[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 8, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E623]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 INTRODUCTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD SUPPORT RECOVERY IMPROVEMENT 
                              ACT OF 2013

                                  _____
                                 

                         HON. DAVID G. REICHERT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 8, 2013

  Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, today I, along with Ranking Member Doggett 
and other Members of the Human Resources Subcommittee, introduce the 
International Child Support Recovery Improvement Act of 2013. This bill 
is nearly identical to H.R. 4282, which passed the House by voice vote 
on June 5, 2012, and serves as the implementing legislation for the 
Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Other 
Forms of Family Maintenance. This multilateral treaty, to which the 
Senate provided its consent in 2010, provides for the structured 
exchange of information and consistent enforcement of international 
cases of child support.
  The bill also builds on the Subcommittee's recent bipartisan efforts 
to standardize data within and across social programs. This includes 
applying to the child support enforcement program the same no-cost data 
standardization provision recently enacted in the child welfare, 
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and unemployment 
insurance programs.
  The data provision is designed to recognize the need for standards in 
the exchange of data both across state-level programs and between 
states and the federal government. The goal is to better organize data 
within programs so that data can then be more easily shared across 
multiple human services programs that serve similar populations.
  The data provision recognizes that multiple standards may well be 
needed to address different types of data exchanges, and that some data 
exchanges may already be standardized. It provides some authority to 
the Secretary of Health and Human Services to exercise some flexibility 
in situations where standardized systems are found to operate 
efficiently. Certain sectors, such as financial institutions, that 
interact with covered programs have well-established data exchange 
standards that need to be taken into account and should serve as the 
base for moving forward. In the case of child support, this data 
provision does not require that systems such as the Federal Parent 
Locator Service (FPLS) be retrofitted, but instead encourages 
incremental, cost-effective implementation of consistent data standards 
across human services programs.
  I invite all Members to join me in supporting this important 
legislation and look forward to its speedy consideration. That way we 
can take the next step toward ratifying the Hague Convention so that 
more child support is collected in international cases, providing more 
children the financial support they deserve.

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