Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)

[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12668-S12675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

ADOPTION AND SAFE FAMILIES ACT OF 1997

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask the Chair lay before the Senate a
message from the House of Representatives on the bill (H.R. 867) to
promote the adoption of children in foster care.
The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message
from the House of Representatives.

[The bill was not available for printing. It will appear in a future
issue of the Record.]
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, H.R. 867, the Adoption and Safe Families
Act of 1997, is an extremely important piece of legislation. Let me
begin by thanking Senators Craig, Chafee, Rockefeller, Jeffords, Coats,
Grassley, Moynihan, Landrieu, Chairman Roth, and Senator Lott, the
majority leader, who has made this bill a priority. I thank all of them
and I thank their staffs for all the hard work they have done. I also
want to thank our distinguished House colleagues Representatives Dave
Camp and Barbara Kennelly, as well as Chairman Shaw, and their staffs,
for their hard work in moving the bill through the House of
Representatives.

[[Page S12669]]

This is a significant bill for a number of reasons.
It will require reasonable efforts to be made to find adoptive homes
for children.
It requires concurrent case planning, which will reduce the amount of
time that a child has to wait to be adopted. It would do this by
permitting States to develop an alternative permanency plan in case a
child's reunification with his family doesn't work out.
The bill shortens the time line for children in foster care.
And it reduces interstate geographic barriers to adoption.
But there is one element of this bill that is especially important--a
provision I have been working to enact for over 2 years now. This one
provision will save the lives of many children--and ensure that many
others get to live in safe, loving, and permanent adoptive homes.
My staff and I have been involved in the discussion, drafting,
negotiation, and adoption of just about every provision in this bill.
But I have been working for the passage of this one particular
provision for a very long time--and I believe it merits extended
discussion in detail.
This provision is a clarification of the so-called reasonable efforts
law, that was first passed in 1980. I introduced this provision as S.
1974 in the 104th Congress, and again as S. 178 in the 105th Congress.
I have given at least nine speeches on the floor discussing the need
for this legislation; chaired one hearing on it; and testified at
several others.
Anyone who is seeking to understand the need for this legislation--
and our legislative purpose in passing this bill today--would do well
to review my remarks in the Record on those occasions. I will detail--
in these remarks today--both the dates of these speeches, and their
page citations in the Record for easy reference.
On May 23, 1996, I held my first press conference to call for a
change in the reasonable efforts law.
On June 4, 1996, I discussed this problem here on the Senate floor.
That speech will be found in the Record at page S5710.
On June 27, 1996, I testified before our colleagues over in the House
Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, at a hearing on how
P.L. 96-272, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act is a barrier
to adoption.
On July 18, 1996, I introduced S. 1974, a bill to clarify what
Congress means by reasonable efforts. I offered the bill the very same
day as an amendment to the Senate's welfare reform legislation, but
withdrew the amendment because it was not germane. Nevertheless, I
continued to talk about this problem, in an effort to create momentum
to bring this kind of legislation to the floor.
My remarks on that occasion will be found at page S8142 of the
Record.
On November 20, 1996, we held a hearing in the Labor and Human
Resources Subcommittee on improving the well-being of abused and
neglected children.
When the new Congress reconvened in January of this year, I
reintroduced my bill to clarify reasonable efforts, as S. 178. It was
my very first order of business in the new Congress.
On January 21, 1997, I spoke about this on the Senate floor. That can
be found in the Congressional Record, page S551.
On February 14, President Clinton endorsed my reasonable efforts
bill.
On February 24, I spoke about this on the Senate floor--page S1431.
On March 20, Senators Chafee and Rockefeller introduced another bill
to help us build momentum. That bill was titled S. 511, the Safe
Adoptions and Family Environments Act.
On April 8, I testified again in the House Ways and Means Committee
on this topic.
On April 30, H.R. 867, the Adoption Promotion Act of 1997,
overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 416 to
5. This bill, sponsored by Representatives Dave Camp and Barbara
Kennelly, included my language to clarify reasonable efforts. I talked
about that bill, on the same day that it passed in the House, on the
floor of the Senate. Those remarks can be found at S3841.
Mr. President, I addressed this issue again on the Senate floor on
May 1. Those remarks can be found at page S3898, and yet again, on May
5, I spoke about the issue, and those remarks can be found at S3947.
On May 21, I testified on this issue at a hearing in the Senate
Finance Committee.
On October 1, I addressed this issue on the Senate floor again. Those
remarks can be found at page S10262. On October 8, I testified yet
again in a hearing before the Finance Committee on the Promotion of
Adoption, Safety and Support of Abused and Neglected Children Act, the
PASS Act, as it is commonly known.
Finally, on October 24 of this year, I addressed this issue again on
the Senate floor, and those remarks can be found on page S11175.
The legislation that we will take up in a moment and that I hope we
pass today is the culmination of that effort. I have taken the time of
the Senate today to outline that history, as I stated a moment ago,
because I want to make it very clear what the legislative history is
and what the intent was behind that provision of the bill.
Let me turn now to the need for this provision.
Let me explain why this provision was the focus of so much attention
and why we need this provision.
We need it, Mr. President, because of an unintended consequence of a
bill that was passed by this Congress in 1980. The Adoption Assistance
and Child Welfare Act of 1980 included a provision saying that for a
State to be eligible for Federal funds for foster care spending, that
State must have a child welfare services plan approved by the Secretary
of Health and Human Services and that plan must be in effect.
The State plan must provide, and I quote now from the 1980 law, it
must provide ``that, in each case, reasonable efforts will be made (A)
prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or
eliminate the need for removal of the child from his home and (B) to
make it possible for the child to return to his home.''
Mr. President, over the last 17 years, since this law went into
effect and since this provision became part of our Federal law, this
law, tragically, has often been seriously misinterpreted by those
responsible for administering our foster care system.
Too often, reasonable efforts, as outlined in the statute, have come
to mean unreasonable efforts. It has come to mean efforts to reunite
families which are families in name only. I am speaking now of
dangerous, abusive adults who represent a threat to the health and
safety and even the lives of these children.
This law has been misinterpreted in such a way that no matter what
the particular circumstances of a household may be, it is argued that
the State must make reasonable efforts to keep that family together and
to put it back together if it falls apart. I have traveled across the
State of Ohio, talking with child service representatives, with judges,
other social welfare professionals who have told me about this problem.
I have held hearings with experts from other parts of the United
States, and we have discovered that this is a truly national problem.
There can be no doubt that this problem did, in fact, arise because
of the 1980 law, and it arose because this 1980 law was and has been
for 17 years misinterpreted. Clearly, the Congress of the United States
in 1980 did not intend that children should be forced back into the
custody of adults who are known to be dangerous and known to be
abusive.
My purpose in making these comments today is to make absolutely
certain that this legislation that I believe we are about to pass, H.R.
867, is not misinterpreted. My purpose today is to make sure the bill
we are about to pass is not misinterpreted. I intend, therefore, to
explain in some detail our purpose in passing this legislation.
Let me begin, if I can, Mr. President, by reading clause A of H.R.
867, and this is the bill we are about to take up.
Clause A of this bill says:

(A) in determining reasonable efforts to be made with
respect to a child, as described in this section, and in
making such reasonable efforts, the child's health and safety
shall be the paramount concern.

Let me read it again. Clause A of H.R. 867 that we are about to take
up says:
In determining reasonable efforts to be made with respect
to a child, as described in this section, and in making such
reasonable

[[Page S12670]]

efforts, the child's health and safety shall be the paramount
concern.

The purpose of clause A, Mr. President, is to make it clear to
everyone involved in caring for our young people, not just judges, but
also caseworkers, prosecutors, magistrates, court-appointed attorneys,
and child advocates--all of them--that reasonable efforts to reunify
families must be governed by one overriding principle, and that
overriding principle is that the health and safety of the child must
always, always, always come first.
In determining what efforts are required, in determining what efforts
are reasonable, we must give priority to this clause.
Second, clause A also makes clear that there are some cases in which
reasonable efforts do not need to be made to reunify children with
dangerous adults. In some cases, no efforts are reasonable efforts. In
some cases, any efforts are unreasonable efforts.
All the rest of this section of this bill, which will become law,
must be read in the light of clause A which I just read. Clause A
governs the law of reasonable efforts. Clause A defines, once and for
all, the overriding principle, that the health and safety of the child
must always, always, always come first.
This bill that we are about to take up also includes a list of
certain very specific cases in which reasonable efforts are not
required, very specific cases laid out in the statute. They include the
crimes set forth already in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment
Act, or CAPTA. They also include aggravated circumstances that will
have to be defined by each individual State, and they include also
cases in which the parental rights have been involuntarily terminated
as to the sibling of the child in question.
Mr. President, let me point out now very carefully so there is no
risk of misinterpretation on this floor, this list that I have just
read is not meant to be an exclusive list. The authors of this
legislation do not--do not--intend these specified items to constitute
an exclusive definition of which cases do not require reasonable
efforts to be made.
Rather, these are examples--these are just examples--of the kind of
adult behavior that makes it unnecessary, that makes it unwise, makes
it simply wrong for the Government to make continued efforts to send
children back to their care. This is not meant to be an exclusive list.
We make this clear in the text of the bill.
Let me read the rule of construction from the bill H.R. 867:

(c) Rule of Construction--Nothing in this part shall be
construed as precluding State courts from exercising their
discretion to protect the health and safety of children in
individual cases, including cases other than those described
in section 471(a)(15)(D).

``Nothing in this part shall be construed as precluding State courts
from exercising their discretion to protect the health and safety of
children in individual cases, including cases other than those
described in section 471(a)(15)(D).''
This leaves absolutely no room for doubt. Whether the case comes
under the previously listed examples or not, the health and safety of
the child must--must--come first.
The passage of this bill will cause a momentous change in how we look
out for the interests of the most vulnerable children in this country.
I thank a number of individuals who have helped us build a consensus
for making this change. I must say that is what had to happen before we
could pass this bill. We had to get a consensus, not just in the
Senate, not just in the House, but, frankly, among caring people across
this country. It had to become a public issue.
Let me thank some of the people who helped change that and build that
consensus.
Dr. Richard Gelles, whose pathbreaking book called ``The Book of
David,'' did so much to educate me and the rest of America on this
issue. He deserves a great deal of thanks.
Peter Digre, Director of the department of children and family
services of the county of Los Angeles, was also instrumental and
testified about the need for our bill.
Mrs. Sharon Aulton, the grandmother of Christina Lambert and Natalie
Aulton, two children who lost their lives to child abuse. I think Mrs.
Aulton was very brave when she came before us to share her
heartbreaking story. She helped us bring the point home really as no
one else could about the need for change.
Mary McGrory of the Washington Post, a tireless advocate for
children, who wrote at least two very compelling columns about the need
for change in our reasonable efforts law.
Dave Thomas of Ohio, a man who has devoted an incredible amount of
effort to promote adoption as a way to provide a better future for
America's endangered children.
All the caseworkers, the CASA volunteers, prosecutors and other
concerned citizens throughout Ohio and across this country who took the
time to help me and my staff learn about this issue and craft the
beginnings of a solution.
Mr. President, speaking of my staff, I also thank my senior counsel,
Karla Carpenter, who has worked so tirelessly on behalf of getting this
bill passed. She has spent literally thousands of hours, both in the
State of Ohio and here in Washington, working on this triumph today.
The bill that is about to be passed today is a great credit to her fine
work.
I thank all these individuals. They all deserve the gratitude of
anyone who cares about our children.
Mr. President, you will notice and Members of the Senate will notice
I said a moment ago we have crafted the beginnings of a solution. It is
that, it is the beginnings. It is, I think, precisely what we have
started today, the beginnings of a solution to this problem.
The sad truth is, some children will continue to spend too much time
waiting to be adopted. But without this bill, more children would have
to wait, and they would have to wait longer. It is also true, Mr.
President, that it is a tragic fact that children will continue to die
in this country of child abuse. But without this bill, more children
would have died.
Mr. President, we should make no mistake about the challenges ahead.
We stand only at the very beginning of a long struggle to save
America's children. I do not think it is enough, as we do in this bill,
to get more children adopted, although we are doing that, nor it is
enough to make sure that fewer children are killed.
It is our responsibility as a Congress, as citizens, as a people to
do all we can to build an America, to build a country where children do
not die of child abuse. I see an America and I want America, Mr.
President, where every child has the opportunity to live in a safe, a
stable, a loving, and a permanent home.
That is why, Mr. President, I intend to return to this issue next
year. There is a great deal we can still do. There is a great deal we
must do, and there is a great deal we must do soon.
We need, for example, to provide better training for caseworkers who
look out for our children. We need to make sure that they have smaller
case loads. We need to do more to emphasize adoption as the solution
and provide greater resources and more emphasis on adoption so we can
increase adoptions.
We need, Mr. President, to provide better training for the courts
that deal with our children. We need to make sure that the families who
are in trouble, but who can be saved, do get help, and that they get
good help, and that they get it before it is too late.
That is quite an extensive agenda, Mr. President, for this country,
but I believe it is necessary, and I believe we are up to it.
If we want to continue to think of ourselves as a good country, we
cannot afford to continue allowing so many of our children to be abused
and so many to be killed, nor, Mr. President, can we allow so many of
our children to languish in an unadoptable situation where they are
sometimes shuttled, many times from home to home to home, without
getting what every child deserves, needs, and should have--and that is
a loving home and someone to love that child.
I think we can and we must do better. With the bill we pass today, we
say plainly and simply that there are cases in which reasonable efforts
are not required to reunite innocent children with dangerous adults.
With the bill we pass today, we will truly save lives.
This historic change took a great deal of effort and consensus
building. It is a good day's work and a good start

[[Page S12671]]

at fixing America's No. 1 challenge--protecting and rescuing our young
people.
Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank the Members of the Senate.
I yield the floor.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am proud and pleased to be part of
the successful effort to pass the Adoption and Safe Families Act of
1997. Having worked to achieve the objectives of this bill for many
years, I am very grateful to everyone involved in reaching today's
result--the final passage of a significant bill that will help children
and families in true need across the country for many years to come.
This legislation is the culmination of extensive bipartisan
negotiations between the House and Senate over the course of this year
to enact the most effective ways to ensure the health, safety, and
stability of America's most vulnerable population: abused and neglected
children. The product of intense debate and sometimes difficult
concessions on all sides, this bill has emerged as a positive first
step in fixing our Nation's broken child welfare system. At the same
time this process has demonstrated the undeniable benefits of
bipartisan cooperation and compromise, it has also highlighted the
mountain of work still left to be done on behalf of abused and
neglected children. In that regard, I hope the Adoption and Safe
Families Act of 1997 will be a cornerstone for future efforts on behalf
of abused and neglected children, especially those children whose
special needs present formidable barriers to their safe adoptive
placement.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 is most significant in its
focus on moving children out of foster care and into adoptive and other
positive, permanent placements. If American child welfare policy does
not succeed in providing a real sense of belonging and identity to
children living in the foster care system, we will be denying these
young people the fundamental supports they need to become satisfied and
caring adults. It would be a tragedy to write these children off as a
lost generation, just another group of children from broken homes and a
broken system who just didn't get enough support to make a difference.
In my role as chairman of the National Commission on Children, I had
the unique opportunity to travel across the country and speak with
hundreds of children, parents, and caregivers about how to effectively
address their most basic needs and about how the Government can help to
foster their most fundamental aspirations. Because of that commission,
I spent a day in LA juvenile court and saw the system at its worst,
overwhelmed and ineffectively serving children. But I also met a
dedicated advocate, Nancy Daly, and she introduced me to the
Independent Living Program and other efforts that can work to serve
children. We've stayed in touch, working on these issues together ever
since.
At the heart of the recent debate about the best policy for adoption
and child welfare, dozens of complex questions have been raised about
how Federal taxpayer dollars should be spent and who is worthy of
receiving them. As we struggle with these difficult issues, which often
pit social against fiscal responsibility, I keep returning to the same
fundamental lesson I have learned from the families with whom I have
spoken over the years: If we cannot build social policy that
effectively protects our children, we have failed to do our job as a
government and a society.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends and
colleagues, John Chafee and Larry Craig for their unflagging leadership
in bringing the legislation this far. My partnership with Senator
Chafee on children's issues is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my
legislative work, and I thank him for his leadership. Senator Craig
also provided tremendous help and fortitude in achieving the final
consensus and action needed to produce results. There have been a
series of premature reports about the collapse of negotiations. Without
their efforts and the rest of our bipartisan coalition, the naysayers
might have triumphed over the needs of almost a half a million children
in foster care.
I would also like to share my sincere appreciation with the other
Members of the Senate adoption working group who have worked so hard to
create a solid bipartisan package: Senators Jeffords, DeWine, Coats,
Bond, Landrieu, Levin, Moynihan, Kerrey, and Dorgan. I would also like
to acknowledge the work of Finance chairman, Senator Roth, who has made
it possible for the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 to become a
reality.
I also want to pay special tribute to the First Lady, Mrs. Clinton,
for her longstanding and intense dedication to the goals pursued in
this legislation. She has told me of the public's deep concern for
children who are barred from becoming part of permanent, loving
families. Her interest and encouragement have been invaluable to me and
to others involved in this effort, and I know she will help ensure the
administration's commitment to turning this new law into reality.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 will fundamentally shift
the focus of the foster care system by insisting that health and safety
should be the paramount considerations when a State makes any decision
concerning the well-being of an abused and neglected child. This
legislation is designed to move children out of foster care and into
adoptive and other permanent homes more quickly and more safely than
ever before. For the first time, this legislation requires States to
use reasonable efforts to move eligible foster children toward adoption
by introducing a new fast-track provision for children who have been
subjected to severe abuse and other crimes by their parents. In such
severe cases, this bill would require that a permanency hearing be held
within 30 days. In the case of an abandoned infant where reasonable
efforts have been waived to reunite the family, that child could be
moved into a safe and permanent home in a month's time.
While this legislation appropriately preserves current Federal
requirements to reunify families when that is best for the child, it
does not require the States to use reasonable efforts to reunify
families that have been irreparably broken by abandonment, torture,
physical abuse, murder, manslaughter, and sexual assault. In cases
where children should not be reunited with their biological families,
the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires that the States use
the same reasonable efforts to move children toward adoption or another
permanent placement consistent with a well thought-out and well-
mentioned permanency plan.

In addition, the act encourages adoptions by rewarding States that
increase adoptions with bonuses for foster care and special-needs
children who are placed in adoptive homes. Most significantly, the
legislation takes the essential first step of ensuring ongoing health
coverage for all special-needs children who are adopted. Without this
essential health coverage, many families who want to adopt children
with a range of physical and mental health issues, would be unable to
do so. I am delighted to see that medical coverage, which has always
been a vital part of any program that substantively helps children, is
also a key component of this bipartisan package.
Ensuring safety for abused and neglected children is another
significant goal of this legislation. The Adoption and Safe Families
Act of 1997 seeks to accomplish this goal by ensuring that the safety
of the child is considered at every stage of the child's case plan and
review process. Moreover, the bill requires criminal background checks
for all potential foster and adoptive parents.
The legislation also substantially cuts the time a child must wait to
be legally available for adoption into a permanent home by requiring
States to file a petition for termination of parental rights for a
child who has been waiting too long in a foster care placement. At the
same time that it speeds adoptions where appropriate, it also gives
States the discretion to choose not to initiate legal proceedings when
a child is safely placed with a relative, where there is a compelling
reason not to go forward, or where appropriate services have not been
provided in accordance with the child's permanency plan.
At the same time that this bill imposes tough but effective measures
to decrease a child's unnecessary wait in foster care, it reauthorizes
and provides $60 million in increased funding

[[Page S12672]]

for community-based family support and court improvements over the next
3 years, collectively referred to as the ``Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program.'' As part of a balanced bipartisan package, these
programs will support a range of fundamental State services to help
children and families and to provide necessary services to adoptive
families. This legislation also takes care to assure that children who
have gone through adoptions that have been disrupted or whose adoptive
parents die will remain eligible for Federal support.
For West Virginia, and every State, this legislation means positive
change. Our State currently has about 3,000 children in foster care.
Under this new legislation, the emphasis will shift the primary focus
to their health and safety and to finding them a stable, permanent
home. Throughout these debates, I have listened to West Virginia
leaders, including Chief Justice Margaret Workman, who testified before
the Senate Finance Committee, and Joan Ohl, our West Virginia Secretary
of Health and Human Resources. I have visited agencies in my State that
provide the full range of services from family supports to adoption,
and I have been in touch with social workers and families. I know that
the provisions of this legislation will challenge my State, but I am
equally confident that its leaders are ready to make the necessary
changes to do more for the thousands of children in West Virginia who
are depending upon us.
I am pleased to have been a part of this tremendous effort on behalf
of abused and neglected children, and am hopeful that the Adoption and
Safe Families Act of 1997 will bring about real and positive
improvements in the lives of the half a million American children
living in foster care.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, since the Senator from Indiana is in the
chair, I want to compliment Senator Coats for his involvement in this
legislation. He had a very important role in this adoption and foster
care legislation. I know the bill contains key parts in which he was
interested. Senator Coats was very much a part of this being a
successful product.
Confronting the issues for children in foster care, is uncomfortable,
almost painful. But the foster care system is in crisis and children
are suffering. We are compelled to confront these problems.
Foster care is a complicated entitlement program. While the issues
are complex, so are the solutions. Today we are getting what we are
paying for. It is not such a good situation, because what we are
getting is long-term foster care--not permanency for these kids.
Foster care was set up to be a temporary emergency situation for
kids. The foster care system now is a lifestyle for so many of them.
The Federal Government continues to pour billions of dollars into a
system that lacks genuine accountability. Instead of encouraging States
to increase adoptions, the current system rewards long-term foster care
arrangements.
Jennifer Toth described in her book ``Orphans of the Living,'' that
children are ``consigned to the substitute child care system, a chaotic
prison-like system intended to raise children whose parents and
relatives cannot or will not care for them.'' She also wrote, ``The
children in substitute child care today have all suffered trauma. They
are all at greater risk than the general child population. Yet they are
given less care, when they need more care.''
In Iowa, we have an organization called the Iowa Citizens Foster Care
Review Board. They had a project of asking children in foster care and
kids who were waiting to be adopted what they would like to tell us and
the rest of the world. I could give lots of quotes, but these are
examples from two of the children. ``Don't leave us in foster care so
long.'' ``Check on us frequently while we're in foster care to ask us
how we're doing and make sure we are safe.'' ``Tell us what's going on
so we don't have to guess. Tell us how long it will be before we're
adopted and why things seem to take so long.''
Children need to know that they have permanency, which means
successful, healthy reunification with their birth families or
permanency in an adoptive home.
A happy, permanent home life provides more than just a safe haven for
kids; it gives kids confidence to grow into positive contributors to
our society.
In the United States, at least a half million children are not living
in permanent homes. While waiting for adoption or a safe return to
their natural families, too many kids live out their entire childhoods
in the foster care system.
Sadly, it often turns into an lonely, even futile transition. There
is a short window of opportunity to do something about this with each
and every kid, and each and every kid is a little different in this
regard. If this window of opportunity is missed, a child can leave the
foster care system a legal orphan--as an adult--having gone through
their entire childhood never having permanency--never having a place
that they can call home.
More needs to be done to dispel the myth that some kids are
unadoptable. I have had people right here in Washington, DC, tell me
that some kids are not adoptable. No kid is unadoptable. The only
problem is that we just haven't found a home for them yet.
I support the Adoption and Safe Families Act because it takes the
initial, necessary steps toward real reform. For the first time in 17
years, this body has strived to address the pain and suffering of these
children. A cornerstone has been laid upon which future adjustments can
be made and reforms can be built.
The bill will ensure health care coverage for adopted special needs
children, break down geographic restrictions facing adoptive families,
and encourage creative adoptive efforts and outreach.
One of the problems we as legislators have experienced has been that
inadequate statistics are not kept; we don't have good enough
statistics to understand how States are performing with their child
care system. The data is too sparse and States can't tell us how many
children they actually have in their care, or how long they have been
there. When the situation is that way, Mr. President, some children can
be lost in the system. So our bill is requiring States to report
critical statistics. Children will be identified and their lives will
be personalized to those responsible for them. The status quo will not
be able to hide behind the lack of information excuse. We have run into
that when dealing with this legislation.
Currently, the Federal Government does not require that States
actively seek adoptive homes for all ``free-to-be-adopted'' children,
who often are assigned to long-term foster care. This bill, however,
compels States to make reasonable efforts to place a child in a
permanent adoptive home. Long-term foster care should never be a
solution for any kid.
In most States, children are being denied permanency because of the
artificial barrier of geography. This bill will break down the
geographic barriers to adoption--prohibiting discrimination against
out-of-State adoptive families--allowing more children to find
permanent families.
There is a mismatch between the location of children free to be
adopted and families willing to adopt. Above all, these children need
loving homes, and no State line should get in the way of their well-
being.
The bill establishes for foster and pre-adoptive parents the right to
be given notice of hearings and the right to testify on behalf of the
children in their care. How could anyone ever want to leave these
people out of the process?
These parents have been in charge of the children 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. They are the ones in the best position to know the
problems that these children might have and can represent the
children's concerns. It is an important change to make as we seek to
better represent the children's best interests.
The Federal Government plays a significant role in child welfare by
providing funds to States and attaching conditions to those funds. The
single largest category of Federal expenditure under the child welfare
programs is for maintaining low-income foster care children. To receive
Federal funds, States must comply with the requirements of this bill,
and States will be penalized for noncompliance. We are sick and tired
of kids being kept in the foster care system because there is money
that comes from the Federal Government for those kids. There is an

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incentive--a monetary incentive--not to move these children toward
permanency.

I am pleased with the provisions in this bill which emphasizes
adoption promotion and support services in the Family Preservation and
Support Services Act.
To help ensure that new adoptive families are healthy and stay
together, the bill provides post-adoptive services and respite care. It
is a proven approach.
In States where post-adoption services are offered, the number of
adoptive families that have trouble staying together is significantly
lower.
I congratulate the Members for their efforts on this issue and
commend the authors of this monumental piece of legislation. One person
that hasn't gotten much attention--and he played a very important role
in this process--is Senator Roth, the chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee. He was instrumental in forging an agreement with members so
that this bill could pass, as it will tonight. His guidance and insight
were critical to the bill's success.
Today, we begin to dramatically change the culture surrounding
adoption. We begin the education process. We begin by dismissing the
dehumanizing myth surrounding special-needs children. These children
deserve permanent homes, too. These children are precious, and all
children in need of permanent homes are adoptable.
I have been impressed by the compassion of those who adopt these
special children. They are gifted and they ought to inspire all of us
to be more concerned about kids in need. We know that more families are
willing to adopt children, including those with the most challenging of
circumstances.
Let's build upon the cornerstone of this monumental bill. Even though
we will have passed this legislation, some children will still remain
hostages in an inefficient system. More reform is needed to help place
more children in a safe, permanent home.
I am looking toward future years to do more in the following areas.
People should know that Chuck Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, is not
done with changes in foster care and adoption at the Federal level.
First, we need to dramatically limit the time a child can legally
spend in foster care. The national average length of stay in foster
care is 3 years. That is three birthdays, three Christmases, and that
is going through the first, second, and third grades, without having a
mom and dad.
Second, we need to remove financial incentives to keep children in
foster care, and provide incentives for success, not just for attempts
to adopt. Currently, the system pays the same rate per child per month
without limitation. The Federal Government must pay for performance.
These children are the most vulnerable of all; their lives begin with
abuse and neglect by their own parents and, for many, they experience
systemic abuse by languishing in long-term foster care.
The Congressional Research Service stated, ``Children are vulnerable,
and their well-being is affected by conditions beyond their control.''
But their well-being is not beyond our control. These children depend
on sound Federal policy that promotes permanency. Together with those
on the front lines, we can make this policy work.
Congress has said that long-term foster care should never be a
solution for a child who needs a home. It takes the critical first
steps toward complete reform of a broken-down system, and it lays the
cornerstone for continued improvement on behalf of tens of thousand of
children left in limbo each year in the foster care system.
Foster care is a poor parent. A loving, committed family is the best
gift that we can give to any child.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, with the Senate's vote today on ``The
Adoption and Safe Families Act,'' we are sending the President a
landmark reform of the nation's foster care system and a bill that will
make an enormous difference in the lives of many children in America.
Every child deserves a safe, loving, permanent family. For a lot of
us, it's inconceivable that this most basic need is out of reach for
hundreds of thousands of children across the nation. Although we've
tried to provide a safety net to protect children at risk of abuse or
neglect, that safety net is failing all too many children. The problem
does not lie with the vast majority of foster parents, relatives and
caseworkers who work valiantly to provide the care needed by these
children. Rather, the problem is the system itself, and incentives
built into it. On one end, it's allowing children to slip back into
abusive homes; on the other end, it's trapping them in what was
supposed to be ``temporary'' foster care, instead of moving them into
permanent homes.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 will bring more children
home--to safe, permanent homes--and it will bring them home faster. It
will change the culture of foster care with a number of fundamental
reforms:
Currently, to obtain federal funds, states are required to use
``reasonable efforts'' to keep families together. While that sounds
like a goal we all can support, this requirement has resulted in states
using extraordinary efforts to keep children in what may actually be
abusive or unsafe situations. Tragically, it's the children who
ultimately pay for mistakes when this happens--sometimes with their
very lives.
Our bill will change this. It requires that the child's health and
safety must be the paramount concerns in any decisions made by the
state on behalf of that child. While the reforms in the bill respect
the rights of others--such as birth parents, relatives, foster families
and adoptive parents--it makes clear that the focus must always be on
the child's health and safety.
In addition to this general rule, the bill provides that the
``reasonable efforts'' requirement does not apply where there are
aggravated circumstances such as abandonment, torture, chronic abuse or
sexual abuse. This is not a comprehensive list; we've tried to make
clear that states have the power to suspend the requirement for other
aggravated circumstances that jeopardize the health and safety of the
child.
Mr. President, these critical reforms will help save the lives of
children. That's probably the most important goal of the Adoption and
Safe Families Act. But it's not the only goal; other reforms in the
bill are aimed at encouraging adoption and helping to move children
through the foster care system and into permanent, loving homes.
For instance, for the first time, steps will have to be taken to free
a child for adoption or other permanent placement once the child has
been in foster care for fifteen months or more. In cases of severe
abuse, when ``reasonable efforts'' are not appropriate, this bill
establishes a new expedited process, requiring a permanency planning
hearing to be held within 30 days. For the first time, states will be
required to use ``reasonable efforts'' to place a child for adoption,
if returning the child to the family is not an option. For the first
time, those efforts must be documented.
We were particularly concerned about helping make adoption more
likely for foster children with ``special needs.'' These are children
who, by definition, are hard to place, perhaps because they require
special medical help or mental health services, or the like. This bill
requires health insurance coverage for children with special needs,
which will make it more possible for families of all incomes to give
these children a home.
This bill also provides states with financial rewards based on their
success in increasing adoptions. An even higher reward is provided for
increasing the adoptions of special needs children. The bill authorizes
the Department of Health and Human Services to provide technical
assistance to states and localities to promote adoption of foster
children. We've also highlighted adoption promotion and support as
services funded by the Family Preservation Program, which we have
reauthorized for three years and renamed the ``Promoting Adoptive, Safe
and Stable Families'' program.
We also attempted to address what many in the field have told us is a
major hindrance to adoption: geographic barriers. It's my understanding
that states are working independently to resolve this problem. Our bill
gives them an additional push toward resolution, by providing that
states risk losing their federal payments if they deny

[[Page S12674]]

or delay the placement of a child when an approved family is available
outside their jurisdiction. We've also required a study and report to
Congress on interjurisdictional adoption issues, so that we can take
additional actions in the future in this area, if necessary.
This bill makes a number of system reforms aimed both at helping to
advance our goals and providing a foundation for additional reforms in
the future.
For instance, we're requiring the Secretary of Health and Human
Services to work with state and local officials, child advocates and
others in developing performance measures and publishing a report
evaluating the effectiveness of our child welfare programs. This bill
also requires HHS to develop and recommend to Congress a system for
basing federal assistance payments on performance. It allows child
welfare agencies to use the Federal Parent Locator Service to assist in
locating absent parents. It allows agencies to use concurrent
planning--that is, providing services to reunite or preserve the family
while simultaneously recruiting adoptive parents, so that if the family
cannot be preserved or reunited, the child will not have to wait such a
long time before moving into a permanent home.
Before concluding, let me acknowledge the hard work of a number of
members in both the House and the Senate, without which we wouldn't
have a bill today. Although we may have started with fundamentally
different views as to how best to change the system, we were united--
and driven to resolve our differences--by the strong belief that reform
is urgently needed now. I am pleased to have had a part in the
bipartisan Senate coalition that worked and re-worked this legislation:
Senator DeWine, Senator Chafee, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Moynihan,
Senator Jeffords, Senator Coats, Senator Bond, Senator Levin, Senator
Nickles, and Senator Grassley. Special thanks must go to Chairman Roth
of the Senate Finance Committee, and his staff, who helped navigate the
Senate bill to the floor and through the House. The Senate coalition
appreciated having excellent technical assistance from Karen Spar of
the Congressional Research Service. I'd like to thank the other
cosponsors of the Senate PASS Act for their support: Senator Dorgan,
Senator Landrieu, Senator Johnson, Senator Kerrey and Senator Moseley-
Braun. I also appreciate the efforts on the House side, led by
Congressmen Camp and Kennelly, and Chairman Shaw.
Mr. President, these reforms will save lives and help move children
out of foster care, faster, and into safe, permanent, loving homes.
It's the hope of all who support this legislation that President
Clinton will sign it into law before the end of November--which,
appropriately enough, is National Adoption Month. Let's bring these
children home.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to thank Senators Roth,
Chafee, Craig, and Rockefeller for bringing this foster care and
adoption assistance bill to the floor.
This bill contains a number of long overdue programmatic changes to
strengthen the foster care system.
In addition, the bill provides more funds to reward states that
increase adoptions. These adoptions will preclude children from having
long, or even worse, permanent stays in state foster care systems.
To achieve this additional funding, the bill contains a discretionary
spending cap adjustment of $20 million per year for the years 1999 to
2002.
One could argue that this cap adjustment would result in an increase
in the deficit. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that
spending from this incentive payment will reduce mandatory foster care
spending by $25 million over the next 5 years.
The bill also contains additional mandatory spending for family
preservation services. The Family Preservation Program attempts to
provide intensive services to families at risk of having children
removed from the home and put into foster care.
This additional money would raise total funding for family
preservation services to $1.435 billion over the next 5 years or $80
million above the President's request.
I want to raise a couple concerns. First, there are a number of minor
Budget Act violations, like the cap adjustment.
Second, and of greater concern, is an offset for the additional
Family Preservation spending. The offset was conceived of and added at
the last minute. I do not believe the policy was thought out and the
effects certainly are not well known to this body.
The offset would tap into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
[TANF] contingency fund and could unfairly target small, poor states
with volatile unemployment rates. Moreover, the offset would,
perversely, take away funds from states when they are needed the most.
The contingency fund was a vital part of making welfare reform work
by increasing funds to states experiencing increased unemployment or
rising food stamp caseloads.
The offset allows states to receive a contingency grant payment in
one year, but then require that state to pay back at least a portion in
the next year.
The repayment would be prorated among the states that qualify in any
given year. For example if five states qualify for payments in the year
2000, those states would split the $16 million required repayment in
the year 2001.
However, the risk is that one state or a handful of very small states
will qualify for contingency grant payments and will be forced to pay
back the full amount.
This risk is justified. In 1997 only one state, New Mexico, qualified
for contingency payments. Had this bill been in effect this year, New
Mexico would have had to pay back almost all of their contingency
grant.
The economy in New Mexico is currently doing better, unemployment is
down to 6.4 percent and the state does not currently qualify for the
contingency fund. But my state and many other similar states are always
vulnerable. One plant closing can mean a substantial increase in
unemployment and need.
While $16 million with respect to the Federal Budget does not sound
like a lot to many people, this is a substantial sum to New Mexico. $16
million represents over ten percent of New Mexico's entire TANF grant.
In fact this offset would represent over a ten percent reduction in
the TANF grant for 31 states and a cut of over fifty percent for 6
states.
Further this grant reduction would come at time when a state needs it
the most, when state coffers are under pressure from an increase in
unemployment.
I understand that this bill enjoys broad support and that the bill on
net contains important, necessary changes. I do not intend to hold it
up today.
I wish to enter into a colloquy with Senator Roth to formalize my
understanding that next year the Finance Committee will address this
problem and restore full funding to the contingency grant.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Senator
Roth for bringing this foster care and adoption assistance bill to the
floor. The bill contains a number of long overdue changes to the foster
care system. However, the bill contains an offset for new spending that
would take money out of the temporary assistance for needy families
[TANF] contingency fund. It is my understanding that only those states
that qualify for contingency payments would be affected by this offset.
Mr. ROTH. Yes. That is true. States that qualify for payments in one
year would pay back a prorated share in the next.
Mr. DOMENICI. I am concerned that this repayment would target states
that need the funding most: states with rising unemployment.
Mr. ROTH. The Finance Committee is aware of that potential situation.
We will monitor the situation and work with you and the Administration
to make adjustments in the operation of the contingency fund if
necessary.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator very much. I look forward to an
equitable resolution in this matter.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, the bill before us is a remarkable
achievement. It not only represents a true bipartisan effort to change
a system that too often becomes mired in bureaucracy, but it also
represents a significant change in the way that system works and what
its goals should be. I am very proud to have played a part in

[[Page S12675]]

negotiating a good bill, and I want to commend, in particular, my
colleagues Senator Chafee, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Coats, and
Senator Craig for their hard work on this bill. I also want to thank
Senator Roth for his efforts in negotiating this legislation with our
House counterparts.
This legislation will lead to an improvement in the services we
provide to nearly 100,000 children in the foster care system who are
unable to return to their biological families because of threats to
their health and safety. This bill guarantee as never before that their
health and safety will be the ``paramount concern'' at every step of
their stay in foster care, including in the development of their
permanency plan. It also assures that every effort will be made to move
children into safe, permanent homes as quickly as possible.
Why is this important? Too often, children languish in foster care
for years--years--before they find a safe, loving family. Many
children, especially those with special needs, often never are placed
with an adoptive family. Those children grow up in the foster care
system, never knowing the security and warmth that a loving family
provides.
To help ensure that the child's safety remains the paramount concern,
this bill changes the focus on the way states define the term
``reasonable effort.'' Too often, states have placed too much emphasis
on returning a child to his or her biological family, even when doing
so may mean endangering the child. This bill provides that states
should still make every attempt to keep families intact, but--and this
is a significant change in the current law--it also makes it very clear
that there are a number of circumstances in which a state does NOT have
to make a reasonable effort to reunite a child with the biological
family. For example, if a parent has been found to have murdered
another child in the family, or has subjected a child to chronic abuse,
it is unreasonable--and irrational--to insist that the state return
that child to the family. That seems like common sense, but, as we all
know, the law doesn't always lead to common sense conclusion. This
legislation clarifies this.
I also want to point out that this bill requires, for the first time,
states to implement procedures by which they will perform criminal
background checks on potential foster and adoptive parents. I think the
average citizen would be very surprised to learn that we do not
currently require states to do such checks. While some states check
prospective adoptive parents for evidence of past criminal activity
which might indicate that it would be dangerous to place a child in
their care, most states do not. This bill would change that situation.
The original House bill did not contain this provision, and I want to
commend the Senate conferees, especially Senator Coats, for insisting
the Senate's language remain intact. It makes good sense.
Another hard-fought provision that the Senate can be very proud of
provides that when a special needs child is adopted--that is, one who
is hard to place because of a physical or mental disability--then the
state must ensure that the child will have health insurance coverage.
Too many of these special needs children have found that when they are
adopted, their access to health care disappears and the adoptive family
must shoulder the entire financial responsibility for the child. That
can create a huge disincentive for an otherwise loving family to adopt
a child with a physical disability. Our bill says that when a child is
adopted, he or she will have the health insurance needed to meet his or
her needs. That is a significant step, and, again, I am pleased the
Senate remained steadfast in its insistence on this provision.
Mr.. President, this bill is a victory for children and adoptive
parents nationwide. There are more than 100,000 children awaiting
adoption or other permanent placements, and this bill is a good step
toward moving many of them into safe, loving, permanent homes.
Again, I extend my deepest thanks to Senators Chafee, Rockefeller,
Craig, Coats, DeWine, Kerrey, and Roth for their hard work on this
bill. We have been working to come to this agreement for months, and
this bill is the hard-fought result of those efforts. I urge all my
colleagues to give their support to this legislation.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 867, the
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This legislation promotes
adoption and makes important reforms in foster care. It includes
provisions drawn from two bills I co-sponsored earlier this year, S.
511 [the ``SAFE'' Act] and S. 1195 [the ``PASS'' Act]. We have been
able to work out bipartisan legislation with two goals we all share--
ensuring the safety of children in the child welfare system, and
finding permanent homes for as many children in foster care as
possible.
Children in the child welfare system, victims of abuse and neglect,
are among the most vulnerable in our society. Just this week, in my own
state, we learned of another tragic death, that of little Sabrina
Green. Sabrina, nine years old, lived in the Bronx. After both her
mother and her latest foster mother died, Sabrina went to live with her
oldest sister, Yvette Green. After what appears to have been months of
abuse--such as burning Sabrina's hand over a stove as punishment for
taking food out of the refrigerator--she was found beaten to death. Her
sister and her sister's boyfriend have been accused of this crime.
We owe it to these abused and neglected children to do our best on
their behalf. And I am encouraged that a group of our colleagues has
worked together--on a bipartisan basis--to develop this legislation. I
thank Senators Chafee, Rockefeller, Roth, Craig, Jeffords, Kerrey,
Coats, DeWine, Landrieu, and the others who have played important roles
in this effort.
This bill clarifies that the health and safety of the child are to be
the ``paramount'' concern when making the difficult decisions involved
in the child welfare system and it contains several other ``safety
first'' provisions, such as requiring criminal records checks for
prospective adoptive and foster parents. The bill accelerates the
process for determining the permanent placement for a child in foster
care, so that children do not spend years bouncing among foster homes.
H.R. 867 also promotes adoption by providing states with financial
incentives to get children in foster care adopted, and by breaking down
health insurance and geographic barriers to adoption.
This legislation is an important step forward in our efforts to help
abused and neglected children. I am proud to support it.
Mr. LOTT. I do want to say, Mr. President, for the Record, and I note
Senator Daschle is also very interested in this, that I am very pleased
we were able to get this legislation through the whole process. There
was a lot of work by Senators on both sides of the aisle. I believe
this will be one of the two or three important bills we passed this
year, because it will help with foster care and adoption. I commend all
Senators.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I concur in what the majority leader just
said. This is an important issue to the administration. They called
again this afternoon to confirm it was going to pass.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move that the Senate concur in the
amendment of the House to the Senate amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.

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