[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1817-S1819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Welfare-to-Work Programs
Mr. President, our Nation's primary welfare-to-work program is
broken. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, also
called TANF, was created with bipartisan support in 1996. It was
recently reauthorized temporarily, but I believe we need to take bold
action to reform it for today's generation.
TANF recognizes that funding and maintaining a job is the most
effective way for healthy, working-age parents to go from government
dependency to self-sufficiency. It is not about handouts. It is about
giving a hand to those who need help the most.
Now, the more liberal voices of the times argue that TANF Programs
wouldn't work. In fact, it was our former colleague, Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, who predicted that TANF would result in ``children
sleeping on grates, picked up in the morning frozen.''
The critics were wrong. They were very wrong. TANF was a huge
success. After TANF became law, welfare caseloads plummeted, child
poverty declined, and unemployment among low-income, never married
parents went up.
Yet more than 20 years after the historic 1996 reforms, Congress has
neglected to act on the loopholes that are undercutting its fundamental
work requirements.
Today, very few States are meeting the work participation rate
required by the law. In fact, my home State of Montana is one of many
that is falling short. You see, the law calls for 50 percent of welfare
enrollees to be engaged in work. In Montana, they are only reaching
about one-third.
Many States are also using TANF dollars for purposes unrelated to
work, and we need to hold those States accountable. That means more
transparency and accountability metrics.
As we have seen in President Trump's recent budget proposal, the
President agrees that stronger work requirements must be a priority of
this Congress. We can take the next bold step forward in reforming the
TANF system to close these loopholes and get the American people back
to work.
We are fortunate our economy continues to grow, and there are more
opportunities being created. Just last Congress, we passed tax relief
for the American people so working-class families got to keep more of
what they earned and small business owners could afford to invest and
grow in their business, creating more jobs. Main Street in America is
thriving again.
As employers are rapidly looking to hire, we need to close the gap
and ensure those jobs are filled by Americans who need them most. A
strong, revitalized TANF Program is urgently needed to close this jobs
gap and empower more Americans to find work.
We have a problem in this economy now. In fact, there are too many
jobs available and not enough people to fill the jobs. That is a
wonderful challenge to face. We have seen that now for 10 consecutive
months. That is a great problem to face now in our country, but it is
still a problem we need to solve. That is why we will be joining the
U.S. House Ways and Means Committee this week to introduce the JOBS Act
to demand positive work outcomes, rather than simply meeting
ineffective participation rules.
It engages with every work-eligible individual to develop a plan that
can lead to a sustainable career. It holds States accountable for their
work outcomes and bolsters transparency of every State's performance.
The JOBS Act doesn't just demand work. It enables work. It
substantially increases funding for vital childcare services so parents
can ensure their child is cared for when they are trying to provide for
their families.
It provides struggling beneficiaries with additional time to get the
mental health or substance abuse treatment they need before they can
hold a job.
It adds apprenticeships as a permissible work activity, alongside job
training, getting more education, and building job readiness skills. It
targets funds to truly needy families by capping participation to
families with incomes below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level.
The JOBS Act recognizes there is dignity in work. A job, to most
Americans, is more than just a job. It is an opportunity for mobility.
It is a step up toward realizing the American dream. It is a track
toward earning higher wages and better benefits. It can be a
springboard to a meaningful career, and more importantly, it is hope
for those who know hard times all too well. The dignity work brings can
provide this hope.
The JOBS Act equips and empowers low-income families toward a better
future. I urge my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to join me in
taking bold action by supporting this important legislation to make our
largest welfare-to-work program actually work again.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the
nomination of Neomi Rao to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC
Circuit.
The DC Circuit is considered by many to be the most powerful
appellate court in the country. This is true in large part because the
DC Circuit hears challenges to many actions taken by the Federal
Government, including challenges to the adoption or repeal of Federal
regulations.
I believe it is particularly relevant that Ms. Rao has a record of
working to dismantle key regulations that ensure the air we breathe is
safe, that address climate change, and that protect American workers
and consumers.
Ms. Rao has a troubling and aggressive record as the head of the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She has led efforts to
weaken fuel economy, or CAFE standards, which I authored with Senator
Olympia Snowe and which has been the law since 2007. Before the
administration proposed freezing these standards, we were set to
achieve a fuel economy standard of 54 miles per gallon--MPG--by 2025.
[[Page S1818]]
Ms. Rao has also led efforts to repeal the Clean Power Plan. This
repeal has been estimated to result in up to 1,400 premature deaths
annually by 2030, due to an increase in particulate matter from
emissions that are linked to heart and lung disease. Further, the
repeal of the Clean Power Plan is expected to cause up to 48,000 new
cases of serious asthma and 15,000 new cases of upper respiratory
problems every year.
Ms. Rao was also instrumental in reversing the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission's actions to address pay discrimination.
Specifically, Ms. Rao eliminated reporting requirements proposed by the
EEOC that were designed to identify wage discrimination on the basis of
gender or race. Just last week, a Federal judge ruled that Ms. Rao's
action was ``arbitrary and capricious,'' which is significant because
the arbitrary and capricious standard is high and hard to prove. The
judge concluded that Ms. Rao's rationale for her decision was
``unsupported by any analysis.''
Ms. Rao also approved the recently finalized title X ``gag rule'' on
family planning. Under this rule, any organization that merely refers
patients to an abortion provider is ineligible for title X funding.
This will result in many women going without lifesaving cancer
screenings, and it will reduce access to contraception.
I asked Ms. Rao about her work dismantling these key regulations. In
response to me, she downplayed her responsibility, saying that her role
was simply to ``coordinate regulatory policy.''
But when answering the questions of Republican Senators, Ms. Rao
expressed pride in her work. Asked specifically about her ``primary
contribution to pushing forward with deregulation,'' Ms. Rao responded:
``There are a lot of regulations on the books that don't have the
effects that were intended . . . . And, you know, we're looking to pull
back the things that are no longer working.''
However, to take just one example, the CAFE standards have been
working; they have already saved $65 billion in fuel costs for American
families and prevented the emission of 250 million metric tons of
carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, her words don't match the actual actions
under her leadership.
Moreover, I asked Ms. Rao if she would commit to recusing herself
from any case involving regulations that she worked on while serving in
her current position. She refused to make such a commitment.
This is of great concern as other nominees have understood the
appearance of bias and unequivocally made such commitments.
For example, President Trump's first nominee to the DC Circuit, Greg
Katsas, said, ``Under the governing statute, I would have to recuse
myself from any case in which, while in the Executive Branch, I had
participated as a counsel or advisor or expressed an opinion on the
merits.''
In addition to her record of dismantling key regulations that protect
the environment, consumers, and worker health and safety, Ms. Rao has
taken a number of extremely controversial positions in articles she has
written. At Ms. Rao's hearing before the Judiciary Committee, I noted
that, while the writings that received the most attention are from when
she was in college, several are relevant to the work she has led in the
Trump administration and to cases she could hear if confirmed.
For instance, in addressing the issue of date rape, Ms. Rao wrote
that if a woman ``drinks to the point where she can no longer choose,
well, getting to that point was part of her choice.''
While she has since written a letter expressing that she ``lacked the
perspective of how [her articles] might be perceived by others,'' her
record demonstrates that these views seem to persist to today.
Specifically, Ms. Rao has been personally involved in repealing
protections for survivors of campus sexual violence. Ms. Rao has
acknowledged that her office approved controversial new rules on campus
sexual assault under title IX. Those rules would discourage survivors
from reporting their assaults, in part because survivors would be
subjected to cross-examination by their attacker's chosen
representative. It is safe to assume this change in the guidance will
be challenged in the DC Circuit.
In her writings, Ms. Rao also questioned the validity of climate
change, criticizing certain student groups for promoting ``a dangerous
orthodoxy that includes the unquestioning acceptance of controversial
theories like the greenhouse effect,'' which she argued ``have come
under serious scientific attack.''
Again, at the hearing, she tried to mitigate these writings saying,
it was her ``understanding . . . that human activity does contribute to
climate change.''
However, during her tenure in the Trump administration, she has led
the effort to overturn the very regulations that combat human
contributions to climate change. For example, and as I noted
previously, she has overseen the administration's efforts to rescind
the Clean Power Plan and weaken fuel economy standards.
I am also concerned about Ms. Rao's professional experience. She is
not admitted to practice before the DC Circuit, the court to which she
has been nominated. She has never served as a judge, and she has never
even tried a case.
In response to a question on the Judiciary Committee's questionnaire
about the 10 most significant litigated matters that she personally
handled, Ms. Rao listed only three, and two of these were arbitration
cases that she worked on while serving as an attorney in the United
Kingdom.
Ms. Rao's lack of litigation experience therefore raises an important
question as to her qualifications for this seat and suggests that she
was nominated not because of her appellate credentials, but because of
her anti-regulatory record.
I also have questions about commitments Ms. Rao appears to have made
on reproductive rights. I don't believe we should have litmus tests for
judicial nominees, and I know many on the other side agree with me on
that. Just in 2017, Senator McConnell said, ``I don't think there
should be a litmus test on judges no matter who the president is.''
Yet, on a recent radio program, Senator Hawley said that, before he
could vote for Ms. Rao, he wanted to ``make sure that Neomi Rao is pro-
life. It's as simple as that.''
Subsequently, Ms. Rao met with Senator Hawley in private and
presumably assured him that she would be anti-choice. According to
Senator Hawley, Ms. Rao went further and ``emphasized that substantive
due process finds no textual support in the Constitution.''
Rejecting the entire concept of substantive due process means that
Ms. Rao not only believes Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided, but also
other landmark cases, like Griswold v. Connecticut, which held that
States cannot restrict the use of contraception.
I am also concerned about her written responses to our questions for
the record. She gave several responses that were misleading at best.
Ms. Rao wrote that the center she founded at George Mason University
``did not receive any money from the Koch Foundation.'' She added that
the center ``did not receive money from an anonymous donor.''
However, according to public records, in 2016, George Mason
University received $10 million from the Koch Foundation and $20
million from an anonymous donor. The grant agreements executing these
donations clearly state that support for Ms. Rao's center was one of
the conditions of these multimillion dollar gifts and ``Ms. Rao's
center benefited from those contributions.''
Additionally, Senator Whitehouse asked Ms. Rao if she had any contact
with the Federalist Society when considering potential faculty. Ms. Rao
responded ``no,'' but clarified the Federalist Society occasionally
made recommendations through its faculty division.
What Ms. Rao failed to mention is that she, herself, was a member of
the faculty division of the Federalist Society for her entire time in
academia. Given this role, I don't understand why she would claim that
she had no contact with the Federalist Society when considering faculty
candidates.
In closing, my concerns about Ms. Rao, from her writings to her work
dismantling regulations to her lack of candor with the committee, are
simply too great for me to support her nomination to the DC Circuit. I
will vote
[[Page S1819]]
against her confirmation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the
nomination of Neomi Rao to serve as a judge on the United States Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ms. Rao is the latest
in a string of ultra-conservative judicial nominees who will
rubberstamp Donald Trump's far-right agenda. Her record portends a
threat to the rights of women and minorities, to consumer protection
statutes and regulations, and to the security of our financial
institutions.
Moreover, Ms. Rao utterly lacks the experience to serve on the court
that many view as second in importance only to the U.S. Supreme Court.
She practiced for only 3 years as an associate at a large law firm.
None of her practice was in Federal courts or State courts, before
administrative agencies, or involved criminal proceedings.
These are disqualifying reasons on their own, but I rise to speak
about Ms. Rao's record on the environment, and the contempt she has
demonstrated for fair, reasonable, and commonsense regulations that
protect the health of our communities and the safety of our air and
drinking water.
Ms. Rao currently serves in the Office of Management and Budget as
Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs,
OIRA. She is commonly known as the Trump administration's ``regulatory
czar.'' This role has her in charge of implementing the Trump
administration's anti-environment, climate-change-denying, and
polluter-friendly agenda.
Ms. Rao has called climate change a ``dangerous orthodoxy,'' led the
Trump administration's efforts to gut fundamental environmental
protections, and has misused the regulatory review process for partisan
political purposes.
The attacks on the environment that Ms. Rao has launched from OIRA
include rolling back national auto fuel efficiency standards,
challenging California's Clean Air Act waiver that allowed it to set
higher fuel efficiency standards, removing safety rules for fertilizer
plants, and rolling back safety rules put in place for oil rigs after
the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010.
During review of a proposed rollback of the Methane and Waste
Prevention Rule, Ms. Rao's office repeatedly pressured the
Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to adopt fossil fuel industry
requests to significantly reduce natural gas leak inspections. This
would have doubled the amount of methane released into the atmosphere
and, according to the EPA's own determination, conflicted with its
legal obligation to reduce emissions.
Ms. Rao's office censored language about the impact of climate change
on child health when reviewing a proposed rollback of the Refrigerant
Management Program, a program that limited the release of greenhouse
gases thousands of times more powerful that carbon dioxide.
Ms. Rao's office approved a proposed EPA rule to roll back public
health protections that reduce pollution from wood-burning stoves,
despite the EPA's own admission that the new rule would cost nine times
as much in harm to public health as it would benefit the industry.
Ms. Rao has overseen the Trump administration's repeal of regulations
to address climate change, including a repeal of President Obama's
historic Clean Power Plan that would have significantly reduced
greenhouse gas emissions. By comparison, Ms. Rao has approved a
proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan with a rule that would lead to
increases in carbon dioxide emissions, asthma attacks, and even death
from black carbon, mercury, and other dangerous air emissions from
power plants.
It is bad enough that, with Donald Trump, we have a climate-change
denier in the White House, and with Andrew Wheeler, we have a coal
industry lobbyist running the EPA. We don't need a judge on the DC
Circuit whose record demonstrates that she is a sympathetic ally to
their anti-environment agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the
nomination of Neomi Rao to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
Under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Rao
nomination?
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray)
is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 46, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 44 Ex.]
YEAS--53
Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
McConnell
McSally
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NAYS--46
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Murray
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
____________________