[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 137 (Wednesday, November 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5939-S5946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF LEIGH MARTIN MAY TO BE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE FOR
THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The legislative clerk read the nomination of Leigh Martin May, of
Georgia, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District
of Georgia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, would the Senator from West Virginia
yield for a question? I would like to figure out what the floor process
is because, as I follow all of this, it appears to be a colloquy
between Senators Manchin, Toomey, Alexander, and Harkin. I am trying to
get a sense for how long this colloquy might take so I know when I
should be back on the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. I can't speak for others. I will be about 3 to 5
minutes.
Senator Harkin?
Mr. HARKIN. About the same--about 3 minutes.
Mr. MANCHIN. Senator Toomey?
Mr. TOOMEY. A good 20 minutes.
Mr. MANCHIN. I would say a good half hour.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And Senator Alexander?
Mr. ALEXANDER. I will have about 20 minutes.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. All right. Now I know.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
Child Predator Legislation
Mr. MANCHIN. First, I wish to thank my good friend Senator Pat Toomey
for working with me on this critical legislation to make sure our kids
remain safe in every single school across this great country of ours. I
am a father of three and grandfather of eight, and there is nothing
more important to me than protecting our children and grandchildren.
Our bill is just common sense and has already passed by a voice vote
with not one in opposition in the House.
This legislation makes sure all employees who work with our students
pass a background check to make sure they have no criminal records or
an abusive history. That includes everyone from principals, teachers,
and secretaries to cafeteria workers and janitors.
Since January 1, 410 teachers across America have been arrested for
sexual misconduct--just since January 1 of this year. That is more than
one teacher per day who has sexually assaulted a student. And that only
includes those who have been caught and detained. Do we dare wonder how
many predators we could have prevented from harming our students if
this bill had been passed years ago, including the outcome of the rape
of a young West Virginia student named Jeremy Bell?
Twelve-year-old Jeremy was a fifth grade student from Fayette County,
WV, who had been on an overnight fishing trip with his elementary
principal when he mysteriously died from a head injury in 1997. Nearly
8 years later, investigators discovered that Jeremy was raped and
murdered by none other than Edward Friedrichs, Jr. That was Jeremy's
principal and supervisor on the trip. Thankfully, Mr. Friedrichs is now
serving a life sentence in connection with Jeremy's death.
Although Jeremy's death is in and of itself disturbing, Mr.
Friedrichs' past proves to be even more troublesome. Prior to working
as Fayette County's principal, Mr. Friedrichs had previously been
dismissed by a school in Delaware County, PA, on suspicion of sexual
misconduct. That school then helped him land a new teaching position in
Fayette County, WV. He taught for 26 years in West Virginia--26 years--
before he was finally dismissed in 2001 when he was indicted for
sexually abusing four boys--not one but four we know of.
This story is heartbreaking and simply unacceptable today. As a
parent and grandparent and as a representative of the great State of
West Virginia, inaction is not an option.
There are more than 4 million teachers and school staff employed by
our public school districts across the United States. There are
millions of additional workers who have direct access to students,
including busdrivers, cafeteria workers, and janitors. Yet there is no
national background check policy in place for the people who work
directly with our kids everyday. Even worse, not all of our States
require checks of child abuse and neglect registries or sex-offender
registries. Not all of them. Some do. A lot don't. A recent report by
the Government Accountability Office found that five States don't
require background checks at all--nothing at all--for applicants
seeking employment in our schools. In addition, not all States use both
Federal and State sources of criminal data, such as a State law
enforcement criminal database or the FBI's Interstate Identification
Index.
Our bill would simply require mandatory background checks of State
criminal registries, State child abuse and neglect registries, an FBI
fingerprint check, and a check of the National Sex Offender Registry
for existing and prospective employees.
Every child deserves to have at least one place where they feel safe
and comfortable. For many of our kids these days, that place is at
school.
This is truly a commonsense bill that aims to help protect our kids
from sexual assault predators or any individual who inappropriately
behaves in our schools.
It only makes sense that we do everything we can to allow our
children to have one safe place in their life, and unfortunately that
is our schools. If we can make even the smallest difference
[[Page S5940]]
in changing the outcomes of the lives of students like Jeremy Bell,
then we have done our jobs.
I hope all my colleagues will consider this when they are thinking of
saying: Well, we already do it in our State. Well, guess what, there
are many States that do not for whatever reason. We are just asking to
make it uniform across our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2083
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague Senator
Manchin from West Virginia for his work on this, for being the lead
Democratic sponsor on this very important piece of legislation. I also
thank Senators McConnell and Inhofe for cosponsoring the legislation. I
would like to thank every single Member of the House of Representatives
because every one of them voted in favor of this legislation.
I have a number of reasons I want to cite and develop in a series of
arguments, Mr. President, but I understand the senior Senator from Iowa
has some time constraints, so I will be cooperative in that respect and
I will make a unanimous consent request at this time. I think Senator
Harkin will likely respond to that, and then I will make my arguments
in favor of this legislation.
So at this time, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senate vitiate cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment
to S. 1086, the child care and development block grant bill; that
following the disposition of the Moss and May nominations, the Senate
proceed to a vote on the motion to concur in the House amendment; and
that following the disposition of S. 1086, the HELP Committee be
discharged from consideration of H.R. 2083 and the Senate proceed to
its immediate consideration, the bill be read a third time, and the
Senate proceed to vote on passage of H.R. 2083.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Alexander and myself,
I do object to the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will take about 3 minutes, and I would
like to thank my friend from Pennsylvania for being a gentleman and
letting me have a few minutes to express myself before he gives his own
expression of support for this bill.
First of all, I appreciate Senators Toomey and Manchin's interest in
this issue. We have worked on this over the months to try to
accommodate this legislation and to move it, but the issues are
complex. The bill would affect millions of people. Members of the
education and civil rights communities and others have raised
legitimate concerns that we need to work through.
Members on both sides of the HELP Committee--which I am privileged to
chair--have expressed hesitation about moving this absent constructive
engagement by our committee.
Unfortunately, the Senator is asking us to take this bill without any
debate or committee consideration. That, again, is a formula for bad
legislation because recent steps have been taken by States to do their
own background check requirements.
For example--I don't know this particularly--Pennsylvania recently
enacted legislation to protect kids in school. We need to make sure
that whatever we do here does not interfere with what the States
themselves are doing. I think probably my colleague Senator Alexander
would address himself to that.
Again, this is the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act which
passed 96 to 2 here in the Senate. In fact, the Senator from
Pennsylvania supported the bill. It went to the House. They changed it
a little bit, and then they passed it on a voice vote and sent it back
to us. Now we are concurring in that vote in the House. Again, the bill
is ready to go.
I would state for the record that back in September Senator Alexander
and I had offered the Senator from Pennsylvania a hearing on the bill
and then an immediate markup. We would go to markup. What I could not
guarantee the Senator from Pennsylvania was that his bill would come
through as he wrote it. The committee sometimes makes decisions to
change this or do that. I couldn't guarantee him that. What I could
guarantee was a hearing and an immediate markup on the bill. But that
did not seem to be acceptable to the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I
understand.
Again, I just want the record to reflect that I am not unsympathetic
to the goals of Senator Toomey and Senator Manchin on this issue, but I
do believe it should go through the committee process. Since we are so
close--we have worked on this Child Care and Development Block Grant
Act a long time and it passed 96 to 2. The House added one little
thing, and they passed it by voice vote; we agreed to that. We are
ready to pass it and send it to the President.
We have had a great bipartisan working relationship on our committee
thanks to our ranking member, Senator Alexander, who will be taking
over the chairmanship of this committee in January. I couldn't have
asked for a better partner. We have a very diverse committee, but we
passed 18 bills through our committee and signed by the President in
the last 2 years. This will be the 19th.
So because we haven't had any markup on the amendment, that is why I
am objecting--not that I am absolutely opposed to what the Senator is
trying to do. But I do believe people on my committee deserve to have
some input into this. Since I will be leaving, it will then be Senator
Alexander's committee after the first of the year.
I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for allowing me to speak first,
and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his
comments.
He cited I believe two principal arguments or concerns of his. One is
the fact that this legislation has not yet been considered by his
committee, and the second is that there are States taking action in
various ways that ought to be contemplated. I am going to address both
of those, but I would like to begin at what is, for me, the beginning.
Let me start by stating that I am a strong supporter of the Child
Care and Development Block Grant bill. I voted for this bill in March,
and I look forward to voting for it again. But one of the very reasons
I support the bill is this bill that we are going to vote on, the Child
Care and Development Block Grant bill, addresses the issue that I am
trying to address in my bill, and that is protecting our children from
sexual and violent predators.
I am the father of three young kids. I can't imagine anything more
important than the safety and security of my kids, and I think most
Americans would agree with me on that. While the Child Care and
Development Block Grant bill takes an important step in that
direction--it requires criminal background checks on daycare workers.
And because it does, it is going to provide a level of protection for
the 1.6 million children in federally-subsidized daycare--protection
from the sexual and violent predators who might otherwise obtain jobs
as childcare workers or employees of these daycare centers.
My question is this. Why are we stopping there? Why are we interested
only in protecting the kids in federally-subsidized daycare? The 1.6
million there deserve protection, but what about the 49.6 million
children who are a little bit older? They are in our Nation's
elementary, middle, and high schools. Don't they deserve the same
protection from sexual or violent predators as the really young kids
do? I think we need to act now to protect all of our kids. That is what
I am trying to do here, and it is a very urgent matter.
Senator Manchin talked of the absolutely horrendous case of Jeremy
Bell. That is how I became aware of this situation. As Senator Manchin
pointed out, it began in my State, Pennsylvania, and the terrible story
ended in Senator Manchin's State.
When the perpetrator began molesting and abusing children, he was a
teacher. He had molested several boys and raped one before the school
figured out what was going on. Unfortunately, the prosecutors never
felt they had enough evidence to actually bring a case. The school
dismissed the perpetrator. But then, amazingly, this school in
Pennsylvania helped this
[[Page S5941]]
monster get a job at a school in West Virginia. As Senator Manchin
pointed out, he worked in West Virginia in exactly the same capacity,
which gave him an opportunity to abuse more kids, and this tragic story
didn't end until he raped and murdered a 12-year-old boy.
Well, justice has finally caught up with that teacher. He is going to
spend the rest of his life in jail--which is, frankly, too good for
him. But that is way too late for Jeremy Bell, his 12-year-old victim.
Of course, now we know Jeremy Bell is not alone.
As Senator Manchin pointed out already, this year over 410 teachers
and other school employees have been arrested across America for sexual
assault or misconduct with children--410. That is more than 1 per day.
And let's be clear. These are the people about whom we know enough and
have enough credible evidence to actually have an arrest. How many more
are out there but the prosecutors aren't confident yet that they can
make a case?
In contrast to the 410 that have happened so far this year, back in
April when Senator Manchin and I first came to the floor and asked the
Senate to pass our bipartisan bill, at the time the number of teachers
arrested was only 130. In the time we have waited, we have gone from
130 teachers and other school employees arrested for sexual misconduct
with children to now over 410. How much bigger does this number have to
get before the Senate decides this is something we should address?
Every one of these 410 stories represents a horrendous tragedy. One
is a child whose abuse began at age 10 and only ended when, at age 17,
she found herself pregnant with a teacher's child. Another is a
teacher's aide who raped a mentally disabled boy in his care. Another
is a kindergarten teacher who kept a child during recess and forced her
to perform sexual acts on him. One teacher after another caught with
images of child pornography on their computer--child pornography
involving children as young as 1 years old. It is unbelievable stuff.
It is important, especially in my home State of Pennsylvania. Twenty-
five of these arrested have been Pennsylvania teachers. A recent study
found that Pennsylvania is second in the Nation for teachers who have
been investigated for sexual misconduct with the children who are
supposed to be in their care.
So I think we need to be acting now. We need to stop these tragedies.
Our bipartisan bill, Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent
Predators Act, takes an important step toward that goal. It works to
ensure that school employees we hire are not sexual or violent
predators. In fact, the background check provisions in our bill are
nearly identical to the background check provisions in the Child Care
and Development Block Grant bill, the one that we are going to vote on.
Specifically, the protecting students act requires background checks
for all existing and prospective school employees who have unsupervised
access to children. The background checks must be thorough, covering
four databases, including national databases. That would be the FBI
fingerprint check, the National Crime Information Center database, the
National Sex Offender Registry established by the Adam Walsh Act, the
State criminal registries, and the State child abuse and neglect
registries.
Now, let me give a recent example from the State of Alaska which
illustrates just how important this requirement is. On August 29,
Alaska State troopers arrested a middle-school teacher in Kiana, AK.
The teacher had fled Missouri 4 years earlier to escape arrest.
Numerous witnesses accused the teacher over a decade of sexual and
physical abuse of his own adopted children. This is hard to talk about
because it is so disturbing, but I think we have to face it. The fact
is he raped and starved his children. The children literally burrowed a
hole in the wall, stole food from the freezer, and heated it on a
furnace in their home just to survive. This monster was able to obtain
a teaching certificate in Alaska and teach in the State for 4 years.
When asked how this could have happened, the Alaska Department of
Education explained that Alaska only checks the State's criminal
registry when running a background check on teachers. So his name never
came up. Now, had Alaska searched the FBI criminal database, as my bill
requires, the school would have learned that this monster was a
fugitive in another State.
The protecting students act forbids schools from hiring a teacher who
has committed certain crimes, including any violent or sexual crime
against the child--whether a misdemeanor or a felony. This is necessary
because all too often a predator will plead down to a misdemeanor when
in fact he or she may be guilty of something more serious.
The legislation also bans the horrible practice of a school knowingly
helping a child molester obtain a new teaching job somewhere else so
that he becomes a problem somewhere else. This practice sounds
outrageous, it sounds incredible, but it happens. In fact, it happens
so frequently it has its own name. It is called passing the trash.
Finally, if the State fails to comply with these requirements, it
loses a portion of its funds under the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act.
I mentioned earlier that this is a bipartisan bill. It is, to say the
least, bipartisan. Support is so broad, in the House it passed
unanimously over a year ago, in October of 2013. It was introduced by
Democrat George Miller of California, cosponsored by two Republicans
and seven Democrats, including Frederica Wilson of Florida, who herself
served as an elementary school teacher and principal for 20 years,
Charlie Rangel of New York, and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. Here in
the Senate, it has the bipartisan support of Senator Manchin, Senator
McConnell, Senator Inhofe, and myself.
Child advocates across America have endorsed the bill. The National
Children's Alliance, which oversees national child advocacy matters,
the Children's Defense Fund, the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape have all
endorsed this bill. Law enforcement and prosecutors all support this
bill. The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association supports it, as
do the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and the National District
Attorneys Association.
Teachers support this legislation--the American Federation of
Teachers, the Pennsylvania School Board Association.
So more than 1 year after the House passed this bill unanimously, why
have we refused to act in the Senate? Well, some have argued that the
Federal Government doesn't need to act because we can leave it to the
States. Some States have worked to address this problem to the extent
that they can. The Senator from Iowa mentioned that my home State of
Pennsylvania has recently enacted legislation that deals with it. This
is true--much to the credit of State Senator Tony Williams, a Democrat,
and State Representative Dave Maloney, a Republican.
The bill makes much-needed reform to strengthen background checks and
ban passing the trash within Pennsylvania. But as my friend,
Pennsylvania State Senator Tony Williams, explained, under the U.S.
Constitution States cannot address the problem of child predators being
passed across State lines. The jurisdiction of Pennsylvania ends at the
Pennsylvania borders. There is nothing Pennsylvania can do to make it
illegal for someone in another State to send into Pennsylvania a
predator of this sort. Of course, the example of Jeremy Bell is just
exactly one such case.
Another example is this. Recently in Las Vegas, NV, a kindergarten
teacher was arrested for kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and infecting
her with a sexually-transmitted disease. The same teacher had molested
6 children, all fourth and fifth graders, several years before while
working as a teacher in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles school district
knew about these allegations. How do we know they knew? In 2009 the
school district had recommended settling a lawsuit alleging the teacher
had molested children.
The Nevada school district specifically asked if there had been any
criminal concerns regarding the teacher. The Los Angeles school
district not only hid the truth, but they provided three references for
the teacher.
Had my bill banning passing the trash been the law, maybe that 16-
year-old child might have been spared.
[[Page S5942]]
There is another fundamental reason I think the Federal Government
has to act; that is, it needs to be accountable to the American
taxpayer. When the Federal Government gives billions of dollars to
States to help pay for the salaries of people who work with children,
the Federal Government has a duty to make sure it is not paying the
salary of child molesters. It is a basic accountability that every
taxpayer, I would think, should demand.
Again, in this regard, our protect all students bill is nearly
identical to the child care and development block grant bill that we
are going to be voting on. Both the child care and development block
grant bill and our protect all students bill act to create what is a
voluntary mechanism for States to enhance their security. Both bills
provide that if the State accepts Federal funds, the State government
must pass the laws or regulations providing for the criminal background
checks of persons who will work with children. Both bills provide that
a State's compliance is essentially voluntary. A State that declines to
improve its background checks forgoes Federal funds. Under the child
care and development block grant bill, the State loses 5 percent of the
funds under that bill. Under our protecting students bill, the State
loses funds under the Elementary Secondary Education Act. Thus, both
bills have the same worthy goal, the same principle of accountability
for Federal funds. They even have the same basic enforcement mechanism.
Both bills were passed unanimously by the House of Representatives,
the child care and development block grant bill 2 months ago on
September 15, the protecting students bill over a year ago on October
22, 2013. If one bill has legal problems for being passed, so does the
other, but in fact neither bill should be blocked. They both take the
same approach and they both provide an urgently needed measure of
security for our kids.
Others have argued and we heard the senior Senator from Iowa make the
argument that the Senate should wait and let the committee of
jurisdiction, the HELP Committee, consider the bill first. Well, it has
been over 1 year now that the HELP Committee has chosen not to take any
action on this bill. Senator Manchin and I have been working for months
trying to pass this urgently needed legislation, but we have never been
able to make progress with the committee.
On April 10 of this year Senator Manchin and I asked unanimous
consent to pass our bill. The committee chairman objected. Next, the
committee assured Senator Manchin and me that they would work with our
staff and the committee would vote on the bill in July. The committee
scheduled a vote on our bill in July, posted an announcement on its Web
site that it was going to have a markup on this bill, and then at the
last minute the committee removed our bill from the agenda, had no
consideration of it, denied us a vote and we never got an answer as to
why. Again, Senator Manchin and I were assured that the committee would
vote on this bipartisan bill. We were told the committee would work
with our staffs during the 5-week recess in August and provide a vote
in September. But then the committee ignored our staffs during the
August recess and there was no such consideration in September.
Now here we are 7\1/2\ weeks after we went on recess in September and
I still have no confidence that the committee is going to take this up
and move this legislation. In the meantime, of course, child predators
have not been at rest. They have been moving on to new victims. Every
day brings another story of a teacher arrested, another family whose
child has been shattered and a family who has been torn apart by grief
and betrayal.
I think the children of America have waited long enough, and I say no
more waiting, no more promises about jurisdiction and process and
procedures that don't take place, no more passing child molesters on to
new schools and new victims, no more defenseless kids such as Jeremy
Bell falling victim to other child predators, no more excuses for
avoiding an up-or-down vote that passed the House unanimously.
Let's act now. Let's protect all our kids. Let's act now to protect
the 1.6 million kids in the federally subsidized daycares as the child
care and development block grant bill does. Let's pass that. I am for
that. But let's also protect the 49.6 million kids who are in our
elementary and middle and high schools. We can do this. We can do this
tomorrow. We can do this tomorrow. We can pass them both tomorrow if we
just have a vote, and we would send two bills to the President's desk.
I am quite confident he would sign them both. He would sign the child
care and development block grant bill and he would protect those 1.6
million kids and I am confident he would sign the Protecting Students
From Sexual and Violent Predators Act, and then we would be protecting
the 49.6 million slightly older kids.
I urge my colleagues to act now and get on with a vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I applaud the Senators from
Pennsylvania and from West Virginia for their concern. Of course, every
single Senator would like, as the Senator from West Virginia said, to
make sure every single child is safe in every single school.
The question in my mind is, How does one do that? My mind goes back
to a particularly horrific shooting in a school in the early 1990s and
the country was revulsed by it and Congress acted. We are going to make
every single school safe. So Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones
Act in about 1990, and the Supreme Court in a few years held it
unconstitutional under the commerce clause, which isn't a problem here,
but I opposed that then--I was U.S. Education Secretary then--because
the way to make every child and every school safe is not the job of the
U.S. Senate and U.S. Department of Education. That is not the way to do
it.
We have 40 million children, right. We have 100,000 schools, correct.
We have 14,000 school boards. We have 100,000 principals. What this
proposal would do is to put the U.S. Department of Education and the
U.S. Congress--which currently has about a 10-percent approval rating--
in charge of making every single child in every single school safer
than the local school board can, than the local legislator can, than
the local Governor can, than the local community can, than the parents
can. If we want safe schools, that is the job of parents, communities,
school boards, and States. It is not a duty to be bucked upstairs to
the Senate and the Department of Education. That doesn't make Sam
Houston Elementary School in Lebanon, TN, any safer. I don't think many
parents would go home feeling better tonight in my hometown if they
knew it was the Senate they were counting on to make their child safe
in their school. Of course this is the right goal, but there is a
better way to do that. There is a better way to do that.
The reason the Senator from Iowa and I offered to the Senator from
Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia an opportunity to have
a hearing and a markup on this bill in September was we think we have a
better idea, and that was simply to take the very well-meaning impulse
that they have and change the direction in a fundamental way, which was
to say instead of making every one of our 100,000 schools do this, and
telling them how to do it, we will enable them to do it by giving them
access to all the Federal registries by allowing them to use Federal
title II money to do it, to use title II money for training. We thought
we had a better way to get to the same goal, which is to make every
single child safe.
All of us are horrified by these stories. So the question is, What is
the best way to deal with it. Some people say let Washington do it.
I just went through a little reelection campaign in Tennessee. I
don't think I had one person come up to me and say: Why don't you let
Washington tell us what to do about the employment practices in our
local schools. I don't think I had a single person come up and say: I
think you guys in the Senate care more and know more about how to make
every single child in every Tennessee school safer by your actions in
Washington. They know better than that. In fact, they came up to me and
said: Tell Washington to stop telling us what to do about our academic
standards, Common Core. This is Common Core for employment practices.
Stop
[[Page S5943]]
Washington from telling us what to do and about what the curriculum
ought to be. Stop Washington from telling us what to do about training
our teachers, about evaluating our teachers, about how long our class
sessions ought to be, about how large our classes ought to be. We have
proposals that come through this same committee. The President has one
involving preschool that would create a national school board for
preschool education. Class size, teacher salaries, length of school
days, all those things would be decided by people with wisdom in
Washington. I reject that. I would particularly object to that when I
was Governor of Tennessee, which I was for 8 years.
If there were a horrific case in Tennessee of sexual predation in one
of the schools, I wouldn't have phoned Washington to find out what to
do about it. I would have called the legislature into session and done
something about it. If I were to have found that I didn't have access
to the Federal registries or any central registries, I would then have
said to my U.S. Senator: Why don't you give us these tools to do it--
which is what I would propose to do.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a summary of a
proposal I would make that would help every one of our 100,000 schools
to do a better job of dealing with employment practices and criminal
background checks.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Protecting Student Safety Act
Purpose: To protect student safety by allowing States to
use federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act to establish, implement, or improve policies
and procedures for implementing background checks of school
personnel.
What the Bill Does
Allows States or local school districts to use federal
funding under Title II of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act to establish, implement, or improve policies
and procedures on background checks for school employees to:
conduct searches of appropriate State and Federal criminal
registries, as determined by the State;
implement policies and procedures that prohibit the
employment of individuals who either refuse to commit to a
background check, make false statements, or have been
convicted of certain violent or child abuse related crimes,
as determined by the State;
establish implement, or improve policies and procedures
concerning the timely disclosure, notice, and appeal of
background check results;
develop, implement, or improve mechanisms for assisting in
the identification of and response to incidents of child
abuse, including by providing training and development for
school personnel; and
implement any other activities determined by the State to
protect student safety.
Precludes any private right of action if a school or school
district is in compliance with State regulations and
requirements.
Allows States and local districts to charge limited fees to
school employees for the costs of processing and
administering background checks, as required by State law.
Reasons to Support this Bill
Support what most States are already doing--According to
GAO, 46 States already require background checks of some kind
for all public school employees and 42 States have
established professional standards or codes of conduct for
school personnel.
Rather than mandating a one-size-fits-all approach for
14,000 local school districts and 100,000 public schools,
provides States with flexibility to establish, implement, or
improve background check policies and procedures that best
meet State and local needs.
Supports State and local efforts to increase reporting of
child abuse, limit the transfer of school personnel
implicated in abuse, as well as provide training on how to
recognize, respond to, and prevent child abuse in schools.
It will protect schools and local school districts from
civil litigation resulting from background check decisions
that are otherwise in compliance with State regulations and
requirements.
Mr. ALEXANDER. This is a surprising development for me. I understand
the terrible nature of the problem, but I think it is so important that
we not lead the American people into thinking we could solve these
community problems by asking Washington to do it. If we have an
obstacle here, if there is no access to a registry, let's change that.
I would love to have a Toomey-Manchin bill with their names on it to
give every single school board, 100,000 schools the tools they need to
do the job. But they should be accountable for it, not the Senator from
Tennessee. They should be accountable for it.
ADM Hyman Rickover was the leader and inventor, really, of our
nuclear Navy, and our nuclear Navy has never had a problem--never had a
death I should say--from the reactors on our nuclear submarines. I
think the reason is because Admiral Rickover hired every one of the
captains. He told them: You have two responsibilities, one is the ship
and one is the reactor. If something happens to the reactor, your
career is over. I think putting the captain on the flagpole and making
it clear whose job it is to be accountable for safe schools is a big
part of it.
If we make it look as though somehow the Senate takes care of making
a school in Pennsylvania or West Virginia or Tennessee safe because we
passed some bill and wrote some regulation and caused everybody to fill
out a lot of forms in the 46 States that already have criminal
background checks of their own, then I think we have done a disservice.
I think we have done a disservice. We had a recent example on
legislation in our committee on compounding pharmacies. We had a
terrible situation where a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts,
acting like a manufacturer, produced sterile products that weren't
sterile, and as a result in Tennessee and many other States people were
injected with unsterile drugs and they caught meningitis and they died.
It was an awful disease and a terrible thing to happen. Part of the
problem was who was on the flagpole, who was in charge. Was it the Food
and Drug Administration or was it the State Control Board in
Massachusetts?
Our legislation sought to clean that up and to make it clear that
someone was accountable. I think the persons accountable for safe
schools are the principal of the school, the local school board, the
parents, and the students in that community. The rest of us can give
them tools and remove obstacles and get out of the way. But the idea
that we should pass a law, tell them how to do it, and inevitably write
these complicated regulations that they have to fill out, that is not
going to make every single child in every single school safer.
As I said when I began, the Senator's passion is evident. I respect
that, and I respect him as a Senator. We don't have two better Senators
in our body than the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from
Pennsylvania. They know I feel that way.
But I have a profound difference of opinion about this. I will say
that if they wanted to consider this with the child care and
development block grant, they have plenty of opportunity to do that. We
have had a lot of complaining on our side of the aisle about the lack
of what we call a regular order.
We say we have not been allowed to offer amendments, and that has
been true. There has been a record-low number of amendments in this
session of Congress, and the distinguished Senator in the chair has
been among those who have pointed that out. But in this case, this was
a model of how we should consider legislation. It was considered in the
committees in the House and the Senate. This amendment was not offered
in the committees in the House and the Senate. It then passed the
Senate committee and came to the floor.
In March we had an open amendment process for anything that had to do
with the bill. Fifty amendments were filed, and 18 amendments were
considered and agreed to. There was no filling of the tree. There was
no motion for cloture. There was simply an open amendment process and a
vote. This amendment could have been offered then.
Let's put that off to the side. I think the more important discussion
we need to have is who is in charge of these schools? Who should create
the academic standards? If the U.S. Department of Education should be
responsible for determining what the employment practices are in
100,000 public schools, then there should be no objection to the U.S.
Department of Education ordering every school in America to adopt the
Common Core or ordering every school in America to have a class size of
X or ordering every school in America to pay teachers this much or
determining, as this current Department of Education tries to do, how
you should evaluate teachers in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, or Tennessee.
I don't think that is the way our country was set up. I don't think
that respects our constitutional framework. I don't think it is
consistent
[[Page S5944]]
with the spirit, at least, of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
I do not think the American people--and I know Tennesseeans don't--
want Washington telling them how to run schools, and there is nothing
more fundamental about running schools than telling 100,000 schools and
their school boards and their Governors and their legislators and their
parents what their employment practices ought to be. Plus, I don't
think it will make the school safer. I think what will make it safer is
a bill that has the courageous attention--as the Senator from
Pennsylvania and West Virginia have given to the problem--that would
give all those local organizations an opportunity to access the
registries that are available, to deal with people who go across State
lines, give them access to title II funding so they would have money
for that and money for training. So it is a choice between mandating
and enabling. I am on the side of local school boards, not a national
school board.
While I respect the effort of the Senators and I believe the subject
is urgently important for our country, I would prefer to see this
matter considered with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
which will be the first order of business in the new session of
Congress, and I am chairman of that committee. Let's have a discussion
about the best way to do that. Do a majority of the Senators on the
committee really think Washington can do a better job of making every
single child and every single school safe by mandating and ordering and
regulating or does a majority of the committee in the Senate think that
the Senators have called to us an important need where we might step in
and make it easier for local school boards and State departments of
education to update their programs--46 States already have them--and
use Federal dollars to implement those programs? I prefer the latter;
these Senators prefer the former. That is well worth discussing in the
committee, and I look forward to doing that.
I came to the floor tonight to make clear that I see this as a
fundamental difference of opinion, one that deserves attention, to show
my respect for the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and to
offer the framework for what I think is a better idea for making every
single child in every single school safe.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I find myself in the unusual position of
disagreeing with the senior Senator from Tennessee. I have so much
respect for the Senator. We are in agreement far more than we are in
disagreement, but we do disagree about this, and I feel compelled to
address several of the issues the Senator from Tennessee raised, and
then I will be finished. I know there are other Senators who would like
to speak.
First of all, I think it is very clear that my bill no more creates a
national school board than the child care and development block grant
creates a national school board for childcare centers. It is the exact
same set of circumstances, the exact same protections, and it is
provided by the Federal Government.
I don't understand why, if it is OK for the Senate and the Federal
Government of the United States to ensure greater security for children
daycares, it is somehow not acceptable to provide that same level of
security to kids who happen to be a little older. That is what we are
talking about. I don't understand that.
The other point I would make is that, in fact, both bills--the child
care and development block grant bill and my bill, the Protecting
Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act--are voluntary. Neither
one has the power or attempts to compel a State to do a thing. It says:
This is what we want you to do. If you don't, you are going to lose
some funding, but that is it.
So there is absolutely a mechanism that creates an incentive, but we
don't have the constitutional power to actually enforce it. Neither
bill does. Both bills use the exact same mechanism to encourage
compliance with a standard that will ensure greater safety and security
for our kids.
Furthermore, I suggest that we absolutely have a responsibility to be
concerned with how the money is spent. The taxpayers whom we represent
expect us to provide some oversight and insist that there are some
standards in the way the moneys are spent. That is a reasonable
expectation for the Federal Government.
In addition, there is an element of this problem that can't be solved
by any given State, and that is the cross-border nature of the problem.
Specifically, the case of Jeremy Bell illustrates this perfectly--
tragically but perfectly--and that is when a teacher leaves one State
and goes to another State and commits the atrocities on a new set of
victims. There is nothing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can do to
make it illegal for another State to have a school that sends a letter
of recommendation. The powers of Pennsylvania end at the border of
Pennsylvania, and that is the case with all 50 States. So it seems to
me that this, like other circumstances, simply requires a Federal
solution.
Finally, I will say that my constituents are in many ways very
skeptical of the Federal Government. There is no doubt about that, as
Senator Alexander observed with his constituents. But many of them are
shocked to learn we don't have background-check requirements such as
what my bill contemplates and what the child care and development block
grant bill does. They are shocked to discover this is not already the
law. I think they would feel safer if they knew it was the law.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island is here,
and it is his turn. I wish to make a few comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. There are a couple of differences. Under the
Parliamentarian's ruling, this amendment is not under the block grant
bill. No. 2, all the funding for the vouchers that go to mothers who
may use the block grants for daycare while they go to work, which is
what our bill is about, all comes from the Federal Government.
The whole principle of that bill--it is a pretty good Republican
bill, in my view--is that there is a lot of flexibility. In fact, we
had a pretty good debate about the criminal background checks in our
bill. I would have preferred to have given the States more flexibility
for the reasons I have stated, but I agreed to what was done. It has
100 percent Federal funding, whereas the Federal Government only funds
10 percent of our schools.
The penalties for not taking the Federal orders for what your
personnel practices ought to be are much more severe in the bill from
the Senator from Pennsylvania. He would cause you to lose 10 percent of
your school funding. Under the childcare block grant, you would lose 5
percent of the Federal funding. But the issue remains the same, and it
is a good issue.
I hear it on our committee. The Senator from Rhode Island is on that
committee. He has heard Senator Harkin and me argue about this. You can
make a very good argument to say that we provide some money, therefore
we ought to write some rules. So we are going to write the rules for
personnel practices; we are going to write the rules for academic
standards--also called Common Core; we are going to write the rules for
qualifying how teachers should be evaluated. Even in our preschool
programs, we are going to say what the rules are for class size and the
length of the school day.
That sounds very good, but when you operate a school, you say: Who
are these people? They might give me some tools, which we could do--and
I would propose we do--or they might allow us to use some Federal money
so we can have a better personnel practice, but we really don't think
it works. We don't think that every time there is a horrific problem in
our community, the Federal Government should step in and tell us how to
fix it.
That is a really big difference, and it is particularly a big
difference with schools, and it is a debate that will likely go on for
some time.
I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his patience.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I found the discussion edifying, and it was time that
was well spent.
[[Page S5945]]
Climate Change
Mr. President, we are now reconvened after the election recess, and I
am back on the Senate floor for the 79th consecutive week of Senate
session to draw the attention of this body to the growing threat of
global climate change.
I will first congratulate my Republican colleagues on achieving a
majority in the Senate in the coming Congress. With control of the
House and a majority in the Senate, Republicans now have great power in
Congress. As the well-known saying goes, however, ``with great power
comes great responsibility.''
The hallmark of the Republican minority was obstruction--often
pointless obstruction, obstruction for obstruction's sake. A rational
and fact-based focus on the issues has not been, to put it mildly,
their hallmark. That was their choice, and it is the privilege of the
minority party in the Senate to behave that way. The minority party in
the Senate can choose to simply make themselves antagonists with no
policy responsibility. I have to say they did an amazing job of that.
But now my colleagues have a majority, and they have the power and the
responsibility that comes with that beginning in January.
The touchstone of responsibility is to be responsible. I will concede
the Senate could actually become a better place if the new majority,
when it comes in, chooses to be responsible and the uniquely partisan
obstruction that characterized their role as the Senate minority passes
away as they move into the majority.
A key test to this, however, will be whether the Republicans here in
the Senate choose to become responsible about climate change; about
what carbon pollution is doing all around us, to our atmosphere and to
our oceans; about what happens when carbon concentrations in the
atmosphere that have varied between 170 and 300 parts per million for
as long as we have been a species on this planet suddenly surge to 400
and beyond; about what happens when scientific laws that have been
understood since Abraham Lincoln was riding around Washington, DC, in
his top hat begin to impose their inexorable effects upon this world.
In the minority, they pretended it wasn't real. Some even said
climate change was a hoax. Many said they were not scientists and so
they couldn't do anything about it. I would note they are not
gynecologists, either, but many have no hesitation about trying to
regulate that area.
No one would work on doing anything serious about carbon dioxide
emissions. It was not always this way. Republican Senator John Warner
was the lead sponsor of the Warner-Lieberman climate bill. Republican
Senator John McCain ran for President on a solid climate change
platform. Republican Senator Susan Collins coauthored an important cap-
and-dividend climate bill with Senator Cantwell. Republican Senator
Mark Kirk voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the House
of Representatives. Republican Senator Jeff Flake was an original
cosponsor of a carbon fee bill led by former Republican Congressman Bob
Inglis that would have placed a $15-per-ton fee on carbon pollution in
2010, more than $20 per ton in 2015, and $100 per ton in 2040. Well,
all of that ended. That and more ended shortly after the Citizens
United decision when for the first time our elections were flooded with
polluter money and flooded with dark money, which is probably polluter
money, but because it is dark and anonymous, we don't really know.
So say you are not a scientist. Isn't the responsible thing to sound
out scientific opinion? Scientific opinion about climate change is now
firmly settled. Climate change is caused by the massive carbon
pollution we have unleashed. Every major scientific society in our
country knows this and has said so. Here is a list. If my colleagues
want to, they can check with them. This is a list from a letter dated
October 21, 2009--more than 5 years ago. We have been fiddling around
on this since the science was so clear.
I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
October 21, 2009.
Dear Senator: As you consider climate change legislation,
we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state
the consensus scientific view.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that
climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research
demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human
activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are
based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary
assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of
the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is
strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad
impacts on society, including the global economy and on the
environment. For the United States, climate change impacts
include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of
extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water
scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the
disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The
severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase
substantially in the coming decades.
If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate
change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically
reduced. In addition, adaptation will be necessary to address
those impacts that are already unavoidable. Adaptation
efforts include improved infrastructure design, more
sustainable management of water and other natural resources,
modified agricultural practices, and improved emergency
responses to storms, floods, fires and heat waves.
We in the scientific community offer our assistance to
inform your deliberations as you seek to address the impacts
of climate change.
Alan I. Leshner, Executive Director, American Association
for the Advancement of Science; Timothy L. Grove,
President, American Geophysical Union; Keith Seitter,
Executive Director, American Meteorological Society;
Tuan-hua David Ho, President, American Society of Plant
Biologists; Lucinda Johnson, President, Association of
Ecosystem Research Centers; Thomas Lane, President,
American Chemical Society; May R. Berenbaum, President,
American Institute of Biological Sciences; Mark Alley,
President, American Society of Agronomy; Sally C
Morton, President, American Statistical Association.
Kent E. Holsinger, President, Botanical Society of
America; Kenneth Quesenberry, President, Crop Science
Society of America; William Y. Brown, President,
Natural Science Collections Alliance; Douglas N.
Arnold, President, Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics; Paul Bertsch, President, Soil Science
Society of America; Mary Power, President, Ecological
Society of America; Brian D. Kloeppel, President,
Organization of Biological Field Stations; John
Huelsenbeck, President, Society of Systematic
Biologists; Richard A. Anthes, President, University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I could start with the body that was chartered 150
years ago, actually, to provide us independent, scientific, objective
advice--the National Academy of Sciences. If that doesn't suit, try the
American Association for the Advancement of Science or the American
Physical Society or the American Meteorological Society or the American
Geophysical Union or the American Medical Association or the American
Chemical Society or the Geological Society of America. If none of my
colleagues are scientists, check it out. Ask the responsible
scientists. Ask the leading scientific societies.
If my colleagues don't believe the measurements--measurements confirm
what the scientists know. Sea level is rising, and the rise is
accelerating. We measure that with a glorified yardstick. It is already
up nearly 10 inches at the Newport Naval Station since the 1930s when
we in Rhode Island had the devastating hurricane of 1938. It is similar
at Fort Pulaski in Georgia. Go visit Miami Beach, where they just spent
hundreds of millions of dollars installing huge, 14,000 gallon-per-
minute pumps to keep the city dry as the rising tides flood in.
The ocean is warming. We measure that with a thermometer.
Narragansett Bay is nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, mean water
temperature, than 50 years ago. That is an ecosystem shift, and it has
wreaked havoc with our winter flounder catch, for instance. Warmer
waters aren't just in Rhode Island. They have brought the snook--a game
fish from the Florida Keys--up into Georgia waters.
The ocean is more acidic, and it is getting more acidic at the
fastest rate measured looking back millions of years in the geologic
record. If my colleagues doubt that the ocean is acidifying, ask the
oyster growers in the Pacific Northwest and Maine. Ask the scientists
who study Alaska's salmon fishery about what is happening to
[[Page S5946]]
the pteropod, a key food source for salmon.
Here is my challenge to my Republican colleagues who say they are not
scientists: Ask the scientists. Ask the scientists at your own home
State universities. And ask the folks, by the way, employed by your
outdoor industries--the people who see the changes happening around
them. Ask your park rangers. Ask your forest rangers.
If a colleague is from North Carolina, ask the scientists at the
University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences.
If a colleague is from Colorado, ask the scientists at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
If a colleague is from Iowa, ask the scientists at the Center for
Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa.
If a colleague is from Arizona, ask the scientists at the University
of Arizona, which hosts the Climate Assessment for the Southwest
Program.
If a colleague is from Florida, ask the scientists at the University
of Florida's Climate Institute.
If a colleague is from Texas, ask the scientists at the Texas Center
for Climate Studies at Texas A&M. The Aggies get climate change. Check
it out.
If a colleague is from New Hampshire, ask biologist Eric Orff, who
worked for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department for 30 years,
what is happening to the moose. Ask Mike Bartlett of the New Hampshire
Audubon Society what is happening to the purple finch, the State bird.
If a colleague is from Utah, ask the Park City Foundation and, while
colleagues are at it, employees at Alta Ski Area, Canyons Resort, Deer
Crest, Deer Valley, or Park City Mountain Resort what they foresee for
that industry.
If a colleague is from Idaho, ask University of Idaho Professor
Jeffrey Hicke how rising temperatures let loose the bark beetle and
decimated almost 1,000 square miles of the iconic mountain pine
forests.
If my colleagues like big business, if they think only the private
sector knows anything, then ask the big property casualty reinsurers
such as Munich Re or Swiss Re, who have billions of dollars at stake
and have to get this right.
If a colleague is from Georgia, ask the folks from Coca-Cola. If a
colleague is from Arkansas, ask the folks from Walmart. If a colleague
is from North Carolina, ask the folks at $30 billion clothing maker VF
Corporation. They all have a lot of money riding on getting this right,
and they are making decisions based on business, not on ideology. So
ask them.
If my colleagues trust the military, ask ADM Samuel Locklear,
commander of U.S. Pacific Command, who says climate risk is the most
dangerous long-term challenge we face in the Pacific.
If my colleagues are looking for some pretty good high-level
scientists, they might want to ask NASA and NOAA. Remember NASA? They
put a rover safely on the surface of Mars, and they are driving it
around on Mars. Do my colleagues think they might know what they are
talking about?
If my colleagues need to hear it from Republicans, ask former
Republican Treasury Secretaries, such as George Shultz and Hank
Paulson. Ask former Republican EPA Administrators such as Bill
Ruckelshaus, Christine Todd Whitman, William Reilly, and Lee Thomas.
Ask James Brainard, the Republican mayor of Carmel, IN. Ask Bob Dixon,
the Republican mayor of Greensburg. Ask Betty Price, the Republican
mayor of Fort Worth, TX. Ask Republican mayor Sylvia Murphy and county
commissioner George Neugent of Monroe County, FL.
If my colleagues are not scientists, just ask. Do your homework.
Exercise this new great responsibility that will come with the great
power you have won. But don't pretend climate change isn't real. Even
your own young voters know better than that. A majority of Republican
voters under age 35 think a politician who denies climate change is
ignorant, out of touch, or crazy. Those were the words checked off in
the poll. To paraphrase Michael Corleone from that great movie, ``Don't
tell me it isn't real, because it insults my intelligence and it makes
me very angry.
To our Republicans, I say I want to be your best friend in all of
this, the kind of best friend who tells you when you are in no shape to
drive and should hand over the keys until you are sober enough to drive
safely even if it makes you mad to hear it, the kind of friend who will
tell you the truth you need to hear but don't want to hear. And let me
say, friends don't let friends deny climate change.
I know the big carbon polluters want this issue to be ignored. But
responsibility is knowing when to tell even your friends no.
Responsibility is doing what is factual and is based in real science
and measurement. Responsibility is doing what is right for your State
and for your country in the long run, not just what rewards your
supporters--even those really big supporters--in the short run.
Maybe as their friends you might even want to have a little
conversation with them because this is only going one way. As Pope
Francis just said, God is not ``a magician with a magic wand.'' He put
laws of the universe, laws of nature in place, and we don't get a pass
on them just because it is politically convenient. How long does
ExxonMobil think it can pursue unsustainable fossil fuel goals by
fixing the politics? Laws of nature can't be bought or repealed. The
Koch brothers are rich enough to buy virtually anything, but even they
can't buy new laws of nature. BP went and quietly shut down its solar
and wind programs, but carbon still does what carbon does. As your
friends, they might need a little intervention from you.
Just so you know, I am not going anywhere. I have homes and
businesses being swept into the ocean in my State. I have fishermen who
tell me it is getting weird out there in Rhode Island Sound, that the
lobsters and fish aren't where they are supposed to be when they are
supposed to be there, that they are catching the kinds of fish their
fathers and grandfathers never saw in their nets.
It is getting weird out there. I am not going anywhere. My State is
small and coastal, and worse, bigger storms put us in serious danger. I
am not ever going to ignore that. I am never going to walk away from
this issue. I will never deny what Rhode Islanders see right in front
of their faces and what all our expert warnings tell us is only going
to get worse.
If you are going to be responsible and not just powerful, you won't
deny this issue and walk away either. I promise you this. One way or
another, we are going to get this done.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________