[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9355-H9359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FEDERAL EMPLOYEES CHILD CARE AFFORDABILITY ACT
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4280) to provide for greater access to child care services
for Federal employees, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 4280
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. CHILD CARE SERVICES FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.
(a) In General.--An Executive agency which provides or
proposes to provide child care services for Federal employees
may use appropriated funds (otherwise available to such
agency for salaries) to provide child care, in a Federal or
leased facility, or through contract, for civilian employees
of such agency.
(b) Affordability.--Amounts so provided with respect to any
such facility or contractor shall be applied to improve the
affordability of child care for lower income Federal
employees using or seeking to use the child care services
offered by such facility or contractor.
(c) Regulations.--The Office of Personnel Management shall,
within 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act,
issue regulations necessary to carry out this section.
(d) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term
``Executive agency'' has the meaning given such term by
section 105 of title 5, United States Code, but does not
include the General Accounting Office.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella).
General Leave
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks on the bill, H.R. 4280, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Maryland?
There was no objection.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) chairman of the
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight; the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Mica) chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service; and I
also want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) the
ranking member; and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) the
ranking member of the subcommittee for their assistance in bringing
this bill to the floor today.
I would particularly like to thank some staff who have been very
instrumental in crafting it so we could finally get this bill before
us, staff on both sides of the aisle. In my office Kathryn Pearson,
Jeff Davis; also Gary Ewing, Jeff Shea, Siobhan McGill for all their
help in bringing this bill to the floor, and the staff of the gentleman
from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for the work they have done.
Mr. Speaker, I introduced this bill so that agencies may use their
salary and expense accounts to help low-income Federal employees pay
for child care. Balancing work and family has become increasingly
difficult for families, and Federal employees are no exception. My
legislation will provide opportunities for Federal agencies to help
provide quality child care for their employees' children.
I have worked with the Office of Personnel Management to develop this
legislation. Several agencies, including the Social Security
Administration, Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense
have actually requested such authority from OPM. OPM cannot grant this
authority. We must legislate this change.
This legislation does not require any additional appropriations. It
would be
[[Page H9356]]
up to the individual agencies to determine whether or not to use funds
from their salary and expense accounts to help provide child care.
Agencies, not employees, would make payments to child care providers to
help lower-income Federal employees pay for their child care.
Such child care benefits are already being provided to military
employees with a separate line item which is more than my legislation
would provide. The Department of Defense, one of the agencies seeking
such authority to help its employees with child care costs, has pointed
out that they can provide child care benefits to their military
employees but not the civil servants working side by side.
One of the greatest challenges families face, we know, is finding
safe, affordable and high-quality day care. Having raised nine children
and now watching them struggle with their own child care dilemmas, I am
well acquainted with the problems associated with finding high-quality
day care. America's lack of safe, affordable day care is not a new
problem but its consequences are becoming far more dire, and it does
require new, innovative solutions. In 1995, 62 percent of women with
children younger than six and 77 percent of women with children between
the ages of six and 17 were in the labor force.
Approximately one-quarter of all Federal workers have children under
the age of six needing care at some time during the workday. During a
recent hearing in the subcommittee of the gentleman from California
(Mr. Horn), testimony revealed that some Federal child care facilities
charge up to $10,000 or more per child per year. Many Federal employees
simply cannot afford quality child care. By allowing agencies the
flexibility to help their workers meet their child care needs, we will
be encouraging family-friendly workplaces and higher productivity.
It is clear that we need more child care, we need affordable child
care, and we need high quality child care. Unless child care becomes a
priority in the private sector and in the public sector, families,
including those of Federal employees, just are not going to find it.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that Congress will pursue a wide range of
innovative solutions to address families' child care needs in the near
future. As a Nation, we must and we can do better for our children.
This legislation is an important first step. However, increasing the
affordability and the quality of child care go hand in hand. That is
why I am sorry that important provisions that were offered in a bill by
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) to improve the quality of
Federal child care centers is not still a part of H.R. 4280. I am
committed to continuing to work with the gentleman from New York to
enact the provisions in his bill which will ensure that all child care
centers housed in Federal buildings meet quality standards. These
provisions require all Federal child care centers to follow and
maintain State and local regulations for health, fire and safety. They
would not lower Federal agency standards if they are greater than the
local or State regulations. They would simply ensure that those that
are substandard begin to comply.
I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation
to help Federal employees and agencies meet their child care needs.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I take this moment to congratulate the gentlewoman from
Maryland (Mrs. Morella) for this outstanding piece of legislation. It
is so very important.
Three thousand nine hundred ninety-four Federal workers currently
enroll their children in the 109 child care centers established in
Federal agencies across the country. The cost of child care is a
particular burden for low-income families. For the poorest families,
child care costs on the average represent more than one-quarter of
family income.
I support this bipartisan bill because it will help make child care
more affordable for many Federal workers and their families as well as
provide their children with developmentally appropriate environments in
which to spend their days as they grow up to be productive adults.
As parents move from welfare to work and attend job training and
preparatory classes, child care becomes of great concern, as is the
case in my district.
At the White House Conference on Child Care in October of 1997,
President Clinton asked Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin to
convene a group of business and labor leaders to look at child care
problems facing working parents. The group found that when employers
provide quality and affordable child care, employee morale improves,
turnover and absenteeism is reduced and productivity is improved. So
good child care pays for itself.
Perhaps more importantly, they found a growing body of research that
substantiates the view that investments in the care of young children
affects a child's physical and emotional development, and these
investments can have positive returns for families and society. These
benefits will last those children until the day they die.
The Federal Government has taken the first steps in making such an
investment. All child care facilities designed and renovated after 1992
reflect state of the art child care designs and are built to promote
child-oriented, developmentally appropriate, efficient and effective
environments. As the Nation's largest employer, do we not have an
obligation to ensure that these facilities are more financially
accessible for Federal employees?
H.R. 4280 will do the following: Allow Federal agencies to use
appropriated funds to pay a portion of the costs incurred by private
operators of child care centers in Federal facilities; require that
such payments improve the affordability of care for lower-income
Federal employees; authorize alternative methods for providing child
care in Federal facilities; and will require that agencies perform a
background check and a criminal history of employees of day care
centers located in Federal facilities.
During full committee consideration of H.R. 4280, two amendments were
added to it. The first amendment offered by the gentleman from New York
(Mr. Gilman) would have required Federal child care centers, including
the United States Congress, to follow and maintain State and local
regulations for health, fire and safety. The gentleman from California
(Mr. Waxman) offered a second degree amendment to the Gilman amendment
providing that child care facilities be inspected for, and be free of,
lead hazards. Though I supported both of these amendments,
jurisdictional concerns have been raised by the Committee on House
Oversight, and they have been removed to ensure passage of the bill. I
hope at some point in the future, the Gilman and Waxman provisions will
be enacted by this body.
This bill now before us is one of many steps that the Federal
Government should take to provide accessible, high-quality child care
to Federal workers. Carl Sandberg said it best when he said, ``The
birth of a child is God rendering his opinion that the world should go
on.'' As a cosponsor of this legislation, I urge all of my colleagues
to support it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Davis) who is a fierce fighter for Federal employees and
cares very much about the quality of care for their children.
Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for
yielding time. After that introduction, I ought to stop right there.
Mr. Speaker, this is a great bill because it offers flexibility as a
part of the benefit package to the different agencies. They can take
these dollars that are appropriated, there is no new money involved,
and can best decide how they can use that in recruiting and in
retaining good people. Child care is a major concern for families
across this country. A lot of single parents who work for the Federal
Government are going to find this immeasurably benefits their
performance and ability to stay on working and do their job. I remember
when our day care provider at one point in our lives decided she was
retiring, that she could not make enough money, and the months of
scramble trying to find somebody who could fill that niche. There is no
more
[[Page H9357]]
important decision for a single parent or parents to make than what
they are going to do for their children while they are working.
This allows the Federal Government to come in and use existing
dollars as a part of a benefit package for some of their lower-paid
employees to allow the flexibility to try to meet those child care
needs for them.
{time} 1445
It is going to be up to the agencies as to how they best implement
that, how they can innovate, but I think this is a very, very good
idea. I know my mother brought up five children, and my father, who
served two tours in the State prison system, was not around, and she
would have to work taking care of other people's kids and work at
night. But keeping that family together was the most important thing in
her life, and it allowed her to go off and be productive and be
successful in other things. This will allow that same standard to
Federal employees.
We are finding the work force today across the world in an
information age is the most important asset that any organization has.
It is no longer the machinery or the equipment; it is the employees and
their minds and what they bring to bear. This basically allows us to
recruit and retrain the best and the brightest by allowing them
flexibility to care for their day care needs, something that is very
important, something at a governmental level we have been behind the
private sector in recognizing how important this is to be able to
recruit and retrain good people. And I am very confident that with the
passage of this act, as we start meeting and talking to Federal
agencies, as they start hearing from employees, both single parents and
working parents about how important child care is, that this will allow
the flexibility that our agencies need to meet the needs of employees
that they are trying to recruit or retrain.
So I am very bullish on this bill. I want to thank everybody
involved. Keeping families together is important, but keeping and
recruiting and retraining and being able to retain quality employees is
also important from a taxpayer perspective, and this legislation does
this.
So, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for having yielded to me, and I
hope my other colleagues will support this legislation.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) who has constantly been at
the forefront of making sure that our children are uplifted.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kindness and
for yielding this time to me, and I would like to thank the gentlewoman
from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Cummings) both for working so closely together on what is clearly a
ground-breaking piece of legislation, though it affects a smaller
universe than our country needs.
One of the reasons I am thrilled with this bill is that the
bipartisan Congressional Women's Caucus made child care one of its
seven priorities this year, focused on seven priorities; six of them
were actual bills; four of the seven, in fact, have been enacted, which
is not a bad track record; and it has encouraged us as a caucus, now 21
years old, to focus on specific legislation of the kind that we think
has a consensus in this body.
Now, of the three that did not get through, one was child care. All
were fairly complicated. The ones that were fairly easy did get
through. Child care was difficult this term, and we knew it. We could
not get a consensus on one bill, but we got consensus on three
principles:
One, that funding would go to lower-income families; two, that there
would be tax relief for working families and for stay-at-home spouses;
and three, that there would be quality child care. Any bill that
incorporated those three principles would have our support.
As we know, we were unable to get a comprehensive child care bill
through. That is why I am thrilled that at least that there will be a
child care bill that passes the 105th Congress. The Federal Employee
Child Care Affordable Act gives us something to show for child care in
this session.
Now, my chief regret is that the Gilman and Waxman provision was not
incorporated into this bill as it originally was because that would
have meant that one of our three principles, quality, would have been
memorialized in an important bill. This provision would have had
Federal child care centers comply with Federal or State safety and
health standards, whichever is higher, and all Federal centers would
have to be free of lead paint. I believe, Mr. Speaker, I can say
without fear of being contradicted that there is not a Member in this
body who would disagree with the provisions of the Gilman and Waxman
bill, but the fact is that a jurisdictional dispute has derailed it,
and I was pleased to hear the gentlewoman saying she will follow up
next session to make sure that this provision also is passed.
This in other ways is a model bill. This is a model bill in the
flexibility it allows in meeting child care needs. I am inclined to say
to the gentlewoman from Maryland that in a real sense it is making
lemons out of lemonade because there is no extra money in this bill, it
is a no-cost bill that leaves discretion to the agency to decide where
to use its money, and when we have a lot of employees who look like
they are not on time or they are not being productive for child care
reasons, that may be the best use of discretionary funds. This will go
to lower-income people who cannot afford the child care.
Mr. Speaker, I can say to my colleagues that when I was a young
mother with two youngsters, I remember at one point having the need of
both my mother-in-law and someone who helped me in the house. The
mother-in-law went to pick up the child from nursery school, and the
lady in the house stayed with the other child. I still have not figured
out how low-income mothers do it, particularly single parents.
Mr. Speaker, with its Federal child care centers the Federal
Government surely ought to be in the forefront of child care. With this
bill, it moves in that direction, and this legislation is in the
progressive tradition of the Federal Government staying ahead of other
employers in important matters to its own employees.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
New York (Mr. Gilman), the Chairman of the Committee on International
Relations, who has put so much time into child care and high-quality
child care.
(Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland for
yielding this time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of H.R. 4280, the
Federal Child Care Affordability Act, and I want to thank the
gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) for her leadership and
dedication to child care. This bill allows Federal agencies to help
their employees with the ever-growing cost of child care in our Nation.
Recent hearings have illustrated that some day care centers charge up
to $10,000 or more for a single year of child care, and for some
employees that is an outrageous charge, and they are forced to choose
more affordable, but not necessarily quality care facilities.
Miss Morella's language will allow Federal agencies to use already
appropriated funds, no additional costs, already appropriated funds to
help these employees pay for child care, something that the Department
of Defense already does for its employees, and these provisions are
supported by both conservative and liberal groups alike in addition to
GSA and the executive branch agencies and nationally recognized
accreditation groups including the National Council on Private School
Accreditation and the National Association for the Education of Young
Children.
Mr. Speaker, our children are so important, and the care they receive
during their first few years of development is essential to raising
intelligent and productive members of our society, and I want to thank
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for noting the need for our proposed
amendment, an amendment that has been proposed by both the gentleman
from California (Mr. Waxman) and myself which provides regulations for
safety and for qualified personnel, which regrettably
[[Page H9358]]
at the moment is being held up by a jurisdictional question and which
hopefully can soon be resolved. I think that that is an essential part
of all of this to make certain that whatever child care facilities we
utilize, that they are going to be safe and that they are going to be
staffed by qualified people.
Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to fully support the Morella
measure, H.R. 4280.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), someone who also has been at the
forefront of making sure that Federal employees receive equity and
parity and that our children be lifted up.
Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the very distinguished
gentleman representing Baltimore for his leadership with regard to
Federal employee issues, and particularly with regard to the children
of Federal employees, and I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs.
Morella) for her initiative on this amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Federal Employee Child
Care Affordability Act to allow Federal agencies the discretion to use
their salary and expense accounts to provide child care for their
employees.
As my colleagues know, between 1975 and 1994, over a 20-year period,
the number of women in the labor force with children under the age of 6
increased from 39 percent to 60 percent. Unbelievable, 60 percent of
women in the labor force have children under the age of 6. More than
half of children under 1 year of age and more than 12 million children
under the age of 5 are regularly in the care of someone other than
their parents.
A recent study suggests that one-quarter of all Federal employees
need child care. That means we are talking about hundreds of thousands
of parents and their children. Access to quality affordable child care
has become a number one issue for many parents in the United States,
particularly Federal employees. So, as a responsible employer, the
Federal Government should be working to improve access to and
affordability of child care for its employees.
In Congress we have been working to find ways to encourage private
businesses to do just that. We are not doing a bad job. There are 1,400
private employer-provided child care centers throughout the United
States. By comparison, the Department of Defense has 850 centers for
its employees and another 230 more for civilian DOD employees. We can
do much better by allowing all Federal agencies to provide child care
assistance to all their employees.
In exchange for being a responsible employer, we also have the added
bonus of increased productivity by decreasing missed work hours for
child care crises, and the lure of quality affordable child care is a
recruitment and retention tool to the most qualified applicants and
employees of the Federal Government. DOD has been successful in
providing sliding scale fee care on location to parent employees, but
other Federal agencies have been strictly prohibited from funding such
a program even by simply providing an onsite facility with electricity
or furnishings.
The Morella amendment would not force agencies to provide care, but
would allow agencies to use their funds at their own discretion to
provide care or tuition assistance. Because the amendment does not
require an additional appropriation, it does not impact the balanced
budget, and, in addition, any profits to the facility will be used to
make care more affordable for lower income employees.
Mr. Speaker, it is a well-thought-out amendment.
Over the past several years we have made tough choices along with
great progress in achieving fiscal responsibility in the budget. Along
with this responsibility we have asked the private sector to do their
part in being responsible citizens, particularly as employers by
providing benefits such as child care to their employees. It is time
for the Federal Government to step up to our responsibility as
employers by allowing Federal agencies the discretion to provide child
care to their employees, and I urge my colleagues to take this
responsibility seriously by supporting the Morella-Cummings-Moran
amendment. It is the right thing to do.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, you can see the extent of the passion and the interest
in such an important issue as child care for Federal employees.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from California (Mr. Lewis).
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention to my
colleague that she may be kind of interested to note that I had the
privilege of being the author of the Child Development Act of 1972 in
California. Congress has discovered child care 25 years later.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that a letter sent
from the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Burton) be included in the record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). Is there objection
to the request of the gentlewoman from Maryland?
There was no objection.
{time} 1500
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues who have spoken today, my
colleague, the gentleman from Maryland, who is handling this bill who
is a cosponsor and a very strong advocate who has worked with us, and
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), the chairman of the
subcommittee. I wanted to thank the chairman of the full committee also
and the ranking member of the full committee and also all of the
members who have spoken here today and those who are submitting
statements and are very supportive of this legislation.
Certainly the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) has demonstrated
leadership consistently, and I know that his legislation with all of
our help will ultimately become law. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Davis) has spoken, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms.
Norton) and, indeed, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) and the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to thank the gentleman from Indiana
(Mr. Burton) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the
ranking member, and certainly the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs.
Morella). I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and
the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and all of
those who have taken part in this discussion today.
I think that when we just see the Members of Congress who have come
here today to the floor to speak on this issue, it is clear that it is
again a bipartisan effort, an effort to reach out and touch children,
children who, in many instances, cannot fend for themselves and cannot
speak for themselves, but yet and still they are our most important
resource.
I think it is that spirit that brings this legislation to the floor
of the House today. It is that spirit that has garnered a bipartisan
effort, and it is that very spirit that should allow and make feel good
every Member of Congress when they vote for it. I certainly urge all of
us to do so.
Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity
to speak on this bill today. H.R. 4280 is an extremely important bill
for our families and for our children. This bill will allow federal
agencies to use their salary and expense accounts to help federal
employees pay for child care.
This bill does not require any additional appropriations, it simply
requires a commitment on our part, as responsible legislators who care
about our future, to ensure that our federal government employees
receive the same benefits, the same benefits, the same access to
affordable child care that our military emplyees receive. Not only will
this bill provide employers with the authority to help its employees
with child care costs, it will also improve the quality of our federal
child care centers by requiring that these centers follow and maintain
state and local regulations for health, fire and safety.
We know that \1/4\ of all federal workers had children under age six
requiring child care during their parents' work day. Some federal child
care facilities charge up to $10,000 a year per
[[Page H9359]]
child! We must vote to help many of our federal employees who are
caught in a serious child care crunch!
All parents want to provide their children with the best quality care
they can. I hope you will vote to allow federal agencies and federal
employees to meet their child care needs.
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of H.R. 4280, the
Federal Employee Child Care Affordability Act. I supported a version of
this bill, the Morella amendment, on June 14, 1998, when it came up as
an amendment of H.R. 4104, the Treasury-Postal Appropriations Act of
1999. The amendment was to permit federal agencies to use their salary
and expense accounts to help federal employees pay for child care. I am
pleased to support it again.
The lack of reliable child care was an issue before the passage of
welfare-to-work reform. Now, it has become more urgent than ever. We
are realizing the effects that we feared when welfare reform passed in
August 1996. The welfare reform package drastically lacks the support
systems necessary to help welfare recipients in transition. In
California alone, for example, 200,000 children of working poor
families are already on a waiting list for child care. In addition, the
parents of nearly 950,000 children who currently receive Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) assistance will be expected to join
the work force in the next few years. This means that nearly one
million additional children may be without child care.
In addition to women going from welfare to work, the overall number
of working women is increasing. By the year 2006, it is estimated that
61.4 percent of women will be at work. Between the 1986-96 period,
slightly more men than women entered the labor force, 52 percent
compared with 48 percent. Forty-six percent of all workers today are
women, up from 44 percent in 1986. In the 1996-2006 period, women and
men are expected to enter the labor force in equal numbers.
For anyone who has had to find child care or knows of someone who
needs child care, the story is familiar: there is a severe shortage of
reliable child care with necessary educational, physical, and nurturing
standards at an affordable cost.
Though child care workers are among our poorest paid, Federal child
care still may cost up to $10,000 a year. I put myself in the position
of a young woman, head-of-household, whose median salary is $19,752 a
year. I would have to pay half of my pre-tax salary for child care. How
do my children and I survive?
H.R. 4280 is a real winner in that it provides part of the solution.
H.R. 4280 addresses this continuing crisis in finding adequate child
care by allowing federal agencies to use their salary and expense
accounts to help low-income employees pay for child care. This bill has
an extra bonus in that it will not need additional appropriations. I
urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Maryland, Mr.
Cummings, and my friend from Maryland, Connie Morella, for moving this
important legislation to the floor. I am pleased that we are
considering this so quickly after it was struck down by a point of
order in the House version of the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.
H.R. 4280 is a simple piece of legislation that would permit the
Office of Personnel Management to redraw its regulations so that all
federal agencies can use existing funds to subsidize child care costs
for federal employees. It's a shining example of the old saying, ``a
little goes a long way.'' Lower-income employees all around the country
will be able to obtain the necessary assistance to seek out and pay for
local child care programs.
H.R. 4280 does not legislate new federal child care programs or
require additional appropriations.
At a time when child care costs often exceed $10,000 per child per
year, and at a time when employers are fast becoming aware that good
child care means higher productivity on the job, this bill is good
government.
In my district, The Denver Federal Center is situated comfortably at
the foot of the Rocky Mountains, about one-half hour away from downtown
Denver, Colorado. Roughly 5,500 federal employees are employed at this
facility, many of whom are raising small children. This bill would make
a simple but profound change in the lives of these individuals--it
would make quality child care for their children more affordable.
Today we should recognize the importance of quality child care to the
positive development of our children and we should take this
opportunity to make a straight-forward, administrative change to
government practice. It's a small, but important change.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). The question is on
the motion offered by the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) that
the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4280, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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