[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11608-S11609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S11608]]
                   HEAD START PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I now turn to a topic not as good as what 
I just talked about. In the final hours of the Congress, as we have 
here today--maybe going into tomorrow--I am always amazed at how those 
who are well off in our society, those who are doing quite well, how 
they always get taken care of in the final hours when the Congress 
closes down. Tax extenders--why, there is stuff for everybody in there, 
for the people who are doing well. A continuing resolution will come 
through, basically taking care of all the running of Government. We 
have a few other cats and dogs coming through here. It is always at 
this time that I am amazed at how often it is that people who are at 
the bottom rung of our ladder economically speaking fall through the 
cracks and no one cares. Hey, we have business to do here. We have to 
get the tax extenders through. We have to get out of here and go home.
  Because of the failure of the Appropriations Committee in the House, 
because of their failure to do a small extension, which I will explain 
in a second, because of their failure, beginning in January, 54,000 
kids will not be able to go to Head Start Programs in this country. 
Fifty-four thousand kids have been in Head Start Programs in December 
and November, but in January, January 3--they probably won't be going 
to Head Start. Now, again, they will only be out for a couple of months 
because once we get back in here and we do another extension, either a 
CR--a continuing resolution--or an omnibus bill, we will take care of 
it. The authorizers aren't opposed to it; I have checked with them. The 
appropriators aren't opposed to it. But it wasn't put in the bill. They 
filed the rule in the House, and they can't change it, they say, now.
  Let me describe what I am talking about, why 54,000 kids--poor kids--
won't get Head Start beginning in January. What happened was on January 
18, 2001, a rule was promulgated from the Department of Health and 
Human Services. A rule was promulgated which said that by January 18, 
2006--last January 18--it required that all Head Start children be 
transported only on buses that are or very closely match school buses. 
Well, I have pointed out continually since that time that this is very 
onerous for a lot of kids who are now transported on paratransit buses. 
These are transportation vehicles which are not school buses, but they 
are paratransit vehicles which usually take the elderly to places or 
they take people with disabilities to work or to shop or whatever. They 
are paratransit vehicles. They are usually smaller vehicles, but they 
are not a ``schoolbus.'' But they are effectively used, and have been 
for many years, to transport kids to Head Start Programs. Of course, 
the children are transported in child safety seats that are placed on 
the paratransit buses.
  Well, they estimate there are about 54,000 kids in America today who 
get transported to and from Head Start using paratransit. The rule 
which said they had to go on schoolbuses was supposed to go into effect 
last January 18. Well, it didn't. Why? Because a lot of us here 
bipartisanly said: Wait a minute, this is not right. This is not right. 
We need to fix this.
  Well, how do you fix it? You fix it with Head Start reauthorization. 
The last Head Start reauthorization was in 1998. We thought there was 
going to be a Head Start reauthorization this year. We thought, 
finally, this year we are going to get a Head Start reauthorization 
bill and we will take care of this mess created by this rule of the 
Department of Health and Human Services. So we extended this deadline 
from January 18; we extended it until June.
  Well, they still hadn't passed a Head Start reauthorization, so on 
the Katrina supplemental we extended it until December 31 of this year. 
So what we did was we extended a moratorium, an abeyance of that rule 
until December 31 of this year so that kids--Head Start kids had been 
riding paratransit buses to and from Head Start since--well, for years 
but since January 18 of this year when that rule was supposed to go 
into effect, the rule that said they can't ride them anymore, which, 
again, is nonsense--nonsense. It is much cheaper, it is just as 
effective, and there are a number of other reasons why riding these 
paratransit buses are fine for these kids. So we put it off. We held 
this rule in abeyance until December 31; that is, this December 31. 
Once again, we didn't get a Head Start reauthorization, so we wanted to 
extend it again past December 31. So how do you extend it? You extend 
it on the appropriations bill, the continuing resolution.
  Now, had we done our job and gotten the various appropriations bills 
up, we would have put this in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
Education appropriations bill. We would have extended the time probably 
until next September 30 to give us time to pass a Head Start 
reauthorization. So I called over last night. I talked to the staff 
director of the House Appropriations Committee. I told him about this: 
Can't you put it in? There is no opposition to it. Well, they didn't 
put it in. I called him today. He said, well, he checked with the 
authorizing committee and he said the authorizing committee was opposed 
to it. I couldn't believe it. So I called the chairman of the 
authorizing committee, Congressman McKeon from California, with whom I 
have worked in the past. I talked to him about it. He got back to me 
and he said: I don't have any opposition to it. I checked with the 
appropriators; the appropriators didn't have any opposition to it on 
either side of the aisle. They thought: Yes, this is fine. But it was 
left out.
  You know, if this had been a provision to take care of some wealthy 
people in this country, some special interest group, you can bet it 
would not have been dropped. It wouldn't have been dropped. But now 
54,000 kids won't get to go to Head Start.
  I mentioned that to someone today, and here is what they said: Well, 
why can't their mamas take them? I am not talking about kids who have 
BMWs or SUVs. These are poor kids. They don't have cars. They don't 
have vehicles. I am not talking about middle-income kids who live in 
the suburbs; I am talking about the poorest kids in our country going 
to Head Start Programs. They don't have mamas who can take them in an 
SUV or a carpool. So here we are.
  So I put the word out. I said: Well, when that CR comes over here, it 
is amendable. I will offer an amendment to put it on there. There is no 
cost. Everybody is for it. Nobody wants to object. Now I hear that if I 
do, there will be a motion to table my amendment. They will table it 
because the House will send over their continuing resolution and then 
they are going to go home, adjourn and go home. So if I offered my 
amendment, and if it were to pass, it would mean the House would either 
have to stay in or come back.

  Then they will tell me, Oh, you can't do that, Harkin, because don't 
you know the Government will shut down. You see, the continuing 
resolution that we are on now funds the Government until midnight 
tonight. They will say if you do that, they will have to come back, it 
will shut the Government down, and blah, blah, blah. Mr. President, 
those 54,000 kids not going to Head Start, January, February, maybe 
March until we can get our bill through, I think is more important--I 
stand tonight to tell you and tell anyone who is watching, it is more 
important for those 54,000 kids to go to Head Start in January, 
February, and March than it is to allow 435 Congressmen to get out of 
town and go home. It is more important.
  Once in a while I have gotten a reputation around here for doing 
things in the last hour. Usually it is because something such as this 
happens. It seems to me it is always true that at the end, the final 
hour, it is something such as this, and some on the bottom rungs of the 
economic or social ladder of this country get dropped and forgotten. We 
ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We can't fix this? We can't take care 
of this? Because they filed, they have a rule, this and that?
  I tried to get this on the postal reform bill. There is a postal 
reform bill out there floating around someplace. Oh, we can't do it 
now. They are done writing it and blah, blah, blah. We just can't do 
it.
  It is a shame, isn't it? It is a shame that we can take care of the 
rich and the powerful, it is a shame that we can take care of postal 
reform. It is a shame we can take care of continuing the resolution to 
keep everyone paid in the Federal Government. But, we can't

[[Page S11609]]

find it in ourselves somehow to take care of these kids, these Head 
Start kids. We are just going to say I am sorry, that is the way it is.
  I haven't made up my mind yet whether I am going to offer this 
amendment tonight, or whenever that CR gets over. I have a right to. It 
will probably get tabled which means killed. The word has already gone 
out that we will probably have to table the Harkin amendment. I suppose 
people will say there goes Harkin again. We want to get out of town and 
he has something else.
  I don't know. I haven't made up my mind yet. I wanted to set the 
record straight. You are going to hear about it. Senators are going to 
hear about this in January. You are going to hear about the fact that 
Head Start kids for some reason can't get on these paratransit buses 
and we are wondering why it happened.
  I don't know, I may offer the amendment tonight, and if someone moves 
to table, I may ask for a rollcall vote, and we will see how important 
54,000 kids are compared to 435 Congressmen over there who can't come 
back in a moment to take care of these kids in January and February, 
the coldest parts of the winter in certain parts of our country. So we 
will have to see, we will see what happens to the CR when it comes 
over. I guess I want to tell my colleagues they will probably have to 
vote on this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

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