Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the work

of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. It is an important committee. Senator Ted Kennedy, who served for many years as the chairman of the HELP Committee, as we call it, once said that the HELP Committee had 30 percent of the legislative jurisdiction of the Senate. If you think about it, health, education, labor, and pensions--the work we do touches the lives of virtually every American.

During the last 2 years, I had the privilege of being the ranking Republican on the committee. The Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, was the chairman. I think most people would agree we have as ideologically diverse a committee as any committee in the Senate, but we worked very well together. Where we disagreed, which was often, we simply stated our piece and we voted. But we looked for opportunities to agree, and last Congress, we passed 25 bills through the committee that became law. I am not sure any other committee can say that.

I look forward to a similar productive working relationship with the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray. She is an experienced legislator, cares deeply about education, health, labor, and pensions, and has proven she knows how to successfully negotiate. We are operating today under a budget agreement that she helped negotiate with Congressman Paul Ryan in the House. I am hopeful Senator Murray and I can work together in the same successful manner that I did with Senator Harkin last Congress.

I have now visited with almost all of the members of the committee, Democrat and Republican, and I feel confident we can successfully work together.

Here are my goals for the next 2 years. I have the privilege of being the chairman of the committee. The job of the chairman is to set the committee's agenda and work with all members of the committee on that agenda. This Congress, all members, before and during hearings, will have a full chance to discuss and amend legislation related to the agenda. When we report a bill to the floor, there will be an opportunity for a robust amendment process, as Senator McConnell has said. Then, I hope we will go to conference with the House of Representatives on our bill, where there will be further discussion. The challenge in passing legislation is there will have to be 60 votes to move a bill out of the Senate, 60 votes to move to conference on the bill, and 60 votes to pass a bill in the end. To accomplish that takes working with all Senators, including those on the other side of the aisle.

I also know if we want a bill to become law, President Obama must sign it. On the major issues we plan to address, we hope to work with him to gain his signature.

My first priority as chairman will be to fix No Child Left Behind. The law is over 7 years expired, and we have been working to reauthorize it for 6 years. The law has become unworkable. States are struggling. As a result, we need to act.

The Secretary of Education gave a fine speech yesterday saying we need to act on No Child Left Behind. I agree with him. I intend to finish this work in the first few months of this year.

Second, we need to reauthorize the Higher Education Act and deregulate higher education. We need to simplify and streamline the regulations that are imposed on 6,000 colleges and universities. One of the committee members is Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts. When she was at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she said she would like a one-page mortgage application. A multipage mortgage application is not consumer friendly, but a two or three page one provides the consumer with information in a more easily understood manner. I think we could do the same with the application for federal aid, and there is substantial room for bipartisan agreement on this in higher education.

Just last week, I introduced legislation with Senators Bennet of Colorado, Booker of New Jersey, King of Maine, Isakson of Georgia and Burr of North Carolina, to make it easier for students to go to college by simplifying the complicated, dreaded FASFA. The FASFA is the 108- question application form that 20 million American families fill out every year. The President talked about it on his visit to Tennessee on Friday. He also thinks it is too long and wants to simplify it. I think higher education is an area on which we can work together in the Senate and with the President.

The third thing I would like to do is to modernize the Food and Drug Administration. Now, there is a great opportunity, working with the House and with the President, to take a good look at the FDA, to take a good look at the modern world of medical devices and personalized medicines, and to say: What do we need to do to make it easier to get treatments, medical devices, and cures through the FDA process quickly and effectively while ensuring those treatments, medical devices, and cures are safe so they can help people? This sort of work literally would affect every single American.

Fixing No Child Left Behind would affect 50 million schoolchildren, millions of teachers, and 100,000 public schools. Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act and making its regulations simpler would affect 6,000 institutions of all kinds and over 20 million students across this country. If we worked together with the House and the President to reform the FDA, we could affect the lives of every American and people all over the world by the kinds of treatments and devices and cures we bring to market.

Those are my top 3 priorities. Of course, we also want to deal with the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. On this side of the aisle, we would like to repeal it, and I am sure there will be that vote. I also hope, in the words of the Senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, we move as rapidly and as responsibly as we can to repair the damage that ObamaCare has done. One example to improve ObamaCare would be to redefine full-time work from 30 hours to 40 hours. That would give about 2.5 million low-wage employees in America a pretty big pay raise when they go from 27 hours or 28 hours to 37 or 38 hours, which is what they would be able to do if full-time work were defined, as it is for everything else, as 40 hours.

We will have our first hearing on that on a bipartisan bill in the HELP Committee on next Thursday--a week from Thursday. It is a bill introduced by Senators Collins, Murkowski, Donnelly, and Manchin. It is a bipartisan bill.

Our committee has a great interest in this bill. The technical jurisdiction is with the Finance Committee. But by agreement with the Finance Committee, we will have this hearing, and then we will send to the Finance Committee our opinions, and it will be up to the Finance Committee how to report the bill, whether to report it, or what version of it to report. It helps, at least on the Republican side of the aisle, that six of the members of the Finance Committee are also members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Mr. President, let me talk about the first item on the HELP Committee agenda; the plan to fix No Child Left Behind.

I see the Senator from Washington on the floor today. She will be speaking next, and I look forward to hearing her comments. I said before she came to the floor how much I look forward to working with her. She is an experienced legislator, proven leader, and has a demonstrated record of results. I hope we are able to work together to pass No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001--a year before I became a Senator. It has become unworkable because Congress and the President failed to reauthorize and amend the law when it expired over 7 years ago.

Under the terms of the law, the original provisions continue, but that is what has made it unworkable. Those original provisions, if strictly applied, would label as a failing school almost every one of our 100,000 public schools. This is clearly an unintended result of the those who passed No Child Left Behind.

To avoid that unintended result, the U.S. Secretary of Education has granted waivers from the law's provisions to 42 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This has created a second unintended consequence. In exchange for the waiver, the Secretary has told those States what their academic standards should be, what accountability systems they should use to set

performance standards, how many and what tests shall be used to measure the progress of students, how to evaluate teachers, and how to identify and intervene in low-performing schools. The Department has become, in effect, a national school board.

We have been working over the last 6 years to fix the problems of No Child Left Behind. Over the last 6 years, the Senate HELP Committee held two dozen hearings on No Child Left Behind and K-12 education. Twice the committee reported legislation to the Senate floor. In the Congress before last, we reported the Democratic majority's bill. I did not particularly like it, but Senator Kirk, Senator Enzi, and I all voted for it so we could move it to the floor, continue to work on it, and then replace the law. But it did not come to the floor. In the last session of Congress, the committee reported a bill again.

This Congress, we need to start with a specific proposal. I will put forward a Chairman's staff discussion draft, consult with all the members of the committee on the proposal, and see if we can ultimately get bipartisan agreement on the proposal.

I have already distributed to all the committee members, Republican and Democrat, copies of the Chairman's staff discussion draft. This is not a chairman's bill; it is not a Republican bill; it is the Chairman's staff discussion draft put forward as a place to start discussions.

We would like for staff of the various members of the committee to meet every day for the rest of this week and next week. They can discuss and provide feedback on each section of the bill. This will help determine areas where we agree and disagree.

Former Chairman George Miller gave some good advice on fixing No Child Left Behind. He said: Let's pass a lean bill to fix No Child Left Behind. Discussions have highlighted there are about eight or nine problems with the law. We probably can agree quickly on about four or five of those problems. There are real differences of opinion on the other three or four areas. I hope we can come to agreement on those issues in the committee, and I am going to do my best to lead that process. I am willing to spend all the time we need over the next several weeks to reach agreement.

If we cannot reach agreement in committee, then we should vote on a bill, and bring that bill to the floor. We can amend the bill there, and pass it with 60 votes. Then we can go to conference with the House, and ultimately send a bill to the President for him to sign.

I look forward to the process. A week from tomorrow, we will hold a hearing on testing and accountability. Every member of the committee is interested in this topic. Here are the questions to be examined in the hearing: are there too many tests? Who should decide how many and what tests should be administered? We need to answer some questions before we make decision to be put into a bill. In the Chairman's staff discussion draft I have circulated, I have included two options for discussion: current law testing requirements and another option that gives more flexibility to the States to decide what to do on testing.

On fixing No Child Left Behind, I plan to set realistic goals, keep the best portions of the law, and restore to States and communities the responsibility to decide whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing.

The Chairman's staff discussion draft relies on and respects the 30 years of work by Governors and chief State school officers to develop higher standards, better tests, stronger accountability systems, and fair and effective teacher and principal evaluation programs that will allow parents and communities to know how children in our country's public schools are performing.

I have watched the development of goals, standards, tests, and teacher evaluation systems for a long period of time. I was Governor of Tennessee in 1983 when Secretary Terrell Bell in the Reagan administration issued a report called: ``A Nation at Risk.'' The report said that if a foreign country had created schools in the condition of our nation's schools, we would have considered it an act of war. At this time, Governors all over the country were working to fix state education systems, understanding that while the Federal Government has some involvement in elementary and secondary education, it only pays for about 12 percent of state budgets. Most Americans feel as though they should be in charge of their local schools, not Washington.

In 1985 and 1986, every Governor spent an entire year focused on improving schools--the first time in the history of the Governors association that it happened. I was chairman of the National Governors Association that year. The Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, was the vice chairman.

In 1989, the first President Bush held a national meeting of Governors and established national education goals. Then in 1991-1992, President Bush announced Goals 2000 to help move the nation toward those goals. I was the Education Secretary at that time. States worked together to develop challenging education standards that were voluntary. States discussed teacher evaluation systems that were adopted by states such as Tennessee. In 1984, Tennessee became the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well. Washington did not dictate to Tennessee how to pay its teachers based on performance and other States began to model teacher policies in the same way. Governors began to work together on higher standards, on accountability systems, and on teacher evaluation systems.

President George W. Bush brought many of his education ideas as Governor of Texas to Washington. A large portion of those ideas were included in No Child Left Behind, such as the requirement for annual testing to determine student achievement in every school and disaggregated reporting.

President Obama created Race to the Top to give States incentives to adopt certain standards and certain tests and certain teacher evaluation systems. Since much of No Child Left Behind became unworkable in his term, Secretary Duncan provided waivers to certain aspects of the law in exchange for telling states and districts what their academic standards should be, what their accountability system should be, how to evaluate teachers, and how to intervene in low- performing schools.

These actions have created, in essence, a national school board. We need to reverse the trend toward a national school board and put responsibilities for education back with States and local communities. There is a difference of opinion about the proper balance between the federal and state role in education. I hope we can come to agreement on that balance in the committee. We need to start discussions. We have been working on fixing No Child Left Behind for 6 years, have held multiple hearings, and have reported a bill twice to the floor. 20 of the 22 members of the committee were members last year when we had hearings and reported a bill.

I think we need to identify the seven or eight issues to fix in the law, discuss each other's points of view, and see if we can fix No Child Left Behind. I look forward to that process.

The chairman's staff's discussion draft, already distributed to committee members today, will be on the committee Web site tonight so that people can see it. We will solicit feedback. Staff will work together over the next few weeks, Senators will talk, and we will see we can turn that discussion draft into a bipartisan bill. If we can, we will mark it up in committee, have amendments, and see if we can get a bipartisan result. We will then bring it to the floor for further discussion and debate. If we can't get a bipartisan bill in committee, we will still bring a bill to the floor knowing we will have to get a bipartisan vote to get it off the floor.

I am ready to get started on this process. I have talked to almost all my colleagues on the committee, and I believe they are as well.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a list of the nine problems the chairman's staff discussion draft identifies as the problems we should work on in trying to fix No Child Left Behind. These problems generally come from the discussions we have had over the last 6 years with the House of Representatives, and with the Secretary of Education. Identifying and discussing these problems should help us move along more rapidly.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I thank the Senator from Washington for her remarks. In the spirit of her remarks, I am delighted to have the privilege of working with her in Congress because of her leadership position, her background, her caring for children, and her reputation for getting results. I like all of those things.

I neglected to mention that our first hearing will be on the 21st--a week from Wednesday--on testing and accountability. I am working with Senator Murray to see if perhaps we can agree on the witnesses. The purpose of the hearing is to ask the questions she asked: Are these the right tests? Are they redundant tests? Are there too many tests? What are we hearing from across the country?

I thank the Senator for her comments. I took careful notes.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask consent that the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Bennet, and I, along with the Senator from Maine, Mr. King, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, and the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, be able to engage in a colloquy on higher education for the next half hour.

I further ask unanimous consent to use a piece of demonstrative evidence in my remarks.

The Senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, and I have been working for 1 year to make it easier for the 20 million American families who fill out the Federal application form each year in order to receive grants and loans for college.

The piece of demonstrative evidence that Senator Bennet and I have been carrying around in Tennessee and Colorado is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. This is the form that 20 million Americans fill out. It is familiar to many families as it has 108 questions, and it is important to them because about half of the American families who have students in college have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college.

The problem with the 108 questions is that they are generally unnecessary. Senator Bennet and I were at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. We heard four witnesses representing different perspectives in our country saying that we only need two questions to know whether we could make a Federal grant or loan to a student from Wisconsin who wanted to go to community college with roughly 95 percent accuracy.

So today we are introducing legislation which is named the Federal Aid Simplification and Transparency, or FAST, Act. It will turn these 108 questions into two--one about the amount of family income and one about the size of family. It will free students and their families from the dreaded FAFSA. It will eliminate thousands of hours of busywork by guidance counselors, college administrators, parents, and accountants.

I will use a specific example. On Friday I am going to Tennessee with President Obama, who has been attracted to our great State because we have become the first State to say to all of our high school graduates that community college is tuition-free. How can we do that in Tennessee? Tuition at community colleges, like in some places in the country, is about $3,600 per year, and the Pell grant can pay up to $5,700, but on average needy students receive about $3,300. So for about half the students, there is only a small gap between the amount the Federal Pell grant pays and what tuition costs. Tennessee has committed to make up the difference.

But here is the catch: The major obstacle to Tennesseans who want to

take advantage of the new Tennessee Promise Program is the 108-question form. The president of the community college in Memphis, Southwest Tennessee Community College, tells me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the form. They just don't fill it out.

So it is a terrific example of how the Federal Government, with good intentions, has built up over the years an enormous amount of paperwork that is getting in the way of the single greatest need our State has, which is to have more of our students better trained. This will help the businesses that are attracted there offering good jobs will be able to hire people who are properly trained.

In addition to that, our bill does the following things:

It not only eliminates the 108 questions and replaces them with 2, it tells families the result earlier in the process. For example, if you have a daughter who is a junior in high school, now you will be able to go online and find out--answering two questions--how much money you are eligible for in grants and loans. Now you have to wait until the second semester of your senior year.

The next thing it does is it streamlines the Federal grant and loan programs by combining two Federal programs into one Pell Grant Program and reduces the six different Federal loan programs into three--one undergraduate loan program, one graduate loan program, and one parent loan program--resulting in more access for students.

Fourth, it enables students to use a Pell grant in a manner that works for them. They can use it year-round--now they cannot use it for three straight semesters--or at their own pace.

Next, it discourages overborrowing. Too many students borrow extra money they do not need to go to college. For example, under the Federal rules a student is entitled to borrow the same amount of money if they go full time as they are if they go half time. That makes no sense. It saddles students with debt they cannot pay back.

Finally, it simplifies the repayment options. Now there are nine different ways to make repayments. We suggest two.

Senators King and Burr have their own bill, which they will be introducing today and talking about a little later, that streamlines repayment options.

I have been delighted to work with Senator Bennet. I congratulate him. His background as the Denver school superintendent and as a father has made him a very effective advocate for this effort. We have listened to educators and parents in our own States. The bill has been out there now for more than half a year. We have attracted other sponsors, including Senator Booker and Senator Isakson. We hope other Senators will want to join us.

Finally, I would say before going to Senator Bennet that as chairman of the Senate committee that handles education--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--we are ready to move on this. As soon as we can finish our work on fixing No Child Left Behind, which we have been working on for 6 years and have held 24 hearings. In addition, almost all of the members of the current committee were there last year when we reported a bill--as soon as we can finish that work, we will be ready to move to reauthorize the Higher Education Act to deregulate higher education starting with the FAST Act and the legislation Senators King and Burr have promoted.

I thank the Senator from Colorado for his partnership on this. I salute him for his leadership.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet.

I would like to send to the desk the FAST Act that Senator Bennet and I are introducing, with the cosponsorship of Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, and Senator Isakson.

In this colloquy, I would like now to recognize the Senator from New Jersey for 5 minutes to comment on the bill, if he would like.

Mr. President, following that--the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Maine, who are cosponsors of this bill, are here, but they also have a separate bill on income repayments which they will discuss.

The Senator from New Jersey is known in his State and across the country as a pioneer in education, putting children first.

Having his support and advice on this bill will be a great advantage in helping it go from the Senate floor through the House to the President's desk and into law.

In 2013 the Congress and President Obama made significant steps forward in improving the student loan program--a $100 billion per year Federal program to help students go to college. That law created a market-based, market-pricing system, and it had the effect in that year of reducing the rate for undergraduates, cutting it about in half.

The two Senators who led that were the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, and the Senator from Maine, Mr. King. Senator Burr and Senator King have continued to work on student loans, making it easier for students to go to college, easier for them to pay their loans, and easier for them to pay them back.

We are proud to have them as cosponsors, but they have their own legislation on student loan repayments, which I am pleased to cosponsor and which will be a top priority in the Senate HELP Committee as soon as we finish fixing No Child Left Behind.

I now yield in this colloquy to Senator Burr.

I thank the Senator from North Carolina. No one was more instrumental in the work in 2013 that reformed student loans to reduce the interest rate for undergraduates by nearly half that year.

In his State of North Carolina there are many of the best universities and 2-year colleges in the country, and I know education has been and is foremost for him.

I look forward to working with him, the members of our committee and every Senator on the floor, as we go through the process with a full and honest debate on important issues using an open amendment process. Then I hope we are able to work with President Obama again this year in the same way we were in 2013 to achieve a result.

A forceful advocate for that result in 2013 was the Senator of Maine who has the advantage of having been a Governor, Senator King, and we will let him have the final say in this colloquy.

Mr. President, as the colloquy is concluding, I want to thank the Senators from Maine and New Jersey for their leadership and the Senator from North Carolina. I can assure them the King-Burr bill, with the support of Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, will be combined with our bill and be front and center on the agenda of the HELP Committee as early as we can this year. As far as I am concerned, it is the next priority after we fix No Child Left Behind. I am hopeful we can bring it to the floor by the spring, give the full Senate a chance to consider it, combine it with action of the House and work with the President, just as we did in 2013.

I am going to turn to Senator Bennet for just a minute to let him have a concluding word, but I wanted to say this. As I mentioned, President Obama is going to Tennessee on Friday. He is going to celebrate an initiative Tennessee has taken by itself to say to all high school graduates: Two years of community college education is tuition free. Of course, that is based upon the Pell grant. The State just makes up the difference, which isn't that much.

I am going to have an opportunity to say to the President: Mr. President, the one thing the Federal Government can do to make it easier for more Tennesseans to take advantage of Tennessee Promise is to get rid of the FAFSA. Because the President of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis says 1,500 students a semester are not enrolling in community college, who ought to be going, just because they and their families are intimidated by this form or can't fill it out.

There is no excuse for that, and we are going to fix that. Maybe the solution is three questions, maybe it is four questions, but surely it is not 108 questions, and 70 or 80 pages of instructions, wasting the time of administrators, guidance counselors, parents, accountants, students, and discouraging Americans from taking advantage of education.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a one-page summary of the FAST Act.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the time, I thank my fellow Senators, and I yield for the final words of the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. President, I ask consent that the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Bennet, and I, along with the Senator from Maine, Mr. King, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, and the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, be able to engage in a colloquy on higher education for the next half hour.

I further ask unanimous consent to use a piece of demonstrative evidence in my remarks.

The Senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, and I have been working for 1 year to make it easier for the 20 million American families who fill out the Federal application form each year in order to receive grants and loans for college.

The piece of demonstrative evidence that Senator Bennet and I have been carrying around in Tennessee and Colorado is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. This is the form that 20 million Americans fill out. It is familiar to many families as it has 108 questions, and it is important to them because about half of the American families who have students in college have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college.

The problem with the 108 questions is that they are generally unnecessary. Senator Bennet and I were at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. We heard four witnesses representing different perspectives in our country saying that we only need two questions to know whether we could make a Federal grant or loan to a student from Wisconsin who wanted to go to community college with roughly 95 percent accuracy.

So today we are introducing legislation which is named the Federal Aid Simplification and Transparency, or FAST, Act. It will turn these 108 questions into two--one about the amount of family income and one about the size of family. It will free students and their families from the dreaded FAFSA. It will eliminate thousands of hours of busywork by guidance counselors, college administrators, parents, and accountants.

I will use a specific example. On Friday I am going to Tennessee with President Obama, who has been attracted to our great State because we have become the first State to say to all of our high school graduates that community college is tuition-free. How can we do that in Tennessee? Tuition at community colleges, like in some places in the country, is about $3,600 per year, and the Pell grant can pay up to $5,700, but on average needy students receive about $3,300. So for about half the students, there is only a small gap between the amount the Federal Pell grant pays and what tuition costs. Tennessee has committed to make up the difference.

But here is the catch: The major obstacle to Tennesseans who want to

take advantage of the new Tennessee Promise Program is the 108-question form. The president of the community college in Memphis, Southwest Tennessee Community College, tells me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the form. They just don't fill it out.

So it is a terrific example of how the Federal Government, with good intentions, has built up over the years an enormous amount of paperwork that is getting in the way of the single greatest need our State has, which is to have more of our students better trained. This will help the businesses that are attracted there offering good jobs will be able to hire people who are properly trained.

In addition to that, our bill does the following things:

It not only eliminates the 108 questions and replaces them with 2, it tells families the result earlier in the process. For example, if you have a daughter who is a junior in high school, now you will be able to go online and find out--answering two questions--how much money you are eligible for in grants and loans. Now you have to wait until the second semester of your senior year.

The next thing it does is it streamlines the Federal grant and loan programs by combining two Federal programs into one Pell Grant Program and reduces the six different Federal loan programs into three--one undergraduate loan program, one graduate loan program, and one parent loan program--resulting in more access for students.

Fourth, it enables students to use a Pell grant in a manner that works for them. They can use it year-round--now they cannot use it for three straight semesters--or at their own pace.

Next, it discourages overborrowing. Too many students borrow extra money they do not need to go to college. For example, under the Federal rules a student is entitled to borrow the same amount of money if they go full time as they are if they go half time. That makes no sense. It saddles students with debt they cannot pay back.

Finally, it simplifies the repayment options. Now there are nine different ways to make repayments. We suggest two.

Senators King and Burr have their own bill, which they will be introducing today and talking about a little later, that streamlines repayment options.

I have been delighted to work with Senator Bennet. I congratulate him. His background as the Denver school superintendent and as a father has made him a very effective advocate for this effort. We have listened to educators and parents in our own States. The bill has been out there now for more than half a year. We have attracted other sponsors, including Senator Booker and Senator Isakson. We hope other Senators will want to join us.

Finally, I would say before going to Senator Bennet that as chairman of the Senate committee that handles education--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--we are ready to move on this. As soon as we can finish our work on fixing No Child Left Behind, which we have been working on for 6 years and have held 24 hearings. In addition, almost all of the members of the current committee were there last year when we reported a bill--as soon as we can finish that work, we will be ready to move to reauthorize the Higher Education Act to deregulate higher education starting with the FAST Act and the legislation Senators King and Burr have promoted.

I thank the Senator from Colorado for his partnership on this. I salute him for his leadership.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet.

I would like to send to the desk the FAST Act that Senator Bennet and I are introducing, with the cosponsorship of Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, and Senator Isakson.

In this colloquy, I would like now to recognize the Senator from New Jersey for 5 minutes to comment on the bill, if he would like.

Mr. President, following that--the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Maine, who are cosponsors of this bill, are here, but they also have a separate bill on income repayments which they will discuss.

The Senator from New Jersey is known in his State and across the country as a pioneer in education, putting children first.

Having his support and advice on this bill will be a great advantage in helping it go from the Senate floor through the House to the President's desk and into law.

In 2013 the Congress and President Obama made significant steps forward in improving the student loan program--a $100 billion per year Federal program to help students go to college. That law created a market-based, market-pricing system, and it had the effect in that year of reducing the rate for undergraduates, cutting it about in half.

The two Senators who led that were the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, and the Senator from Maine, Mr. King. Senator Burr and Senator King have continued to work on student loans, making it easier for students to go to college, easier for them to pay their loans, and easier for them to pay them back.

We are proud to have them as cosponsors, but they have their own legislation on student loan repayments, which I am pleased to cosponsor and which will be a top priority in the Senate HELP Committee as soon as we finish fixing No Child Left Behind.

I now yield in this colloquy to Senator Burr.

I thank the Senator from North Carolina. No one was more instrumental in the work in 2013 that reformed student loans to reduce the interest rate for undergraduates by nearly half that year.

In his State of North Carolina there are many of the best universities and 2-year colleges in the country, and I know education has been and is foremost for him.

I look forward to working with him, the members of our committee and every Senator on the floor, as we go through the process with a full and honest debate on important issues using an open amendment process. Then I hope we are able to work with President Obama again this year in the same way we were in 2013 to achieve a result.

A forceful advocate for that result in 2013 was the Senator of Maine who has the advantage of having been a Governor, Senator King, and we will let him have the final say in this colloquy.

Mr. President, as the colloquy is concluding, I want to thank the Senators from Maine and New Jersey for their leadership and the Senator from North Carolina. I can assure them the King-Burr bill, with the support of Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, will be combined with our bill and be front and center on the agenda of the HELP Committee as early as we can this year. As far as I am concerned, it is the next priority after we fix No Child Left Behind. I am hopeful we can bring it to the floor by the spring, give the full Senate a chance to consider it, combine it with action of the House and work with the President, just as we did in 2013.

I am going to turn to Senator Bennet for just a minute to let him have a concluding word, but I wanted to say this. As I mentioned, President Obama is going to Tennessee on Friday. He is going to celebrate an initiative Tennessee has taken by itself to say to all high school graduates: Two years of community college education is tuition free. Of course, that is based upon the Pell grant. The State just makes up the difference, which isn't that much.

I am going to have an opportunity to say to the President: Mr. President, the one thing the Federal Government can do to make it easier for more Tennesseans to take advantage of Tennessee Promise is to get rid of the FAFSA. Because the President of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis says 1,500 students a semester are not enrolling in community college, who ought to be going, just because they and their families are intimidated by this form or can't fill it out.

There is no excuse for that, and we are going to fix that. Maybe the solution is three questions, maybe it is four questions, but surely it is not 108 questions, and 70 or 80 pages of instructions, wasting the time of administrators, guidance counselors, parents, accountants, students, and discouraging Americans from taking advantage of education.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a one-page summary of the FAST Act.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the time, I thank my fellow Senators, and I yield for the final words of the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. President, the Senate at its best has been said to be the one authentic piece of genius in the American political system. Carl Levin is the Senate at its best. I thank him for his courtesy, his decency, his scholarship, and his sense of public service. I thank him for his reminder that if we are going to have the trust of the American people to write rules for them, we should follow our own rules.

It has been a privilege to serve with Senator Levin.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Senator Harkin's legacy is he stands as a champion of Americans with disabilities. It will be a long time before there is a greater champion of Americans with disabilities in this body and I salute him for that.

I salute him secondly for his leadership and style of leadership. I had the privilege of the last 2 years as ranking member of the HELP Committee. Senator Kennedy used to say that we have 30 percent of the jurisdiction of the Senate, and it seems like it sometimes. If you know our committee, down one row is the murderers' row of liberals or progressives who are of the Democratic persuasion; and down the other side is a pretty good row of conservatives of the Republican persuasion--12 on this side, 10 on this side. So we have plenty of differences of opinions and we don't hesitate to express them. Yet during these 2 years, Senator Harkin and his leadership style have found a way for there to be 24 pieces of legislation, signed by the President of the United States, many of them very significant, some of which took several years to do, whether it was the compounding pharmacy, which was so important in our State, the tragedy of meningitis from unsterile products; whether it was the track-and-trace legislation or the changes in workforce development that gave more discretion to Governors and the citizens in their communities. His style of leadership permitted that to happen and I am grateful to him for that. I would suggest to the Senate as we look forward to a time when the Senate might be more functional and more productive that one way to earn the respect of the people of this country for this body, which is supposed to be the one authentic piece of genius of the American political system, is to look at the way the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has operated over the last 3 years under the leadership of Senator Harkin. I salute him for his service and I thank him for that.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent all time be yielded back.

Mr. President, today we are voting on the nomination of P. David Lopez to serve as general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC is an important agency with a critical task.

In August 1963, I stood in the crowd on the National Mall and listened to Dr. Martin Luther King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech when he called for our Nation to ``make real the promises of democracy.''

The next year, the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, establishing the EEOC as an important, independent agency to put an end to workplace discrimination, particularly in hiring, firing, and promoting.

Today, employees are protected by law if they are discriminated against because of race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.

The EEOC is charged with investigating complaints of discrimination to determine whether or not they have merit, and then attempting to resolve them informally, through conciliation and mediation.

The general counsel at the EEOC has a great deal of responsibility-- he or she is in charge of conducting litigation at this important agency.

Mr. Lopez is being re-nominated for the general counsel position. I do not believe he has fulfilled his charge over the last four and one- half years and will not support extending his time at the agency. I would strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination as well.

It is critical that the general counsel make wise decisions about which cases to litigate and how. Unfortunately, Mr. Lopez, often has failed to meet this standard.

I have three primary concerns about the EEOC.

First, EEOC has placed too much emphasis on litigating high profile lawsuits, some of which have been rebuked by the courts, rather than resolving its backlog of discrimination charges filed by individuals.

Second, EEOC has not been fully transparent in how it issues guidance to the public and in the information it shares with the public about its activities.

And third, EEOC is suing employers for following the President's very own health care law.

On the first concern, a judicious general counsel should view costly and time-consuming litigation as a last resort. However, this EEOC has placed too great an emphasis on litigating high-profile cases, some of which have been rebuked by the courts, rather than resolving its backlog of discrimination charges filed by individuals.

In fiscal year 2014, more than 88,000 charges of discrimination were filed with the EEOC and at the end of November 2014, EEOC reported it had 75,935 unresolved discrimination charges pending.

A backlog of charges pending is nothing new for EEOC, but given this backlog, I am disappointed that this EEOC has placed such a strong emphasis on actions and lawsuits--predicated upon not a single complaint--that do not address actual charges of discrimination brought to the Agency by employees.

Under this administration, the EEOC has focused too heavily on headline-making lawsuits at the expense of fair and swift resolution of claims for those alleging workplace discrimination.

The desire to win big lawsuits has backfired. Numerous Federal courts have criticized EEOC's litigation practices, failure to attempt to resolve cases and avoid court, misuse of authority, and reliance on faulty expert analysis, among other complaints.

Example No. 1--EEOC's case against Kaplan Higher Education Corporation received such a sharp rejection by a unanimous three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014 that The Wall Street Journal named it the ``Opinion of the Year.''

EEOC sued Kaplan for alleged race discrimination due to the use of credit background checks. The court wrote, ``EEOC brought this case on the basis of a homemade methodology, crafted by a witness with no particular expertise to craft it, administered by persons with no particular expertise to administer it, tested by no one, and accepted only by the witness himself.'' The court also criticized EEOC for bringing a case against Kaplan for ``using the same type of background check that the EEOC itself uses.''

Example No. 2--Another Federal court reprimanded EEOC for being ``negligent in its discovery obligations, dilatory in cooperating with defense counsel, and somewhat cavalier in its responsibility to the United States District Court.''

Example No. 3--EEOC caused a small employer to spend $100,000 attempting to comply with requests for information that, according to a Federal judge, ``EEOC had no authority to obtain.''

Since 2011, EEOC has been ordered to pay attorney's fees in 10 different cases. In six cases, fees were awarded under a rare step allowed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which according to the U.S. Supreme Court is reserved for cases that are ``frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation'' or ``continued to [be] litigate[d]'' after those circumstances became present.

In the four other cases, the court awarded fees for failing to prevent the destruction of evidence, for discovery abuses and for pursuing a case that lacked substantial justification.

Not all of these cases where EEOC was ordered to pay attorney's fees were initiated on this general counsel's watch, but he did initiate five of them and it appears he continued to pursue four of them. These court losses cost taxpayers and hurt the victims of workplace discrimination whose charges are backlogged at EEOC.

EEOC's credibility is at risk. As one commissioner described, EEOC's ``reputation and credibility has . . . suffered from several recent lawsuits where [EEOC was] not only sanctioned, but openly chastised by the courts.''

EEOC should immediately reconsider the strong emphasis on lawsuits that are not based on any complaint and do not even have a victim plaintiff.

In recent years, EEOC has pursued a number of cases without complaints, such as age discrimination cases against large accounting firms--PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and KPMG--whose partners have voluntarily adopted a mandatory retirement age.

Age discrimination is certainly a significant problem that EEOC should work to address. But they should go about it by assisting the more than 21,000 people who complained to EEOC of age discrimination in 2013, rather than directing investigations at an industry they find suspect.

The five-member Commission has exercised too little restraint over the general counsel. In 1995, the EEOC's then Commissioners gave the general counsel far more authority to bring whatever cases he wanted, with no check from the Commission. By 2012, this practice led to only 3 of the 122 lawsuits filed that year coming before the Commission for approval. Although EEOC has taken some steps to increase the Commission's role in approving litigation, more should be done. The Commission has the authority and duty to reverse this imprudent decision and return to performing its statutorily obligated responsibilities.

On my second concern, I believe the Commission has not been transparent in its issuance of guidance and the information it shares with the public about its activities. The EEOC sets national workplace discrimination policy by issuing formal regulations as well as guidance, which are meant to help employers and employees understand how the law applies to them. EEOC does not allow the public to review or comment upon its draft guidance, even in cases of novel, significant or controversial guidance.

This is especially concerning because in two cases last year, the Supreme Court rejected substantive positions found in EEOC guidance. EEOC's issuance of guidance is not in compliance with the administration's own best practices recommendations or the recommendations of three of the current Commissioners.

I am concerned about this because agencies expect people to follow guidance. At a hearing in June, I asked the head of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education whether she expected higher education institutions to comply with the Office for Civil Rights guidance and she said yes.

Senator Enzi also urged greater transparency on significant guidance when he was ranking member of the HELP Committee, and I share his view.

So what harm would come from allowing the public to comment on draft guidance prior to issuing it?

Finally, my third concern about EEOC and its general counsel, Mr. Lopez, is this. Employer wellness plans with premium discounts were specifically authorized in the health care law and I worked on it with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--it was one of the few provisions of Obamacare with Republican and Democrat buy in.

I am concerned that EEOC has pursued litigation against employers who have followed the health care law and implemented voluntary employer wellness plans to encourage healthy lifestyle choices.

These wellness plan lawsuits are sending a confusing message to employers--reliance on the health care law's authorization of wellness plans does not mean you would not be sued by the EEOC.

This is why I intend to introduce legislation to prevent EEOC from suing employers who are following the law in offering wellness programs. Employers who are acting in good faith, relying on a law should not face uncertainty of litigation due to an agency's misguided priorities.

EEOC is tasked with an important mission--to ensure workplaces are free from discrimination. EEOC's misdirected focus and high-profile litigation failures are coming at significant cost to taxpayers and victims of workplace discrimination.

Unfortunately, when questioned about these missteps and the Agency's focus on litigation without a single complaint, Mr. Lopez was not forthcoming with his answers. Therefore, I cannot support Mr. Lopez's nomination.

Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I wish to acknowledge once again my gratitude for Senator Harkin and his leadership for these past 2 years that I have had the privilege of working with him as ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and to acknowledge once again that there has been no one in this body on either side of the aisle who has been a greater champion for Americans with disabilities.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa.

Inland Waterways Trust Fund Fee Increase

Mr. President, the House of Representatives is expected to pass tonight legislation that should be very good news to Americans who care about their jobs and Americans who care about the condition of our inland waterway systems.

Inland waterway systems aren't on the front page of the U.S. newspapers until a lock closes or something happens and the cargo can't get down the river, and then it is big trouble. Which is the case in Tennessee with the Chickamauga Lock, an old lock that the Army Corps of Engineers says could close. It is in such bad shape, and if it were to close it would throw 150,000 heavy trucks on I-75 and disrupt the economy in all of eastern Tennessee. That same picture applies in many other parts of our country to these important waterways: The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Tennessee, and the Ohio--rivers that carry so much of the heavy cargo that provides income and jobs for so many American families.

Tonight the House of Representatives is expected to enact the third part of a three-part plan that was envisioned in the American Waterworks Act of 2012, which would provide a permanent, long-term solution to having the kind of inland waterway system that a great country such as the United States deserves. I wish to speak for a moment about the effect that has not just on our country but on my home State of Tennessee.

For our country, it would be hard to imagine how we could carry cars and coal and agricultural equipment from the great Midwest and the South to the rivers to be shipped overseas without the barges that carry that equipment, millions of tons of cargo every year, and it is usually cheaper and faster than many other forms of transportation. That means more jobs and more money in the pockets of Americans who are able to work for industries that are competitive.

The legislation the House is expected to pass will provide $260 million for inland waterway projects across the country over the next 10 years. It is important to note that this fee is paid entirely by the owners of the big commercial barges that use the locks when they go down the rivers, and that none of it would be paid by the fishing boats and recreation boats which also use the locks. In other words, the big commercial barges are going to pay more to get through the locks faster, to save money and to save time, and that is good for the fishermen as well, without any cost. This is the third step in the American Waterworks Act that was proposed in 2012.

This step would increase by 9 cents the way the fee is calculated that the big barge companies pay to go through the locks. The barge companies have volunteered to do this. They have been pleading with the U.S. Congress, saying, ``Please raise the fee we pay to go through the locks so you can use the Corps of Engineers to replace the locks so we can go through faster and cheaper.'' So the House is taking steps to do that tonight. The fee will increase from 20 to 29 cents per gallon of fuel used and, as I said, $260 million of that over the next 10 years will go to help repair these locks.

The first two steps in the plan of the American Waterworks Act were enacted by law earlier this year as part of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. Step 1 was to take the Olmsted lock in Ohio and treat it separately, because it was soaking up all the money that might be available for all the other locks in the country. Step 2 was to create a prioritization of the locks, so we didn't come here every year and say my lock is more important than your lock. And, in fact, with that, the Chickamauga lock in Tennessee became No. 4. And Step 3 is the user fee I talked about earlier.

What difference does this legislation mean for the State of Tennessee and the Chickamauga lock? Well, for years the Chickamauga lock has been subject to year-by-year efforts by those of us in Congress to find a little money to repair it, to keep it from closing, all knowing full well that if we didn't replace it, it would one day soon close. Those days are over. This is a long-term solution that says, No. 1, the Olmsted lock which has been soaking up the money has been reduced, Chickamauga lock is a fourth priority in the government, and now we have money paid by the big barge owners that, when combined with the annual appropriations, should make it possible to begin to replace Chickamauga lock beginning in the year in 2016. That would mean it would still take several years to replace the lock. It would mean it would still cost about half a billion dollars. But it would mean that instead of year-by-year appropriations and guessing games that the Army Corps of Engineers can have a long-term plan and begin to do the job, and those who are making plans to invest in our part of the region--not just in Chattanooga but in eastern Tennessee--can know if they do that, the lock would be there to help provide low-cost transportation for what they manufacture and what they grow.

I want to thank a variety of people who have taken great leadership in this. The Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, and I have been the joint sponsors of this legislation in the Senate. We are very hopeful that the House will do its work tonight and the Senate will do its work next week and that the bill will go to the President before the end of the year and this will be law by the end of the year. So I thank him for his leadership.

I also want to congratulate Congressman Fleischmann of Chattanooga who

rounded up a group of Republican Members to support this effort, and Congressman Duncan from Knoxville. Speaker Boehner has been very helpful, and Congressman Camp has been very helpful.

In the Senate I would like to thank Senator Vitter, who is the ranking member of the Environment & Public Works Committee for his leadership on this effort, and I would like to thank Senator Reid, the majority leader, and Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, for their cooperation on this.

Nothing is ever done in the U.S. Congress until it is finally done. So this is passing the House tonight and it is expected to pass the Senate next week, which is very good news for Americans who depend on the inland waterways for their jobs, and in Tennessee where change-- instead of a year-by-year appropriation, it is an effort, it is the first chance we have had to have a long-term solution to the replacement over the next several years of Chickamauga lock beginning as early as the year 2016.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week I released a staff report that found litigation missteps at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are costing taxpayers millions, while at the same time EEOC faces a deep backlog of discrimination complaints.

The report finds that the EEOC has had a recent pattern of pursuing questionable cases through sometimes overly aggressive means and as a result has suffered significant court losses that are embarrassing to the agency and costly to taxpayers.

Courts have found EEOC's litigation tactics to be so egregious they have ordered EEOC to pay defendants' attorney's fees in 10 cases since 2011. The courts have criticized EEOC for misuse of its authority, poor expert analysis, and pursuit of novel cases unsupported by law.

While the agency has pursued high-profile lawsuits without a complainant, in March 2014 EEOC reported almost 71,000 unresolved complaints of discrimination from individuals who filed charges. The agency's litigation has recovered almost $200 million less for victims than under the previous administration over the same timeframe.

The report finds that EEOC also has suffered from a troubling lack of transparency. In the past 2\1/2\ years, EEOC has ignored calls from current Commissioners and Congress to allow public review of significant and controversial guidance prior to its adoption. Also, the Office of General Counsel has, since 2010, failed to issue its standard annual report, and the agency is being sued for violating the Freedom of Information Act.

Certainly, the EEOC of today has had successful enforcement efforts and court victories for victims of discrimination, but this report finds the agency is increasingly demonstrating poor judgment and using questionable tactics in pursuit of cases that are not fulfilling the EEOC's objective of protecting employees from workplace discrimination.

The full report, ``EEOC: An Agency on the Wrong Track? Litigation Failures, Misfocused Priorities and Lack of Transparency Raise Concerns about Important Anti-Discrimination Agency,'' may be viewed on the HELP Committee's website, http://www.help.senate.gov/.

I ask unanimous consent to have the report's executive summary and key findings printed in the Record.

Senator Enzi has been a leading proponent of the Marketplace Fairness Act. I congratulate him for his persistence in recognizing its importance.

I will make three points in support of what he said: No. 1, why conservatives support it; No. 2, why it is easy to do; that is, to comply with it; and No. 3 is to ask the basic question, which is: Do you trust Washington or do you trust your Governor and your State legislature to decide what your State taxes ought to be? Do you trust Washington or do you trust people closer to home?

I will begin with why conservatives support it. If I were to ask the question, what do the following people have in common, and the following people would be Al Cardenas, the most recent chairman of the American Conservative Union; the late William F. Buckley; Art Laffer, who is President Reagan's favorite economist; Governor Mike Pence, the conservative Governor of Indiana; Governor Gary Herbert; Governor Robert Bentley; former Governor Mitch Daniels; and former Governor Jeb Bush, you might say: What do they have in common?

Well, they are Republicans; that is right. They are conservatives; that is true. But the other thing we could say is they all support the Marketplace Fairness Act or the principles that underlie it.

Why is that? Because the Marketplace Fairness Act is a 12-page bill about two words, which are States' rights. If I am the Governor of Tennessee--which I once was--and I am sitting down there thinking: Well, we have a State sales tax in Tennessee such as almost every State has, and the way we collect it is this--let's say I am in my home town of Marysville, TN, and I want to buy a television set. I can go downtown to buy it from one of my local stores. They collect the State sales tax, which in our State, including State and local taxes, is nearly 10 percent. They send it to the State.

If I go online or into a catalog and order the same television set, the seller does not collect it. This bill is about allowing the State of Tennessee to decide whether it wants to require the out-of-state sellers to do the same thing that instate sellers do, whether it wants to prefer some distant seller over the local man and woman on Main Street, the mom-and-pop stores. That is the decision.

Whatever decision they would make, the question is this. Do you think we should be deciding that for Tennessee? Our Governor doesn't think so, our Lieutenant Governor doesn't think so, our legislature doesn't think so. They don't trust Washington to make the decision. They trust themselves to make that decision.

Ohio doesn't think so. Ohio has already taken a look at this subject and said: We would prefer to collect our sales tax from everybody who owes it. Rather than have everybody in Ohio fill out a form every time they go online to order from a catalog, Ohio wants to require the out- of-State sellers do the same thing in-State sellers do, and that is to collect the tax when they sell it. Ohio has said if they do that, they will lower taxes.

Ohio has already passed a law and says if Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act taxes in Ohio will go down.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a list of conservatives and Republican Governors who support e-fairness and why they do so.

The other point is how complicated is this for somebody who might sell online? Well, as Senator Enzi said, it exempts 99 percent of all out-of-state

sellers. So if you are selling on eBay today and you are worried about this bill, the chances are 99 out of 100 it is not you this bill affects because it has a $1 million exemption.

But even if it did affect you, how hard would it be to comply with the requirements. It must not be too hard because you could also go on eBay, I am assured, and you can purchase software from eBay that costs $15 or $20 and it will do the work for you. In other words, if you are selling something online and you are selling it to Maryville, TN, they will put the zip code in and tell you the tax. You can collect it and remit it to the State government. It is about as easy as what I do every morning.

I go to my computer, I type in ``Google,'' put my zip code in, and I put ``weather.'' I want to know it is 24 degrees in Washington, DC, this morning. It tells me in an instant.

If you are selling online--unless you are selling more than $1 million in out of state sales it doesn't affect you at all. If you need some help to figure that out, you can get software that figures out the tax for you.

But remember, all we are asking--we are not even saying that we think if you sell online or if you sell by catalog that you ought to be made to collect the tax when you sell. We are just saying we think States should make the decision about their own tax policy which is consistent with the 10th Amendment to our Constitution.

That leads me to my last point. The real issue here is two words. You can make a lot of good conservative reasons why this bill attracted half the support of Republicans and passed with 69 votes when it was considered by the Senate, and why it has so much support from Governors and mayors of all political persuasions across the country. But the bottom line is all we proposed to do is to let States make decisions about their own tax policy.

The Supreme Court more than 20 years ago said it was too complicated to require businesses to collect, but they invited Congress to create a way that was simple enough to do that. Twenty years has gone by, software is already available, the Internet is advanced, and so today it is very easy to do.

There is no reason in the world for Senators to say: You know, I just flew from Nashville today. It took me an hour. That makes me a lot smarter than the Governor of Tennessee, so I am going to decide for Tennessee whether it can collect all the taxes that are already owed. I am going to say I am going to let the Governor of Tennessee make that decision. If I were the Governor of Tennessee, I would collect it, and I might lower the taxes for everybody. I don't think it is fair to say to shopkeepers in Maryville, TN, that you have to collect the tax and send it to the State, but to say to some seller in Illinois or some catalog seller in North Dakota that you don't have to collect the tax, because that means our local businesses are being dealt with in an unfair way.

I also don't think Tennesseans appreciate what will happen if we don't act, because do you know what is going to happen? The Governor is going to collect the sales tax. How is he going to do it? Well, he is going to have to start auditing everybody.

If you buy online--which everybody almost does today; just think of the Christmas season coming up--you would have to write down every single thing you bought. You would have to put the tax down, and you would have to send it in--that is the law. That is a very difficult thing to do and most people don't do it.

So the easy way to do this and the right way to do this is for Congress to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, which is a 12-page bill about two words--States rights--and say to Tennessee, Wisconsin or Wyoming, of course you should make your own decision about how to collect your taxes. Let them decide, as Ohio decided. They will collect the State sales tax which is already owed from everybody who owes it. The collectors of the tax will be anyone who sells into Ohio or Tennessee or Wisconsin or Wyoming.

That is the fair thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is what respects our constitutional federalism and the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. It shows that we in Washington, DC, aren't so arrogant to think that we should make those state tax decisions.

I conclude by saying I just had the pleasure of going through a reelection campaign. A lot of Members, about one-third of the body, were in an election this year. I was trying to remember this morning if one single person came up to me in the past 2 years and said: I just wish you would give Washington more control over how Tennessee collects its taxes.

I don't think one single person said that to me. But I will guarantee that about every other person said to me: I wish you would stop Washington from telling us to do things or decide things that we should be deciding for ourselves.

That is what this bill is about. This bill empowers every State to make its own decision about how to collect its taxes--to do what Ohio did, to do what other Governors have said. We are going to collect it from everybody who already owes it and, when we do, we are going to lower everyone's taxes. That would be a very happy result.

We have 2 or 3 weeks left in the session. This Senate has fully considered this. The bill is in the House of Representatives. I very much hope that the Speaker and the Members of the House will decide that it is time to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act and recognize the principle of States rights in the spirit of the 10th Amendment of our Constitution.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I see my distinguished friend the Senator from Iowa on the floor. I am here, very simply, to say that we are about to vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a piece of legislation that would provide childcare to 1.5 million children so that their mothers can work or continue their education or training.

I have repeated on this floor several times the story of a young woman in Memphis, TN, who attended LeMoyne-Owen College and received about $500 a month to pay for childcare for her child so she could get her degree. She then graduated from LeMoyne-Owen with a business degree and was able to work her way up to the position of assistant manager at a local Walmart. The block grant helped her be able to continue her education and obtain a good job so that she can now pay for the childcare costs of her second child on her own.

This bill has strong support on both sides of the aisle, but we Republicans especially like it because it is a block grant to the States. The grant gives States flexibility with minimal Federal rules. It also encourages the use of vouchers allowing that young mother I just mentioned to choose among her various options for childcare.

It doesn't mandate from Washington, it enables from Washington. It recognizes that leaders in States have very good judgment, and what might work in Hawaii might not in Tennessee or Iowa. Different programs may work better in different jurisdictions, and that mothers themselves ought to be able to make the judgment of where their child receives care.

I wish to thank Senator Harkin, who is retiring this year, and who is chairman of the committee that has produced this bill. He and Senator Mikulski and Senator Burr have worked for years on this piece of legislation. It received a lot of consideration in the Senate and in the House. We all would like to see the Senate function better, and it did function better for this bill. When we first brought this to the Senate floor in March, the majority leader

didn't fill the tree or file cloture. We considered 50 amendments and adopted 18 of them. Fourteen of them we agreed to adopt by voice vote, four of them received roll call votes, and then we passed the bill 96 to 2. The House made a few minor changes in it. They did it while consulting with Senator Harkin and me and others who did work on the bill, and we have come to this point today.

This is a very important piece of legislation, helping 900,000 families, 1.5 million children across the country. In Tennessee alone, 21,000 families will be helped by this. In our society today, worksite daycare is not available to every single mother or father who has a child, and this helps with that.

I thank the Senate for its consideration of this very important bill. I thank the House for working with the Senate and I congratulate Senator Harkin. I imagine he has mentioned it, but if he hasn't, this will be the 21st piece of legislation the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has produced this year that will become law under his leadership. As Senator Harkin goes back to Des Moines, IA, and rocks on his front porch and pursues the next chapter of his life, he can say that in the Senate, which didn't always work that well in this Congress, his committee did, and it has benefited lots of families and lots of children.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the bill, and I am glad to see it as a good example of what I hope to see more of as we move into the new year.

Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Recognizing Homeless Children and Families in the Child Care and

Development Block Grant Act

I suggest the absence fo a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I thank the Presiding Officer and the Senator from Louisiana.

Tomorrow at 2:15 we will have a vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014.

I want to take a few minutes and explain why it is important to end the debate on the Child Care and Development Block Grant and vote on whether we want to turn it into a law.

When I talk about why it is important, I think of a young woman from Memphis who attended LeMoyne College. This woman had a young child and was able to qualify for a child care voucher from the State of Tennessee. There are about 900,000 families across the country that take advantage of this Federal voucher program. She was able to get $500 or $600 a month in order to provide daycare for her child while she pursued a business degree from LeMoyne-Owen College. With the help of this program she graduated with her degree and earned a position as an assistant manager at Walmart. With her new position, she is now able to pay for the child care for her second child without help from the Federal Government. This is exactly the kind of legislating we should be doing at the Federal level.

What is the appropriate role of the Federal Government on an issue such as childcare? The answer this bill gives is that we should enable this young mother and 21,000 other families in Tennessee to take a Federal voucher, choose their own childcare center, and help them to financial independence through work or continued education or training programs. It has been an enormously successful program. The program has worked for over 20 years and was inaugurated in the administration of George H.W. Bush and was a bipartisan product of Congress. It follows the example of other successful Federal programs by enabling American families to help themselves.

We follow the same model when we deal with Federal Pell grants and loans that help students pay for college. Last year the Presiding Officer will remember we had an agreement in this body on huge changes to the student loan program. President Obama became involved and Secretary Arne Duncan led a bipartisan working group to develop a solution. The Republican House of Representatives came along, and we created new rules for the $100 billion of loans the Federal Government makes to students every year. The result was a market-based system that is revenue-neutral for the taxpayers, and lowered the interest rates on student loans to undergraduates by about one-half that year. We first used the idea of Federal vouchers for education with the passage of the GI bill in 1944. Recipients can take a voucher and then choose among educational institutions of their choice, such as the University of Notre Dame, University of New Mexico, University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, Yeshiva College, or whichever accredited college they so choose. This idea has worked very well and the GI bill may be the most successful piece of social legislation ever passed.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant is a good example of the government working as an enabler rather than simply prescribing mandates. The program provides $5.3 billion for childcare services for children under the age of 13, with plenty of flexibility. While it has broad bipartisan support, Republican particularly appreciate the flexibility the act provides to States through block grants. States are then able to provide parents with vouchers so that they can select a provider that best meets their needs. It is a model that has proven successful since 1944 and one I hope we continue.

Now we have the chance to move this bill forward by voting to end debate. The cloture vote that we will have tomorrow will reflect that we debated the bill fully and that at least 60 of us believe it is time to move forward and vote yes or no.

Have we all had our say? I believe so. Senator Harkin, Senator Mikulski, and Senator Burr, have worked on this for several years as well as several others of us. It was approved 1 year ago by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on a bipartisan basis. Then in March of this year, 2014, the bill was debated and discussed in this very chamber over a 2-day period.

We have had a lot of discussion in the Senate about whether we get to offer amendments. That concern has come from the Senator who is presiding today, that concern has come from me, it has come from the Senator from Oklahoma, who is here. It is not easy to be elected to the Senate and it is not easy to stay in office. And once elected, senators want their voices to be heard, whether it is on the Keystone Pipeline or the Child Care and Development Block Grant. The Child Care and Development Block Grant went through a model process that began with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, then to the Senate floor on March 12 through unanimous consent. There was no motion for cloture, no filling of the tree, and anyone who offered a relevant amendment was able to share and debate that amendment.

Senators offered 50 different amendments. Then we considered and agreed to 18 of those amendments. This body approved 4 by recorded vote and 14 by voice vote. Senators Enzi, Landrieu, Franken, Coburn, Boxer, Lee, Portman, Tester, Scott, Thune, Bennet, Warren, Vitter, and Sanders all had amendments to this bill. They were allowed to offer them, speak on them, and they were either voted on or accepted, and then the bill was passed by the Senate.

The bill then went to the House of Representatives, was amended and approved and then sent back to us. Again, here we have an example of a good process.

I think part of the reason for the quality of the process is the bipartisan appreciation for early childhood education. I think it is time to stop talking and vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

I ask our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for it.

I think all of us can support the idea of early childhood education. I am the product of one of the first early learning programs in the State of Tennessee. When I was a child, my mother started one of the two early preschool education programs in our county. She held class in a converted garage in our back yard with 24 3-year-olds in the morning and 25 5-year-olds in the afternoon. It is hard to imagine a single mother dealing with that many children all at one time, but she did. As her son, I was able to experience kindergarten for 5 years. I may be the only U.S. Senator who can say that.

I had an appreciation for early childhood education instilled in me by both my mother and father. Many of us in this chamber have a very similar appreciation. We may have different ways of trying to get to that goal, but this legislation, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, provides $5.3 billion to families across the country, namely mothers, who are going to school so they can get a job, or who are working so like the young woman in Memphis I mentioned earlier, can stand on their own two feet. This program helps them get started.

It is an important bill. I congratulate Senators Harkin and Burr and Mikulski for their hard work on this. I urge my colleagues tomorrow afternoon to

vote yes on ending debate on cloture for the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

I yield the floor.