Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 490, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate and that any statements relating to this measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 597, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 598 submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 599 submitted earlier today by Senator Gillibrand and Senator Kirk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Con. Res. 60, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the matter be printed in the Record.

Finally, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn and convene for pro forma session only, with no business conducted, on the following dates and times, and that following each pro forma session the Senate adjourn until the next pro forma session: Friday, November 16, at 9:30 a.m.; Tuesday, November 20, at 12 p.m.; Friday, November 23, at 3 p.m.; that the Senate adjourn on Friday, November 23, until 2 p.m. on Monday, November 26, unless the Senate has received a message from the House that it has adopted S. Con. Res. 60, which is the adjournment resolution, and if the Senate has received such a message, the Senate adjourn until Monday, November 26, at 2 p.m. under the provisions of S. Con. Res. 60; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized and Senators be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; and that all postcloture time on S. 3525, the Sportsmen's Act, be considered expired at 5:30 p.m. and the Senate proceed under the previous order.

The next rollcall votes will be on Monday, November 26, at 5:30 p.m.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, on the 25th day of June 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 8802 establishing the fair employment practice that began to erase discrimination in the Armed Forces.

In 1942, President Roosevelt established a presidential directive giving African Americans an opportunity to be recruited into the Marine Corps. These African Americans, from all States, were not sent to the traditional boot camps of Parris Island, SC and San Diego, CA. Instead, African American Marines were segregated--experiencing basic training at Montford Point--a facility at Camp Lejeune, NC. Approximately 20,000 African American Marines received basic training at Montford Point between 1942 and 1949.

In July of 1948 President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order No. 9981 negating segregation. In September of 1949, Montford Marine Camp was deactivated, ending 7 years of segregation.

On April 19, 1974, Montford Point Camp was renamed Camp Johnson, in honor of the late Sergeant Major, Gilbert H. ``Hashmark'' Johnson. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to join the Corps, a Distinguished Montford Point Drill Instructor and a Veteran of WWII and Korea. The Camp remains the only Marine Corps installation named in honor of an African American.

The awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal came to fruition after the signing of H.R. 2447, Public Law 112-59 by President Obama on 23 Nov 11, which is the highest civilian honor for the distinguished achievement. The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to 366 Original Montford Point Marines, 27 June 2012 at the Capital Visitor's Center in Washington, DC. The next day, replicas of this medal were presented to these men at the Commandant of the Marine Corps' residence.

January of 2012 began the keeling of the USNS Montford Point, T-MLP- 1, the lead ship of her class of Mobile Landing Platforms, MLP, a ship named in honor of the Original Montford Point Marines. Currently the Montford Point Marine Association Inc is raising funds to build the Montford Point Memorial at Camp Lejeune, NC.

Today, I would like to recognize the following Original Montford Point Marines from Louisiana:

Henry Leonard Bart, New Orleans

Winston Joseph Burns, Sr., New Orleans

Cleauthor Sanders, Shreveport

Otis O'Neal Stewart, Baton Rouge

Ruffin Dawson, Mandeville

Joseph Bastian, New Iberia

Alcee Chriss, Sr., Baton Rouge

Walter Duhon, Fenton

William Joseph Brashear, Morgan City

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the Junior League of Washington, JLW, as this organization honors 100 years of community service and dedication to the greater Washington, DC, area. The Junior League has approximately 300 organizations across the world, including eight leagues in my home State of Louisiana. I know that the women in these organizations make a profound impact on their communities, and in particular, I recognize the positive impact the women of the Junior League of Washington have made in communities throughout our Nation's Capital since 1912.

The Junior League of Washington, JLW, is an organization of women committed to promoting volunteerism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable. Throughout their history, the JLW has provided millions of volunteer hours and more than $5.4 million to the community.

It was one woman, Miss Elizabeth Noyes, and her sewing circle, that started the JLW in 1912. The League quickly grew to over 100 women working for the welfare of children and serving the helpless and sick. One hundred years later, the league is still going strong with over 2,300 members still striving to improve the lives of children and the poor.

The league continues this mission and in the late 1990s chose to focus its energies on literacy-related programs. The ability to read, write, and communicate affects far more than a person's knowledge of literacy masterpieces. It changes their access to jobs, health care, and transportation, and the way they raise their children. The JLW has adopted a broad approach to solving the literacy challenges their community faces by addressing the issue from many angles: adult, child, and cultural. The league is proud to partner with over 23 organizations throughout the area to achieve this laudable goal.

In addition, the league honors and celebrates diversity while focusing on shared values, and it strives to create an environment in which any woman committed to improving her community, regardless of race, religion, or national origin, will feel welcome and be encouraged to be part of the organization. The JLW is a vibrant presence in the lives of the women and children in the greater metropolitan area of the District of Columbia, serving as a resource throughout the community to effect positive change, seek common ground, and inspire hope.

In honor of their centennial year, the women of the JLW have create the Resolution Read Program, committing themselves to purchasing and distributing 100,000 new books to needy children in the greater Washington, DC, community. This is no small undertaking for a small group of women, but by meeting this goal, many children throughout the area will get a book to call their own. As such, JLW will continue to make a lasting impact in their community by fostering a passion for books and reading where it otherwise might not exist.

I would like to sincerely thank the volunteers of the Junior League of

Washington for their commitment to volunteerism, their community, and the District of Columbia. Their efforts are extraordinary and greatly appreciated. I congratulate the league on their 100 years of success and look forward to hearing about all the wonderful things the league will accomplish by their Bicentennial.

Mr. President, I rise as chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to engage with the ranking member of the subcommittee to clarify some apparent confusion on the continuing resolution provision regarding cyber security.

The language in section 137 of this continuing resolution regarding cyber security is explicit and clear. The phrase that is apparently in question refers solely to improvements in the Federal Network Security program.

Federal Network Security is a limited program that provides security

systems on Federal government networks.

No funds or language expand any Department of Homeland Security authorities.

And, none of the funds or language in section 137 have anything to do with regulation of private sector infrastructure, and we have confirmed that in writing with the Department of Homeland Security.

Without this provision, the program will be suspended due to lack of available funding and the monitoring of Federal civilian networks will be delayed by as much as 6 months, leaving them vulnerable to infiltration and subsequent breach--and that is all we are trying to prevent with this provision.

Federal systems are increasingly targeted by individuals, sophisticated criminal organizations, and nation states that desire to do us harm. There were 106,000 cyber security incidents on Federal and other systems reported in 2011. We should not postpone critical investments to secure Federal systems.

I should also add that this provision is an abbreviated version of what is contained in both of the House-passed and Senate-reported Fiscal Year 2013 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bills-- something our Committees have been working on all year.

I will now yield to the subcommittee's distinguished ranking member, who I believe agrees with this clarification.

I thank the ranking member for his concurrence. I concur with his remarks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I regret having missed the September 12, 2012, vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3457, the Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012.

Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion to proceed to the Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012. I am a proud supporter of our Nation's veterans, and I believe this bill will provide our veterans with much needed support in order to start new careers.

Mr. President, as Congress prepares to adjourn for the August State work period, nearly 50 million students are preparing to head back to approximately 100,000 elementary and secondary public schools across the country. What a great responsibility it is for us in Congress and our partners at the State and local levels to engage with parents and teachers to ensure that these 50 million students are well educated. When I travel back to Louisiana this month, I will be visiting students and schools throughout the State, from Lafayette to New Orleans to Bogalusa. I am looking forward to watching stimulating lessons, meeting enthusiastic students and teachers, and learning more about the successes and challenges of Louisiana's schools.

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that $544.3 billion will be spent in public education this upcoming school year. That is an estimated $11,000 per student. Are we making the most of those dollars? In Congress, we perennially debate the amount of Federal funds we should invest in our public school students. We recognize that many of our States' education systems are underpreparing young people for the changing workforce and increasing global competition. Yet we cannot agree on the appropriate amounts to invest at the Federal level to ensure that all students receive the opportunity for an excellent education. All too often, the debate has been about ``How much?'' rather than about ``How to get better results?'' with existing resources.

Over the last several years, Federal, State, and local governments have taken helpful steps to change the way taxpayer dollars are invested to ensure that our limited resources are driven toward high- impact solutions in education. Mayors and governors across the country are increasingly using data and evidence to steer public dollars to more effectively address the educational needs of their communities and States. At the Federal level, innovation funds have been created to invest in and scale proven solutions. Some of these Federal programs, such as the Social Innovation Fund, Investing in Innovation, and the High-Quality Charter Schools Replication and Expansion Program, provide competitive grants to nonprofit organizations in order to grow promising, evidence-based solutions.

The Social Innovation Fund in particular focuses on three priority areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. Its unique Federal funding model requires all grantees and subgrantees to match Federal resources 1:1, thereby increasing the return on taxpayer dollars and strengthening local support. This program relies on outstanding existing grant-making ``intermediaries'' to select high- impact community organizations rather than building new government infrastructures. Additionally, it emphasizes rigorous evaluations of program results.

In my home State of Louisiana, the Social Innovation Fund recently provided the Capital Area United Way with $2 million to replicate and expand effective early childhood development programs to increase school readiness among children in low-income and rural parishes within the Greater Baton Rouge area. We know that education does not begin in kindergarten, education begins in a child's earliest years of life. New Profit, Inc., received a Social Innovation Fund grant of $15 million over 3 years to collaborate with innovative youth-focused, nonprofit organizations in helping young people navigate the increasingly complex path from high school to college and productive employment. The project will expand the reach of these nonprofits to improve the lives of nearly 8,000 young people in low-income communities throughout the country.

Another program investing in what works is the Investing in Innovation Fund, commonly known as the i3 Program. This program provides competitive grants to local school districts and nonprofit organizations with records of success to help them leverage public- private partnerships to implement education practices that have demonstrated positive impacts on student achievement. Since 2010, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded competitive i3 grants to 72 local school districts and nonprofit organizations in 26 States and Washington, DC.

I am proud that New Schools for New Orleans, in partnership with the Louisiana Recovery School District and Tennessee Achievement School District, received $28 million in i3 funds in 2010 to significantly increase the number of high-quality charter schools in New Orleans and ultimately improve education outcomes for New Orleans' students. With these funds, New Schools for New Orleans is replicating Sci Academy, a high-performing charter high school that New Schools for New Orleans incubated four years ago. Sci Academy just graduated its first class of seniors--with 96 percent matriculating to 7-year colleges. Two new high schools modeled after Sci Academy will open this fall. With the i3 grant, New Schools for New Orleans is also funding the turnaround of a K-8 school, Craig Elementary School in the Treme neighborhood. Dr. Doris Hicks, who runs the very successful Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School in the Lower Ninth Ward, will be overseeing the turnaround of Craig Elementary School, lending her expertise and community credibility to the effort.

The High-Quality Charter Schools Replication and Expansion Program provides competitive grants to successful nonprofit charter management organizations to allow them to increase enrollment at existing charter schools or open one or more new charter schools based on their successful model. Both Rocketship Education out of California and KIPP, Knowledge is Power Program, out of Houston, TX, have received critical funds from this competition in order to expand their reach and serve more students. Both of these well-known and highly popular charter management organizations are opening and operating charter schools in Louisiana and other States across the United States.

On May 18, 2012, the Office of Management and Budget issued a ``Memorandum to Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies'' asking them to demonstrate the use of evidence throughout their fiscal year 2014 budget submissions. This is exactly the right kind of directive-- one which taxpayers will be happy to hear. In particular, I am enthusiastic about the potential impact of the provisions in the memo that urge agencies to propose new types of evaluations and consider how evidence can be used in both formula and competitive grant-making programs.

For the Federal Government to make this shift toward requiring more evidence of impact and prioritizing the investment of taxpayer dollars in proven programs, I recognize that there are a number of challenges to address, including a lack of agreement about what constitutes ``evidence'' of impact; the difficulty of measuring certain kinds of interventions or their desired outcomes; the resources it takes to conduct the most rigorous evaluations; a concern that those communities most in need will be unable to compete and, therefore, fall further behind; and a concern that many well-intentioned organizations will lose public funding because they do not currently have the evidence necessary to prove their impact. These are very valid concerns, and I encourage the Office of Management and Budget and all Federal departments and agencies to address them through a thoughtful design of policy approaches.

I strongly encourage my colleagues in the Senate to visit a variety of public schools in their home States this month. Talk with students, parents, teachers, and school leaders. Learn more about their successes and challenges, and consider this question: What is truly working in education and how can the Federal Government be more strategic about investing in evidence-based solutions in our classrooms?

We need to be smarter about how we invest in education if we are going to close the achievement gap, prepare students for the 21st century workforce, and compete in the global arena. Joel Klein, Condoleezza Rice, and a Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored task force recently produced a report called ``U.S. Education Reform and National Security.'' According to the report, ``Educational failure puts the United States' future economic prosperity,

global position, and physical safety at risk. Leaving large swaths of the population unprepared also threatens to divide Americans and undermine the country's cohesion, confidence, and ability to serve as a global leader. . . . The United States will not be able to keep pace-- much less lead--globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long.''

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, before I begin the topic I wish to speak about, I thank Mr. Warner, the Senator from Virginia, for his leadership. He has many Federal employees, many defense contractors in Virginia. He, as a Senator from Virginia, recognizes the great threat to our Nation today in cyber security. The Senator knows very well that there are literally thousands of attacks taking place as we speak. That is why as we get ready to go back to our States for the August recess and visit with constituents, we are pressing very hard for a positive vote to move forward on the debate to fashion a cyber security bill for our Nation. So I thank the Senator for his leadership and, of course, the tremendous Federal employees who do get beat up all the time but, in fact, do remarkable work for our Nation and for the world.

So I thank the Senator from Virginia.

(The remarks of Senator Landrieu pertaining to the introduction of S. 3472 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I thank Senator Coburn for letting me speak in advance of his time on the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about a bill that I have the pleasure of helping to lead with several of my colleagues, particularly Senator Grassley, who has been my long- standing partner and a wonderful cochair of the foster care caucus. There are any number of us, Republicans and Democrats, who have our eyes on and our hearts connected to the 500,000 children who are technically being raised by the government.

The government does many things well, but raising children isn't one of them. So it is our responsibility, when we enter into or respond to a case of abuse, gross abuse, neglect, or gross neglect, that we respond appropriately by removing children from homes who have, unfortunately, been tortured at times by their own parents. That, of course, is inconceivable to me and to many, but, unfortunately, it happens.

So we remove children--hopefully temporarily--until the situation at home can be addressed with community services, faith-based services and support, where the children can be reunited with parents who have been healed, possibly, of their situation. That is not always the case, and we work as quickly as we can to find responsible and able relatives to take in the child--willing and able relatives, the law says, to take in the child with sibling groups intact. If that is not possible, then we seek to find a family in the community that will adopt these children.

The thing I want to say about these wonderful children is that while their families may be broken--families may disintegrate for all sorts of reasons, including mental health, drug abuse, uncontrollable violence, criminal activity that disintegrates the family, and children are most certainly affected--these children, in many instances, aren't broken. Their families are broken. The possibility of these children, from the ages of zero to 1 or 2 or 3 or 9 or 12 or 15, being given an opportunity to be adopted into the loving arms of a stable family who will raise that child or children as their own or to be reunified with loving family members is ideal.

As I said, governments do many things well, but raising children isn't one of them. Human beings raise other human beings, and we need to do a better job of placing our children in quality, temporary foster homes, and then finding permanent, loving homes.

We have this crazy notion in America and around the world that children are grown when they are 18, so we put all of their belongings in a plastic bag and we say goodbye to them, and we tell them: Please forget my cell phone number because you have aged out of the system.

Several of us have been working for years, including former Senator Chafee, for one, to create more permanent opportunities for extended, independent living. While I support that--it is much better than putting their things in a bag, their few little items after 18 years, and sending them on their way--we now can extend that help until they are 21. However, what we really need to be doing is finding families for these children.

I am 57 and I still need my family. I still talk to my mother and father almost every day. I was with my family this weekend. They will be with me and have been with me for every important moment of my life. When did somebody get a notion that children don't need a family after they are 18? It is a silly notion, and it is not even true. We would not send our own children into the world alone by themselves. So our whole foster system needs great reform, and we are working on that.

But one piece of this system that needs reform is what we are trying to address today by introducing the Uninterrupted Scholars Act, which is a bill that Senator Grassley and many others, including Senator Begich, Senator Blunt, Senator Boxer, Senator Franken, and Senator Klobuchar have graciously agreed to cosponsor and provide their leadership. Congresswoman Bass is a U.S. Representative from California's 33rd District. She, along with Congresswoman Bachmann from Minnesota, Congressman Marino from Pennsylvania, and Congressman McDermott from Washington State, has introduced the same bipartisan bill in the House. So we are very excited about the strong bipartisan support for this bill.

All this bill says--and it makes such sense I can't believe it is not in the law already--is that when a child comes into the care of the government, the government agency responsible for the care of this child--now it is not parents any longer because the parents' rights either have been terminated or are in the process of being terminated-- the government will have the right, or the agencies representing the government, to their academic records.

What is happening now is foster children are getting lost not only in the system but lost in their schools because of the difficulty in getting access to education records under the guise that these records should be private, et cetera.

What is happening is some of these privacy rules are not protecting the children, they are protecting the system that is broken, and that is the problem. We are doing everything we can to protect the privacy of the child, but what is happening is some of these privacy rules are putting up a screen so that we can't find out that the school is not doing its job on behalf of the child, or the social workers are not doing their job on behalf of the child.

So this simply streamlines the process of making sure academic records can be accessed by foster families--either adoptive families or guardians--without having to go through the courts for a long, extended timeframe.

I think this is an important change. It is one of probably 100 changes to this system that need to be made. Of course, we can make these new laws in Washington. A lot of this has to be carried out with heart and compassion and common sense, which, unfortunately, we cannot legislate from Washington. But what we can do is try, when we see a problem--this problem was identified not by me or by my staff. It was actually identified by foster youth who came up here this summer to intern and brought to our attention the issue that some of their records are not accessible to their foster families who are trying their best to raise them and to help them, et cetera. So the young people themselves have asked for this change. We are happy to accommodate that request.

Let me end by saying again, there are over 480,000--about 400,000 to 500,000--children who are in our foster care system representing less than one-half of 1 percent of all the children in America, which is about 100 million. But it is an important one-half of 1 percent because these are children whose families have failed them terribly. These are children who are vulnerable and need us to love them extra specially, to help them extra specially. That is what some of us spend a good bit of our time trying to do because they are willing and able to become great citizens of our Nation but need that extra special help.

So this Uninterrupted Scholars Act will give access, appropriately with protections, to their academic records. Senator Franken has a bill to give them choice in public schools to help give them stability in their public schools, so they can stay with their friends, their teachers, as they, unfortunately, have to move around in the system.

Many people will benefit--most importantly, the youth involved.