National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2017--Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business, and I ask unanimous consent that our distinguished colleague from Colorado, Senator Bennet, follow my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, right now, this evening, hundreds of thousands of vulnerable youngsters across America are living in foster care, separated from family and growing up in a constant struggle instead of in a loving home. For years, this body has worked on a bipartisan basis to come up with an alternative--we call it the Family First legislation--in order to give new hope to our youngsters.

I am particularly grateful to Senator Bennet because he and I have teamed up on this with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including Chairman Hatch, Kevin Brady--the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee--and Congressman Buchanan. We have had a bipartisan team working for this. Now, in the waning moments of this Congress, after the legislation passed the House unanimously, after there were a number of hearings in the Finance Committee, and after objections were raised when we used the process in the Senate called the hotline to see if Senators had problems with this legislation and three indicated they had concerns, and we resolved all of them--yet it looks like this Senate is going to go home and end up continuing a policy that causes so much pain to vulnerable children and their families.

What our bipartisan bill would do is to say that for the first time, foster care dollars could be used to keep families together instead of ripping them apart. For example, if in a family a parent has bumped up against substance abuse challenges or mental health services and a grandparent or an uncle would like to help out, that is exactly what could be done under our proposal.

Now, over Thanksgiving--and I truncated the description of what happened into just a couple of sentences--over Thanksgiving, the Family First Act was included in the 21st Century Cures package. The legislation passed earlier today. And all of us--Senator Bennet, Chairman Brady--all of us said together that it sure looks like we are on our way.

After having months to come forward to work out concerns--and I will say to the distinguished Presiding Officer who has been kind enough to talk to me about this, we basically said that if a State is having problems meeting these kinds of opportunities--perhaps there aren't enough families--well, we just give them more time. In effect, we would say: OK. You have made a good-faith effort, we will give you a bit more time. But still, at the last moment, there was opposition that swooped in--opposition that really hadn't registered any specific concerns during those years and months in which we worked on this legislation.

At the eleventh hour, the Family First Act was stripped out of the Cures package. That is why I voted no.

By dropping Families First, the Senate basically is sending a message today to the most vulnerable, neglected children in America that it is just fine with us if they just wait a little bit longer. They probably are saying: Well, where else do we look for help? By the way, there aren't a lot of places because Chairman Brady, Chairman Buchanan, Congressman Levin, the other part of the Capitol, did a terrific job coming together. So when those families who have been neglected go looking for somebody else to help, when the House has done its job and the administration is with you, there is only the U.S. Senate. I am curious whether anybody is going to come here tonight and say they are not on the side of the neglected youngsters and families whom Senator Bennet and I want to stand up for.

So I am going to just make a couple of additional comments and then turn this over to Senator Bennet.
The Family First Act reaches out to the families who are struggling with addiction to opioids or other substances, it helps with programs that fight child abuse and neglect, and it also makes it a special priority to set basic standards for foster care facilities and group homes. I want to emphasize that point just for a moment. Some troubled or abused youngsters have been through such severe trauma that they need the kind of help you can only get in a temporary, high-quality treatment facility. They are kids who are struggling with mental illnesses and behavioral problems, young people suffering from addiction, victims of sex trafficking. The support they need is unique and they need access to reliable care in a safe place.
But these kinds of placements shouldn't be a destination; they should
really be an intervention. And whenever we can, we need to make it possible for the kids to have the opportunity to reunite with kin or join a foster or adoptive family.

For the first time, our bill laid down a roadmap so youngsters don't have to face the prospect of growing up in the kinds of struggling circumstances I have described. There would be standards guided by the States and laid out to protect the kids. They would raise the bar for group homes and make sure the kids aren't sent away and forgotten. In effect, the bill turns the system on its head. I think I shared that thought with the distinguished Presiding Officer. Instead of paying a dollar for families to be split up, the bill says let's find a way to use that dollar to help the families stay together. Let's see if the dollar can keep a youngster safe at home or with kin, where he or she is most likely to be healthy and happy and succeed in school.
The bill has 28 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate.

I also want to thank Chairman Grassley because he has been in our corner, along with Senator Bennet and Chairman Hatch, month after month after month. I hope we can work this out overnight so Families First can pass; if not tonight, in the morning. It is the right policy for vulnerable kids. It is the right policy for families, the right policy for taxpayers. What we are doing today isn't helping vulnerable kids and families the way it ought to.

Five hundred organizations, led by the pediatricians, nurse practitioners, the Catholic bishops, and the Children's Defense Fund, all agree with our basic premise: try to find ways to keep families together and only look for something else where you have those extraordinary circumstances where you need another kind of care. The status quo is not working, and it seems to me we have a choice. We have a choice tonight and in the morning, with the 114th Congress wrapping up, closing the books, packing up, heading home for the holiday season--let's make sure before that wrap-up is finished that we haven't forgotten vulnerable children and families.

With that, I yield the floor.

I note by virtue of unanimous consent that Senator Bennet has recognition. He has been an invaluable colleague, a terrific member of the Finance Committee, and I appreciate his leadership.

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

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to ask unanimous consent to pass the bipartisan Family First Act, to help the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and their parents stay together and make the biggest improvement in child welfare policy in decades and decades in America.
Right now, Federal policy says taxpayer money can be used to split families apart and uproot the family home. With Families First, our bipartisan bill, terrific work has been done by so many Members on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bennet was here and gave an eloquent address about how important this is. With Chairman Hatch, Chairman Grassley, and Chairman Brady, this has been a bipartisan effort for months for a number of Members for close to 3 years.

With our reform, the Family First bill, families will finally see that they will get some assistance to stay together and stay together when it is safe to do so. If a parent can get a leg up with some help if they face a drug addiction or a mental health problem, everybody wins because the family stays together.

A grandparent can step in. One of the things I am proudest of is that I wrote the kinship care law as part of welfare reform when I was a new Member of this body. So we know that there are hundreds of thousands of grandparents out there who could step in in those situations, or an uncle, and they could get a little bit of help raising a youngster, again, keeping the family together.

Sometimes foster care is lifesaving. I think all of us have said that from the beginning. But it should not be the only option. That is what kids who have been in the foster care system came to the Senate this week to tell us. It is our job as policymakers to protect the most vulnerable. Those kids don't have a powerful lobby. They don't have deep pockets.

It just seems to me, as we wrap up this session and everyone here goes back to their families and their holidays, that it is not in good conscience to turn our backs on the foster kids and allow this important bipartisan legislation to wither and to die in the last days of the 114th Congress.

So in a moment I will make this unanimous consent request. I ask that our colleagues end this standing in the way of providing a new measure of hope for vulnerable kids and their families and that we help lift the weight of this broken status quo--this broken status quo that falls heaviest on the hundreds of thousands of foster kids living in a quiet struggle every single day.

So at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 527, H.R. 5456; that the Wyden substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no interviewing action or debate.

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. As I have indicated to our colleague from North Carolina--and he is new to the Senate--he really brings a refreshing openness to these debates. I know this was a new topic for him. He has not had a chance to hear a lot about it over the last few years. He was concerned about what this would mean to group facilities and group homes in his State.

I said: Look, if there is a problem in North Carolina in terms of trying to meet these measures, we said we will give States more time.

We will give them more flexibility. I would just like to point out that there seems to be enormous support across North Carolina with respect to this bill because in North Carolina they seem to be saying that they understand that what this legislation is all about--what Family First is all about--is just getting high-quality care for these youngsters.

All of the providers would be eligible. It does not speak to the type of provider. It is all the providers. So I am just going to wrap up by a few quotes that came into the Finance Committee over the course of this legislation. From the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services, which, as I understand, is the association of entities that administer child welfare programs in the State of North Carolina supports the legislation, we have a letter that reads: ``We go on record as supporting the act and respectfully request your support in passing this important legislation.''
The North Carolina Association of Social Workers supports the bill.

They wrote: ``The legislation would strengthen families so that more children could remain safely with their parents and family caregivers and avoid the need for foster care.'' For the overwhelming majority of children, this North Carolina group says: This legislation could be a lifesaver.
The North Carolina Pediatric Society writes:

The bill is a pivotal opportunity for a major Federal policy shift away from placing children in out-of-home care and toward keeping families together. Congregate care remains one of the options on the continuum, and the bill doesn't impose time limits or restrictions on the use of these settings for children who need them. But the focus is on keeping families together. The only changes this bill makes for congregate care providers is raising the standards for quality so that all children-needs settings benefit from the therapeutic value of the best providers, of which we have several in North Carolina.

So the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Children's Hope Alliance, the Exchange Family Center, Family Preservation Community Services, and FIRST North Carolina--a number of groups, all based there and serving in North Carolina citizens--have come out for this.

So I recognize that there has been an objection. It is my intention to keep working through the night, through the early part of tomorrow.

I appreciate that this Senator from North Carolina has kept an open mind on this. He has indicated in our conversations that he understands that there is a lot of good in this bill, and for the reasons he has stated, he cannot support it tonight and I gather reasons unrelated to the bill.

I look forward to working with him. He has come to the Senate fairly recently, but I have found him open and
accessible. That is all you can ask of a colleague.

With that I yield the floor.

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