become lifelong readers and learners. I appreciate their insight and assistance on this bill, and I urge my colleagues to join us in cosponsoring this legislation to ensure that all students have a right to read.

Mr. President, we all recognize that a postsecondary education is often the key to a family-sustaining, middle-class job. We also know that an educated workforce is essential to a modern, productive economy. However, our system that relies on student loan debt to finance that education is broken. At the end of fiscal year 2021, over 43 million Americans owed more than $1.6 trillion in Federal student loan debt.

The pandemic has forced a long-overdue reckoning with the cost of student loan debt to our society. But the warning signs have been clear for some time. A National Center of Education Statistics Report found that students who graduated in 2016 still owed 78 percent of the amount they borrowed. Black graduates owed more than they had originally borrowed. Thirty-four percent of graduates reported negative net worth. As student loan debt has

grown, young adults have put off buying homes or cars, starting a family, saving for retirement, or launching new businesses. They have literally mortgaged their economic future.

In response to the pandemic, Congress and two administrations took unprecedented steps to ease the burden of student loan debt. While those steps provided urgently needed relief to current borrowers, we need to take steps now to reform the student loan system so future graduates are not saddled with crushing debt. Part of the answer is requiring institutions of higher education to have a greater stake in the outcomes for student loan borrowers.

While institutions are largely shielded when student borrowers can't repay their loans, students who fall into default face catastrophic consequences with little opportunity for relief. Only in rare instances can the debt be discharged in bankruptcy, and the Federal Government has the power to withhold tax refunds, garnish wages, and even garnish Social Security benefits to collect defaulted student loans.

We have seen the costs to students and taxpayers when institutions are not held accountable. The Department of Education has forgiven over $13 billion in student loans for students cheated by their colleges since 2021 alone. Just recently, Stratford University announced it would be shutting its doors leaving thousands of students in the lurch.

We cannot wait until an institution is catastrophically failing its students before taking action. Institutions need greater financial incentives to act before default rates rise. Simply put, we cannot tackle the student loan debt crisis without States and institutions stepping up and taking greater responsibility for college costs and student borrowing.

That is why I am pleased to reintroduce the Protect Student Borrowers Act with Senators Warren and Durbin. Our legislation seeks to ensure that institutions have more ``skin in the game'' when it comes to student loan debt. The bill will create stronger market incentives for colleges and universities to provide better and more affordable education to students, which should in turn help put the brakes on rising student loan defaults.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act would hold colleges and universities accountable for high student loan defaults by requiring them to repay a percentage of defaulted loans. Only institutions that have one-third or more of their students borrow or have a repayment rate after 3 years below 50 percent would be included in the bill's risk-sharing requirements based on their cohort default rate. Risk- sharing requirements would kick in when the default rate exceeds five percent. As the institution's default rate rises, so too will the institution's risk-share payment.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act also provides incentives for institutions to take proactive steps to ease student loan debt burdens and reduce default rates. Colleges and universities can reduce or eliminate their payments if they implement a comprehensive student loan management plan. The Secretary may waive or reduce the payments for institutions whose mission is to serve low-income and minority students, such as community colleges, historically Black institutions, or Hispanic-serving institutions, if they are making progress in their student loan management plans.

The risk-sharing payments would be invested in helping struggling borrowers, preventing future default and delinquency, and providing additional grant aid to students receiving Pell grants at institutions that enroll a high percentage of Pell grant recipients and have low default rates.

With the stakes so high for students and taxpayers, it is only fair that institutions bear some of the risk in the student loan program.

We need to tackle student loan debt and college affordability from multiple angles. All stakeholders in the system must do their part. With the Protect Student Borrowers Act, we are providing the incentives and resources for institutions to take more responsibility to address college affordability, reduce student loan debt, and improve student outcomes. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill and look forward to working with them to include it and other key reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Mr. President, last month, Attorney General Garland made one of his most important decisions yet as head of the Justice Department: He appointed a new Director to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Now, why is that a big deal? Because for years, the Bureau of Prisons--which is charged with care of more than 140,000 adults in custody--has been plagued by corruption, chronic mismanagement, and misconduct reaching all the way to the top of the Agency. Under the former Director--Michael Carvajal--the Bureau of Prisons turned a blind eye to numerous allegations of sexual abuse, criminal conduct, and even torture and murder. Time and again, former Director Carvajal refused to hold his own employees accountable, and he repeatedly failed to implement much-needed reforms to our Federal prison system. These failures not only jeopardized the lives of adults being held in Federal custody--but also the lives of the nearly 35,000 Americans who work in BOP facilities every day.

Fortunately, as of last month, the Bureau finally has a chance at a fresh start. Earlier today, the Judiciary Committee welcomed the Bureau's newly appointed Director, Colette Peters, who testified about her vision for America's Federal prison system. And based on her testimony, I am hopeful that her leadership will mark a critical turning point for the Bureau of Prisons. Director Peters shares my belief that the top priority for the Bureau can be summed up in one word: reform.

She is a reform-minded leader who is committed to clearing out the bureaucratic rot that has festered for far too long. And unlike her predecessor, Director Peters has not spent her career climbing the rungs within the Bureau's bureaucracy. She has been putting in the work of building a better justice system in her home State of Oregon.

Over the past decade, Director Peters served as the head of Oregon's Department of Corrections. In this role, she pioneered a new model for the State's correctional system--one that, I hope, she will bring to the Bureau of Prisons--she calls it ``The Oregon Way.'' The Oregon Way is centered around ``prioritizing employee health and well-being by normalizing the correctional environment and, in turn, improving the outcomes for incarcerated people.''

Director Peters was inspired to develop this model after she traveled to Norway, where she visited six of the country's prisons. She saw for herself how a rehabilitation-focused prison system can help prepare incarcerated people for successful reentry into society--and ultimately reduce recidivism rates.

And as director of Oregon's Department of Corrections, she implemented some promising reforms to the State's prisons, like dismantling death row and rearranging housing areas to prevent correctional officers from spending long shifts alone.

Director Peters' vision for a rehabilitative, humane correctional system is exactly what the Bureau of Prisons needs at this moment. But let's also be clear: The grave, systemic problems within the Agency won't end with the appointment of a new Director.

This challenge is far too complex for any one person to solve--no matter how noble their intentions may be. And as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I give the American people my word: We will be watching the Bureau like a hawk. Our oversight role has never been more important.

That is why yesterday--in anticipation of her appearance before the Judiciary Committee--Representative David Trone and I led a number of our colleagues in sending Director Peters a letter.

In it, we urged her to take immediate action in reducing the use of restrictive housing, also known as solitary confinement. It should be one of the first steps she takes as Director. Appallingly, the Bureau of Prisons has made a habit of throwing prisoners into solitary confinement, an almost medieval practice that should be, in the words of the Justice Department, ``used rarely, applied fairly, and subjected to reasonable constraints.''

But former Director Carvajal repeatedly ignored that recommendation, and right now, on any given day, more than 10,000 people within BOP-- nearly 8 percent of the entire Federal prison population--are being held in some form of solitary confinement. That is inhumane--and unconscionable.

Ten years ago, I chaired the first-ever congressional hearing on solitary confinement. One of the witnesses was an exonerated formerly incarcerated person named Anthony Graves. He was wrongfully convicted for a murder he did not commit. During his time in prison, Mr. Graves-- an innocent man--spent 16 years in solitary confinement. Imagine that: being held in isolation, in a cage the fraction of the size of this Senate floor, for 16 years.

Mr. Graves told the members of the committee, ``Solitary confinement does one thing, it breaks a man's will to live. . . . I have been free for almost two years and I still cry at night, because no one out here can relate to what I have gone through.'' ``I battle with feelings of loneliness. I've tried therapy but it didn't work.''

I know that Director Peters understands that solitary confinement can cause severe mental anguish for adults in custody. As director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, she made important progress in reducing the use of restrictive housing in facilities across the State. I trust that she will work to do the same at BOP.

After that 2012 hearing, the Obama administration took some encouraging steps to reform and reduce the use of restricted housing in the Federal prison system. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, that progress stalled, and the rate of individuals in solitary confinement steadily increased. The Biden administration has committed to addressing this, and Director Peters made clear today that it will be one of her priorities.

But it is also the responsibility of lawmakers in Congress to improve our Nation's laws regarding the use of solitary confinement and ensure that a change in administrations will never

again lead to an increase in this harmful practice.

Today, I am reintroducing a piece of legislation--with my friend and fellow committee member Chris Coons--that does just that: the Solitary Confinement Reform Act. We first introduced this bill back in 2016, and we have reintroduced it in every Congress since. That is how important it is. It will require the Bureau of Prisons to limit the use of solitary to the briefest terms--under the least restrictive conditions possible. And it will improve access to mental health care services for individuals who have been held in solitary.

As we turn a new page at the Bureau of Prisons with Director Peters, I can think of no better way to begin reforming the agency than by passing the Solitary Confinement Reform Act. Let's finally build a justice system that actually rehabilitates adults in custody and prepares them for successful reentry into society.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Veteran Service Recognition Act of 2022.

This legislation would ensure that noncitizen service members have access to the information and resources they need to apply for citizenship in the United States and avoid deportation from the country they have promised to protect and fight for.

The Veteran Service Recognition Act of 2022 would implement important changes to ensure that servicemembers as well as their spouses and children are not removed from the United States after leaving the military because they were never provided support and resources to help them adjust their status.

Specifically, this bill would require the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to create a program to help ensure that servicemembers and their families have a pathway to naturalization. The program would also include training for JAG officers and recruiter training on the naturalization process for servicemembers.

The bill would also create a Military Family Immigration Advisory Committee that would provide recommendations to DHS on whether a noncitizen who has served in the military or their family members should be granted a stay of removal, deferred action, parole, or be removed from the country.

Finally, the bill would require DHS to establish a program that allows removed veterans and their family members to be admitted back into the United States as lawful permanent residents and directs DOJ to reopen their removal cases.

Our noncitizen servicemembers have risked their lives in service to our country. For over a century, the United States has recognized the contributions that noncitizens make in the military. They deserve a clear path to citizenship for themselves and their spouses and children.

Over the past several years, programs to help facilitate these processes have diminished, and this lack of support from Federal Agencies has made it more difficult for noncitizen servicemembers to become U.S. citizens. Veterans who are unable to naturalize are at risk of deportation if they commit certain crimes and are forced to leave the country they promised to defend. Many believe that they are citizens already due to their service and are shocked to learn years later that they are not.

It is imperative that we work to protect our noncitizen veterans from deportation and that we bring back those veterans who were removed from the United States. These veterans have shown nothing but loyalty to the United States, and they deserve to stay here, receive their benefits, and live fulfilling lives alongside their family members.

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

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