[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19667-19689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           STUDENT SUCCESS ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to support the passage of the 
bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act. I commend Chairman Alexander, 
Ranking Member Murray, and their counterparts in the House, Chairman 
Kline and Ranking Member Scott, for their commitment to finding common 
ground and a path forward on this critical legislation.
  When President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act into law 50 years ago, he noted that ``from our very beginnings as 
a nation, we have felt a fierce commitment to the ideal of education 
for everyone. It fixed itself into our democratic creed.''
  Yet many communities today across the Nation, including my home State 
of Rhode Island, are still wrestling with how to address large 
achievement gaps based on wealth, race, ethnicity, and disability 
status. Underlying the achievement gaps we see are gaps in opportunity. 
We need to ensure our students have access to critical resources for 
learning, strong teachers, counselors, and principals, a well-balanced 
program of study that includes arts, humanities, and environmental 
education, and safe, healthy schools equipped with libraries, 
technology, and science labs. We also need to support and promote 
greater parental engagement. These are the issues I have focused on for 
many years, and I am very pleased that the Every Student Succeeds Act 
makes important improvements in all of these areas.
  This legislation will replace the badly flawed and increasingly 
unworkable No Child Left Behind Act with a new framework--one that 
stays true to the transparency and focus on closing achievement gaps 
that were the hallmarks of No Child Left Behind while eliminating the 
one-size-fits-all approach to school improvement and allowing States to 
develop more holistic and robust accountability systems that move 
beyond test scores as the sole measure of school success.
  Increasing accountability for resource equity was the goal of the 
first bill I introduced this Congress--the Core Opportunity Resources 
for Equity and Excellence Act. I worked with Senators Baldwin, Brown, 
and Kirk to push for its provisions on the Senate floor, and I am 
pleased the conference report includes stronger measures to require 
that school districts address resource inequities in schools identified 
for comprehensive support and improvement than were even in the bill we 
passed initially in the Senate.
  The original Elementary and Secondary Education Act recognized the 
vital role school libraries play in supporting student success, and 
this is an area I have worked on during several of the past 
reauthorizations of this law. Senator Cochran and I introduced the 
Strengthening Kids' Interest in Learning and Libraries--or SKILLS--Act 
to ensure that Federal resources continue to support student access to 
effective school library programs. The Every Student Succeeds Act 
includes key provisions from our legislation, including authorizing 
grants for high-need school districts to support effective school 
library programs and including support for such programs in school 
district level title I and professional development plans.
  In addition to school libraries, children need to have access to 
books in their homes from a very early age. Senator Grassley and I 
introduced the Prescribe A Book Act to help address this issue, and I 
am glad key provisions of that legislation are included here.
  We know teachers and principals are two of the most important in-
school factors related to student achievement. It is essential that 
teachers, principals, and other educators have a comprehensive system 
that supports their professional growth and development, starting on 
day one and continuing throughout their careers. Senator Casey and I 
introduced the Better Education Support and Training Act to create such 
a system. Again, I am pleased that the Every Student Succeeds Act 
includes many of the provisions of our legislation, particularly the 
focus on equitable access to experienced and effective educators.
  However, I remain concerned that the failure in this legislation to 
define ``inexperienced teacher'' could mask inequities and limit the 
usefulness of the reporting and that some of the provisions related to 
educator preparation could lower standards in our highest need schools. 
Soon I will be introducing legislation to strengthen educator 
preparation and ensure that teachers in our high-need schools are 
profession-ready.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act also supports access for all children 
to a well-rounded education, including environmental literacy, as I 
proposed in the No Child Left Inside Act. Family engagement is another 
critical area this bill addresses. This legislation will support more 
meaningful, evidence-based family engagement, encourage school 
districts to dedicate more resources to these activities, and provide a 
statewide system of technical assistance for family engagement--similar 
to the Family Engagement in Education Act I introduced with Senators 
Coons and Whitehouse.
  Chairman Alexander and Senator Murray have demonstrated extraordinary 
leadership in crafting this legislation and steering it through an open 
and inclusive process. This bill is an important step forward, and I 
encourage all my colleagues to support it. Moreover, I hope this spirit 
of bipartisanship and compromise will also translate to the 
appropriations process and result in robust resources to implement the 
new and vastly improved law.
  Mr. President, I also thank Senator Collins for graciously letting me 
go ahead.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise in support of the bipartisan Every 
Student Succeeds Act. This is landmark legislation that would reform 
and reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known 
as No Child Left Behind. As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions Committee, and as a member of the conference committee 
that resolved the differences between the two bodies' versions of their 
education reform bills, I want to particularly applaud the leadership 
of Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray for doing a truly 
extraordinary job in putting together the bipartisan, bicameral reform 
bill that is before us today.
  Congressional action to fix the serious flaws with No Child Left 
Behind, while preserving the valuable parts of the law, is long 
overdue, but that day has finally arrived. NCLB was well-intentioned, 
and its focus on the education of every child and greater transparency 
in the performance of our schools were welcomed reforms, but some of 
the law's provisions were simply unachievable and thus discouraging to 
teachers, parents, administrators, and students alike.
  The current system of unattainable standards and a patchwork of State 
waivers has led to confusion about Federal requirements. High-stakes 
testing and unrealistic 100 percent proficiency goals do not raise 
aspirations; instead, they dispirit those who are committed to a high-
quality education for our students.

[[Page 19668]]

  The Every Student Succeeds Act returns much needed flexibility to the 
State departments of education and to local school districts. The bill 
would remove the high-stakes accountability system that was simply 
proven to be unworkable under No Child Left Behind. Instead, the bill 
would empower States to set the goals for their schools and students 
and design ways to improve student achievement. The bill would also 
eliminate the burdensome, overly prescriptive parts of No Child Left 
Behind, such as the definition of a ``highly qualified teacher,'' which 
is a perfect example of something that sounds great but in fact proved 
unworkable in many of the small and rural schools in my State where 
teachers are called upon to teach a wide range of subjects.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act would also reauthorize the Rural 
Education Achievement Program, known as REAP. I coauthored this law 
with former Senator Kent Conrad back in 2002. Students in rural America 
should have the same access to Federal grant dollars as those who 
attend schools in larger urban and suburban communities. Most Federal 
competitive grant programs, however, favor larger school districts 
because they are the ones that have the ability to hire grant writers 
to apply for those grants, even though that extra money may be needed 
more by a small rural school. As a result, rural school districts often 
had to forgo funding because they simply lacked the capacity to apply 
for the grants. That is the problem the Rural Education Achievement 
Program Act was intended to solve, and it has provided financial 
assistance to both schools and districts to help them address their 
unique local needs.
  This program has helped to support new technology in classrooms, 
distance learning opportunities, and professional development programs, 
as well as an array of other activities that benefit students and 
teachers in rural schools. Since the law was enacted in 2002, at least 
120 Maine school districts have collectively received more than $42 
million from the REAP program. When I talk to those small Maine school 
districts, they have been enormously creative in using REAP money to 
improve the education of their students. They have told me that without 
the law that Senator Kent Conrad and I authored back in 2002, in many 
cases they would not have been able to introduce technology into the 
classroom, to further professional development for their teachers or to 
provide special enrichment activities for their students. That law has 
been a real success, and I am delighted that this bill reauthorizes it.
  I also want to highlight that the final version retains a Senate 
provision authorizing a pilot program that I worked on with several of 
my colleagues to require the Secretary of Education to allow seven 
States to designate alternative assessment systems based on student 
proficiency and not just on traditional tests. Such systems can give 
teachers, parents, and students a much fuller understanding of each 
student's abilities and better prepares them for the college or career 
path of their choice. The Federal Government should cooperate with 
States and school districts that are designing brand new assessment 
systems, and this pilot program is an important step in that direction.
  Providing a good education for every child must remain a national 
priority so each child fulfills his or her full potential, has a wide 
range of opportunities, and can succeed in an increasingly competitive 
economy.
  From having visited more than 200 schools in my State, I know this 
legislation will be welcomed indeed. The Every Student Succeeds Act 
honors these guiding principles while returning greater control and 
flexibility to States and local school districts, where it belongs. I 
urge all of my colleagues to support this landmark legislation.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Wasteful Spending

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President in the opening scene of ``Star Wars: Return 
of the Jedi,'' Darth Vader pays an unexpected visit to the construction 
site of the new Death Star. Of course it was behind schedule and 
probably overbudget. The commander in charge first claimed that there 
was no delay, and then he said to Darth Vader that it would be 
impossible to meet the schedule without more resources. Darth Vader 
warned the commander that the emperor was ``much displeased'' with the 
apparent lack of progress, noting that ``the emperor is not as 
forgiving as I am.''
  Government projects being overbudget and behind schedule or just out 
of this world are not just a problem for the emperor in that galaxy 
far, far away; they are a problem right here on Earth.
  Our own space agency, NASA, can no longer even launch astronauts into 
orbit, yet NASA is spending $1.2 million to study the impact of 
microgravity on sheep. NASA is also spending $280,000 to develop plans 
to build a cloud city on Venus. It is strikingly similar to the cloud 
city that was featured in ``Star Wars: The Emperor Strikes Back'' where 
Han Solo was captured in carbonite.
  The National Science Foundation is spending $2.6 million in part to 
design sculptures that would raise awareness of drought and harvest 
dew, much like the moisture vaporizers on Luke Skywalker's home planet 
of Tatooine.
  The Pentagon is spending $2 million to teach robots how to play jazz 
and $2.5 million in part to create a robot lobby greeter. These are not 
the droids taxpayers were looking for.
  These are just a few of the examples of projects featured in 
``Wastebook: The Farce Awakens,'' which I will release today. This is a 
spoiler alert, so if you don't want the plot to be ruined, you may want 
to tune out right now.
  Let's walk through some of these other ``Wastebook'' entries. They 
include $1 million to put monkeys in hamster balls on a treadmill. A 
couple of years ago, Senator Tom Coburn famously found the example of 
the study of shrimp on treadmills underwater, but I think this outdoes 
it. Now we have monkeys not only on a treadmill but monkeys in a 
hamster ball on a treadmill--$1 million for that study.
  We are spending $5 million to throw parties for hipsters. These 
parties for hipsters are an attempt--and how we define a hipster is 
quite a work of art as well--to try to keep them from smoking. They 
admit that it didn't succeed very well, so they ended up just giving 
out cash to try to induce hipsters to stop smoking. Good work if you 
can get it, I guess.
  Another $43 million went to build a single gas station in Afghanistan 
that dispenses a type of fuel--natural gas in this case--that very few 
automobiles in the country can even run on.
  Despite all of the public ballyhooing over budget austerity, 
Washington didn't come up short on outlandish ways to spend and waste 
money in 2015. All of the examples in the ``Wastebook'' we have here 
had to have money spent during 2015.
  Unfortunately, there is a lot of talk about the gridlock in 
Washington, but no matter how bad the gridlock gets or how bad it 
appears, there is always one area of agreement here between the 
parties, and that is to spend more money. For example, at the end of 
October Congress passed a budget deal that cut $3 billion in taxpayer-
funded subsidies to private insurance companies that service Federal 
crop insurance policies. That deal was sold, in part, on the savings 
generated through the spending cut. Last week, this body voted 
overwhelmingly to restore all $3 billion of those crop insurance 
subsidies, which, again, only go to private insurance companies. This 
was part of the highway bill that came to the floor. So spending that 
we had cut just a month ago in the budget deal was reversed 36 days 
later in an agreement that passed even before we passed the original 
bill to obliterate these savings. So it took Congress only 36 days

[[Page 19669]]

to go back on these cuts. I am not sure that the Millennium Falcon can 
pull a 360 with that kind of ease.
  Washington equates caring with the amount of dollars spent, but no 
amount of dollars and cents can make up for the lack of common sense in 
how millions of dollars of taxpayer money is being spent.
  Consider this: We outline in the ``Wastebook'' more than $2 million 
spent this year by the Agency for International Development, USAID, to 
promote tourism in Lebanon. Lebanon is the same country that our State 
Department has warned American tourists not to go to. We are spending 
$2 million in one agency to promote tourism to a country that another 
agency, the State Department, says: Please don't go there for tourism. 
What kind of sense does that make? Suicide bombers have killed more 
than 60 people and injured hundreds more in the last 2 years there. It 
is no wonder the State Department is saying don't go, but the Agency 
for International Development is spending $2 million to say: Please go 
there for tourism.
  The Department of Homeland Security spent $3 million on party buses 
and luxury coaches to go to the playground of the rich and famous. 
Taxpayer money is being spent on buses and luxury coaches to go to the 
playground of the rich and famous by the Department of Homeland 
Security. How does that make sense?
  This one puzzles me. The Department of Housing and Urban Development 
is spending more than $104 million a year subsidizing the rent of the 
well-off, including those who make better than six-figure incomes and 
have millions of dollars in assets, while 300,000 low-income families 
are on waiting lists for housing assistance. So we are spending $104 
million to subsidize those with six-figure incomes to live in public 
housing while 300,000 people who are truly low income wait on a waiting 
list. Somebody at one of the local housing authorities was asked why we 
don't just kick out the people who have incomes far too high to 
qualify. The answer was revealing. He said: We can't do that because 
they serve as role models for those who are truly low income in those 
facilities. Think about that. Those who are fleecing the taxpayers are 
role models for those in public housing who actually have low income.
  As I mentioned before, the Pentagon is spending $2 million to teach 
robots how to play jazz music. The Department of Agriculture spent 
$68,000 in foreign food aid to send a group to the Great American Beer 
Festival to promote beer in Vietnam. So we spent $68,000 in foreign 
food aid to have a bunch of people go to the Great American Beer 
Festival.
  The National Institutes of Health spent about $1 million, as I 
mentioned, on the monkey-on-a-treadmill study. The purpose of this 
research was to determine if other studies could be conducted of 
monkeys on treadmills. I think everybody will have to agree that this 
is totally bananas. I mean, we can't continue to spend money like this.
  Many other taxpayer-funded science projects sounded like they were 
concocted in a frat house rather than a government research agency, 
like the next example. The National Science Foundation spent $103 
million to study if koozies really keep a cool drink in a can cool or 
if it is just wishful thinking. I think we have had plenty of studies 
on evaporation and condensation to know what really happens, but these 
studies were conducted with a koozie in somebody's bathroom or laundry 
room somewhere. It doesn't really qualify as serious science. Yet we 
spent $1.3 million on a grant to do just that. You have to watch the 
video. You have to see it.
  The National Institute for Drug Abuse spent nearly $1 million to 
prove that pizza is as addictive as crack. The result of the study will 
be a surprise to no one.
  The NSF is spending over $1 million on dating studies, including why 
attractive people date those who are not attractive and what makes 
those looking for love online ``swipe right'' and pursue a romantic 
relationship. Why in the world we are allowing the NSF to spend money 
on dating studies in order to find out why people, like my wife, would 
date somebody less attractive, like me--I mean, some of these things we 
will just have to let go and not spend taxpayer money on them.
  These price tags are pocket change to the big spenders in Washington 
who collectively burn through $7 million a minute, as we all know. 
Nobody can really keep track of how or why some of this money is spent. 
The purpose for ``Wastebook'' this year--it was created to do our best 
to hold those accountable who are spending this money.
  In his farewell address a year ago, Senator Tom Coburn, who created 
``Wastebook,'' challenged every Member of Congress to produce their own 
``Wastebook'' and start a real debate about national spending and 
budget priorities. While it is impossible to emulate or replace Dr. 
Coburn, he has given us a great example to follow.
  As a longtime admirer, former colleague, and friend of Dr. Coburn, I 
feel it is a great and heavy responsibility to join others, like 
Senator James Lankford and John McCain, in carrying forward the Coburn 
legacy of stopping wasteful Washington spending and bringing some kind 
of oversight to this. Colleagues can find the full list of 100 
``Wastebook'' entries on my Web site as well.
  As you glance through it, ask yourself if the Federal Government is 
really being as frugal and as underfunded as it claims to be. Ask 
yourself: Are we really cutting to the bone? Is there no more fat left 
to cut? We hear that continually. Sequester-level spending has brought 
us to the brink so there is just nowhere else to cut.
  It is my hope--my only hope--that this report gives Congress 
something to Chewie on--and the end of bad puns, too, I hope--before 
debt- and deficit-saddled taxpayers finally strike back at this lunacy.
  I commend this ``Wastebook'' to all who will read it. As I mentioned, 
you can reach it on our Web site as well.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Every Student 
Succeeds Act. I know we have had one vote on this today already, and we 
will have another vote tomorrow.
  I will begin by applauding Senators Murray and Alexander and 
Congressmen Klein and Scott for reaching across the aisle and working 
with their committee colleagues and the Members of both bodies to 
fixing a long expired and broken law. I think we all understand that 
education is key to both individual success and to our economic 
success.
  ESSA gives parents, school districts, and States flexibility to close 
the achievement gaps that the No Child Left Behind helped us explore. 
ESSA maintains critical assessment requirements, but it also requires 
schools to track the progress of every child while also allowing States 
and school districts to set their own goals for improvement and 
determine what interventions are best when these achievement gaps 
persist. It invests in early childhood education, it permanently 
authorizes the Preschool Development Grant Program, and Virginia was 
one of the first States to receive a challenge grant. The bill 
recognizes there are factors other than test scores that describe 
students' success, and that is a significant advance past No Child Left 
Behind.
  I rise particularly because I am proud that a number of provisions 
that I worked on and that the Presiding Officer worked on were included 
in the final bill. Let me talk about two of them: Teach safe 
relationships and career and technical education.
  Senator McCaskill and I introduced a bill called the Teach Safe 
Relationships Act that came out of a conversation that I had with 
students a year ago at the University of Virginia. These students were 
members of a student organization called One Less, which advocates for 
survivors of campus rape and sexual assault.
  There had been a story in the Rolling Stone magazine about the 
scourge of campus sexual assault. Many of the statistics were correct, 
but the story

[[Page 19670]]

was controversial because it focused on a particular allegation of 
sexual assault that was later discredited, and Rolling Stone retracted 
the article.
  I sat down with a group of about 30 students--no press, no faculty, 
no administrators--to talk about the problem of campus sexual assault. 
It has been a long time since I was a college student, and I wanted to 
hear them talk about the challenges they face. It was a robust 
discussion. These students didn't all agree with each other about 
various points. But the goal was to get a sense from them about what we 
in Congress could do that would be helpful and what were things that we 
might want to do that would make us feel good but that wouldn't be 
helpful.
  Many great ideas came out of that discussion, but there was one in 
particular that grabbed my attention. Students talked about the fact 
that they wished when they came to college, living away from home for 
the first time in their lives, that they knew more about issues such as 
coercion or consent to intimate behavior or especially where to go for 
help or what to do if you felt like somebody was pressuring you. I kind 
of naively said to the students: Well, don't you have an orientation 
about sexual assault? And they said: We do. Here is what it is. It is 
15 minutes about campus sexual assault, and it is 15 minutes about not 
getting too many credit cards, and it is 15 minutes about not drinking 
too much. Basically, we are new on campus, and it is just not enough.
  Then I asked a follow up question: Don't you learn about this in sex 
ed classes in high school? One of the young ladies in the room said: We 
get a sex ed curriculum in high school, but it is about reproductive 
biology, not about behaviors and relationships and strategies and sort 
of the right and wrong issues. I thought that was really interesting.
  So I came back after hearing from them--and, again, I honor these 
students, because from the idea to the passage, hopefully tomorrow, it 
has been a year from hearing from them, and now, because of them, there 
is going to be an important advance in public safety.
  What the students basically forced me to do was to come back and 
analyze the problem of sexual assault. We have been dealing with it in 
the military. We deal with it on college campuses. We deal with it in 
the society at large. We can either have strategies that are specific 
to the military or college campuses or the workplace or society, or we 
can actually acknowledge campus sexual assault.
  Instead of focusing on where it happens, let's focus on when it 
happens. If you are a young person--let me put it differently. The most 
likely time in your life when you will be a victim of a sexual assault 
is age 16 to 24. It doesn't make a difference whether you are in the 
military or on a college campus or anywhere else. It is at a time in 
your life when you are kind of new to adult sexuality issues and kind 
of grappling with it that you are most likely to be a victim of sexual 
assaults, and also many perpetrators of sexual assaults are in the same 
age range.
  The students said: What if we had better education in the K-12 space. 
In February, Senator McCaskill and I introduced a bill taking the 
campus sexual assault problem and trying to do something about it 
during the K-12 educational timeframe, and we called it the Teach Safe 
Relationships Act. The bill was rolled into the Senate version of the 
rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the final 
compromise conference report includes it. Provisions are included so 
that title IV Federal educational funding can now be used specifically 
for instruction and training on safe relationship behavior among 
students, and this should help us deal with the issue of sexual 
assault.
  I want to thank the conference committee for including it in the 
bill. It is my hope that school systems will now take advantage of this 
title IV funding--most school systems receive it--to prevent sexual 
assault not just on college campuses but for anybody in that age 16 to 
24 age range that is vulnerable.
  Second, the Presiding Officer, Senator Baldwin, and I introduced a 
number of pieces of legislation dealing with career and technical 
education that have been included in the bill. The provisions include 
encouragement to States to use more career readiness indicators in 
their accountability systems to define what educational success is. 
This gives the States the opportunity to recognize schools that are 
successfully preparing students for postsecondary education and 
workforce tools such as technical skills and college credits. It 
shouldn't be just about performance on multiple choice tests. If you 
are getting a validated industry certificate or other measure of 
success, that should count.
  We encourage States and school districts to support the development 
of a specialized teacher core to help teachers integrate career and 
technical education into their normal academic subjects. We allow 
schools to use title IV funds for career counseling, programming, and 
training on local workforce needs, and for options for postsecondary 
and career pathways.
  Finally, we include CTE in the definition of a well-rounded 
education. Traditionally, under No Child Left Behind, it was just math, 
English, social studies, and science. Career and technical education 
and some other subjects ought to be included in the definition of a 
well-rounded education.
  CTE is an important pathway for students to prepare for the workforce 
by integrating practical, applied purposes with work-based knowledge 
and hands-on learning experiences. I am the son of an iron worker and 
welder. I ran a school in Honduras that taught kids to be carpenters 
and welders. I believe deeply in the power of CTE. In fact, I see it 
every day across the Commonwealth of Virginia, just as I know the 
Presiding Officer sees it every day in the State of Ohio. Carroll 
County in rural, southern Virginia, right on the border with North 
Carolina, has a state-of-the-art agriculture CTE program, which I 
visited this summer, set up with Virginia Tech, as good as any college 
campus. It not only helps students who want to be farmers, but those 
students who want to be farmers suddenly find that when they are 
studying soil chemistry in a CTE lab, their chemistry grades go up as 
well.
  In Ashburn I saw a robotics program in Loudoun County that was 
successful. In Virginia Beach a CTE program helps students learn how to 
build houses, training them for construction careers, and the houses 
they build are pretty impressive.
  In closing, this year marks the 50th anniversary that President 
Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law. Our 
Nation's prosperity is dependent upon students' educational success, 
and this rewrite is incredibly important. I am excited about the 
reauthorization and these provisions.
  Again, I thank Senators Murray and Alexander and their staffs, and 
let me extend thanks to my staff, two of whom are here. Let me extend 
thanks to my wife, who is the Secretary of Education in Virginia. She 
sat down with the committee staffs in the Senate to share some Virginia 
experiences that then factored into the rewrite of the ultimate bill.
  It is my hope that this is going to pass with a big bipartisan margin 
tomorrow. This is a tough, complicated area that was 8 years overdue to 
be reauthorized because it is so controversial. Yet we found a path 
forward that is bipartisan, and that tells me we can do it not only on 
this issue but on other issues as well.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Senate Accomplishments

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday I spent a few minutes talking 
about the accomplishments of the 114th Congress, and what I have 
discovered is that if we don't talk about them, nobody else does. 
People have become so

[[Page 19671]]

cynical about Washington and very distressed in so many ways--and I can 
certainly understand why--that it is important for us to point out a 
few of the simple facts. It is not that we have completely turned this 
battleship around, but we have made this incremental progress under the 
leadership the American people put in charge last November--the 
Republican leadership in the House and in the Senate, obviously, with a 
President of the opposite party.
  Under the Constitution, the President still has a vote, he has a veto 
pen, and he is not irrelevant. But notwithstanding the fact that we 
have some well-publicized differences with the President, and even 
among Republicans and Democrats, I think in fairness we have to 
acknowledge that we have had a pretty good run in the last 11 months or 
so. I don't want to make this a partisan issue because frankly you 
can't get anything done in the U.S. Senate or in the U.S. Congress or 
in the U.S. Government without bipartisan cooperation.
  So on the bill we are working on today, the fix for No Child Left 
Behind, there is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Murray, who has worked hand-in-
glove with the chairman, Senator Alexander. We also had the pleasure of 
working with Senator Murray on trade promotion authority and on the 
first human trafficking reform we have seen in about a quarter of a 
century. Those are all important pieces of legislation.
  I think about the Intelligence Committee and the work that has been 
done in this Congress on cyber attacks and cyber protection by Senator 
Feinstein from California, the ranking member, working hand-in-glove 
with the chairman, Senator Burr from North Carolina.
  On the first multiyear highway bill we have had in 10 years, that 
would not have happened without the leadership of Chairman Inhofe and 
Chairman Hatch on the Finance Committee but also, I would say, Barbara 
Boxer, the Senator from California, and Ron Wyden, the ranking member 
on the Finance Committee.
  We worked together on a number of other things that have not yet gone 
to the President's desk, such as criminal justice reform. I was invited 
to come to the White House, along with an ideological spectrum of 
Senators from the right to the left, to talk about criminal justice 
reform and how we can find consensus to deal with our criminal justice 
system and make our prison system no longer just a warehouse for human 
beings but, rather, a place where, if people want the chance, want the 
opportunity to turn their lives around, they can begin that by 
participating in programs that will help them learn a skill, perhaps 
deal with their drug or alcohol addiction or otherwise prepare them for 
reentry into civilized society.
  So while leadership is important, and this agenda of trade promotion 
authority, anti-human trafficking, cyber security, the highway bill, 
criminal justice reform, and now education reform--none of this would 
have necessarily been on the agenda if our friends across the aisle had 
been in charge. The fact is, leadership is important, and thanks to the 
majority leader and the leadership he has provided, he has set the 
agenda. But, again, nothing happens here in Washington on cyber 
security, on human trafficking, on trade promotion authority, on 
education, on highways or criminal justice reform without working 
together to find bipartisan consensus.
  So it is important that we acknowledge--and in fairness--what has 
been accomplished. That is not to say we are breaking our arm by 
patting ourselves on the back or that we think we have solved all the 
problems. Certainly many of the major differences that existed last 
year still exist, and we, frankly, have big disagreements with some of 
our friends across the aisle and with this President on things such as 
national security, on the effectiveness--or I should say 
ineffectiveness of the war to destroy ISIS and to deal with the terror 
threat both abroad and back home. But we also ought to pause and say 
that where we can find common ground, we are trying to do this on 
behalf of the American people.
  So tomorrow at about 10:45 a.m. we will be voting on an impressive 
piece of legislation that will bring effective education reform to help 
our Nation's children, their parents, and teachers. But it is not just 
about education; as we frequently like to say, it is about an 
investment in the future of our country because we are talking about 
equipping the next generation with what they need to succeed in an 
ever-changing and ever-challenging world.
  Back home in Texas, I have repeatedly seen how schools have created 
groundbreaking, innovative programs for their students to thrive and 
benefit everyone involved. I know I mentioned some of these programs 
before, like a camp for middle school students that focuses on science, 
technology, engineering, and math--what we frequently refer to as the 
STEM fields--and it included building robots. In other words, learning 
science can be fun too. I actually think that is what the best teachers 
do--they make learning fun.
  I saw a cutting-edge program at the United High School in Laredo, TX, 
which took advantage of the proximity of Laredo to the shale gas plays 
in South Texas. Actually, ninth grade students who were taking science 
courses were learning the basics of petroleum geology so they would be 
equipped after they graduated from high school to get jobs in that 
field, jobs that pay far more than minimum wage. They do that by 
starting their education and by exposing them to this field in high 
school and through internships and other training programs.
  These programs are good examples of how the local community and some 
of the differences in the local economy--for example, the proximity of 
Laredo to the Eagle Ford Shale--can shape education in a way that 
benefits students and the community, our States, and our country. The 
important thing to realize is that not all good ideas emanate from 
Washington, DC. In fact, the contrary is true.
  Louis Brandeis, in an often-quoted statement, once called the States 
the ``laboratories of democracy.'' The fact is, that is true. The 
States are the place where innovation can occur. You can succeed or 
fail, as the case may be, and from that we can learn as a nation what 
the best practices are in education and a whole raft of subjects.
  Actually, the work we are doing in criminal justice reform is based 
on successful reform done in places such as Texas and other States 
around the country. To my mind, that is the way we ought to legislate 
in Washington. We ought to try people's ideas out at the State and 
local level, and if they work, great. Then we may decide they may need 
to be scaled up and applied more broadly.
  What we have seen and the mistake we have seen in the current 
administration is to make experiments nationwide with a one-size-fits-
all. We have seen that in ObamaCare, for example, where all of a sudden 
the majority and the administration decided to transform one-sixth of 
the American economy, of course making extravagant promises on what 
would work, only to find that it couldn't work and didn't work, and 
thus those promises and selling points ended up not being true.
  Again, on the topic of education, many of the things we realize do 
work have been created with the help of local teachers, leaders, and 
parents. These communities were able to create programs that flourished 
because they weren't operating under a Federal Government mandate. In 
fact, they were freed of Federal interference in developing that 
curriculum and coming up with something that works.
  The bottom line is that this local ingenuity and response to 
educational needs can often trump ideas coming out of Washington, DC. 
Frankly, the ideas emanating from here prove to be impractical or 
ideological in nature. The bureaucracy in Washington, despite even 
their best intentions, cannot meet the local educational needs of 
millions of children across a vast and diverse country such as ours.

[[Page 19672]]

  Our country is simply too big and too diverse to have a one-size-
fits-all approach to anything, including education. That is why I am 
grateful to Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and everybody 
who has participated in producing this conference report to a bill that 
passed the Senate this summer with more than 80 votes. It is called the 
Every Student Succeeds Act and returns control of education decisions 
to States and local communities and to parents and to teachers. It does 
a pretty good job--not a perfect job but a pretty good job--of keeping 
the Federal Government out of the way.
  I would add parenthetically that I think it is important to make the 
points I am trying to make in these remarks today because I happen to 
have a social media habit on Twitter and elsewhere, and I see a lot of 
information being spread that simply is not true about this legislation 
and other things. That is why I think it is important to stick with the 
facts and explain to the American people and my constituents back home 
why I intend to enthusiastically support this legislation.
  First of all, this bill allows States to decide the academic 
standards and curriculum for their own children. This bill ends Federal 
test-based accountability. It kills the national school board. It keeps 
the opinions of the bureaucrats--even the well-meaning opinions that 
are misguided--out of our children's classrooms. Common core has proved 
to be a very controversial topic. This legislation ends common core and 
affirms that the States have the responsibility to decide what academic 
standards they want to adopt and how to measure success.
  By giving responsibility back to local communities and the States and 
parents and teachers, the Every Student Succeeds Act will allow each 
State and their school districts the flexibility they need to design 
and implement their own programs and systems according to the needs of 
their students and to innovate and to help us and the rest of the 
country learn from their experience.
  States such as Texas can decide how to use federally mandated test 
results to understand how a student performs. This not only relieves 
the phenomenon known as teaching to the test, but it gives States the 
added freedom to provide their students with the well-rounded education 
they need to compete in an increasingly competitive and globalized 
world.
  Put simply, with this legislation, States can decide for themselves 
what standards, what curriculum, and what accountability measures they 
want to adopt. I think we will see, as Justice Brandeis said, how those 
laboratories of democracy work. I daresay those States, school 
districts, and students who prosper and do well will raise the bar for 
everyone else because they will have demonstrated what is possible 
given the freedom and the flexibility to innovate.
  Another important element of this bill is that it rightfully limits 
the power of the Secretary of Education. With this legislation, a 
Secretary of Education cannot mandate, cannot direct, and cannot 
control a State or local education agency or require them to change 
what they teach in the classroom. That is up to the States and up to 
local school districts, parents, and teachers.
  This bill will replace a law in need of reform, it will stop 
Washington from imposing common core on our classrooms, and it will let 
those closest to our country's greatest asset--our children--decide how 
best to provide for their education.
  This bill passed the House of Representatives last week with a 
tremendous bipartisan vote. I hope to see a similar level of bipartisan 
enthusiasm here in the Senate as well when we vote to pass this 
conference report tomorrow morning, and I suspect we will.
  As I said, this is the product of a lot of hard work by the chairman 
of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--better known as 
the HELP Committee--here in the Senate. Senator Alexander, the senior 
Senator from Tennessee, has been the navigator and leader in this 
legislation, working closely, as I said earlier, with Senator Murray 
from Washington in a bipartisan way to find consensus on an often 
contentious subject. I know he looks forward to passage of this 
legislation tomorrow, as I do too, and to having the President sign it 
shortly thereafter.
  As I said at the beginning, you can't do anything here in Congress or 
in Washington without bipartisan cooperation, but leadership does 
matter because leaders set the agenda, they set the tone, and they hold 
people accountable. I would say that under the leadership of Senator 
McConnell, the senior Senator from Kentucky, the Senate has been able 
to begin the process once again of solving real problems for the 
American people, from dealing with human trafficking, to our children's 
education. I look forward to continuing this progress for the rest of 
the week and for the rest of the year as well.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am grateful for this opportunity to offer 
a few remarks on the Every Student Succeeds Act.
  To be honest, I wasn't sure we would ever reach this point, given the 
often contentious and sensitive nature of the educational debate, but 
it is only fitting that we have spent so much time and energy trying to 
get the best bill we can. After all, the future of our Nation depends 
on it, our States depend on it, our schools depend on it, and our 
families and children depend on it.
  I credit the success of this bill to the diligent work of the 
chairman and ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee, as well as 
the chairman and ranking member of the House Education and the 
Workforce Committee. As a former chairman of this committee myself, I 
know how difficult it can be to strike a deal that is agreeable to both 
sides, but our committee leaders have done an outstanding job. I wish 
to thank them for helping us to reach out and reach a compromise. That 
is exactly what this bill is, a compromise. While neither side 
considers it perfect, both parties can agree that this bipartisan 
legislation will significantly improve the quality of education in our 
country.
  I have met with a wide variety of local education leaders in Utah, 
and each one I have spoken to supports this bill. This legislation 
helps fix a broken system that is failing our students. Once we have 
passed this reauthorization, our work will be far from over, but we 
will once again be moving in the right direction.
  For the past several years, my home State of Utah has sought relief 
from unworkable provisions in No Child Left Behind through the waiver 
process, but the waiver process is dysfunctional. It forces States to 
appeal to the Federal Government to fix a problem created by the 
Federal Government. As our State superintendent in Utah said, ``Results 
of the waiver process have not been salutary for education, for 
developments in administrative law, or for the health of our republic. 
Reforming and revising this deeply flawed statute has and must be the 
primary work of our federal delegates with respect to education.'' 
Today we are answering his plea and the plea of many State and local 
leaders throughout the country.
  I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to work on this bill. I 
am also grateful for the opportunity I have had to help write many of 
its provisions, including the Education Innovation and Research 
Program, which will allow schools, districts, nonprofits, and small 
businesses to develop proposals based on specific local needs. Funding 
for this program will be awarded based on demonstrated, successful 
outcomes flowing from the project. This initiative will help us find 
other incubators of success. It will also remove limitations on 
flexibility in exchange for

[[Page 19673]]

demonstrated outcomes. Money should not be tied to what the Senate or 
the Federal Department of Energy thinks are good, prescriptive ideas. 
It should be tied to local innovation and tangible results.
  Through this bill, I have also worked to expand technology usage in 
the classrooms and to equip our teachers with the professional 
development they need to use technology successfully. Too many of our 
schools are using outdated or ineffective technological methods and 
models that are missing critical components of teacher participation 
and support. Educational technology allows us to personalize learning 
for students, target where students are struggling, and provide real-
time, valuable feedback to teachers so they may adapt their instruction 
most effectively. I hope we can provide every child access to the same 
tools and resources and create the individualized learning experiences 
that we know are critical to success. This bill equips both educators 
and students with resources they need to succeed.
  As the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce said, 
``This bill empowers willing states to achieve [through] improved early 
learning and high quality preschool experiences. It also invests in our 
hardworking teachers with more preparation programs, including those 
designed to improve literacy, civics education, and STEM education.''
  This legislation is a victory both for Utah and for our Nation. The 
sooner we send this bill to the President and the sooner we can empower 
our States to help our students achieve their full potential, the 
better off we are all going to be. I have to say that I think this 
would be a major watershed bill. Hopefully, we will pass it tomorrow 
and our elementary and secondary education will greatly benefit from 
it.
  Again, I particularly compliment the distinguished chairman and 
ranking member for the work they have done on this bill--the hard and 
effective work they have done on this bill. I am grateful to have the 
privilege of working with them on the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee.
  I wish to thank everybody who has played a role on this difficult 
bill. It is difficult for me to see why anybody would vote against this 
bill because it repairs what has been a very pitiful system under No 
Child Left Behind.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will vote on the Every 
Student Succeeds Act--a bill that reauthorizes the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, which is the legislation governing 
Federal K-12 education policy.
  By all accounts, the Senate is expected to pass this bill with a 
bipartisan majority, and President Obama is of course expected to sign 
it into law. This would be a serious setback for America's schools, 
teachers, and students, one that will have sweeping consequences for 
decades to come, because when we get educational policy wrong, as this 
bill does and as we have done at the Federal level for so many years, 
it affects not just the quality of education students receive as 
children but the quality of life that will be available to them as 
adults down the road.
  The problem is not just the particular provisions of this particular 
bill but the dysfunctional and outdated model of education on which it 
is built--a model that concentrates authority over education decisions 
in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, instead of in the hands of 
parents, teachers, principals, local school boards, and State 
officials.
  For the past 50 years, this model has defined and guided the 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the 
bill before us today is unfortunately no exception. Not coincidentally, 
this central planning model has also failed to produce any meaningful 
improvements in academic achievement, especially for students from low-
income communities. In fact, since 1969, test scores in reading and 
math have hardly budged for public school students of all ages, even 
while per-pupil spending has nearly doubled and school staff has 
increased by more than 80 percent. Yet here we are once again on the 
verge of passing another ESEA reauthorization bill built on the same K-
12 education model that has trapped so many kids across America in 
failing schools and confined America's education system to a state of 
stagnant mediocrity for half a century. This is not simply a failure of 
policy, it is a failure of imagination.
  Our 1960s-era, top-down model of elementary and secondary schooling 
has endured, essentially unchanged and unchallenged, for so many 
decades that the education establishment has come to take it for 
granted. For many policymakers and education officials in Washington 
and in State capitals around this great country, the status quo isn't 
just seen as the best way but is seen as the only way to design a K-12 
education policy today. Even the most creative policy thinking is 
confined within the narrow boundaries of the centrally planned status 
quo. The only reform proposals that are given the time of day are those 
that seek to standardize America's classrooms, enforce uniformity 
across school districts, and systematize the way teachers teach and the 
way their students learn in the classroom at every step along the way. 
So we insist that the most important teaching decisions--about what to 
teach, when to teach it, and how to assess learning--are made by 
individuals outside of the classroom and are uniformly applied and 
reapplied regardless of the particular character and composition of a 
class in question.
  We expect students of the same age to progress through their 
curriculum and master each subject at exactly the same pace. We assign 
students to their school according to their ZIP Codes. We allocate 
public education funds to education agencies and schools--never 
directly to parents--and manage their use through bureaucratic 
restrictions and mandates. We evaluate teachers and determine their 
compensation not on the basis of job performance in the classroom but 
according to standards that can be quantified, such as the number of 
years on the job. Student learning is assessed in much the same way, 
using standardized tests and age-based benchmarks. We never let 
stagnant educational outcomes or a persistent achievement gap shake our 
faith in the ability of central planners to engineer and superintend 
the education of tens of millions of students in America.
  These are the fundamental pillars of the status quo model for 
elementary and secondary education, and the Every Student Succeeds Act 
leaves them wholly, entirely intact, but schools are not factories, 
education can't be systematized, and learning can't be centrally 
planned. Good teachers are successful not because they are following 
some magic formula concocted by experts in Washington, DC, but because 
they do what good teachers everywhere have always done in order to 
advance the learning of their students: They work harder than just 
about anyone, and they know their class material--the material they 
teach their students--inside and out. They communicate early and often 
with each student's parents so they and their students can be held 
accountable. They observe and they listen to their students in order to 
understand their unique learning needs and goals and tailor each day's 
lesson plans accordingly. They evaluate students honestly and 
comprehensively, assessing whether they have mastered the material, not 
just figured out how to take a test.
  So instead of imposing an obsolete conformity on an invariably varied 
environment, we should be empowering teachers and parents with the 
tools they need to meet the unique educational needs of their students 
and children. Instead of continuing to standardize and systematize 
education across the entire country, we should be

[[Page 19674]]

trying to customize and personalize education for every single student.
  The good news is, we don't need to start from scratch. We know local 
control over K-12 and even pre-K education is more effective than the 
prescriptive, heavy-handed approach of Washington, DC, because we have 
seen it work in communities all over the country.
  For years education entrepreneurs in the States--including my home 
State of Utah--have been implementing and refining policies that put 
parents, teachers, principals, and school boards back in charge of 
education policy, back in charge of curriculum, and back in charge of 
teaching and testing standards. Perhaps the most popular State-
initiated reform is the movement toward school choice, which overturns 
the embarrassingly outdated and manifestly unfair practice of assigning 
schools rigidly based on ZIP Codes.
  We know a good education starting at a young age is an essential 
ingredient for economic opportunity and democratic citizenship later in 
life for each child. We also know America has always aspired to be a 
place to where the condition of your birth doesn't determine your path 
in life. So why on Earth would we want to prohibit parents from 
choosing the school that is best for their children, especially if, as 
is far too common, their local school is underperforming at the moment.
  School choice is one of the most important, locally driven reforms 
aimed at resolving this fundamental injustice that our current 
assignment by ZIP Code system has attached to it, but it is not the 
only one. There are also education savings accounts--or ESAs--which 
give parents control over the per-pupil education dollars that would 
have been spent on their child by the school system. There is the 
recent innovation of course choice, pioneered within my home State of 
Utah, which brings the same kind of education customization and a la 
carte choice that have spread on college campuses to elementary and 
secondary schools. Of course, there is the distinctively American 
notion that parents, principals, school districts, and State officials 
have the right and should have the ability to opt out of the most 
onerous, restrictive, and misguided Federal commands. Whether it is 
parents who don't want their children wasting dozens of hours each year 
taking standardized tests or State policymakers who develop local 
education reforms that are more effective and less expensive than the 
Federal one-size-fits-all policies, we should support the rights of all 
Americans to have a say in the education of their children.
  The point isn't that there is a better way to improve America's 
schools, but it is rather that there are 50 better ways or even 
thousands of better ways. In our increasingly decentralized world, in 
our increasingly decentralized and complex American economy, there are 
as many ideal education policies as there are children and teachers, 
communities and schools. But Washington is standing in the way, 
inherently, if irrationally, distrustful of any alternative to the top-
down education status quo. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, 
Washington's outdated, conformist policies will continue to be in the 
way, which is why I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting 
against this bill.
  Even if most Senators vote in favor of the failed status quo, I am 
confident I have the majority of moms and dads in America on my side. I 
often hear from Utah parents, calling or writing my office to express 
their support for local control over education. I recently received an 
email from Kierston, a proud mother of four and the PTA president at 
her local school, who urged me to vote against this ESEA 
reauthorization. I thought I would let her have the last word today.
  Based on years of experience with the public schools in her 
community, Kierston warns that maintaining Washington, DC's, monopoly 
over America's public schools will ``force my three incredibly 
different children who learn in very different ways into a box where my 
daughter will be forced to learn things she isn't ready to learn . . . 
my oldest who is ahead of his peers will be forced to slow down or help 
teach his peers in a way they don't understand . . . and my third will 
constantly be in trouble for not sitting still and pestering his peers 
because he understands quickly and is bored.''
  ``We need standards, we need benchmarks,'' Kierston wrote, ``but we 
also need to allow children to learn at their own pace. . . . We need 
child centered education where children have the ability to go as fast 
or as slow as they need. . . . Please think about the children of Utah. 
Vote against [the ESEA reauthorization]. Allow our kids the freedom to 
learn.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, we have been living under No Child Left 
Behind, or NCLB, for 13 years, and during that time we have learned 
what about NCLB works and a lot more about what doesn't work. Students, 
teachers, and parents across the country have been waiting for a long 
time for us to fix this law. As a member of the ESEA conference 
committee, I am proud to work on the legislation before us today, the 
Every Student Succeeds Act, and to have helped to get it this far. I 
thank Representatives John Kline and Bobby Scott and Senators Lamar 
Alexander and Patty Murray for building the bipartisan foundation that 
got this bill done and will help to reform our national education 
system.
  The bill, of course, is not perfect, but it is a huge improvement 
over NCLB. Over the last 13 years, we learned that the one-size-fits-
all approach to fixing failing schools just wasn't working. That is why 
this bill is designed to find a balance between giving States more 
flexibility while at the same time still making sure States intervene 
and fix schools where students are not learning.
  Over the last several years, starting when I got here, I have met 
with principals, teachers, students, parents, school superintendents, 
and other school administrators in Minnesota. These conversations have 
helped me to develop my education priorities to help improve our 
schools, our communities, and our Nation's future because that is what 
this is about. I worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
find common ground.
  I am pleased that many of my priorities to improve student outcomes 
and close the achievement gap are reflected in the legislation that is 
before us today. These priorities include things such as strengthening 
STEM education, expanding student mental health services, increasing 
access to courses that help high school students earn college credit, 
and improving the preparation and recruitment of principals for high-
need schools.
  I also successfully fought to renew the 21st Century Community 
Learning Centers Program, which provides critical afterschool learning 
activities for students.
  Another one of my priorities helps increase the number of counselors 
and social workers in our schools.
  My provision to allow States to use computer adaptive tests will go a 
long way toward improving the quality of assessments used in our 
schools, will give teachers and parents more accurate and timely 
information on their students' progress, and will measure their growth 
instead of what NCLB did. In the beginning, NCLB just measured the 
percentage of kids who exceeded a certain arbitrary line of 
proficiency. This will measure every kid and how far they have come 
because I always thought that a sixth grade teacher who takes a kid 
from a third grade level of reading to a fifth grade level of reading 
is a hero and not a goat, as that teacher was in No Child Left Behind.
  I was also able to include a new Native language immersion program 
because I believe language is critical to maintaining cultural heritage 
and helping Native American students succeed.
  In addition, I wrote a provision to provide foster children who get 
new foster parents to stay in their same school district, when that is 
in their best interest, and not have to move to another school because 
very often the one essential and stable thing in their lives as foster 
children is their friends and teachers at school.

[[Page 19675]]

  I am very pleased that these priorities have been included in the 
legislation we are considering today, and I thank my colleagues for 
working with me on them. These provisions will help hundreds of 
thousands of students in Minnesota and millions of students across the 
country reach their full potential.
  At the same time, I do have to express my deep disappointment that my 
measure to help protect LGBT students from bullying and discrimination 
was not included in the final bill. I will keep fighting to get this 
critical measure passed into law because I think it is our 
responsibility here in the Senate, as adults, to protect children.
  Finally, I want to note that the Every Student Succeeds Act makes 
critical investments in early childhood education, which has been a 
priority of mine for a long time. A quality early childhood education 
doesn't just start kids off on the right foot, it is also good for our 
budget. Study after study has shown that for every $1 we spend, we get 
up to $16 back in the long run. A kid who has had a quality early 
childhood education is less likely to be in special education, less 
likely to be left back a grade, and has better health outcomes. The 
girls are less likely to get pregnant and more likely to graduate from 
high school, go to college, and get a good job so they can pay taxes, 
and are much less likely to go to prison. That is why it is such a 
great investment. It is also a great investment because a 3-year-old 
child is a beautiful thing.
  After working on a bill to replace NCLB for years, I am very pleased 
that we have gotten this reform effort finished. I thank my dedicated 
staff, both present and past, who has worked hard to move education 
priorities forward--Sherry Lachman, Amanda Beaumont, Gohar Sedighi.
  Thanks, Gohar.
  Once the President signs the Every Student Succeeds Act into law, I 
look forward to making sure the new law is implemented in a way that 
will benefit students, teachers, and parents in Minnesota.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support 
for S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act. This legislation sends the 
responsibility of educating our Nation's students back to where it 
belongs--with States and local communities.
  I wish to commend Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray for 
their work to advance this legislation through a very ideologically 
diverse HELP Committee, which they did with a unanimous vote. The full 
Senate then had a vote. That vote was 81 to 17. Then we had a 
conference committee. We haven't had many conference committees. It was 
there that we met with the House of Representatives to iron out 
differences between the two bills, and that passed by a vote of 38 to 
1.
  It has been a long time since we have had numbers like that record. 
In fact, it has been a long time since bills went to committee and had 
the opportunity to be amended in committee, and then went to the floor 
of the Senate and had the opportunity to be amended on the floor. Of 
course, it is even more unusual to have a conference committee--because 
it passed both Chambers--and come up with a 38-to-1 approval of the 
conference report, which is what is now before us. This is one of those 
instances where we get to vote for it or we get to vote against it. I 
am hoping that almost everybody votes for it, just as in these previous 
votes.
  We in Wyoming are very proud of our school system. We are proud of 
the way we support our students. We are proud of the way we support our 
educators. We are proud of the way we support our staff. In fact, the 
Constitution of Wyoming says there will be equal education for every 
child. We carry that to an extreme. In Wyoming, that means there has to 
be equal buildings, as well as opportunities, facilities, and teachers. 
That is run through the courts every once in a while just to make sure 
it is observed, and it is, and we are proud of our students, our 
buildings, and the education we provide. We are very proud of the way 
it helps to prepare our students for what is next and ensures they have 
the tools necessary to succeed in a rapidly evolving society.
  This bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, ensures that Wyoming 
teachers and school leaders have the power to tailor education to meet 
the needs of all students, even in the most rural and remote 
communities. Wyoming is the least populated State in the Nation, and we 
have probably some of the smallest schools. We believe kids shouldn't 
have to ride a bus to or from school for more than an hour, and as a 
result, we have some schools that have one student or two students or 
three students. That is a little different kind of school than most of 
the Nation has.
  For too long now, I have heard stories from teachers, from students, 
and from parents across Wyoming about the harm inflicted by the prep-
for-the-test system that has been in place. That ends with the signing 
of this bill.
  Our Nation's students deserve the opportunity to learn in innovative 
and creative ways that will stimulate their minds and open their eyes 
to the countless opportunities we have in this great country. Our 
Nation's teachers and school leaders deserve the highest levels of 
support and training to help our students recognize those opportunities 
and help prepare the next generation. Our Nation's parents deserve the 
option to choose what educational opportunities are best for their 
child. This act ensures that all of that can occur by empowering States 
and local communities to make the decisions they think are best. This 
is a diverse country. There are a lot of differences among our States. 
We have some common policies, we have some common laws, but there are 
still differences.
  I am always a little riled when we are compared with some of the 
other countries around the world on how our students are doing. I have 
been the Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee before and I did some research into that; I visited some 
countries to see what their education was like. One of the ways they 
get better scores on their tests is they kick kids out of school. In 
India, they guarantee a sixth grade education. They say they guarantee 
a sixth grade education. They do a cleansing of the schools in fourth 
grade. They say ``These kids are not participating in their education 
enough,'' and they kick them out of school. Those kids will make brooms 
by day and sweep streets at night, and they will earn $1 a day for the 
rest of their lives. That is it--no opportunity for any advancement. 
That is in fourth grade, even though they are guaranteed a sixth grade 
education.
  In sixth grade, they have another purge. In fact, those kids will 
wind up in jobs where they make $2 a day for the rest of their lives, 
with no opportunity for change. They allow only 7 percent of the kids 
to go to college. There is tremendous competition that probably makes 
some difference in their scores. But weeding out kids makes a 
difference. Thank goodness in this country we don't believe in that. We 
believe every kid should have an opportunity, and we give them an 
opportunity as long as we can.
  Local school boards are a terrific example of democracy at its 
finest. In those meetings, individuals in the community can come 
together to discuss and debate issues related to the education of their 
youth. It is in those meetings that students can voice their opinions 
and have a say in their own educational experiences. It is in those 
meetings that teachers and student leaders can put forth what they 
think is the best course of action to teach the content in a way that 
best meets the needs of that community. It is in those meetings that 
all of those parties can decide how they want to spend educational 
funds within the budget that the members of that community voted on.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act that we will vote on tomorrow gives 
that

[[Page 19676]]

power back to the local school boards. It allows issues to be debated 
and decisions to be made in a room of parents, students, teachers, 
school leaders, and community members who know best what works for the 
students. It is one of the purest forms of democracy I can think of, 
and certainly it is something I think our Founders had in mind in their 
idea of America and, in particular, their idea of educating our 
students.
  I know there are some people who are going to vote against this bill, 
and I have asked why. The most common answer is it doesn't go far 
enough. It goes further than anything that has been done in this 
Chamber since the Department of Education was founded. This reverses 
things back to States' rights.
  I work around here under the 80-percent rule. I have found that we 
can talk civilly about 80 percent of the issues. If we stick to that 80 
percent, we can be productive. If we go to the other 20 percent--it is 
10 percent on each side, Republicans and Democrats--we both have 
certain things that we would like to see and that we think are right, 
and we have been fighting over them for decades. But if we stick to 
that 80 percent, we can be productive. We can find something that we 
can have some common ground on. I have found that we usually only have 
80 percent common ground on any of the issues because, again, there is 
that 10 percent that each side feels is right and that we would like to 
do. So the best way to get some legislation done is to leave out some 
of those things and go ahead and get what we can. This bill does that.
  I think it goes beyond 80 percent, incidentally, but we can get the 
whole 100 percent. The way to do it is to get both sides together and 
keep them out of the weeds long enough--the old rhetoric they have been 
arguing about, where they hear a key word and know the answer to it 
immediately and don't have to listen. If you can get them to sit down 
and listen and think of a new way to do it, we would get 100 percent 
because when we come up with that new idea that both sides can grab on 
to, they both claim it is their idea, and we move on. We are not at 
that point yet on education.
  I commend the Chairman of the committee, Senator Alexander, and the 
Ranking Member, Senator Murray, for coming together on 80 percent of 
what can get done and working to get it done. The alternative is to get 
nothing done. We need to get something done. People have been 
complaining that this law has been unauthorized for years. This is the 
first chance we have had to actually move forward with education, to 
move it back to the States where it will be most effective, where those 
diverse States can make up their minds on what will work best with 
their students.
  Incidentally, most of our States are as big as any of those countries 
we compete with, with the exception of China, Russia, and India. They 
are making decisions for their State when they are making their 
education decisions. That is what this bill will do.
  There aren't any perfect bills. I particularly don't like 
comprehensive bills. ObamaCare was a comprehensive bill. But my idea of 
a comprehensive bill is that it is so big that people can't understand 
it, and it is so big that stuff can get shoved in there that nobody 
will even notice when it is being done. This is one of those bills that 
has been worked on for a long time. It has been taken carefully in 
steps and put together so that we can move forward with it.
  The question is, Will it work? Yes, it will work. Will it do 
everything that everybody wants? Hardly anything ever does. This bill 
will come as close to doing something--as I said, I believe it is the 
most progress we have had since we got a Department of Education, which 
is a whole other debate.
  I have been proud to support this legislation from its very early 
stages, and I will continue to support it tomorrow. The responsibility 
of the education of our Nation's students belongs to States and local 
communities. The Every Student Succeeds Act ensures that responsibility 
is given to those entities.
  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, an improvement in 
education.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the conference agreement to replace No 
Child Left Behind, the Every Student Succeeds Act, takes unprecedented 
steps to rein in the Secretary of Education and put the power for 
education decisions back in the hands of parents and State and local 
officials. By passing this legislation, it clearly becomes Congress' 
intent that States be solely responsible for the development and 
implementation of, and decisions regarding, all aspects of their State 
accountability systems. This is an intentional and deliberate act to 
eliminate the ability of the Secretary of Education to use regulatory 
power or guidance to add new requirements or conditions to State 
systems that are outside of the specific language in statute.
  The legislation prevents the Secretary from influencing, forcing, or 
coercing a State to adopt specific standards in many ways, including 
the following:
  First, officers and employees of the Federal Government--including 
the Secretary of Education--are prohibited from conditioning the 
receipt of any funds, through grants, contracts, or agreements on the 
adoption of any academic standards, including Common Core.
  Second, States do not have to submit their standards to the Secretary 
for review or approval.
  Third, the Secretary is prohibited from exercising any direction or 
supervision over a State's academic standards.
  The Secretary is also prevented from using executive authority to 
create terms and conditions that should be done through the legislative 
process, including the following:
  First, the Secretary is prohibited from adding new requirements 
through regulations.
  Second, the Secretary is prohibited from adding new requirements as a 
condition of approval of a State plan.
  Third, the Secretary is prohibited from dictating what should happen 
in early education.
  Fourth, the Secretary is prohibited from creating new policies 
through redefining terms or phrases in the law.
  Furthermore, the legislation protects States' rights to control their 
education system by ensuring the Secretary is prohibited from: coercing 
a State to adopt any particular curriculum or program of instruction; 
prescribing the long-term goals or measurements of interim progress, or 
the weights of State-determined indicators, or the methodology for 
identifying low-performing schools, in the State's accountability 
system; requiring any specific assessments be used by a State; 
dictating any particular school support or improvement strategies or 
interventions; or requiring any measures of teacher, principal, or 
other school leader effectiveness.
  Section 1111(e) clearly states the Secretary may not add any 
requirements or criteria outside the scope of this act and further says 
the Secretary may not take any action that would ``be in excess of 
statutory authority given to the Secretary.'' This section goes on to 
lay out specific terms the Secretary cannot prescribe, sets clear 
limits on the guidance the Secretary may offer, and also clearly states 
that the Secretary is prohibited from defining terms that are 
inconsistent with or outside the scope of this Act.
  There are also provisions in titles I and VIII that ensure standards 
and curriculum are left to the discretion of States without Federal 
control or mandates, and the same is true for assessments.
  The legislation also clearly lays out congressional intent by 
including a sense of Congress that States and local educational 
agencies retain the right and responsibility of determining educational 
curriculum, programs of instruction, and assessments.
  The legislation makes it clear the Secretary is not to put any undue 
limits on the ability of States to determine their accountability 
systems, their standards, or what tests they give their students. The 
clear intent of this legislation restores responsibility for the 
authority over education decisions back to the States and severely 
limits

[[Page 19677]]

the Secretary's ability to interfere in any way.
  Ensuring a limited role for the U.S. Secretary of Education was a 
critically important priority throughout the reauthorization process 
and this legislation meets that priority. For example, the Secretary 
may not limit the ability of States to determine how the measures of 
student performance are weighted within State accountability systems. 
The legislation does not authorize the Secretary to issue regulations 
that specify a specific weight or a range of weights that any indicator 
must fall within when States setting up their system. Any weights or 
ranges of weight of each indicator will be determined by the State. The 
Secretary also cannot prescribe school support or improvement 
strategies, any aspect of a State's teacher evaluation system, or the 
methodology used to differentiate schools in a State.
  Also, the Secretary may not create new policy and requirements by 
creatively defining terms in the law. Definitively, this new law reins 
in the Secretary and ensures it is State and local education officials 
making decisions about their schools.
  Under current law, the current Secretary and previous Education 
officials have exceeded their authority by placing conditions on 
waivers to States and local educational agencies outside the scope of 
the legislative language or congressional intent. This legislation 
prevents the Secretary from applying any new conditions on waivers or 
the State plans required in the law. The language clearly states the 
Secretary may not add any new conditions for the approval of waivers or 
State plans that are outside the scope of the law. This means if the 
law does not give the Secretary the authority to require something, 
then the Secretary may not unilaterally create an ability to do that 
through regulation, approval or disapproval of State plans, binding 
guidance, or any other means of enforcement.
  Finally, this legislation sets up a more inclusive and transparent 
negotiated rulemaking process, particularly for any regulations related 
to standards, assessments, or supplement, not supplant requirements in 
the law. All regulations, if any, issued on these items must adhere to 
agreements reached by negotiators in negotiated rulemaking. The 
Secretary may not ignore agreements reached. The legislation also 
requires an alternative process for regulations if consensus is not 
reached through negotiated rulemaking, including a review of the time, 
costs, and paperwork burden of any proposed regulations. Congress will 
also be given an opportunity to review any proposed regulations for 15 
days prior to submission to the Federal Register. Additionally, the 
public will have 60 days to comment on any proposed regulations. The 
purpose of these new requirements is for the Department of Education to 
be more transparent in what burden new regulations will place on 
States, school districts, and schools. Additionally, by giving Congress 
and the public the opportunity to explicitly weigh in on proposed 
regulations, the intent is that the Department will listen to thoughts 
from people on the ground regarding how they will be impacted.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will approve landmark 
legislation to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965.
  Since 2001, the failed policies of No Child Left Behind have unfairly 
burdened students, families, educators, and administrators by holding 
students accountable for snap-shot academic progress. The overwhelming 
support in Congress for these reforms will reverse the one-size-fits-
all approach to education that did not work for Vermont and so many 
schools across the Nation. This bill gives States more flexibility to 
ensure that schools are supporting every student, while maintaining the 
Federal Government's responsibility to ensure that students everywhere 
have access to the resources they need for lasting academic success.
  Since 2001, I have heard from parents, teachers, students, 
policymakers, and administrators about the negative impacts of No Child 
Left Behind. I voted against the legislation as I did not agree--and 
still do not agree--with a one-size-fits-all approach to education. I 
was also disappointed with the bill's rigid Federal accountability 
measures, as I truly believe States and local education agencies 
deserve flexibility when it comes to how schools operate.
  The conference report we will consider today reflects the positive 
changes to the law that the Senate overwhelmingly supported in July. 
The agreement restores educational flexibility to the States, while 
safeguarding student access to resources, regardless of race, gender, 
financial status, and learning level. I am pleased that the bill takes 
into account the greater needs of students in rural areas, increases 
funding for early childhood education programs, and improves school 
safety measures.
  I am especially pleased with the bill's innovative assessment and 
accountability demonstration authority provision, which will allow 
Vermont to adopt competency and performance-based assessments that 
prove far more than how well a student can perform on a test on one 
given day. And while States will design their own system to improve 
struggling schools, the conference agreement also includes Federal 
safeguards to protect civil rights and to provide resources for 
students at the greatest risk.
  We are 8 years overdue for a rewrite of No Child Left Behind. I am 
pleased that we have come together, Members on both sides of the aisle, 
to support the Every Student Succeeds Act. This bill truly reflects the 
needs of all students, educators, parents, and administrators; and I 
urge all Senators to support its passage.
  Mr. McCain. Mr. President, today I come to the floor to express my 
strong support for the Every Student Succeeds Act. This legislation is 
a major step forward in taking the responsibility of educating our 
children back from Washington and giving it to the States. Senator 
Alexander and the Republican majorities in Congress have been 
successful working in with parents, teachers, and school districts in 
putting together a bipartisan elementary education reform bill that 
would restore the role of States in creating accountability standards, 
testing requirements, and other education policies that best fit the 
needs of students in local public and charter schools.
  One of the most important pieces of this bill is that it would 
effectively end Common Core once and for all by allowing States to 
develop their own education standards. For far too long, Federal 
bureaucrats in Washington have tied the hands of States and parents by 
mandating one-size-fits-all education policies such as Common Core that 
have failed America's students. Let me be clear: I strongly support 
education standards that make Arizona students prepared to compete in 
this global economy. But these standards should be developed by 
Arizona's State and local education officials in consultation with 
parents of Arizona schoolchildren. This bill would do just that.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act would also end the Federal test-based 
accountability system that was established by the No Child Left Behind 
Act. No longer would these required Federal tests be the sole measure 
of educational success. States will now be allowed to use testing along 
with other measures of accountability such as attendance, teacher 
performance, and other student achievement and school performance 
metrics when developing accountability systems.
  In addition to helping take control of elementary education back from 
Washington, this bill includes provisions that would strengthen charter 
schools. I am proud of the fact that Arizona is home to some of the 
best charter schools in the Nation. According to the Arizona Charter 
School Association, over 190,000 Arizona students have access to more 
than 600 charter schools, giving Arizona parents more educational 
choices for their children. I am also proud of the fact that BASIS 
Charter Schools in Scottsdale and Tucson are the first and third-ranked 
charter schools in America, according to U.S. News & World Report.
  I am also pleased that the Every Student Succeeds Act includes 
language I

[[Page 19678]]

offered on the Senate floor in July that would enhance educational 
choice and expand access to high-performing schools for student in 
Arizona and across the nation.
  Specifically, this provision would let Arizona and other States 
propose how they could use limited Federal education funds to replicate 
and expand access to high-performing charter, magnet, and traditional 
public schools for low-income students--in other words, education 
options that are proven to provide the best-quality learning 
environments for Arizona children.
  Right now, public funds meant to help low-income students are largely 
reserved for poor-performing schools, failing the children who are most 
in need. We must give Arizona and other States the ability to direct 
these funds to develop high-performing charter, magnet and traditional 
public schools which have been proven to be successful.
  The provisions I offered give Arizona the ability to show how they 
can do just that, while paving the way to give parents the freedom to 
choose which schools are best for their kids.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act also includes measures that would 
offer additional support for rural schools in Arizona by providing more 
flexible use of Federal funding and maintaining the authorization of 
the Small, Rural School Achievement Program, SRSA, and the Rural and 
Low Income School, RLIS, program. The bill also helps States support 
English learners by providing resources to establish strong English 
proficiency programs to enable these students to meet high education 
standards.
  I am proud of the strong progress that Arizona students are making in 
the classroom. According to the most recent National Assessment of 
Educational Progress, NAEP, Arizona students are making significant 
progress compared to students in other States. In a recent op-ed in the 
Arizona Republic, former Arizona Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan and 
the Foundation for Excellence in Education's Matthew Lander wrote, 
``[w]hile the national NAEP news this week was grim, with flat scores 
in fourth grade reading and declining scores in all three subjects, 
Arizona students bucked that trend by notching gains in three of the 
four tests.'' They went on to highlight Arizona's success, stating 
``Arizona's charter-school students . . . matched the scores for the 
highest-scoring states on the 2015 NAEP. On eighth grade mathematics, 
for instance, Arizona charter students scored in a statistical dead 
heat with Massachusetts, the highest scoring of the 50 states.''
  I am extremely proud of the success we are seeing in Arizona 
elementary education, but more needs to be done to ensure our students 
have the best opportunities by increasing educational choice and 
enabling States and school districts to expand and replicate high-
performing schools. Every American has an obligation to help prepare 
the next generation for the future, and this bill is a step in the 
right direction. I encourage all of my colleagues to support this bill.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today I wish to talk about the Every 
Student Succeeds Act.
  I want to thank Chairmen Kline and Alexander and Ranking Members 
Scott and Murray for their work in putting together a bipartisan, 
bicameral framework to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, ESEA. I know that it was not easy, especially in this 
political climate, but politics were put aside; and children, teachers, 
and schools were put first.
  I am really pleased how this process played out--it was truly a 
bipartisan effort. I have always believed that one of the pathways to 
success is restoring regular order, and they did just that. While this 
bill is not perfect--it is not one that Democrats nor Republicans would 
have written--it is a step in the right direction towards overhauling 
and improving the failed tenets of No Child Left Behind.
  ESEA was passed 50 years ago to ensure that kids living in poverty 
would receive the extra help they needed in order to succeed. It was a 
part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. It was the first 
time that the Federal Government really got involved in education. 
Before then, education was considered a local responsibility, not 
something for the Feds to meddle in; but President Johnson's vision 
changed that. He wanted to lift kids out of poverty and give them their 
fair shot to excel.
  Since then, we passed the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act of 
2001, NCLB. While done with the best of intentions, it was deeply 
flawed. With NCLB, instead of us ``racing to the top,'' we ended up 
with ``racing to the test'' and excessive testing. NCLB is also bad 
because it gave us a one-size-fits-all approach out of Washington, 
despite whether you lived in a big city like Baltimore or in a rural 
county like Somerset County on the Eastern Shore.
  We wanted to get rid of ``race to the test,'' understanding that one 
size does not fit all, and implement a system that understands we must 
have Federal guidelines with local solutions and initiatives; then we 
needed to back up our guidelines with money because school districts 
were struggling to meet their bottom line.
  So I went to work on a bipartisan basis to try and deal with that. My 
first rule was: do no harm. That is why I beat back the Southern 
strategy that was going to change the title I formula for funding. 
Maryland would have lost $40 million--that means every single school 
district in Maryland would have lost money. I couldn't let that happen, 
so I put together a coalition of other Senators to beat that back, and 
we did just that. Maryland will keep its $40 million. For Baltimore 
City, they won't lose $6 million. For Baltimore County, they won't lose 
$6 million. For places like Prince George's County, they won't lose $7 
million.
  The bill before us--the Every Student Succeeds Act--is good for all 
of Maryland's 874,514 students. It supports at-risk populations; 
empowers high quality choice for parents; and strengthens critical 
programs such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, 
STEM, education, accelerated learning, and afterschool programming.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act is good for all of Maryland's 59,315 
teachers. Our teachers have to deal with children who have so many 
problems--whether suffering from a peanut allergy or asthma--and need 
so much help. That is why I fought to make sure that Federal funds can 
be used to provide for the coordination of integrated services like 
vision and hearing screenings and other support services to help 
improve student academic achievement.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act helps all of 1,446 Maryland public 
schools. While we maintain annual statewide assessments in reading and 
math, we allow States to develop and implement other mechanisms that 
reduces overtesting and ``racing to the test.''
  In addition to supporting the large-scale changes in the Every 
Student Succeeds Act, I am especially proud to see that this compromise 
includes other provisions I fought for. This bill ensures that States 
continue to measure how students are performing at each level of 
achievement. This bill will make sure that States find ways to assist 
school districts in addressing the needs of gifted and talented 
students. It will also make sure that teachers get the professional 
development they need and deserve in order to better identify gifted 
kids.
  I am pleased that the bill before us also recognizes the vital role 
that school nurses play. They truly are a valuable member of a school's 
education team and should be recognized as such. Because of this bill, 
schools nurses will now be eligible to receive ESEA professional 
development funds.
  This bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, ensures that at-risk kids 
get the support they need in order to succeed. It supports teachers and 
principals in providing high quality instruction. It supports States 
and school districts in turning around low-performing schools and 
closing achievement gaps. This bill is a down payment on our children's 
future and on our Nation's future.
  I urge my colleagues to support the bipartisan progress that has been 
made

[[Page 19679]]

here and vote to send a strong bill to the President's desk that will 
improve our schools and put all of our children on a path to success.


                          Assessment Security

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to engage in a colloquy with the 
chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, 
Senator Alexander, to clarify questions that have arisen since S. 1177 
was introduced.
  Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, pursuant to section 1201, we 
authorized Federal funding to provide grant opportunities for States to 
administer academic assessments and to carry out activities that ensure 
``the continued validity and reliability of state assessments.'' 
Furthermore, under the same provision, we authorized funds to allow 
States to collaborate with organizations to provide services that will 
``improve the quality, reliability, validity, and reliability of State 
academic assessments.''
  I ask the chairman, is it your understanding that the references in 
section 1201 to activities and services that ensure and improve the 
``validity and reliability of state assessments'' were intended to 
allow funds to be used for test security activities and services 
designed and utilized to prevent, detect, and respond to testing 
irregularities and incidents that threaten the validity of assessment 
results?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. Student 
assessments must be designed and administered with a high degree of 
quality assurance. State assessment results can be used as the basis 
for critical decisions affecting the lives of students and the funding 
and operation of schools, and given the significant taxpayer investment 
for statewide assessments, we must provide States with the flexibility 
to use funds to preserve and maintain the integrity and validity of 
these important assessments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                         Senate Accomplishment

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments this 
afternoon to talk about where we are at the end of this year, 2015. 
There has been a lot of talk about wrap-up, a lot of talk about how we 
knitted together the outstanding issues before us as a Congress. There 
is much yet to be done, but I do think it is significant to recognize 
that there has been good work, there has been substantial and 
substantive work that has come out of the U.S. Senate this year as the 
Republicans have led the Senate in the majority.
  As we think back at year-end on a series of accomplishments, I think 
it is important to recognize that the business of the Congress has been 
productive. Sometimes we get so busy around here that we don't stop to 
even recall what we did yesterday, much less last week or the week 
before.
  Today we have had an opportunity to almost bring to a close the 
education reform measure that Senator Alexander from Tennessee and 
Senator Murray from Washington have been working so hard on over this 
past year. As a member of the HELP Committee, I have been very pleased 
to work with them as we have attempted to advance meaningful and long-
overdue education reforms.
  Before I speak specifically to the Every Student Succeeds Act, I 
would like to rattle off a few of the measures.
  Of course we recognize that it was just last week that the highway 
reauthorization bill moved successfully not only through the Senate but 
through the House, through the full bodies ready to be signed into law 
by the President. The 5-year highway reauthorization bill is the 
longest highway reauthorization bill we have seen in 17 years. That is 
significant. For a State such as mine that is looking for some level of 
certainty for projects around the State, that is considerable, and that 
is a good accomplishment to look back to as a marker of success.
  The vote we had last week would roll back some of the many harmful 
effects of the Affordable Care Act--the Not-So-Affordable Care Act, as 
I mentioned on the floor last week, saying that for far too many 
Alaskans, the Affordable Care Act was simply not affordable.
  There have been other measures we can look to and acknowledge that we 
are doing the work of the Congress--moving forward the national defense 
authorization bill, which the President chose not to deal with the 
first time around but signed it the second time around.
  We were able to move forward several measures related to the 
regulatory environment we are dealing with, whether it was the Clean 
Power Plan or the waters of the United States, being able to push back 
on those very burdensome regulations that I think we recognized--the 
goals for clean air and clean water are something we all want. We need 
to make sure that we move in this direction in a way that doesn't 
burden or weigh down our economy.
  The first appropriations stand-alone bill that we have seen move 
through the Senate in 5 years when we advanced the MILCON 
appropriations measure--that was also significant.
  The committees have been doing great work. In our energy committee, 
we moved forward an energy reform bill that would help to modernize our 
energy grid, access to all areas of energy, not only by night but our 
renewable resources as well. That was an effort which was very 
bipartisan and enjoyed good, strong support within the committee. We 
moved it out 18 to 4 and hope to have an energy reform bill before the 
Senate for consideration early in this next calendar year. We haven't 
seen energy modernization or an energy reform bill since 2007. Again, 
it is long overdue but is now teed up.
  We have a sportsmen's bill that we moved through committee. The 
Environment and Public Works Committee is working to advance their 
portion of those very significant measures that will allow for greater 
access to our sports men and women and our families who seek to 
recreate on our public lands.
  These are good things that we are seeing coming out of committees and 
coming to the floor and moving forward. This is a level of governance 
that has been good for the body and, even better, will be good for the 
country.
  Mr. President, I would like to speak very briefly about the Every 
Student Succeeds Act. I know several of my colleagues have come down to 
the floor. Just a couple minutes ago, the Senator from Wyoming came to 
talk about the good things we have seen in this education reform bill 
and celebrate how it ends the national school board by putting more 
control of our schools in our States' and locals' hands. I think that 
is worthy of note. For the schools, administrators, teachers, and the 
parents, that is worthy of celebration.
  I am more than pleased that the Every Student Succeeds Act will 
finally allow our States to judge our schools by more than just the 
test results and allow our teachers to do what they want to do to teach 
our kids and engage them in the art and love of learning and not just 
prepare for tests. We all know our children are more than what can be 
described in some of these fill-in-the-bubble exercise tests, and our 
teachers are certainly more than robots that stand in front of a class 
and follow a script that has been orchestrated from elsewhere.
  I tell many Alaskans that I got my political start, if you will, as 
the president of my son's PTA, our parent teacher association in our 
local neighborhood school. I came to understand firsthand and in a very 
upfront and personal way what No Child Left Behind meant not only for 
my son's school but for the schools across Alaska, an area where you 
have a lot of geography and not a lot of numbers in terms of 
population.
  NCLB did not work for us as a very rural State. The one-size-fits-all 
did not work. My son's public school was deemed a failing school in the 
first year that adequate yearly progress was the standard of 
measurement. We were dubbed a failing school because we had one 
subcategory of students where the numbers were so small, but we didn't 
have enough students show up to take the test on that day. So we all 
know there were 31 different ways to fail AYP, and little Government 
Hill Elementary in Anchorage, AK, failed that first year. That is tough 
as a neighborhood. They were saying: What is wrong with our school? 
What is wrong with our neighborhood?

[[Page 19680]]

  Really, there was nothing wrong with our school. There was nothing 
wrong with our neighborhood. What we had was a directive that came out 
of Washington, DC--some 4,000 miles away--and it didn't work for us.
  I am more than pleased to join with superintendents, principals, and 
school board members who celebrate Federal bureaucrats being prohibited 
from dictating standards, assessments, and school ability plans. No 
more Federal control. No more waivers with strings. No more one-size-
fits-all education mandates that never ever fit us in Alaska.
  I also place a high value on the fact that this bill recognizes the 
rights of our American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian 
peoples throughout the country. It makes sure they have a greater say 
in how public schools will serve their children. Also, this bill will 
support the revitalization of Native languages by supporting Native 
language immersion schools. This has always been one of my priorities, 
and I am pleased we see this in the Every Student Succeeds Act.
  I am grateful for the support of colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle. Senator Boxer worked with me on this to make sure we maintained 
Federal support for afterschool programs that allow parents to remain 
at work if they need to after the school day ends, knowing their 
children are going to be safe and engaged in good, enriching activities 
that help them learn in a fun way. Making sure we had that critical 
piece in the bill was important.
  I am also grateful for the support for the number of Alaska-specific 
provisions that will ensure that this bill, unlike the No Child Left 
Behind Act, will truly fit Alaska's needs. I appreciate a great deal 
the work Senator Alexander put into working through some of these 
issues with us, understanding the Alaska piece, recognizing that 
sometimes we have entities that are different from what you have in the 
lower 48. How you translate that when you are drafting language to make 
sure it works is key. His staff worked with mine to make sure we didn't 
drop the ball in these areas.
  Those of us who are parents realize that this legislation will give 
us a stronger voice in our children's education and encourage parents 
to take the lead in helping our schools communicate better with parents 
rather than the other way around. Again, coming into the politics of 
schools, knowing that your parents have a voice in what is happening at 
the school is critically important.
  Over the years, we have all met with teachers, school board members, 
parents, principals, superintendents, and students from our States who 
were so discouraged, very discouraged, sometimes just plain old fed up 
with the No Child Left Behind top-down control over every decision. The 
Every Student Succeeds Act guarantees that our parents, teachers, 
tribes, community leaders, and principals have a seat at the table to 
design how our schools serve our children. It even guarantees our 
Governors a voice while drastically reducing the role of the Secretary 
of Education here in Washington, DC.
  I want to acknowledge the good work of the members of the Senate HELP 
Committee and their staffs. We all know their staffs put in amazing 
hours to get the bill to this point, working together, compromising, 
negotiating, making their case for the priorities of their 
constituents.
  This bill is one of the great examples--a poster child, if you will--
of how Congress should be working around here. It is hard work, but it 
requires compromise. It requires an open amendment process in 
committee, which we absolutely had. We had days of process on the 
committee and then here on the floor but also within the conference 
committee. We had a real, live, old-fashioned conference committee, and 
it was an absolute pleasure to be part of a process where you could go 
in with your colleagues from the House on the other side of the table 
and go back and forth in further perfecting a bill.
  In just a few days, the baton on education reform will be handed off 
to the people of our States. I look forward to this. I am encouraging 
folks back home to get involved, be aware, know what is going on. It 
will be a responsibility every one of our constituents must take 
seriously. No matter what role they play in a student's life, what 
happens next in each of our States will be determined by the people who 
show up, who share their perspectives with their States, with their 
departments of education, with their school boards. And I believe that 
coming together in this way at the local and State level--together it 
will be a good job for Alaska's children and for all of our Nation's 
children.
  With that, Mr. President, I thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I am so pleased that the Senate is 
taking the last few legislative steps to reauthorize the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act or ESEA.
  Our bipartisan bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, will end the 
one-size-fits-all mandates of No Child Left Behind. It will reduce 
reliance on high-stakes testing, and it will help ensure that all 
students have access to a quality education regardless of where they 
live, how they learn or how much money their parents make. One of the 
best ways to help students succeed in school is by offering high-
quality early learning opportunities for kids.
  I am proud our bipartisan bill will also improve and expand access to 
preschool programs for more of our Nation's youngest learners. 
Preschool is actually how I got my start in politics in the mid-1980s. 
At the time I wasn't thinking about running for the U.S. Senate or even 
the State legislature in Washington. I just had one specific goal in 
mind. The State legislature at the time was going to close down 
preschools in my small community because of budget cuts. I knew the 
impact that would have on my own kids and on the kids I saw in the 
classroom, but when I went to talk to State legislators about it with 
my kids, they wouldn't listen. They didn't think our voices mattered, 
and they didn't think preschool should be a priority.
  So I picked up the phone and started calling other parents. We held 
rallies, we wrote letters, and when it was all said and done, we won. 
The legislature reinstated the funding for the preschool program and 
more kids in my State were able to finally start school ready to learn.
  I still believe early childhood education is one of the best 
investments we can make in our country. It is why I fought so hard to 
improve and expand the preschool program throughout this process to fix 
No Child Left Behind. It is why I worked across the aisle with Senator 
Isakson and many other colleagues in the HELP Committee to design a 
preschool program in our bipartisan Senate bill, and it is one of the 
reasons this final legislation that we will vote on tomorrow will be 
such a strong step for students in the years to come.
  I hope our colleagues join me and everyone in passing the Every 
Student Succeeds Act for students, for parents, for teachers, and for 
communities across the country. Early childhood education is so 
important for our children's future and for the future of our country. 
Let's go through the research.
  Before children ever set foot in kindergarten, studies show they have 
already developed a foundation that will determine all of the learning, 
health, and behavior that follows. High-quality early learning programs 
can strengthen that foundation. Preschool is especially important for 
kids from low-income backgrounds. By the time an average child growing 
up in poverty turns 3 years old, she will have heard 30 million fewer 
words compared to a child from a middle-income or high-income family, 
according to researchers at the University of Kansas. That is a serious 
disadvantage.

[[Page 19681]]

  By the time she starts kindergarten a few years later, the deck will 
already be stacked against her and her future success. Many families 
across the country don't have the option of sending their youngest 
learners to preschool. Today, in fact, just 14 percent of 3-year-olds 
in America are enrolled in federally or State-funded preschool programs 
and 41 percent of our 4-year-olds are enrolled.
  If we are serious about closing the achievement gap in elementary and 
secondary education and if we are truly committed to making sure every 
student has the chance to succeed, we have to invest in quality early 
childhood education.
  On the Senate floor in January, I said we should only pass a bill to 
reauthorize the ESEA if it expands access to preschool programs. I am 
very pleased our bill follows through on that commitment. The Every 
Student Succeeds Act will mark the first time that the Nation's 
primary, elementary, and secondary education law includes dedicated 
funding to make sure kids start kindergarten ready to learn. It does so 
by establishing a competitive grant program for States that proposes to 
improve coordination, quality, and access to early childhood education 
for kids from low-income and disadvantaged families. Those grants will 
help States such as Washington build on the progress it has already 
made to improve quality and increase access to high-quality preschool 
programs.
  I am very proud of the bipartisan bill we have on the floor and all 
it does to improve and expand access to preschool, but we still have 
work to do. I will continue to work to do even more for kids and 
families in Washington State and across the country. I will continue 
fighting hard to make sure that if a family wants to send their child 
to a quality preschool program, there will be an open slot for them, 
because when all students have the chance to learn, we strengthen our 
future workforce, our Nation grows strong, our economy grows from the 
middle out, not the top down, and we empower the next generation of 
Americans to lead the world.
  As a former preschool teacher myself, I saw firsthand the kind of 
transformation that early learning can inspire in a child. It is 
something I have never forgotten. On my very last day of teaching 
preschool, before I left to serve in our Washington State Senate, my 
students gave me this great big, large, blue quilt. Each square was 
decorated by a student in my preschool class and that quilt now hangs 
in my U.S. Senate office. It reminds me every single day that investing 
in young children is one of the most important things we can do to help 
them succeed.
  Tomorrow the Senate will have the chance to vote in favor of helping 
more kids start school on a strong footing. We have the chance to fix 
No Child Left Behind with a bill that recognizes the importance of 
early learning, and we have a chance to make sure one of the smartest 
investments we can make in our Nation's youngest learners has begun.
  I urge my colleagues to pass this bill for their future and the 
future of our Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


                                  Iran

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to talk about an issue that 
while we are riveted in our attention, yes, about a good education 
bill--which I intend to support--and about the challenge of ISIL and 
terrorism both abroad and at home, I am concerned that in the midst of 
all of those challenges, Iran is well on its way to once again defy the 
international community in a way that I think is incredibly dangerous.
  We are told that Iran is to be considered a trustworthy member of the 
international community and that we should be able to count on it to 
abide by the international commitments they have made and by U.N. 
Security Council resolutions.
  On October 11 of this year, Iran tested a precision-guided, long-
range ballistic missile in violation of U.N. Security Council 
resolutions, and now Iran has carried out a new medium-range ballistic 
missile test in breach of two U.N. Security Council resolutions. We are 
told by Western intelligence that test was held November 21. The first 
one was October 11; now a second one on November 21 near Chabahar, a 
port city in southeast Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan Province near the 
border with Pakistan. The launch took place from a known missile test 
site along the Gulf of Oman. The missile, which is known as a Ghadr-
110, has a range of anywhere between 1,800 and 2,000 kilometers or 
about 1,200 miles and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
  The missile fired in November is an improved version of the Shahab-3 
and is similar to the precision-guided missile tested by Iran on 
October 10, which elicited strong condemnation by members of the U.N. 
Security Council, but those condemnations were in word but not in 
actions--because what has happened as a result of Iran violating the 
U.N. Security Council resolutions as it relates to missile testing? 
Absolutely nothing.
  At the Security Council we are still debating how to respond to 
Iran's last test in October, and I truly believe actions speak louder 
than words. American and U.N. actions demonstrate to me that with no 
activity that is visible to anyone as it relates to finding some 
consequence for Iran violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, Iran 
can support terror, Iran can develop its nuclear program, Iran can 
foment sectarian conflict across the Middle East, it can support Assad 
in its deadly regime against its people, it can test ballistic 
missiles, it can tell Iraq not to accept U.S. special forces in our 
fight against ISIL, and yet it will be rewarded with a multimillion-
dollar sanctions relief this coming year. Something is wrong because 
the silence is so deafening.
  In October of this year after Iran launched its first missile test in 
violation of Security Council resolutions, I wrote to the Secretary of 
State. I wish to read excerpts of that letter because they are still 
more poignant today in view of the second test that has taken place 
against international will.
  I said:

       Dear Mr. Secretary,
       The recent test launch of a precision-guided, long-range 
     ballistic missile by Iran was a violation of the United 
     Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1929. . . . As we 
     discussed during your July 23 appearance before the Senate 
     Foreign Relations Committee, [that resolution] stipulates 
     that Iran cannot presently engage in activities related to 
     ballistic missiles.
       But, with the October 11 launch, Iran has done so--on 
     several levels--whether it is through research, development, 
     planning, concealing or launching this reportedly new 
     technology. And as some of my colleagues on the Senate 
     Foreign Relations Committee have pointed out in separate 
     correspondence to you, Iran's violations of UNSCR 1929 have 
     become common. The Iranian regime is drawing a line in the 
     sand that demonstrates [I believe] with malice that it will 
     only selectively meet its obligations with respect to 
     internationally sanctioned weapons programs. What meaningful 
     steps will the Administration take to respond to the latest 
     Iranian provocations?
       As Iran is prone to do, [I view] this is a test of American 
     commitment and resolve, which, I believe, must be met with a 
     decisive response in the language that Iran understands--for 
     every action there is a consequence.

  I went on in that letter to say:

       I write to recommend to you that you use the 
     Administration's discretionary authority to tighten the full 
     range of sanctions available to you to penalize Iran for 
     violating UNSCR 1929. From your responses at the July 23 
     [Senate Foreign Relations Committee] hearing, I understand 
     that tightening sanctions for non-nuclear related infractions 
     would not violate the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, 
     even if it were presently in its full implementation phase.

  Which it is not.

       The Administration should also encourage P5+1 partners to 
     respond with similar measures. Does the Administration plan 
     to use its current authority to tighten available sanctions 
     against Iran?
       Iran is not only testing the Administration, it is also 
     testing our international partners. The launch, coordinated 
     on the same day that Iran's Parliament approved the general 
     outline of the Iran Nuclear Agreement should send a clear 
     signal to the United States, the P5+1, and the United Nations 
     Security Council that Iran's nuclear program and its weapons 
     programs are linked--and that the Iranian regime has every 
     intention

[[Page 19682]]

     of maintaining this status quo. The Administration should 
     lead the P5+1 and the UNSC to respond swiftly, decisively, 
     and unapologetically.
       The series of test launches of Iranian ballistic missiles 
     that have led us to this point are part of a larger weapons 
     development program, that when taken together with Iran's 
     history of deception, its opaque nuclear capabilities, past 
     violations of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, its fiery 
     rhetoric, destabilizing activities throughout the region, and 
     well-documented malign intent, requires a strong 
     international response.

  And particularly, I note: The time to act was then and now again--
certainly now--before Iran can exploit U.N. Security Council resolution 
2231 because that particular resolution failed to incorporate the same 
mandatory language that U.N. Security Council resolution 1929 has.
  In 1929, the world said: You cannot conduct ballistic missile tests 
and work on the development of ballistic missiles. When we struck the 
deal with Iran, we went through a different language where we strongly 
called upon Iran not to do so for the next 8 years. But strongly 
calling upon a country--from the Security Council--not to do something 
is not prohibiting those threatening activities.
  We do have sanctions that are in place and a Security Council 
resolution that is in place, because the deal has not gone into full 
effect until implementation takes place, where Iran is already 
violating the international will as expressed by those Security Council 
resolutions.
  I would argue that in addition to the fact that they are defying the 
will of the international community as it relates to their missile 
weapons program--which can carry a nuclear warhead--I think they are 
testing the will of the international community when it comes to the 
question of how serious we will be about violations of the nuclear 
agreement. And the sooner that we are stronger in our response to their 
violations of the Security Council resolutions on missile technology 
and the missile weapons systems, the sooner they will understand we 
will not allow them to ultimately violate the agreement we struck with 
them as it relates to their nuclear program, and if they do, there are 
serious consequences.
  Iran has tested the world. I have followed Iran since I first was in 
the House of Representatives and it came to my knowledge that the 
United States was sending voluntary contributions to the International 
Atomic Energy Agency above and beyond our membership dues. When I 
inquired as to what it was for, it ended up that it was to help the 
IAEA, help Iran create operational capacity at the Bushehr nuclear 
facility. Well, that wasn't in the national interests of the United 
States and certainly not in the national and security interests of our 
ally the State of Israel. I led a successful drive to stop those 
voluntary contributions in the House.
  From that day, in the beginning of my House career, I followed Iran, 
because I said: Why does a country that has such huge--I think it is 
the fourth largest--oil reserves--and right up there as relates to gas 
reserves--need nuclear power for domestic energy consumption? It 
doesn't. I have followed Iran since then, and I have seen that by 
testing the international community's will at every step of the way, 
they advanced their nuclear program to where it came to the point--
almost like our too-big-to-fail banks--well, this was too big to stop, 
so we tried to manage it. Now they are testing the world as it relates 
to their missile technology and missile weapons program. Again, we see 
a lack of response.
  My letter to the Secretary of State on October 19--also, separate 
from that, there was a series of letters from other colleagues about 
the same issue--has not been responded to. We are going on 2 months 
since this action took place, and there is silence. As a matter of 
fact, the only things I have read are press reports about the latest 
violation, but I haven't seen the administration say a word about it.
  So as the Iranians get the sense that they can go ahead and violate 
the international will as expressed through Security Council 
resolutions and face no consequence as a result thereof, then based 
upon history we are going to face an Iran that is going to test the 
international community as it relates to its commitments in the Iran 
nuclear program. If we do not send a strong message now, we are only 
inviting attempts to violate that agreement.
  I am very much of the belief that once you violate international 
agreements, you have to have a consequence just on that basis. When we 
were having the great debate about the Iran deal, we were told that 
this is just about the nuclear program; that human rights violations, 
weapons violations, and violations in terms of their activities to 
destabilize the region and their hegemonic interests--that we are going 
to push back on all of those things. Well, I haven't seen that. I 
haven't seen that. And that, to me, invites a great risk.
  So I urge the administration to act decisively, to pursue both in the 
Security Council and apart from the Security Council, with our P5+1 
allies, sanctionable items that can be outside of the nuclear 
portfolio, that can send a very strong message to Iran that ``Don't 
think you can get away with these types of actions and have no 
consequence.''
  Secondly, I seriously believe this is another example of why the Iran 
sanctions act, which I helped author and which was passed 
overwhelmingly in the Senate and expires this coming year, needs to be 
reauthorized, because if there is a belief that there will be no 
sanctions in place as a result of any violations that take place, what 
are we snapping back to? What are we snapping back to? I believe there 
is nothing wrong with at least having those sanctions reauthorized and 
the Iranians having an understanding that if they violate the 
agreement, there are sanctions to snap back to.
  What they are doing in their violations of the Security Council 
resolutions as it relates to missile weapons programs is already a 
bellwether of what I believe their actions will be if we cannot 
ultimately meet the test of their challenge. And they are testing us. 
This is the same Iran that I saw for years test the international will, 
being told they cannot advance their nuclear program, to the point that 
it got to such an extent that we struck a deal. That is the risk we 
face here.
  So I look forward to pursuing a robust response to Iran. For all of 
my colleagues who supported the agreement, this is actually something 
we should be in chorus together on to ensure that Iran has a very clear 
message that ``We intend to push back on you. You cannot violate the 
international law.'' By doing so, hopefully we will see the performance 
of an agreement that is supposed to control their nuclear program in a 
way that does not risk the world security. That is what is at stake in 
this regard.
  I will close by simply saying that if you pass by the Archives 
Building, over its portal there is this statement: ``What is past is 
prologue.'' I hope that statement isn't a reality as we face the 
challenge of an Iran that feels strongly within the region, that 
creates greater instability through its support of Hezbollah, that 
supports Assad and continues a civil war in which thousands and 
thousands are dying, creating the rise of ISIS at the end of the day by 
a state that is virtually a failed state at this point in time and 
putting undue influence on its neighbor, Iraq, a country for which we 
have shed so many lives and national treasure. Something is wrong in 
that equation, and I hope my colleagues will wake up to it and will 
join us in an effort to try to make sure we push back in a way that is 
not only appropriate and within the international order but necessary 
if we truly do not want Iran to achieve nuclear power for nuclear 
weapons.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I thank my colleague who just spoke 
for his vigilance in reminding us how we have to pay attention every 
single day to what is happening in Iran and to be smart and strategic 
and let them know we are very serious about pushing back.


                           Religious Freedom

  Madam President, in this country one of our core values is that you 
can

[[Page 19683]]

come here and build a better life for yourself and for your family. 
That is the American dream. Our Nation was founded by people who had 
that dream, people who dreamt of religious freedom. Many of our 
ancestors followed that dream to these shores, from the early Puritans 
and Quakers, Irish and German immigrants, Italian and Jewish 
immigrants, and so many others. Life was not easy for them. They faced 
discrimination and even violence by those who were suspicious of them, 
who saw them as different, who challenged their right to have the 
American dream. But those Americans worked very hard and built a life 
for themselves. They raised families and became successful. They opened 
small businesses and large businesses. They became doctors and lawyers. 
They served in our armed services. They served as police officers and 
firefighters. They ran for office. They made amazing contributions to 
our Nation's economy and culture. They helped make America great.
  That core value, our American dream, is being challenged today. 
Donald Trump, who is running for President of the United States of 
America, has suggested that we ban all Muslims from coming into our 
country based purely on their faith, on their religion. As someone who 
represents the most densely populated Muslim population in America, I 
find this suggestion, this statement, to be outrageous and absolutely 
un-American because I know the rich history that people of Muslim faith 
have created in my State and the contributions they make every single 
day to our economy, to our wonderfully diverse culture, and the quality 
of life in our communities.
  Hundreds of thousands of people from Muslim countries came to 
southeastern Michigan in the early part of the last century, like so 
many others from the South and around the country and the world, after 
Henry Ford offered a $5-a-day wage to work in America's first 
automobile factories. Those Muslim Americans were still working in 
those plants during World War II, building the so-called arsenal of 
democracy--the planes, the ships, the tanks that won the war and 
defeated the enemies of democracy.
  Many thousands of Muslim Americans have served our Nation during 
times of war, and many thousands are serving our country right now, at 
this very moment. They are putting their lives on the line right now 
for the freedoms we all hold dear. Take a walk through Arlington 
National Cemetery, and you will see many graves bearing the crescent 
and star. How can anyone question the patriotism of those Americans who 
made the ultimate sacrifice for our country? They helped make America 
great. Those men and women who defended us in the Armed Forces loved 
America, and they died for America because America is their home, their 
family's home. So of course they see ISIS as the enemy, just as every 
non-Muslim American does as well. Their families are the ones who are 
on the front lines of the violence in the Middle East. Their families 
have lost their homes, their businesses, and in many cases their lives 
because of the brutality and violence of ISIS. Their families are the 
ones fleeing the violence to save their children. Muslim Americans 
understand that ISIS does not represent Islam.
  Within every religion, there are violent individuals who twist the 
meaning of sacred texts and symbols to justify acts of violence and 
murder--every religion. The KKK used blessed symbols of Christianity 
while terrorizing and murdering African Americans. Just as the Ku Klux 
Klan does not speak for Christians, ISIS does not speak for Muslims.
  Furthermore, we must recognize that our culture of inclusion and our 
tradition of welcoming people of different faiths since the beginning 
of our country are our greatest weapons in defeating ISIS.
  What ISIS desires more than anything else is to see our country 
discriminate against Muslim Americans so they can use that as a 
recruiting tool all over social media, which we know they are very 
effective at doing. They want Muslim Americans to believe that America 
is not their home, that we do not value their leadership and 
contributions in our communities, that America does not welcome their 
faith, and that America hates them. They want that. That cannot be who 
we are. That is not who we are.
  All of us were shaken by the violence in Paris and San Bernardino, 
but we know that fear cannot be our guide in America. President 
Franklin Roosevelt understood that fear makes America weak. America is 
great when America is united and not pitting neighbor against neighbor, 
which is happening in too many places in my State and across the 
country. When we are united and dedicated to our principals of freedom 
and liberty, we are great. The first liberty of our Constitution's 
First Amendment is the freedom of worship.
  When I think about the Muslim American children in Michigan who were 
afraid to go to school today because of what might happen to them after 
hearing what Donald Trump was saying about them and their families, it 
makes me sick to my stomach. I want those children to know that his 
words are not what America stands for. It is not what makes America 
great. It is not. It is those children--Muslim and Christian and 
Jewish--all of whom are full of hope and promise for the future who 
will make America great again, and I stand with them.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                         Senate Accomplishments

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, just a few days ago on the Senate floor, 
the Senate Democratic leader said:

       One of the newspapers here has a Pinocchio check, and they 
     look at the facts and analyze them and then they can give up 
     to four Pinocchios meaning people simply didn't tell the 
     truth. . . . So, this is the most unproductive Senate in the 
     history of the country, and there are facts and figures to 
     show that.

  That was said by the Senate Democratic leader on December 2 on the 
floor of the Senate. Well, unfortunately for him, the Washington Post, 
which runs the fact checker, fact checked his statement and it came 
back with three Pinocchios. The most you can get is four Pinocchios, 
and they gave him three Pinocchios. There are degrees of falsehood, and 
I think three Pinocchios denotes a pretty big whopper. The Senate 
Democratic leader, by suggesting that this is one of the most 
unproductive Senates in the history of the country, was busted by the 
fact checker with three Pinocchios for making what was a false 
statement.
  The truth of the matter is, contrary to the assertions of the Senate 
Democratic leader, it has been a very busy year here in the Senate--
from voting to repeal ObamaCare to passing the first long-term 
Transportation bill in a decade and, I might add, the first balanced 
budget bill in 14 years. Republicans have been working hard to fulfill 
our promise to get Washington working again for American families.
  If you listen to the media, sometimes they would have you believe 
that nothing ever gets done in Washington, but the truth is that we 
have been able to make progress on a number of important issues this 
year. One accomplishment I am particularly proud of is the long-term 
Transportation bill that Congress passed this last week. It is the 
first long-term Transportation bill in a decade.
  Over the past several years, Congress has made a habit of passing 
numerous short-term funding extensions for Federal transportation 
programs. In fact, I think prior to the passage last week of this long-
term highway bill, there have been no fewer than 37 short-term 
extensions. That is an incredibly inefficient way to manage our 
Nation's infrastructure needs, and it wasted an incredible amount of 
money. It also put a lot of transportation jobs in jeopardy. Hundreds 
of thousands of jobs around the country depend on the funding contained 
in Transportation bills. When Congress fails to provide certainty about 
the way transportation funding will be allocated, States and local 
governments are left without the certainty they need to authorize 
projects or to make long-term plans for addressing various 
transportation infrastructure needs. That means essential construction 
projects get deferred, necessary repairs may not get made, and

[[Page 19684]]

jobs that depend upon transportation get put in jeopardy.
  The Transportation bill we passed last week changes all of that. It 
reauthorizes transportation programs for the long term and provides 5 
years of guaranteed funding. That means States and local governments 
will have the certainty they need to invest in big transportation 
projects and the jobs that they create, and that in turn means a 
stronger economy and a more reliable, safe, and effective 
transportation system.
  This new Transportation bill will also provide much needed 
accountability and transparency about where taxpayer dollars are spent. 
As chairman of the commerce committee, I spent a lot of time working 
with committee members on both sides of the aisle to develop the bill's 
safety provisions.
  One portion of the bill includes a host of important safety 
improvements, including enhancements to the notification process to 
ensure consumers are informed of auto-related recalls and important 
reforms of the government agency responsible for overseeing safety in 
our Nation's cars and trucks.
  Another important bill we passed this year is the Cybersecurity 
Information Sharing Act. Cyber attacks are increasing, and it seems 
that every week we hear of a new breach putting Americans' private 
information at risk. According to the security firm Symantec, last year 
alone more than 300 million new types of malicious software or computer 
viruses were introduced on the Web. That is nearly 1 million new 
threats every single day.
  In October, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing 
Act, which will help keep Americans' data safe from hackers by 
increasing the exchange of cyber threat information between the public 
and private sectors.
  As Members of Congress, we have a responsibility to ensure we are 
meeting the needs of our men and women in uniform and of our Nation's 
veterans. This year, under the new Republican majority and the 
leadership of Chairman Isakson, the Senate has worked in a bipartisan 
manner to advance numerous bills to serve our veterans. We passed the 
Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, which provides 
additional resources to help combat the tragedy of veteran suicides.
  We have improved the Veterans Choice Act to better realize the intent 
of Congress, and that was to make sure veterans don't have to face 
significant wait times or travel distances over 40 miles to receive the 
care they need. We expanded eligibility to permit more veterans to seek 
care close to home and increase the number of non-VA providers in our 
communities that can deliver that care.
  Congress also continues to examine the issue of VA accountability to 
make sure our veterans never again have to suffer delays in treatment, 
as we saw with the national embarrassment of falsified wait times that 
the VA revealed last year. I believe this oversight by Congress is an 
important first step in making sure the VA works for our veterans and 
not for the VA bureaucracy.
  Congress also passed the Defense authorization bill this year, which 
incorporated a number of critical reforms that will expand the 
resources available to our military men and women and strengthen our 
national security.
  The National Defense Authorization Act for 2016 tackles waste and 
inefficiency at the Department of Defense and focuses funding on our 
war fighters rather than on the Pentagon bureaucracy. This bill also 
overhauls our military retirement system. Before this bill, the system 
limited retirement benefits to soldiers who had served for 20 years or 
more, which means there were huge numbers of soldiers, including many 
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who retired after years 
of service without having accrued any retirement benefits. The National 
Defense Authorization Act replaces this system with a new retirement 
system that would ensure the majority of our Nation's soldiers receive 
retirement benefits for their years of service to our country, even if 
they have not reached the 20-year mark.
  One thing Republicans were determined to do this year as well was to 
send legislation repealing ObamaCare to the President's desk. Five and 
a half years after the so-called Affordable Care Act was signed into 
law, it has become abundantly clear that the law is not working. It is 
not lowering premiums. Premiums are going up. It is not reducing health 
care costs. Health care costs are going up dramatically. It costs 
$4,000 for the average family. It is not protecting access to doctors 
or to hospitals. In fact, for some Americans, ObamaCare has driven up 
the cost of health care to unimaginable levels. I heard from 1 
constituent in Hill City, SD, whose family's 2016 health care bill will 
be $25,653--$25,653. In the words of this constituent: How can a yearly 
bill of $25,653 be affordable to a retired couple? The answer, of 
course, is that it can't be; $25,653 or $2,137 a month is approximately 
double the average family's monthly mortgage payment. People are paying 
twice as much for their health insurance as they are paying for their 
mortgage.
  The ObamaCare repeal bill that the Senate passed last week starts the 
process of moving away from ObamaCare and toward the kind of real 
health care reform that Americans are looking for--an affordable, 
accountable, patient-focused system that gives individuals control of 
their health care decisions.
  I am also pleased that the ObamaCare repeal bill protects unborn 
Americans by redirecting funding for Planned Parenthood, an 
organization that performs well over a quarter million abortions each 
year. It shifts that funding to organizations like community health 
centers, which provide affordable, essential health services to women 
across the country, and funding them is a far better use of taxpayer 
dollars.
  In my State of South Dakota, these centers are in more than two dozen 
rural communities and in towns where there is no Planned Parenthood, so 
redirecting these funds makes it easier for women across my State to 
have access to affordable, essential health care services.
  While all Americans agree that we should protect our air and water 
and use our natural resources responsibly, under President Obama the 
Environmental Protection Agency has run amok. During the course of the 
Obama administration, this Agency has implemented one damaging rule 
after another, from a massive national backdoor energy tax that would 
hurt poor and working families the most to a new rule that would 
subject ponds and puddles in America's backyards to a complex array of 
expensive and burdensome regulatory requirements. Containing this out-
of-control government bureaucracy is a priority for Republicans, and we 
have taken up multiple pieces of legislation this year to check the 
EPA's overreach. While the President may have blocked our efforts for 
now, we are going to keep working to protect Americans from damaging 
rules like the waters of the United States rule and the national energy 
tax.
  Over the course of the Obama administration, our national debt has 
gone from $10.6 trillion to a staggering $18.8 trillion. Meanwhile, 
entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security are heading 
rapidly toward bankruptcy. If action isn't taken soon, our financial 
situation could end up crippling our economy.
  While there is a lot more work left to do, this year's Senate 
Republicans took steps toward improving our Nation's fiscal health. In 
the spring, we passed a balanced budget--the first joint House-Senate 
balanced budget in 14 years. Every American family has to stick to a 
budget and Congress should be no different. This year's balanced budget 
needs to be the first of many going forward.
  Entitlement reform is also essential if we want to protect Americans' 
entitlement security. This year we began the process of putting both 
Social Security and Medicare on a more stable financial footing so 
these programs will continue to be available to current and future 
generations of Americans.
  I could go on and talk about the Education bill that we are 
considering

[[Page 19685]]

right now that will return power to States and local school boards or 
the legislation that we passed to give law enforcement new tools to 
fight human trafficking and expand the resources available to victims 
or the bill that we passed to expand opportunities for American workers 
and open new markets for goods marked ``Made in the USA.''
  I want to stop here and say, while Republicans are proud of what we 
have accomplished this year, we know there is a lot left to do. Wages 
are still stagnant, our economy is still sluggish, and too many 
families are still struggling under huge health care bills.
  In addition to the challenges facing Americans at home, we face a 
number of challenges abroad, foremost among them the threat posed by 
ISIS, which is responsible for the deadly attacks in Paris last month, 
as well as a campaign of havoc and bloodshed throughout the Middle 
East. Even here at home we received a grim reminder of the global 
influence of ISIS's twisted ideology last week with what appears to be 
a terrorist-inspired attack that took 14 American lives in San 
Bernardino. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the 
families.
  While the President should be playing the leading role in building a 
coalition to destroy this terrorist organization, unfortunately his 
speech Sunday night demonstrated that he has little to offer beyond the 
same failed strategy that has helped us end up where we are right now--
with an emboldened terrorist organization carrying out and inspiring 
mass casualty attacks far beyond Iraq and Syria.
  We are at a tipping point in the fight against ISIS, and if we don't 
come up with an effective political military response in the very near 
future, we will be facing the prospect of even greater bloodshed in the 
Middle East and more terrorist attacks here in the homeland.
  While we succeeded in having a number of bills become law this year, 
unfortunately many others were stopped by the President. Still others, 
such as our efforts to protect unborn children capable of feeling pain 
from being killed by abortion, were stopped by Democrats in the Senate. 
While we have temporarily lost some of these battles, the debate will 
continue. Republicans will not give up. Whether it is protecting 
families from the President's national energy tax or repealing 
ObamaCare, we will redouble our efforts to make sure Washington is 
meeting the needs of American families and addressing the American 
people's priorities.
  We plan to spend the second year of the 114th Congress the way we 
spent the first: fighting to make our economy stronger, our government 
more efficient and more accountable, and our Nation and our world safer 
and more secure.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.


                       Paris Climate Change Talks

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise to share a little bit of details 
about the climate talks that are going on in Paris at this very moment. 
A number of us in the Senate were able to go to Paris last weekend and 
to be engaged in that dialogue.
  What I was terrifically struck by was that 150 heads of state had 
come together to kick off these climate talks. That is the largest 
gathering of heads of state in human history. Why did that landmark 
event occur? It occurred because the challenge of global warming is the 
most grave concern facing human civilization on this planet, so heads 
of state wanted to be there to acknowledge the fact that we must come 
together as a community of nations across this globe and work together 
to take this on for the good of our stewardship of this planet. A 
larger number of nations have put forward pledges on the efforts they 
are going to make to reduce global warming gases, and 186 nations have 
put forward those pledges.
  One of the issues that is embedded in these climate talks is how 
ambitious the international community should be. There is this broad 
goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees centigrade over the course 
of this century. We have already gone up to 0.9. We are almost halfway 
to that level that has been identified by scientists as a catastrophic 
level, but the pledges that are being made in Paris are not sufficient 
to keep us to 2 degrees. So that is one of the points of discussion--
how can the community of nations be more ambitious.
  One of the points being made is that we should come back together 
every 5 years to keep redoubling our efforts; that we know the pledges 
being made in Paris will not be enough, so we have to keep coming back 
to this challenge.
  We also have observed how dramatically the amount of information has 
changed over the last 5 years. We know that in another 25 years we will 
have a lot more information about what is occurring in the world and 
how successful the initial efforts have been.
  Then there is a group that is saying we need to go even further and 
work to reduce the amount of damage that could be done, and that means 
limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, which would take an even faster 
transition from a fossil fuel energy economy to a renewable energy 
economy. So that is an area of conversation--how ambitious can we be as 
an international community at this point and how can we improve on the 
efforts being put forward in Paris in the years to come.
  A second point is that there is a profound need for working together 
between developed nations and developing nations, between richer 
nations and poorer nations. Poorer nations are saying: We have a lot of 
folks who have never had access to electricity, and we need to provide 
the cheapest pathway to provide that electricity. Often, that is coal. 
Well, then, how do we make renewable, clean energy as inexpensive as 
coal energy so that nations can bypass establishing that utility-scale 
fossil fuel infrastructure. So that is a key piece of conversation.
  A third point is about reporting requirements. In order for us to 
have good policy now and in the future, we have to have good numbers on 
what is happening around the world, nation to nation. Nations feel a 
little sensitive about this idea of having an international community 
kind of working to double check the way they evaluate what is going on 
at home, but we need to convey the notion that these numbers--good 
numbers coming from each nation--are essential for nations to be able 
to participate in this international effort that will lead to success 
in curbing runaway global warming.
  I think it is enormously clear that Paris is a tremendous step 
forward. The number of heads of state that have attended, the number of 
nations that have put forward pledges, the intensity of the 
conversation at this very moment--people are recognizing that we are 
the first generation that has been impacted by global warming, and we 
are the last that can do something significant about it because, 
unfortunately, as we go forward a generation from now, we have not 
succeeded in curbing global warming gases. The carbon dioxide and 
methane gas will have such a profound feedback mechanism that it will 
be much harder to address this issue.
  I am pleased the administration has taken this so seriously and that 
nations throughout the world are taking it so seriously.


                               H.R. 1599

  Also, Madam President, I want to turn to the budget and spending 
negotiations underway right now. I came to the floor last week to note 
that there were conversations occurring about possibly taking away 
States' rights to be able to pass laws labeling food that is GE or GMO 
food; that is, genetically engineered or genetically modified food. To 
do so would simply be wrong--wrong in the absence of a cohesive, 
coherent, easy-to-use system of labeling at the Federal level, which we 
do not have. It would be an intrusion on States' rights in one of the 
most sensitive areas to citizens, and that is the food they put in 
their mouth.
  This act of taking away States' rights and citizens' rights to know 
what is in their food is known as the DARK Act, the Deny Americans the 
Right to Know Act--the acronym DARK. Isn't it ironic that there are 
legislators here who are not only pursuing the DARK Act, but they are 
pursuing it in the dark of night. They are

[[Page 19686]]

afraid to have a conversation in the relevant policy committee to 
address it. Whenever legislators fear public reaction, fear addressing 
the pros and cons in a public forum, you can bet there is something 
wrong with what they are up to. So that is why we must all be vigilant 
in these coming days to make sure this DARK Act is not inserted into 
the must-pass spending bill in the dark of night.


                        Embracing All Religions

  Madam President, I want to close, to follow up on the comments I made 
yesterday about the proposal from Donald Trump to bar Muslims from 
entering our country under any avenue--not as refugees, not as business 
men and women, not as tourists, not as students--and again say how 
absolutely wrong it would be. This is the single worst idea I have 
heard from a Presidential candidate, ever.
  We should all recognize that right now our men and women in uniform 
of every religion--Christian and Protestant and Catholic and Jewish and 
Muslim and Buddhist and who knows what other religions--they are 
working together to take on the terrorist threat known as ISIS. Islam 
is not our enemy. ISIS is our enemy. Right now we are working in 
partnership with nations that are Islamic nations, and those leaders 
are Islamic. We are saying to them: We will work in partnership with 
you because Islam is not our enemy. ISIS is our enemy.
  I can tell my colleagues that ISIS has a strategy. Their strategy has 
been to create their mission as the United States against Islam, and 
the comments of Donald Trump played right into the playbook of the 
terrorists, making our Nation less safe, increasing the radicalization 
of folks around the world who have been listening to the message from 
ISIS and now have some reason to believe it might have some 
foundation--that America is against Islam. We are not, and we have been 
hearing that from Democratic voices and we have been hearing that from 
Republican voices. We have been hearing it from Senators and from House 
Members across Capitol Hill. We have been hearing it from legislators 
and we have been hearing it from citizens, Americans standing up and 
saying that Donald Trump is wrong. That is certainly something to be 
applauded. I praise my colleagues of both parties. I praise our 
citizens of both parties who have stood up to say we stand shoulder to 
shoulder with all patriotic Americans regardless of their religion, and 
we are united in taking on ISIS.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the education 
reform conference report that we will be voting on tomorrow, which I 
think is a good bill for two big reasons. First, it restores a 
significant level of decisionmaking power to the States and local 
school districts, which is where decisions about things like curriculum 
should occur. It diminishes the ability of the administration to 
pressure school districts and States into adopting the Common Core 
curriculum, for instance, leaving it to the discretion of the States 
and school districts to decide exactly what their curriculum will be. I 
think that is a sensible and appropriate approach.
  There is another big reason I think this education reform bill is an 
important bipartisan victory for kids, and that is for the first time I 
am aware of, the Congress is acting to protect our kids from pedophiles 
who infiltrate our schools and who have sexually abused children in the 
classroom.
  I know you are actively supportive of this effort, as many of our 
colleagues are, and I am delighted we were able to make it through the 
entire process, as painful and slow as it was. This important provision 
survived this process, and we will be voting tomorrow on the overall 
bill.
  I want to talk about this a little bit, but let me make it clear 
right up front that I understand--as I assume we all do--that the vast, 
overwhelming majority of teachers and school employees would never harm 
children in their care. They would never hurt them. They would never do 
it. They care deeply about the kids, and that is probably a big part of 
the reason they pursued a career in education. But it is also a fact 
that schools are where the children are and pedophiles in our midst are 
very aware of that, and they are attracted to schools for exactly that 
reason. The number of pedophiles who are succeeding in abusing children 
in schools is absolutely shocking; it is to me. Last year there were 
459 school employees, mostly teachers--not all teachers but employees 
in schools--arrested for sexual misconduct with the children they are 
supposed to be taking care of. That is more than one a day, and 
unfortunately 26 of them were in Pennsylvania.
  So far, 2015 is almost over. We have already exceeded the number from 
2014. We are on a path to have well over 460 teachers and other school 
employees arrested for sexual misconduct with kids. Let's be honest; an 
arrest occurs only when there is sufficient evidence to press charges, 
to make a criminal case in a court of law. How many more cases are 
occurring where we haven't had sufficient evidence to prosecute?
  The story that put this need on my radar is the absolutely horrendous 
story of a child named Jeremy Bell. This story begins in Delaware 
County, PA. One of the schoolteachers was molesting young boys. In 
time, the school administrators discovered what was going on. The local 
district attorney didn't feel there was enough evidence to actually 
prosecute a case. You know, it is hard to fire a teacher, so what the 
school did is it sat the teacher down and said: Here's the deal. You 
need to leave, but don't worry. We will give you a letter of 
recommendation so you can get a job somewhere else. That is exactly 
what happened.
  This monster went to West Virginia, got hired as a teacher, and 
eventually became a principal. Of course along the way he continued to 
abuse children. In the end he raped and murdered a 12-year-old boy 
named Jeremy Bell. Justice finally caught up with this monster. He is 
serving a life sentence in prison as we speak, but it was too late for 
Jeremy Bell.
  As a father of three young children, I find this whole idea so 
appalling that it is hard to talk about it and hard to think about it. 
We would all like to think that a story like the story of Jeremy Bell 
is a freak occurrence, a once-in-a-million-years kind of thing, but 
that is not the case. It is just not true. In fact, it has happened so 
frequently that it has its own name. It is called passing the trash. 
The people who spend their lives serving and helping the victims of 
these horrendous crimes to cope with them know about this phenomenon 
all too well.
  I will give you more recent examples. Just this year, WUSA News 9 
reported that the school district of Montgomery County, MD, had a 
record of passing the trash. An elementary school teacher named Daniel 
Picca abused children for 17 years. The Maryland school district knew 
what was going on. What did they do? The teacher's punishment was to be 
moved from school to school to school, reassigning him every time a 
problem emerged, as though the problem was the school and not the 
pedophile. For 17 years they were passing a known child molester from 
one group of victims to another.
  Consider a case of the Las Vegas, NV, kindergarten teacher who was 
recently arrested for kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and infecting her 
with a sexually transmitted disease in the course of abusing her. That 
same teacher had molested six children--all fourth and fifth grade 
children--just a few years before when he was working in the Los 
Angeles school district. The Los Angeles school district knew about the 
allegations, but when the Nevada school specifically asked if there 
were any criminal concerns regarding this teacher when he was applying 
for a job there, the Los Angeles school district not only hid the 
truth, it provided three references for the teacher--so strong was 
their interest in making him become someone else's problem.
  These are examples that are all the more disturbing when you consider 
that, according to a study by the GAO--Government Accountability 
Office--the average pedophile working at

[[Page 19687]]

a school victimizes 73 children over the course of a lifetime.
  We have an opportunity tomorrow to say enough is enough. This is 
enough. This has been way too much--no more children falling prey to 
these monsters who have been able to infiltrate our classrooms, no more 
childhoods shattered, no more families devastated with grief, no more 
Jeremy Bells.
  The amendment itself is just common sense--really just common 
decency. It simply holds that if a State accepts Federal education 
funds, it has to have a law that bans the practice of knowingly 
recommending a pedophile to another school. Is there anybody in 
Pennsylvania or Colorado who thinks that is unreasonable? I don't think 
so.
  I am delighted that we have gotten to this point. There are a lot of 
people I would like to thank for their help. I have to start with 
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who joined me at the very 
beginning. We introduced this legislation over 2 years ago as a 
freestanding bill. In addition to banning passing the trash, it would 
require thorough and rigorous background checks for any school worker 
who has unsupervised access to children. That part was not included in 
this. I am not giving up on that. We will have that fight again. The 
part that bans passing the trash did succeed and demonstrates that with 
perseverance the right outcome can occur.
  I would like to thank the other cosponsors of this legislation, 
Senators McConnell, Alexander, Capito, Cotton, Gardner, Heller, Inhofe, 
Johnson, McCain, Roberts, Vitter, and Wicker. I would particularly like 
to thank the chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Alexander, and 
Senator Murray, the ranking member. We talked about how we could make 
this work mechanically and make sure that we have legislation that will 
in fact achieve the desired outcome.
  I also need to send out a huge thank-you to all the child advocates 
and the law enforcement folks around the country, especially in 
Pennsylvania, who worked so hard to make this legislation happen. They 
were invaluable. I hope they realize how much of a difference they made 
in helping to persuade our colleagues to get this done.
  I thank Terri Miller and John Seryak of S.E.S.A.M.E., who have been 
fighting to protect children in the classroom for decades. I also thank 
the National Children's Alliance and the many child advocacy centers 
across Pennsylvania, most of which I have been able to visit, for the 
wonderful work they do for kids who need it badly; the Pennsylvania 
Coalition Against Rape; the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children; the Center For Children's Justice; MassKids; the American 
Academy of Pediatrics; the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys; the 
National District Attorneys Association; the Pennsylvania District 
Attorney's Association; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 
Association; the National Sheriffs' Association; and the National 
Association of Police Organizations. Every one of these groups weighed 
in on this legislation and helped us to get this over the goal line 
over the course of a long, protracted series of negotiations.
  Tomorrow I think we are going to have an important victory in our 
ongoing effort to protect children from sexual abuse. It is the first 
time that the U.S. Congress has acted to protect children in this way. 
There is more that needs to be done. I still think we need to revisit 
the state of the background checks that are applied. There are States 
that do not have an adequate background check system in place, and if 
they are taking Federal funding--which they are--they ought to have an 
adequate background check system.
  The truth is that this is a big step forward, and I am delighted we 
were able to get here. I am grateful for the help of every Senator who 
helped us get to this point. For this reason, for the sake of this 
amendment as well as the general thrust of the legislation, which is to 
move decisionmaking power back to the States and school districts where 
it belongs, I would urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the 
conference report tomorrow.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, thank you very much. I ask unanimous 
consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Paris Climate Change Negotiations

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the ranking member of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Ben Cardin, led a delegation of 10 
Senators to Paris this past weekend. We went to support the ``high-
ambition coalition'' on the international climate agreement. It was 
truly impressive to see so many nations represented at the meeting, 
active and trying to help. All of us in the codel came away from Paris 
with a good feeling about the prospects for a strong climate agreement.
  I had the chance to speak at Oceans Day, where people were keenly 
aware that the effects of carbon pollution on our oceans are 
undeniable. You can measure the warming oceans with thermometers. You 
measure sea level rise with basically a yardstick. You can measure 
acidification of the seas with simple pH tests. You can replicate what 
excess CO2 does to seawater in a basic high school science 
lab. That is why the big, phony climate denial apparatus the fossil 
fuel industry is running never talks about oceans. It is undeniable 
there.
  I also had a chance in Paris to cheer on our bright, young 
negotiating team staff, who worked late hours in their windowless 
common workspace but were very enthusiastic and made me very proud.
  The delegation also met with Todd Stern, who was leading the U.S. 
negotiating team, and we visited the NOAA scientists who were at the 
U.S. Pavilion. The U.S. presence there was great.
  One thing was sad, and that is that our Senate delegation of 10 
Senators was all Democrats. The last political bastian of the fossil 
fuel industry worldwide is now the American Republican Party. No 
Republican was able to come with us. The fossil fuel industry would 
never let them.
  I will say the fossil fuel industry is behaving reprehensibly. The 
power it exerts over Congress is polluting American democracy. The spin 
and propaganda it emits through a vast array of front groups are 
polluting our public discourse. Of course, its carbon emissions are 
polluting our atmosphere and oceans.
  These fossil fuel companies are sinning, and on a monumental scale. 
Remember what Pope Francis said in his encyclical: ``Today . . . sin is 
manifest in . . . attacks on nature. . . . [A] sin against ourselves 
and a sin against God.''
  Their behavior is truly reprehensible. They have a lot to atone for.
  But this is not exactly the American Republican party's finest hour, 
either. It is the world's only major political party so in tow to the 
fossil fuel industry that it cannot face up to the realities of carbon 
pollution and climate change. Some ``City on a Hill'' that leaves us.
  Notwithstanding all the Republican intransigence, we were able to 
tell the world that we would have the President's back, and we will. We 
will protect the Clean Power Plan, we will protect the Clean Air Act, 
and we will protect any agreement that comes out of Paris.
  One nice thing in Paris was the presence of American companies, such 
as PG&E of California, VF Corporation of North Carolina--one of our 
biggest apparel manufacturers--Citigroup of New York, Kellogg of 
Michigan, Ben and Jerry's of Vermont, and Facebook of basically 
everywhere. They were there to cheer on a good deal, and so was the 
American Sustainable Business Council. And they have been doing this 
for a long while.
  Some of America's leading food companies took out this ad in the 
Washington Post and Financial Times on October 1 urging a strong 
agreement in Paris. The companies that have signed it include Mars--if 
you like M&Ms, you know about Mars--General Mills, Nestle USA, Unilever 
Corporation, Kellogg Company, Stonyfield Farm, and Dannon USA. On 
November 24, it was

[[Page 19688]]

updated with new signatories, including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and 
Hershey.
  Quoting from the ad:

       Dear US and Global Leaders:
       Now is the time to meaningfully address the reality of 
     climate change. We are asking you to embrace the opportunity 
     presented to you in Paris. . . . We are ready to meet the 
     climate challenges that face our businesses. Please join us 
     in meeting the climate challenges that face the world.

  This is an ad taken out in Politico by another group of well-known 
apparel companies, including Levi's--if you know blue jeans, you know 
Levi's; Gap; Eileen Fischer, VF Corporation, which makes Timberland, 
North Face, and a number of other well-known brands, urging a strong 
agreement in Paris. This ad ran during talks on Thursday, December 3:

       To US and Global Leaders:
       As the world gathers in Paris this week for the 2015 United 
     Nations Conference of the Parties, we come together, as some 
     of the largest, best known global apparel companies, to 
     acknowledge that climate change is harming the world in which 
     we operate. . . . We recognize that human-produced greenhouse 
     gas emissions are a key contributor to climate change. . . . 
     We support a strong global deal that will accelerate the 
     transition to a low carbon economy.

  Those industries are not alone. Here is an ad from a coalition of 
about 70 major American corporations again urging a strong agreement in 
Paris. They include Coca-Cola, Adidas, Intel, Colgate Palmolive, the 
Hartford Insurance Company, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, 
National Grid, DuPont, the Outdoor Industry Association, and others. 
They say:

       Failure to tackle climate change could put America's 
     economic prosperity at risk. But the right action now would 
     create jobs and boost competitiveness. We encourage our 
     government to . . . seek a strong and fair global climate 
     deal in Paris.

  Seventy major American corporations, every single one whose name you 
know, are saying: We seek a fair climate deal in Paris.
  Finally, this is a financial sector statement on climate change from 
the financial giants: Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan 
Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, again calling for a robust 
global agreement out of Paris. They state:

       We call for leadership and cooperation among governments 
     for commitments leading to a strong global climate agreement.

  They want frameworks ``that recognize the costs of carbon.''
  They say:

       We are aligned on the importance of policies to address the 
     climate challenge.

  It is time people started listening.
  And let's not forget the more than 150 American companies that have 
signed on to the White House's American Business Act on Climate Pledge, 
joining that call for a strong outcome on the Paris climate 
negotiations. Those companies on the White House American Business Act 
on Climate Pledge have operations in all 50 States, employ nearly 11 
million people, represent more than $4.2 trillion in annual revenue, 
and have a combined market capitalization of over $7 trillion. Yet, if 
you believe some of my friends on the other side, they are all just 
part of a big old hoax trying to fool everybody. Really?
  Unfortunately, while the world is listening to these strong corporate 
voices for a strong Paris agreement, these companies' own home State 
Republican Senators are right here in Congress trying to undercut their 
home State companies' work. But the world listens to the companies, not 
the deniers.
  One of their best voices is Unilever, whose CEO Paul Polman met with 
our delegation to express the growing support in the corporate 
community for climate action and to describe Unilever's work to 
catalyze that support.
  We met with Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, and 
heard about a meeting scheduled for May here in Washington, DC, for 
corporate CEOs to come to Congress and let us know they want climate 
action.
  The grip of the fossil fuel companies on Congress will slip, as other 
corporate leaders come forward to urge strong climate action. Pretty 
soon, there is going to be a very small island of denial and 
obstruction left in a rising sea of reality. Pretty soon, there will be 
nobody left on the shrinking Denial Island but the fossil fuel 
industry, the Koch brothers and their front groups, and the Republican 
Members of Congress--oh yes, of course, can't forget the Republican 
Presidential candidates who are so desperate to toady up to the fossil 
fuel industry that they won't acknowledge this issue. Mark my words: As 
the rest of corporate America stands up, the fossil fuel industry's 
fortress of denial and deceit will tumble down.
  Paris sends a strong message of hope that echoes Pope Francis's 
strong encyclical on climate change. Governments, corporations, and 
civil society groups are a gathering force behind that message.
  Vice President Gore, who has labored long in these vineyards, met 
with us in Paris and had a strong message of hope. Against the gloomy 
falsehoods the fossil fuel industry propagates, hope burns bright for 
this gathering force.
  The Vice President observed to us that ``things take longer to happen 
than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought 
they could.'' From a man who has been through--uniquely--this all 
taking a long, his confidence in fast happenings was heartening.
  So not only is it time to wake up, but the world is waking up. 
Corporate America is waking up outside of the narrow, selfish confines 
of the fossil fuel industry. Wise Republicans are starting to stir--and 
the sooner the better.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
materials I referred to during my remarks.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                      Dear US and Global Leaders:

       This could be a turning point.
       When you convene in Paris later this year for climate 
     negotiations, you will have an opportunity to take action 
     that could significantly change our world for the better.
       As heads of some of the world's largest food companies, we 
     have come together today to call out that opportunity.
       Climate change is bad for farmers and for agriculture. 
     Drought, flooding and hotter growing conditions threaten the 
     world's food supply and contribute to food insecurity.
       By 2050, it is estimated that the world's population will 
     exceed nine billion, with two-thirds of all people living in 
     urban areas. This increase in population and urbanization 
     will require more water, energy and food, all of which are 
     compromised by warming temperatures.
       The challenge presented by climate change will require all 
     of us--government, civil society and business--to do more 
     with less. For companies like ours, that means producing more 
     food on less land using fewer natural resources. If we don't 
     take action now, we risk not only today's livelihoods, but 
     also those of future generations.
       We want the women and men who work to grow the food on our 
     tables to have enough to eat themselves, and to be able to 
     provide properly for their families.
       We want the farms where crops are grown to be as productive 
     and resilient as possible, while building the communities and 
     protecting the water supplies around them.
       We want to see only the most energy-efficient modes of 
     transport shipping products and ingredients around the world.
       We want the facilities where we make our products to be 
     powered by renewable energy, with nothing going to waste.
       As corporate leaders, we have been working hard toward 
     these ends, but we can and must do more.
       Today, we are making three commitments--to each other, to 
     you as our political leaders, and to the world.
       We will:
       Re-energize our companies' continued efforts to ensure that 
     our supply chain becomes more sustainable, based on our own 
     specific targets;
       Talk transparently about our efforts and share our best 
     practices so that other companies and other industries are 
     encouraged to join us in this critically important work;
       Use our voices to advocate for governments to set clear, 
     achievable, measurable and enforceable science-based targets 
     for carbon emissions reductions.
       That's where you come in.
       Now is the time to meaningfully address the reality of 
     climate change. We are asking you to embrace the opportunity 
     presented to you in Paris, and to come back with a sound 
     agreement, properly financed, that can affect real change.
       We are ready to meet the climate challenges that face our 
     businesses. Please join us in meeting the climate challenges 
     that face the world.

[[Page 19689]]

       Signed,

       Grant Reid (President & CEO; Mars, Incorporated), Kendall 
     J. Powell (Chairman of the Board & CEO; General Mills, Inc.), 
     Muhtar Kent (Chairman & CEO; The Coca-Cola Company), Paul 
     Polman (Chief Executive; Unilever), Mariano Lozano (President 
     & CEO Dannon & Regional VP; Danone Dairy North America), John 
     P. Bilbrey (Chairman of the Board, President & CEO; The 
     Hershey Company), Jostein Solheim (CEO; Ben & Jerry's), John 
     Bryant (Chief Executive Officer; Kellogg Company), Indra K. 
     Nooyi (Chairman & CEO; PepsiCo), Paul Grimwood (Chairman & 
     CEO; Nestle USA), Kimberly Jordan (Cofounder & CEO; New 
     Belgium Brewing Company), Irwin D. Simon (Founder, President, 
     CEO & Chairman of the Board; The Hain Celestial Group, Inc.), 
     Esteve Torrens (President & CEO; Stonyfield Farm, Inc.), 
     Kevin Cleary (CEO; Clif Bar).
                                  ____


                        To US and Global Leaders

       As the world gathers in Paris this week for the 2015 United 
     Nations Conference of the Parties, we come together, as some 
     of the largest, best known global apparel companies, to 
     acknowledge that climate change is harming the world in which 
     we operate.
       From the farmers in cotton fields to the workers in garment 
     factories, we know that people in some of the least climate-
     resilient regions are being negatively impacted by a warming 
     world. Drought, changing temperatures and extreme weather 
     will make the production of apparel more difficult and 
     costly.
       We recognize that human-produced greenhouse gas emissions 
     are a key contributor to climate change. Climate change 
     mitigation and technological innovation are vital to the 
     health and well being of those who make and use our products, 
     as well as to the future supply of materials needed to make 
     those products.
       Therefore . . .
       We call upon you to reach a global agreement that provides 
     the certainty businesses need and the ambition that climate 
     science demands.
       We support a strong global deal that will accelerate the 
     transition to a low carbon economy and that includes:
       A global goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions well 
     before the end of the century.
       National carbon emission mitigation commitments that are 
     strengthened every five years starting in 2020 with a clear 
     timetable for new commitments in 5-year blocks from 2030 
     onwards.
       Adaptation funding to build climate-resilient economies and 
     communities.
       Today we pledge to:
       I. Continue to reduce our emissions while increasing the 
     purchase of renewable energy and pursuing energy efficiency 
     in our operations.
       II. Advocate for climate and energy policies that 
     meaningfully address climate change at the global, national 
     and state/regional levels.
       III. Engage our respective trade associations in thoughtful 
     discussions on meaningful climate and energy policy and 
     advocacy that promotes the long-term growth and prosperity of 
     our sector and the health of the global economy.
       We are prepared to be held accountable to our pledge.
       We are ready to meet the climate challenges that face our 
     businesses. Please join us in meeting the climate challenges 
     that face our world.

       Eric Wiseman (Chairman & CEO; VF Corporation), Herbert 
     Hainer (CEO; Adidas Group), Jake Burton Carpenter & Donna 
     Carpenter (Founders; Burton Snowboards), Eileen Fisher 
     (Founder & Chairwoman; Eileen Fisher), Chip Bergh (President 
     & CEO; Levi Strauss & Co.), Art Peck (Chief Executive 
     Officer; Gap Inc.), Karl-Johan Persson (CEO; H&M).
                                  ____


                           [lowcarbonusa.org]


                           PAID ADVERTISEMENT

                     Business Backs Low-Carbon USA

       We are some of the businesses that will help create the 
     future economy of the United States.
       We want this economy to be energy efficient and low carbon. 
     We believe there are cost-effective and innovative solutions 
     that can help us achieve that objective. Failure to tackle 
     climate change could put America's economic prosperity at 
     risk. But the right action now would create jobs and boost 
     competitiveness.
       We encourage our government to
       1. seek a strong and fair global climate deal in Paris that 
     provides long-term direction and periodic strengthening to 
     keep global temperature rise below 2 C
       2. support action to reduce U.S. emissions that achieves or 
     exceeds national commitments and increases ambition in the 
     future
       3. support investment in a low-carbon economy at home and 
     abroad, giving industry clarity and boosting the confidence 
     of investors
       We pledge to continue efforts to ensure a just transition 
     to a low-carbon, energy efficient U.S. economy and look 
     forward to enabling strong ambition in the U.S. and at the 
     Paris climate change conference.

       Autodesk, Inc.; The Coca-Cola Company; Unilever; Adidas 
     Group; Johnson Controls, Inc.; Clif Bar & Company; Intel; 
     Kingspan Insulated Panels; Microsoft; Qualcomm; Sprint; 
     Colgate-Palmolive Company; Smartwool; The Hartford; Volvo, 
     Volvo Group North America; Burton; Snowbird; eBay; Seventh 
     Generation; Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies; Vail 
     Resorts; Levi Strauss & Co.; EMC; New Belgium Brewing 
     Company; Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows; Annie's; Alta; General 
     Mills; Dignity Health; BNY Mellon; Jupiter Oxygen 
     Corporation; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Outdoor Industry 
     Association; Procter & Gamble; Ben & Jerry's; Schneider 
     Electric; Xanterra; Nike; The North Face; Symantec; JLL; 
     Powdr Corporation; Gap Inc.; Owens Corning; EnerNOC; Hilton 
     Worldwide; VF Corporation; Guggenheim; Timberland; L'Oreal; 
     IKEA; Aspen Snowmass, Aspen Skiing Company; Vulcan; Eileen 
     Fisher; DuPont; CA Technologies; Nestle; Pacific Gas and 
     Electric Company; Catalyst; Sealed Air; National Grid; 
     Saunders Hotel Group; Hewlett Packard; Kellogg's; Teton 
     Gravity Research; Dell; Mars, Incorporated; NRG; Ingersoll 
     Rand.
                                  ____


  In Support of Prosperity and Growth: Financial Sector Statement on 
                             Climate Change

       Scientific research finds that an increasing concentration 
     of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is warming the planet, 
     posing significant risks to the prosperity and growth of the 
     global economy. As major financial institutions, working with 
     clients and customers around the globe, we have the business 
     opportunity to build a more sustainable, low-carbon economy 
     and the ability to help manage and mitigate these climate-
     related risks.
       Our institutions are committing significant resources 
     toward financing climate solutions. These actions alone, 
     however, are not sufficient to meet global climate 
     challenges. Expanded deployment of capital is critical, and 
     clear, stable and long-term policy frameworks are needed to 
     accelerate and further scale investments.
       We call for leadership and cooperation among governments 
     for commitments leading to a strong global climate agreement. 
     Policy frameworks that recognize the costs of carbon are 
     among many important instruments needed to provide greater 
     market certainty, accelerate investment, drive innovation in 
     low carbon energy, and create jobs. Over the next 15 years, 
     an estimated $90 trillion will need to be invested in urban 
     infrastructure and energy. The right policy frameworks can 
     help unlock the incremental public and private capital needed 
     to ensure this infrastructure is sustainable and resilient.
       While we may compete in the marketplace, we are aligned on 
     the importance of policies to address the climate challenge. 
     In partnership with our clients and customers, we will 
     provide the financing required for value creation and the 
     vision necessary for a strong and prosperous economy for 
     generations to come.

       Bank of America; Citi; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase; 
     Morgan Stanley; Wells Fargo.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

                          ____________________