Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's concern for programs that support vulnerable seniors. Frankly, my committee has provided increases for these programs in prior years because, like her, we understand how valuable and important they are to keeping seniors independent in their homes.

As the gentlewoman knows, our subcommittee received an allocation below last year's level, and we were not in a position to provide another year of increases to these programs. The amendment reduces the administration funds available to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. A reduction of this magnitude would significantly hinder the Secretary's ability to administer the agency.

For this reason, Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's concern. He raises, I think, a genuinely important issue.

Our committee understands the value of the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program, which is why we did not accept the administration's budget request which actually canceled the program.

Our committee, as my friend knows, received an allocation that was lower than fiscal year 2017, so we had to make some tough decisions. I want my friend to know we will work with him going forward and see if we can arrive at a solution that he finds more satisfactory in the final bill.

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

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Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for the amendment and for working with our good friend who couldn't be here tonight to make sure that this issue that I know she cares deeply about and I know my friend cares deeply about is raised.

I tell the gentlewoman that I will continue work with her as we move forward in the appropriations process this year. I hope we can reach an agreement, particularly in this area.

I understand the gentlelady's frustration with finding a large enough offset to accommodate the increase she proposes. However, her amendment would actually reduce resources for the Department of Education by nearly a quarter. I think this would jeopardize the Department's ability to administer the very program she seeks to increase.

So I will reluctantly oppose the amendment at this time. I believe the offset within the Department of Education administrative account is just simply too much.

Again, I want to reiterate to my friend that I look forward to working with her as we go forward and perhaps receiving a different allocation under a House-Senate agreement in the future.

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

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Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman, quite sincerely, for his amendment. And again, as I will oft repeat tonight, as the gentleman knows, we had to cut $5 billion from this bill, and we had to make some genuinely tough choices.

In this case, we accepted the President's recommended funding level for magnet schools, and we were also able to increase charter schools, though not by as much as the President requested. Charter schools have demonstrated effectiveness in providing a real choice in quality education for millions of students around the country.

If we have a change in our allocation in conference, I will gladly take another look at the magnet school program to evaluate additional funding there. I think my friend makes a very good case on their behalf; however, at this time, simply because of reasons of allocation, I will oppose the amendment because the offset reduces charter school grants, which I strongly support.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I disagree with my friend about charter schools.

Actually, charter schools have provided enormous opportunity for children of every race, every ethnic background. They have been particularly effective, I think, in minority areas, so I reject any suggestion that the decisions we made had anything to do with race or racism or that the charter school movement is involved in that. I just don't think that is the case.

But I do agree in the importance of magnet schools, and if we get a different allocation, we are going to sit down and work with our friends to see

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if we can also make some progress in that area. But at this time, I am going to continue to oppose the amendment.

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

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Mr. Chairman, I want to assure my friend I certainly don't take the amendment as an attack on charter schools any more than I accept the idea that, by funding charter schools, we are involved in promoting racial segregation. That is not what we are trying to do here. We have a genuine debate over the best vehicles to go forward.

I happen to think both these vehicles are good vehicles. I have seen what the charter school movement, frankly, has meant in New Orleans, what it has meant in this city, the opportunities that it has opened to thousands and thousands of students of all racial backgrounds.

And the administration, as my friend knows, has put a particular emphasis here. And while we increase funding, we are not anywhere close to what the administration wanted to do. So I want to reiterate to my friend from Connecticut that we intend to work with him if we have an allocation change where we can find some additional resources, because I think he makes a very good point, and I very much value the contributions that magnet schools also have made to try to improve educational outcomes across the spectrum for our students.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking my friend from Minnesota for the amendment. I am a big fan of career and technical education, and, frankly, along with the State of Ohio, Oklahoma probably has the most robust and strongest career technical education program of any State in the country. It is actually something we fund ourselves, for the most part. I would recommend other people do the same.

I am also, you know, frankly, as my friend knows, dealing with a cut of $5 billion from the bill. In this case, the gentleman seeks to cut TRIO funding to pay for his amendment. In my opinion, it is totally misguided.

Since the TRIO program began, it has produced over 5 million college graduates, and those college graduates were almost exclusively from families where no one had ever had the opportunity to go.

This is a proven successful program. It has helped literally millions of first generations of college students, so I strongly support TRIO and will not support cuts in this program; so I, therefore, oppose the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

It has been a good and robust debate, but I don't think it has been a particularly partisan debate. As a matter of fact, I see people on both sides of the aisle that actually have both solutions. My friend, Mr.
Scott, may have the best solution of all: let's plus-up both of these programs because they both do a lot of good.

But, in this case, I don't think you make one the enemy of the other.

I have seen TRIO programs work, and I have seen how many jobs they produce. We are not serving anywhere close to the population eligible for TRIO. Somewhere less than 10 percent of the eligible students actually take advantage of the program.

Again, my State invests very heavily, probably more heavily than most other States that I would suggest do the same thing Ohio and Oklahoma have done. And these programs which my friend rightly champions, I have seen people actually raise their own taxes so they could have a career or technical institute.

So I think there is merit to both of these approaches. But I do also think 5 million college graduates from people who did not have the chance to go is something this country ought to think about. The statistics tell us each of those graduates in a lifetime earn $1 million more than they would have. I promise you, the Federal Government will get its share of that million dollars.

This is a program that has paid for itself over and over again. Perhaps as we go forward, we can find other ways to help both of these programs capitalize on their potential.

So while I agree with the objective my friend is trying to achieve, I don't agree in achieving it at the expense of TRIO or GEAR UP.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin is a good friend. We serve on the Budget Committee together, and, frankly, I know how sincere his concern about the issues that he lays out is. I know how hard he fought on that committee, and oftentimes we were unlikely allies in a number of places.

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So I know this is a passion and a sincere commitment. I remind my friend, he knows I know he would have preferred more, but this bill is $5 billion less than it was last year. He certainly had some success, and success that I agree with, but in this particular case, if I understand the gentleman's amendment correctly, it would basically cut education administration by $43 million, a roughly 10 percent cut across the board in the administrative areas.

Or is it just a 2 percent cut in everything?

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Mr. Chair, I want to begin by thanking my friend. We are classmates, we are friends, and we have served on the Budget Committee together. So I know the commitment to fiscal responsibility is serious and continuing and real. I particularly want to thank her for her kind words about the work of the committee in recent years because we genuinely have tried to continuously lower the amounts of money.

My friend makes a very good point about the dangers we face in terms of a skyrocketing national debt, but as my friend suggests, we have already cut this more than 1 percent. I am not suggesting there aren't areas that can be cut additionally. There probably are. But as an appropriator, we prefer to look at things individually, one at a time, because there are always areas that could be plussed-up as well.

I don't think anybody here really wants to cut money, even 1 percent, from cancer funding or Alzheimer's research or Pell grants or programs that we think actually help folks have an educational choice, like charter schools, and yet that is always the impact of an across-the- board cut. You cut things that need to be cut, for sure, but you also cut some things that probably shouldn't be.

So we would prefer to continue the approach that my friend has singled out and said that seems to work well, and we will do that, and I know she will be helpful in that.

I also know my friend knows that the real drivers of our debt, frankly, are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all entitlement programs, our mandatory spending programs. And that is where folks on both sides of the aisle, I think, need to get very, very serious, and the administration. Because we are never going to get to a balanced budget that I know my friend wants to achieve and I want to achieve until we put 70 percent of all spending, which is the entitlement spending, on the table for serious examination to be dealt with.

I don't oppose the goals of my friend. I just have a different method of trying to achieve them. So far, in the last 3 years, we have been able to do that. We are going to continue to try and do that going forward.
Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I want to, again, thank my good friend for, as he always does, raising important issues, and I appreciate his bringing attention to the mental health of children.

The amendment offered--and this is an important point I think many Members in this body don't think about--is actually for a newly authorized program that has not received funding in the past, and our committee actually has a smaller allocation than it had last year. I think most of the public doesn't realize it, and it is sort of helpful, frankly, for my friend to advance this amendment. Just because something moves through an authorizing committee doesn't mean any money comes with it.

Now, in some cases--my friend worked on the Cures bill--they sent money with portions of that on the opioid initiatives, some additional money at NIH, and, of course, every penny of that has moved in. They found a way to fund it. But we can end up in a situation where you just simply pile on authorizations and send us less money and think we will somehow work it out. Sometimes we do. That is why we have been able to steadily increase funding at NIH, steadily increase funding for programs like TRIO and GEAR UP, and steadily increase money for charter schools. There are some areas we have been able to do that, but we can't do it everyplace.

I want to tell my friend that, while I oppose the amendment, I am certainly going to work with him. Actually, I asked him not too long ago to give me the one thing that is the most important thing, and he mentioned the lack of trained and qualified personnel, that we could have a lot of programs, but until we had a bigger pool of people capable of rendering the services, then we simply are going to be moving from program to program. I think that was a very good point, and it is why I accepted my friend's amendment for $10 million to begin to do that. That is another area. I think we have to pick a few pressure points here.

I agree with what my friend is offering here in terms of the need for emphasis. We just simply have to work harder either getting the funds or finding other places to take the funds from.

So while I oppose the amendment, I want to be very clear that I intend to work with my friend going forward.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, once again, I agree with my friend on the basic point, but this, too, is a program that was authorized with no funding.

The things we got funding for in the 21st Century Cures Act, we funded to the penny. Frankly, things we didn't get funding for, we still authorized.

This is one of those cases where, again, the cause is worthy, and we are willing to work with the gentleman--and we will certainly continue to do that--but a lot of these things that my friend just mentioned are from programs that were authorized by non-appropriations committees. We don't create the programs.

That is where my friends, frankly, on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee need to spend some time.

They need to spend some time deauthorizing certain programs that continue.

Again, I will work with my friend if our allocation changes or we can find additional savings. But I can't willy-nilly, particularly when we have already cut these administrative programs, partly in the en bloc amendment, to fund some of the very things, including my friend's amendment, that we felt were very worthy. We will look at this.

The other thing that I would hope we could do is work with our friends on the other side of the aisle. I will just tell you, from a conference standpoint, when you go to a conference with a program that has been authorized but not funded, it is extremely difficult to get the other body to join in with you. That is just the reality.

Every decision involves taking something away. It is always easy to call something administration or nonvital. That is what it looks like in the phrase. That may or may not be what it is in the program. So it is just a more difficult exercise than I think most folks understand.

My friend's point is still the right one. One of the reasons I look very carefully at this one is because I see it as a multiplier, in terms of the professional shortage of people that we have that my friend has pointed to.

Mr. Chairman, again, I reluctantly oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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