[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 97 (Tuesday, June 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S3847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  SA 2817. Mr. HEINRICH submitted an amendment intended to be proposed 
to amendment SA 2282 proposed by Mr. Inhofe (for himself and Mr. 
McCain) to the bill H.R. 5515, to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
year 2019 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for 
military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of 
Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, 
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as 
follows:

       At the end of part I of subtitle F of title V, add the 
     following:

     SEC. 564. SENSE OF THE SENATE.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds the following:
       (1) The program of Federal impact aid was created by 
     Congress in 1950 to provide local educational agencies with 
     direct and flexible funding meant to replace property tax 
     revenue lost due to the presence of tax-exempt Federal 
     property, and since that time, impact aid funding has given 
     local public schools the ability to provide quality public 
     education to military connected students.
       (2) More than 1,200 local educational agencies receive 
     funding through the impact aid program under title VII of the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
     7701 et seq.) (referred to in this section as ``impact 
     aid'').
       (3) Impact aid funding is used as a tax replacement program 
     that supports all students in the school district due to the 
     presence of Federal tax-exempt land, such as military 
     installations, Native American reservations, or national 
     parks.
       (4) Congress designed impact aid funds to be intentionally 
     flexible, and local educational agencies can use these funds 
     to purchase classroom equipment, fund after-school programs 
     and advanced placement classes, and provide additional 
     resources for special education.
       (5) Turning impact aid into a voucher program would take 
     away critical funding from public local educational agencies 
     serving the majority of military connected students.
       (6) Using the impact aid program as a funding source to 
     support misguided school privatization policies will do 
     nothing to increase the education quality for the vast 
     majority of students at schools that receive funding under 
     the impact aid program (referred to in this section as 
     ``federally impacted schools'').
       (7) Reducing impact aid funding for public schools places a 
     great financial burden on the local community of federally 
     impacted schools, and this is particularly unfair to these 
     communities, as residents in many federally impacted school 
     districts pay higher-than-average taxes because of the lack 
     of taxable property or taxpayers in their communities.
       (8) School vouchers undermine public school systems, lack 
     accountability, and fail to ensure that the civil rights of 
     students are fully protected.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that--
       (1) because a majority of military connected students 
     attend public schools, Congress should reaffirm its 
     commitment to providing all military connected students with 
     high-quality local public education;
       (2) Congress should reaffirm its commitment to maintaining 
     the structure of the Federal impact aid program under title 
     VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 
     U.S.C. 7701 et seq.), as in effect on the day before the date 
     of enactment of this Act; and
       (3) Congress should reaffirm that the impact aid funding 
     authorized under section 561 and section 562 is critical to 
     ensuring public local educational agencies, whose tax base 
     has been impacted by the Federal Government and who educate 
     concentrations of military connected students, have adequate 
     resources to educate federally connected students.
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