[Senate Report 113-137]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       Calendar No. 279

113th Congress        }                       {               Report
                      }         SENATE        { 
 2d Session                                                   113-137
======================================================================

 
                    THE SUPPORTING AT-RISK KIDS ACT

                                  _______


                February 6, 2014.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

              Mr. Baucus, from the Committee on Finance, 

                        submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                             together with

                             MINORITY VIEWS

                         [To accompany S. 1870]

      [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

    The Committee on Finance, having considered an original 
bill, S. 1870, to reauthorize and restructure adoption 
incentive payments, to better enable State child welfare 
agencies to prevent sex trafficking of children and serve the 
needs of children who are victims of sex trafficking, to 
increase the reliability of child support for children, and for 
other purposes, reports favorably thereon and recommends that 
the bill do pass.

                                CONTENTS

Background and Need for Legislative Action.......................     2
Legislative History and Committee Action.........................     8
Title I--Strengthening and Finding Families for Children.........    15
  Subtitle A--Adoption Incentive Payments........................    16
  Sec. 111--Extension of Program Through Fiscal Year 2016........    16
  Sec. 112--Improvements to Award Structure......................    16
  Sec. 113--Renaming the Program.................................    21
  Sec. 114--Limitations on Use of Incentive Payments.............    21
  Sec. 115--State Report on Calculation and Use of Savings 
    Resulting from the Phase-Out of Eligibility Requirements for 
    Adoption Assistance; Requirement to Spend 40 Percent of 
    Savings on Certain Services..................................    21
  Sec. 116--Preservation of Eligibility for Kinship Guardianship 
    Assistance Payments with a Successor Guardian................    22
  Sec. 117--Data Collection on Adoption and Foster Child 
    Guardianship Disruption and Dissolution......................    23
  Sec. 118--Effective Dates......................................    24
  Subtitle B--Extension of Family Connection Program.............    24
  Sec. 121--Extension of Family Connection Grant Program.........    24
  Subtitle C--Unemployment Compensation..........................    26
  Sec. 131--Improving the Collection of Unemployment Insurance 
    Overpayments through Tax Refund Offset.......................    26
Title II--Identifying and Serving Youth Vulnerable to Sex 
  Trafficking....................................................    26
  Subtitle A--Addressing the Risks that Make Youth Vulnerable to 
    Sex Trafficking..............................................    26
  Sec. 211--Identifying and Screening Youth at Risk of Sex 
    Trafficking..................................................    26
  Sec. 212--Improvements to Another Planned Permanent Living 
    Arrangement (APPLA) as Permanency Option.....................    27
  Subtitle B--Empowering Older Youth Vulnerable to Domestic Sex 
    Trafficking and Other Negative Outcomes......................    31
  Sec. 221--Empowering Foster Youth Age 14 and Older in the 
    Development of Their Own Case Plan and Transition Planning 
    for a Successful Adulthood...................................    31
  Sec. 222--Ensuring Foster Children Age 14 or Older Have a Birth 
    Certificate, Social Security Card, Driver's License or 
    Equivalent and a Bank Account................................    33
  Subtitle C--Data and Reports...................................    34
  Sec. 231--Streamline Data Collection and Reporting on Sex 
    Trafficking..................................................    34
  Sec. 232--Recommendations to Congress for Expanding Housing for 
    Youth Victims of Trafficking.................................    36
  Subtitle D--National Advisory Committee on Domestic Sex 
    Trafficking..................................................    37
  Sec. 241--National Advisory Committee on Domestic Sex 
    Trafficking..................................................    37
Title III--Child Support Enforcement.............................    40
  Subtitle A--Increased Reliability of Child Support.............    40
  Sec. 311--Compliance with Multilateral Child Support 
    Conventions..................................................    40
  Sec. 312--Relief from Passport Sanctions for Certain Individual    45
  Sec. 313--Child Support Enforcement Programs for Indian Tribes.    46
  Sec. 314--Parenting Time Arrangements..........................    47
  Sec. 315--Efficient Use of the National Directory of New Hires 
    Database for Federally Sponsored Research Assessing the 
    Effectiveness of Federal Policies and Programs in Achieving 
    Positive Labor Market Outcomes...............................    48
  Subtitle B--Child Support Enforcement Task Force...............    49
  Sec. 321--Child Support Enforcement Task Force.................    49
  Subtitle C--Effective Dates....................................    50
  Sec. 331--Effective Dates......................................    50
  Appendix.......................................................    50

             I. BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION

    The Finance Committee has demonstrated a commitment to 
working in a bipartisan fashion on issues that affect the 
nation's children and youth. In the 112th and 113th Congresses 
the Finance Committee continued its commitment to children and 
young people through a series of roundtables, hearings, and 
legislative actions initiated by committee members. These 
activities of the Senate Finance Committee and its members 
culminated in the ``Supporting At-Risk Kids Act of 2013'' that 
seeks to address improved permanency for children in foster 
care, identify and provide services to youth at risk for 
domestic sex traffic and to prevent the trafficking of 
vulnerable children and youth, as well as to encourage parental 
involvement both fiscally and socially in the lives of children 
for whom child support is owed.

   TITLE I--STRENGTHENING AND FINDING FAMILIES FOR CHILDREN ADOPTION 
                        INCENTIVE GRANT PROGRAM

    The Adoption Incentive Payment program distributes federal 
bonuses to states when they increase adoptions of children in 
foster care. Under current law, states earn $4,000 for each 
adoption of a foster child that is above the number of foster 
child adoptions finalized by the state in FY 2007 and $8,000 
for each adoption of an older child (9 or older) above the 
number of older child adoptions finalized in 2007. If a state 
has earned an award in either of these categories, or if it has 
improved its adoption rate (above the rate achieved in 2002 or 
a later year with a higher rate), it earns $4,000 for each 
adoption of a ``special needs child above the number of such 
adoptions finalized in 2007.'' States can also receive a rate 
incentive payment of $1,000 multiplied by the increased number 
of adoptions calculated to have resulted from an improved rate, 
if appropriated funds are available.
    Adoption Incentive payments are authorized at $43 million a 
year.
    Under current law, states are permitted to spend their 
Adoption Incentive Payment on a broad range of child welfare 
services.
    The Committee Bill would modify the current adoption 
incentive program by allowing states to earn incentive payments 
for improvements to both legal guardianship and adoption; 
permitting awards in four separate categories, awarded 
independently and replacing the current number/set year basis 
with an incentive structure based on a state's adoption or 
guardianship rate for the current year based on the average of 
the three preceding years.
    The Committee finds that using this comparison removes the 
effect of overall caseload changes from the measurement of a 
state's performance, for states with a declining number of 
children in foster care, but a continued strong performance for 
increasing adoptions and guardianship. The Committee finds that 
for states with increasing caseloads, it can ensure that 
incentives are rewarded based on performance, not sheer numbers 
of children eligible.
    Furthermore, the Committee finds that using a three year 
average closest to the award year ensures that states are 
evaluated based on their most recent performance, rather than 
an arbitrary point in time.
    The Committee finds that the purpose of the incentive 
program is to attempt to increase permanency. For many older 
youth, adoption is not a viable outcome, but a guardianship 
placement is. The Committee finds that states should be 
rewarded for policies that contribute to a guardianship 
permanency outcome.
    The awards contemplated by the Committee Bill are as 
follows:
          $4,000 for foster care child adoptions above the base 
        rate;
          $8,000 for older child adoptions (9 years or older) 
        above the base rate;
          $4,500 for special needs adoptions (9 and younger) 
        above the base rate; and
          $4,000 for child guardianships above the base rate.
    In order to mitigate the effect of changing from a number 
to a rate on certain states, the Committee Bill contemplates a 
transition rule where the transition to a rate structure is 
phased in over three years.
    The Committee Bill makes improvements to the Fostering 
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 
which phased out the income eligibility standard for federal 
reimbursement for the award given to families who adopt a child 
out of foster care. CBO estimated that the federal government 
would spend $1 billion over ten years in increased Adoption 
Assistance funds.
    The Committee Bill would amend provisions of the adoption 
assistance component of the Title IV-E program related to 
accounting for and ``reinvesting'' certain state savings under 
the program. States are now required to document any savings 
that accrue to the state based on the incremental removal of 
federal income eligibility criteria for Title IV-E adoption 
assistance, which began in FY2010 and will be fully 
accomplished as of FY2018. Further, they must reinvest any such 
savings in one or more of the broad range of services that may 
be provided to children and their families under the child 
welfare programs authorized in Title IV-B and Title IV-E of the 
Social Security Act.
    The Committee Bill requires states to annually calculate 
any savings in state spending based on expanded Title IV-E 
eligibility criteria using a methodology specified by HHS or 
one proposed by the state and approved by HHS. Additionally, 
each state would need to annually submit to HHS: the 
methodology it used to calculate savings; the amount of any 
savings identified; and how the savings are to be spent. HHS 
would be required to post this state-reported information on 
its website.
    Additionally, states would be required to spend no less 
than 40% of any state savings identified to provide post-
adoption or post-guardianship services to children placed in 
adoptive homes or with guardians and to support and sustain 
positive permanent outcomes for children who otherwise might 
enter foster care. The law would be further amended to 
stipulate that the spending of any such savings would need to 
supplement, rather than supplant, any federal or non-federal 
money already being used to support child welfare services 
available under programs included in Title IV-B or Title IV-E 
of the Social Security Act.
    The Committee Bill also extends the Family Connection 
grants which support demonstration projects to implement four 
kinds of programs intended to enable children in foster care, 
or at risk of entering care, to stay connected (or newly 
connect) with family. These are:
          1. Kinship navigator programs;
          2. Intensive finding efforts;
          3. Family group decision-making meetings; and
          4. Residential family treatment programs that address 
        substance abuse and mental health issues.
    The Committee Bill would extend annual mandatory funding of 
$15 million for Family Connection Grants (Section 427 of the 
Social Security Act) for three years (FY2014-FY2016).
    The Committee Bill would remove a current law provision 
stipulating that no less than five percent of the Family 
Connection Grants funding provided in each fiscal year must be 
used to support kinship navigator programs.

 TITLE II--IDENTIFYING AND SERVING YOUTH VULNERABLE TO SEX TRAFFICKING

    The Committee finds that recent reports on sex trafficking 
estimate that hundreds of thousands of children and youth are 
at risk for domestic sex trafficking. This risk is compounded 
every year for up to 30,000 young people ``emancipated'' from 
foster care.
    The Committee finds that in order to combat domestic sex 
trafficking and improve outcomes for children and youth in 
foster care, systemic changes need to be made in the current 
child welfare system.
    During a June 5, 2013, Senate Finance Committee hearing, 
``Sex Trafficking and Exploitation in America: Child Welfare's 
Role in Prevention and Intervention,'' The Honorable Joette 
Katz, J.D., Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Children 
and Families testified that, ``Data shows that children who are 
involved with child welfare services, specifically in the 
foster care system are at a much higher risk of being 
trafficked into the sex trade.''
    Commissioner Katz went on to testify that, ``Since 2008 
when collaborative efforts in Connecticut significantly 
increased both internally at the department and externally with 
the community, there have been approximately 130 children who 
have been identified and confirmed as victims of domestic minor 
sex trafficking. Of these victims identified, 98 percent have 
been involved with child welfare services in some manner and 
many of these children have been victimized while legally in 
the care and custody of the department.''
    The changes in the Committee Bill make important steps in 
improving child welfare systems to help improve outcomes for 
children and youth vulnerable to domestic sex trafficking. The 
Committee heard testimony that in many states, if a girl is a 
trafficking victim who has been trafficked out of foster care, 
the child welfare agency will not provide services to her and 
many social workers are unaware of the signs of trafficking.
    From survivor Asia Graves, in testimony delivered at the 
June 5, 2013, Senate Finance Committee hearing.

          I did not wake up one morning and say that I wanted 
        to be a prostitute. No girl does. And, there is no such 
        thing as a ``child prostitute'' because legally 
        children cannot consent to be sold for sex. No girl 
        chooses to be a slave. Yet, girls like me are the face 
        of modern day slavery in America.
          You might ask how this can be possible. Here is how: 
        80 to 90% of victims of trafficking have been sexually 
        abused. That is my story, too. I was raped by my 
        mother's drug dealers from the ages of 6 to 10 years 
        old. I went to school and told my teachers as well as a 
        school social worker who just believed that I was 
        making it up. I stopped asking for help. My life as an 
        American victim of modern day slavery could have been 
        prevented. I am going to be honest with you right now. 
        The state child welfare system failed me as a child. 
        How is it possible a straight A student like myself 
        went missing and no one reported it? What about all 
        those social workers and foster homes where I was 
        abused and beaten?

    From Susan Goldfarb, Executive Director, Children's 
Advocacy Center of Suffolk County, Boston, MA in testimony 
before the Senate Finance Committee on June 5, 2013:

          In most states, child welfare becomes involved only 
        when an alleged offender is in a caretaking role. A 
        pimp is not considered a caretaker--so the majority of 
        exploitation reports are ``screened out''. All 
        exploited youth do not receive child welfare services. 
        A few states have expanded the scope of their screening 
        to include adult caretakers who have a child under his 
        or her control. This change allows exploited youth--who 
        have no familial caretaker in their life--to receive 
        the support and services of child welfare.

    The Committee Bill requires that by a year after enactment, 
as part of their eligibility for foster care payments, states, 
in consultation with the child protective services agencies, 
must demonstrate to the Secretary of HHS that they have 
developed policies and procedures for identifying and screening 
children who are either victims of sex trafficking or are at 
risk of becoming victims. The states must also determine the 
appropriate state action and services that will be made 
available for any child who the state reasonably believes is a 
victim, or is at risk of being a victim, of domestic sex 
trafficking. At state option, this provision applies to all 
youth up to age 26, regardless of whether or not that youth was 
in or is currently in or never was in foster care.
    Two years after enactment, the state must demonstrate to 
the Secretary that it is implementing these policies and 
procedures.
    The Committee Bill also requires that each state's Foster 
Care and Adoption Assistance plan contains a description of the 
specific measures taken to protect and provide services to 
children who are victims of sex trafficking. State plans must 
also ensure state child welfare workers: identify and document 
each child within the child welfare system who is identified as 
being a victim of sex trafficking; and report information on 
missing and abducted children to law enforcement authorities 
and requires law enforcement authorities to notify the National 
Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) when a child 
is missing from state care.

 ANOTHER PLANNED PERMANENT LIVING ARRANGEMENT (APPLA) AS A PERMANENCY 
                                 OPTION

    Many children and youth who are trafficked are considered, 
``throw away'' kids, kids who have run from foster care who 
have no permanent connection to a family or legal guardian. 
Many children in the foster care system are determined to be 
ineligible for adoption, reunification or placement with a 
legal guardian. Sometimes those designations occur at a very 
young age.
    The Committee finds that a designation that a child will 
never have a permanent family contributes to that child's 
vulnerability for a variety of negative outcomes, including 
domestic sex trafficking.
    The Committee Bill would require the court to submit 
findings as to why, as of the date of the hearing, another 
planned permanent living arrangement is the best placement 
option for the child and identify barriers to permanency 
outcomes other than another planned permanent living 
arrangement for the child. This section would prohibit an APPLA 
designation for youth under the age of 16.

                         CASE PLAN IMPROVEMENTS

    Many youth in foster care report they have no ``say'' in 
their foster care plan. As a result they report feeling 
confused and disenfranchised from their lives, leaving them 
vulnerable to negative outcomes. The Committee finds that youth 
in foster care should have the opportunity to play a bigger 
role in their case planning process.
    The Committee Bill requires states to include two members 
of case planning team of a child over the age of 14 who are 
chosen by that child and who are not the foster parent or the 
caseworker. A state may reject an individual if the state has 
good cause to believe an individual would not act in the 
child's best interest One individual selected by the child may 
be designated to be the child's advisor and as necessary 
advocate with respect to the application of the reasonable and 
prudent parent standard.
    The Committee Bill requires the case plan to include a 
written document that describes the child's rights with respect 
to education, health visitation and court participation and to 
staying safe and avoiding exploitation and a signed 
acknowledgement by the child that the child has been provided 
with a written copy of such document.

                             DOCUMENTATION

    The Committee find that there is an all too frequent 
scenario in foster care, where an 18 year old is 
``emancipated'' from foster care, has her few belongings 
stashed in a garbage bag and is driven to a homeless shelter 
where she is routinely preyed upon by traffickers. Many youth 
``emancipated'' from foster care have no form of 
identification, meaning they cannot rent an apartment, secure 
employment or travel.
    The Committee Bill requires states to ensure that every 
child who is emancipated from foster care have a copy of his or 
her birth certificate, a Social Security card, state ID, and a 
fee-free or low fee bank account. A state faces a penalty in 
the form of one percentage point in federal reimbursement for 
administration costs for every ten children the state 
emancipates without a birth certificate and a bank account 
unless the child, after consultation with the child's selected 
members of the case planning team, elects not to have a bank 
account.

        NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC SEX TRAFFICKING

    The Committee Bill creates a National Advisory Committee on 
Domestic Sex Trafficking (Advisory Committee). The Advisory 
Committee will be comprised of experts and government officials 
from the trafficking, child welfare, and other associated 
fields. The Advisory Committee's first duties will be to 
develop a uniform definition of domestic minor sex trafficking 
and then to develop best practices for states on trafficking 
prevention and intervention.

        TITLE III--CHILD SUPPORT IMPROVEMENT AND WORK PROMOTION

    Under the current federal Child Support Enforcement 
program, states have the option to recognize child support 
orders from other countries, and many of them do. 
Unfortunately, at times other countries do not reciprocate our 
states' efforts to collect child support from a noncustodial 
parent living abroad. To address this problem, the United 
States negotiated and signed the Hague Convention on the 
International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of 
Family Maintenance in 2007. The Senate then gave its consent in 
2010, but the United States cannot implement the treaty without 
enacting implementing legislation.
    The Committee Bill provides the implementing language 
needed to ratify the Hague Convention, a structured system for 
information exchange and enforcement of child support cases for 
participating countries, enabling states to more easily collect 
on child support orders involving parents abroad. The Committee 
Bill requires states to enact legislative changes so their 
State laws are consistent with the treaty, although some have 
already made such changes. States will need to enact these 
changes or risk losing Federal administrative funds. Ten States 
have already enacted these changes, but their provisions will 
not be in force until all States have and the treaty is 
ratified.
    Under current law, an individual with outstanding child 
support arrearages is prohibited from getting a passport.
    The Committee Bill recognizes that, in the current global 
economy, a growing number of employment opportunities may 
involve overseas travel. Accordingly, the Committee Bill would 
create the opportunity for overseas training, employment, and 
project completion by allowing certain people with child 
support debts to obtain a passport. In order to qualify for a 
passport under this provision, an individual is required to 
have arrears-only debt, a history of regular, good faith 
payments on their child support debt for at least a year, and 
the applicant's annual earnings must be under $100,000, 
regardless of family size. Additionally, the children for whom 
the child support is owed must be eighteen years or older. The 
responsibility would be on a qualified individual to apply to 
the Department of State for an exemption from the passport 
prohibition. The Department of State would be responsible for 
developing an application process for the exemption, in 
addition to creating an approval process. The State Department 
would inform HHS when such an exemption was provided and HHS 
would inform the state with jurisdiction of child support case.
    The Committee Bill also gives federally recognized Tribes 
who operate Child Support Enforcement programs the ability to 
access the federal parent locator service. Tribes are also 
given the same ability as states to apply for a Child Support 
Enforcement Program waiver. In addition, the Committee Bill 
also provides non-married parents the opportunity to enter into 
parenting time arrangements. This provision does not seek to 
change the fiscal responsibilities of non-custodial parents, 
but instead encourages both the fiscal and social involvement 
of custodial and non-custodial parents in a child's life.

                LEGISLATIVE HISTORY AND COMMITTEE ACTION


                 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TITLE I OF S. 1870

    In 1997, Congress established the Adoption Incentives 
program to provide bonus payments to states that increase the 
number of children who appropriately leave foster care for a 
permanent home with adoptive families. The incentive program 
was part of a package of policy reforms included in the 
Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105-89) that were 
intended to ensure timely actions by child welfare agencies to 
find safe and appropriate permanent families for children who 
would otherwise remain in foster care. The Adoption Incentive 
program was extended by the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 
(P.L. 108-145) when Congress--responding to the data showing 
the poor chances of adoption for older children remaining in 
foster care--added a new award category to specifically reward 
states' success in increasing the number of adoptions of older 
children (age 9 years or more). The Adoption Incentive program 
was again extended in 2008 as part of the Fostering Connections 
to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (P.L. 110-351).
    In addition to this extension, the 2008 Fostering 
Connections Act included a range of new child welfare policies 
intended to encourage the well-being of children in foster care 
and to provide additional federal support for children's 
permanency. Among the changes made by the 2008 law were--a new 
option for states to use federal funds (authorized under Title 
IV-E of the Social Security Act) to offset a part of the cost 
of providing kinship guardianship assistance to each eligible 
child leaving foster care for a permanent home with a legal 
relative guardian; creation of Family Connection grants to 
support public and private agencies efforts to use kinship 
navigator, family group decision-making, intensive family 
finding, and residential family treatment programs to 
strengthen the families of children who are in, or at risk of 
entering, foster care while improving those children's chance 
of staying connected to their families; and, via a phased in 
broadening of the federal Title IV-E eligibility criteria for 
children with special needs who are adopted, increased federal 
support to states providing ongoing Title IV-E assistance to 
these children.
    Since ASFA's enactment in 1997, the annual number of 
children leaving foster care for adoption has risen from 
roughly 30,000 to more than 50,000 and the average length of 
time it took states to complete the adoption of a child from 
foster care declined by close to one year (from about four 
years to less than three). Over the same time period, and in 
significant measure due to the greater number of children 
leaving foster care for adoption and at a faster pace, the 
overall number of children who remain in foster care on a given 
day declined by more than 29%--from a peak of 567,000 in FY1999 
to 400,000 in FY2012. Despite these successes, however, the 
number of children ``waiting for adoption'' (102,000 on the 
last day of FY2012) is roughly double the number of children 
who are adopted during a given year. Adoptions of older 
children remain far less common than adoptions of younger 
children, and some 26,000 youth aged out of foster care in 
FY2011, compared to just 19,000 in FY1999.
    On April 23, 2013, the Senate Committee on Finance held a 
hearing to consider reauthorization of the Adoption Incentives 
program, to extend funding for Family Connection Grants and, 
more broadly, to consider the kinds of changes necessary to 
make further improvements in the provision of foster care. The 
hearing revolved around the story of Antwone Fisher, who spent 
his entire childhood in foster care before ``aging out'' (just 
before his 18th birthday) to live in a homeless shelter. Mr. 
Fisher, who through personal perseverance and after enlisting 
in the U.S. Navy, became a successful adult, recounted his 
story for the Committee.
    Among other things, he highlighted the need for child 
welfare agencies to actively work to--find a permanent family 
for each child in foster care, ensure the safety and well-being 
of children while they are in care, and provide them with 
meaningful opportunities to prepare for adulthood.
    Other witnesses at the hearing stressed many of these same 
points. Gary Stangler, Executive Director of Jim Casey Youth 
Opportunities Initiative and a former state child welfare 
administrator in Missouri, focused on the need to engage youth 
in taking charge of their lives, including through transition 
planning and a form of individual development accounts known as 
``Opportunity Passports.''
    Eric Fenner, a managing director at Casey Family Programs, 
and former director of the Franklin County (Ohio) child welfare 
agency, talked about that agency's work to move from a 
``punitive'' system with a single ``fault-finding'' response to 
one that was collaborative and family-centered (providing 
responses commensurate with the family's needs and concerns). 
Mr. Fenner also discussed the county's use of flexible federal 
funding (made possible under Ohio's Title IV-E waiver) to 
invest in community-based services.
    Kevin Campbell, Founder of the Center for Family Finding 
and Youth Connections, asserted the need for child welfare 
agencies to place a greater value on finding and involving 
family in meeting the needs of the children they serve and 
suggested the need for them to develop a more systemic approach 
to identifying family members. Further he advocated requiring 
greater enforcement of, and new reporting on, current federal 
requirements (added to the Title IV-E program in 2008) for 
child welfare agencies to identify and give notice to adult 
relatives of children entering foster care.

                LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TITLE II OF S. 1870

    The federal government recognizes that older youth in 
foster care and those aging out are vulnerable to negative 
outcomes and may ultimately return to the care of the state as 
adults, either through the public welfare, criminal justice, or 
other systems. Federal law includes provisions to improve the 
well-being of these older youth. Under the federal foster care 
program, states may seek reimbursement for youth to remain in 
care up to the age of 21. States have been permitted to extend 
foster care to these older youth as of FY2011, following the 
passage of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing 
Adoptions Act (P.L. 110-351). In addition, a limited number of 
federal provisions are aimed at improving case planning for 
older youth and ensuring that these youth are involved in 
decisions about their care. For example, as added by P.L. 110-
351, states must assist youth with developing what is known as 
a transition plan. The plan is to be directed by the youth and 
is to include specific options on housing, health insurance, 
education, local opportunities for mentors, workforce supports, 
and employment services. The law requires that a youth's 
caseworker, and as appropriate, other representative(s) of the 
youth, assist him or her in developing the plan.
    Separately, federal law addresses sex trafficking primarily 
through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA, P.L. 106-
386), as amended (most recently by the Violence Against Women 
Reauthorization Act of 2013, P.L. 113-4). The act authorizes 
funds for services provided to child victims of sex 
trafficking, but limited funding has been appropriated for this 
purpose. Neither the TVPA nor federal child welfare law address 
the child welfare response to sex trafficking; however, some 
provisions in S. 1870 would amend Title IV-E of the Social 
Security Act to require child welfare agencies to identify and 
screen youth at risk of sex trafficking, and these provisions 
would reference ``sex trafficking'' and ``severe form of 
trafficking'' as they are defined under the TVPA.
    The Senate Committee on Finance has taken recent action to 
focus on the needs of older children in foster care and those 
who have been victimized by sex trafficking.
    On April 27, 2012 the Committee convened a roundtable 
discussion, ``Child Well-being in Foster Care: Examining the 
Relationship between Data and Efforts to Effect Positive 
Outcomes for Children.'' In attendance were Senators Baucus, 
Hatch, and Wyden; Committee and Committee Member staff; and 
child welfare stakeholders, including representatives from the 
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and current and 
former foster youth. Participants addressed a number of issues 
pertaining to child well-being, such as mental health, 
education, and permanency for children in foster care. A focus 
of the roundtable was on the need to normalize the experiences 
of foster children and improve permanency for older youth in 
care. Three youth described their experiences in foster care as 
alienating because they were not permitted to engage in age-
appropriate activities.
    On June 11, 2013 the Committee held a hearing on ``Sex 
Trafficking and Exploitation in America: Child Welfare's Role 
in Prevention and Intervention.'' The Committee heard testimony 
from the following individuals: Asia Graves, Maryland Outreach 
Services Coordinator and Survivor Advocate for FAIR Girls; 
Michelle Guymon, Probation Director for the Los Angeles County 
Probation Department, Innocence Lost LA Task Force; Susan 
Goldfarb, Executive Director of the Children's Advocacy Center 
of Suffolk County, MA; and Joette Katz, Commissioner of the 
Connecticut Department of Children and Families. Ms. Graves 
discussed her past victimization by sex traffickers and current 
work training youth, educators, and child welfare staff on 
identifying and responding to children who may be vulnerable to 
sex trafficking. Testimony from Commissioner Katz described how 
the Connecticut Department of Children and Families enables 
child victims of sex trafficking to be ``screened in'' for 
child welfare services. Ms. Guymon and Ms. Goldfarb testified 
about the types of partnerships that have formed between child 
welfare and other entities (i.e., Children's Advocacy Center, 
juvenile justice system, probation department, medical and 
mental health professionals) as part of the child welfare 
response to child sex trafficking.
    On September 25, 2013, researchers with the Institute of 
Medicine and National Research Council of the National 
Academies briefed Committee staff on findings from their 
report, ``Confronting Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex 
Trafficking of Minors in the United States.'' Commissioned by 
the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 
(OJJDP) within the Department of Justice's Office of Justice 
Programs (OJP), the report discussed evidence that commercial 
sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors within the 
United States has serious consequences for these youth and 
their families. Further, the report found that efforts to 
prevent commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of 
children are largely absent, and that efforts to identify and 
respond to these acts of exploitation are under-supported and 
uncoordinated. The report acknowledged that ``extensive efforts 
ultimately will be required to prepare a child welfare system 
that is not currently equipped to respond to the needs of these 
youth.'' The recommendations of the report include, among other 
items, improving collaboration and information sharing across 
multiple sectors such as the federal government, state and 
local governments, academic and research institutions, 
foundations and nongovernmental organizations, and the 
commercial sector.
    Legislation has been introduced in the 113th Congress that 
addresses both older children in foster care and children in 
foster care involved in sex trafficking. On June 7, 2013, 
Senator Wyden (with Senators Bennet, Blumenthal, Brown, 
Cantwell, Kirk, and Portman) introduced the Child Sex 
Trafficking Data and Response Act of 2013 (S. 1118). The bill 
would amend Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to require 
state child welfare agencies to identify and screen youth at 
risk of sex trafficking and report to the Department of Health 
and Human Services (HHS) the number of children in foster care 
who are identified as victims, among other related changes. The 
bill also includes stand-alone provisions that would address 
child victims of labor trafficking. On September 18, 2013, 
Senator Hatch introduced the ``Improving Outcomes for Youth At 
Risk for Sex Trafficking Act of 2013'' (S. 1518). S. 1518 would 
make numerous changes to Titles IV-B and IV-E of the Social 
Security Act, including provisions to prevent and respond to 
sex trafficking of children; support normalcy for children in 
foster care (including through implementation of a ``reasonable 
and prudent parenting standard'' for foster caregivers); limit 
use of the permanency plan option ``Another Planned Permanent 
Living Arrangement (APPLA),'' and better facilitate successful 
transitions to adulthood for all youth who experience foster 
care.

                LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TITLE III OF S. 1870

    The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, Title IV-D of 
the Social Security Act, offers Temporary Assistance to Needy 
Families (TANF) recipients and non-recipient families a number 
of services including; parent location, paternity 
establishment, establishment of child support orders, review 
and modification of support orders, collection of child support 
payments, distribution of support payments, and establishment 
and enforcement of medical child support orders.
    In Fiscal Year 2010, the CSE expenditures totaled nearly 
$5.8 billion and the program collected $4.88 in child support 
payments for every dollar.
    On February 7, 2013 the Senate Finance Committee held a 
roundtable; ``Child Support Enforcement: Addressing Immediate 
and Future Challenges for Child Support Enforcement Agencies.'' 
The roundtable discussants were state child support 
administrators, judges, congressional staff, and other 
stakeholders. The Committee heard a number of recommendations 
to improve collection and delivery of payments and services to 
custodial and non-custodial parents.

International enforcement of child support

    It is often difficult to enforce child support obligations 
in cases where the custodial parent and child live in one 
country and the noncustodial parent lives in another. The 
United States has to date not ratified a multilateral child 
support enforcement treaty dealing with this issue. The Hague 
Convention/Treaty related to international child support 
enforcement (see below) has not yet been ratified. P.L. 104-193 
(the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity 
Reconciliation Act of 1996) established procedures for 
international enforcement of child support. For many 
international cases, U.S. courts and state Child Support 
Enforcement (CSE) agencies already recognize and enforce child 
support obligations, whether or not the United States has a 
reciprocal agreement with the other country. Currently, the 
federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE, within the 
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)) has reciprocal 
agreements regarding child support enforcement with 15 
countries. However, many other foreign countries will not 
enforce U.S. child support orders in the absence of a treaty 
obligation.
    The Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child 
Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (referred to 
hereinafter as the Convention) was adopted at the Hague 
Conference on Private International Law on November 23, 2007. 
The Convention contains procedures for processing international 
child support cases that are intended to be uniform, simple, 
efficient, accessible, and cost-free to U.S. citizens seeking 
child support in other countries. On September 29, 2010, the 
U.S. Senate approved the Resolution of Advice and Consent 
regarding the Convention. Before the Convention can take 
effect, implementing language must be passed by Congress and 
the President must sign the instrument of ratification for the 
Convention. Once the Convention is in force, it would apply to 
cases involving countries that are party to the Convention.
    On September 28, 2010, Senators Menendez and Grassley 
introduced S. 3848 (the Strengthen and Vitalize Enforcement of 
Child Support (SAVE Child Support) Act). It included provisions 
that would have implemented the Convention. On July 19, 2011, 
the SAVE Child Support Act was reintroduced as S. 1383 by 
Senators Menendez and Grassley. On March 7, 2013, the SAVE 
Child Support Act was reintroduced as S. 508 by Senators 
Menendez and Grassley. Two subsequent bills--S. 1870 (the 
Supporting At-Risk Children Act) and S. 1877 (the Child Support 
Improvement and Work Promotion Act)--would provide the 
implementing language needed to ratify the Convention. S. 1870 
was agreed to by the Senate Finance Committee on December 12, 
2013 by voice vote. S. 1877 was introduced by Senators Baucus, 
Hatch, Grassley, Rockefeller, Wyden, and Menendez on December 
19, 2013. S. 1877 is substantially similar to Title III of S. 
1870. Additionally, both bills would require the Secretary of 
HHS to use federal and, if necessary, state, CSE methods to 
ensure compliance with any U.S. treaty obligations associated 
with any multilateral child support convention to which the 
United States is a party. Further, both bills would amend 
federal law so that the federal income tax refund offset 
program is available for use by a state to handle CSE requests 
from foreign reciprocating countries and foreign treaty 
countries. Both bills also would require states to adopt the 
2008 amendments to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act 
(UIFSA) verbatim to ensure uniformity of procedures, 
requirements, and reporting forms.

Federal Parent Locator Service

    The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) was part of the 
CSE statute when it was first enacted into law in 1975 (P.L. 
93-647). The FPLS is an assembly of computer systems operated 
by HHS's Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) to assist 
states in locating noncustodial parents, putative fathers, and 
custodial parties for the establishment of paternity and child 
support obligations, as well as the enforcement and 
modification of orders for child support, custody, and 
visitation. The FPLS also assists federal and state agencies in 
identifying overpayments and fraud.
    The FPLS was expanded by P.L. 104-193 (enacted in 1996) to 
include the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH), a central 
repository of employment, unemployment insurance, and wage data 
from State Directories of New Hires, State Workforce Agencies, 
and federal agencies; it also contains several other automated 
systems and programs. In addition, the FPLS has access to 
external sources for locating information such as the Internal 
Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration 
(SSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department 
of Defense (DOD), National Security Agency (NSA), and the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Under current federal 
law, the FPLS is only allowed to transmit information in its 
databases to ``authorized persons,'' which include (1) child 
support enforcement agencies (and their attorneys and agents); 
(2) courts; (3) the resident parent, legal guardian, attorney, 
or agent of a child owed child support; and (4) state foster 
care and adoption agencies.
    The NDNH is a major component of the FPLS. It is a database 
that contains personal and financial data on nearly every 
working American, as well as those receiving unemployment 
compensation. Since its enactment in 1996, access to the NDNH 
has been extended (by law) to several additional programs and 
agencies to verify program eligibility, prevent or end fraud, 
collect overpayments, or assure that program benefits are 
correct.

Passports

    P.L. 104-193 authorized the Secretary of State to deny, 
revoke, or restrict passports of debtor parents whose child 
support arrearages exceed $5,000. P.L. 109-171 (the Deficit 
Reduction Act of 2005) included a provision that lowered the 
threshold amount from $5,000 to $2,500 for denial of a passport 
to a noncustodial parent who owes past-due child support.

CSE Programs for Indian tribes

    Although states were always required to provide CSE 
services to members of Indian tribes and tribal organizations 
that were part of their CSE caseloads, tribes were not 
specifically included in the CSE statute until the Personal 
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 
(P.L. 104-193) was enacted. The 1996 law allowed any state that 
has ``Indian country'' within its borders to enter into a 
cooperative agreement with an Indian tribe if the tribe 
demonstrated that it had an established tribal court system 
with the authority to establish paternity, and establish, 
modify, and enforce child support orders.
    In addition, P.L. 104-193 gave the Secretary of HHS the 
authority to make direct payments to Indian tribes that have 
approved CSE programs. In contrast to the federal matching rate 
of 66% for CSE programs run by the states or territories, the 
CSE program for Indian tribes or tribal organizations provides 
direct federal funding equal to 100% of approved and allowable 
CSE expenditures during the start-up period; provides 90% 
federal funding for approved CSE programs operated by tribes or 
tribal organizations during the first three years of full 
program operation; and provides 80% federal funding thereafter.

Parenting time

    In order to promote visitation and better relations between 
custodial and noncustodial parents, P.L. 104-193 provided $10 
million per year for grants to states for access and visitation 
programs, including mediation, counseling, education, and 
supervised visitation. Known as the Access and Visitation 
Grants program, this funding is separate from funding for 
federal and state administration of the CSE program.

CSE task force

    P.L. 100-485 (the Family Support Act of 1988), among other 
things, created a Commission on Interstate Child Support. The 
Commission was composed of 15 members. The Commission's 
directive was in part to submit a report to Congress that 
contained recommendations for improving the interstate 
establishment and enforcement of child support awards.
    On September 16, 1991, a Senate Finance Subcommittee 
hearing was held on the implementation of the CSE provisions in 
the Family Support Act (P.L. 100-485), including a review the 
of the Commission's 120 draft recommendations. On August 4, 
1992, the Commission released the 442-page ``Supporting Our 
Children: A Blueprint for Reform.'' Senator Bradley introduced 
legislation (S. 3291) on October 1, 1992 that incorporated many 
of the Commission's recommendations. The majority of the 
Commission's recommendations were included in the child support 
title of P.L. 104-193, which was enacted on August 22, 1996.

                      II. EXPLANATION OF THE BILL


        TITLE I--STRENGTHENING AND FINDING FAMILIES FOR CHILDREN

    Title I of the Committee Bill may be cited as the 
``Strengthening and Finding Families for Children Act.''

                SUBTITLE A--ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENTS

        SEC. 111. EXTENSION OF PROGRAM THROUGH FISCAL YEAR 2016

Three-Year Extension of State Eligibility to Earn Awards and of Funding 
        Authority

            Present law
    States are eligible to earn incentive awards for increasing 
adoptions from foster care during each of FY2008-FY2012. Up to 
$43 million is authorized to be appropriated to pay these 
incentive awards (on a discretionary basis) for each of FY2009-
FY2013. Any amount appropriated to pay the incentives remains 
available until expended, except that none of the funds may be 
available after FY2013.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would extend states' ability to earn 
incentive funds for three years (FY2013-FY2015) and would 
extend discretionary funding authorization at the present law 
level for three years (through FY2016). It would further 
provide that no funds appropriated for incentive awards could 
be expended after FY2016.

               SEC. 112. IMPROVEMENTS TO AWARD STRUCTURE

State eligibility to earn awards in any category independent of 
        performance in other award categories

            Present law
    A state may not earn an incentive award for increases in 
the number of special needs adoptions (of children under age 9) 
unless it has, in the same year, increased its number of foster 
child or older child adoptions, or improved on its highest ever 
foster child adoption rate.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would strike this eligibility language, 
effectively permitting a state to earn an award in any category 
allowed by the law, independent of its performance in any other 
award categories. (Section 112(a) of the Committee Bill)

State must report data (to permit determination of state performance)

            Present law
    To be eligible to receive incentive awards a state must, 
for each fiscal year, submit data necessary for the HHS to 
calculate the number of foster child, older child, and special 
needs (under age 9) adoptions, and to calculate the state's 
foster child adoption rate. These data must be submitted to HHS 
via the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System 
(AFCARS). (Section 473A(c)(2))
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill is the same as present law except that 
states would be required to submit data necessary to determine 
rates in each of four award categories included in the 
Committee Bill (described below) and that states may also be 
required to provide certain information necessary to determine 
rates of foster child guardianships separate from AFCARS 
reporting.

Award categories and award amounts

            Present law
    A state that increases the number of adoptions it achieved 
in a specific category in the given fiscal year may earn an 
incentive award. Specifically, for each--
     Foster child adoption that is above the number of 
those adoptions completed by the state in FY2007, the state 
earns $4,000;
     Older child adoption (age 9 years or more) that is 
above the number of those adoptions that the state completed in 
FY2007, the state earns $8,000;
     ``Special needs'' adoption of a child who is 
younger than 9 years of age, a state may earn $4,000.
    A state's incentive award amount is equal to the sum of the 
awards it earns in each of these categories. However, if there 
are not enough funds appropriated to pay those amounts in full, 
HHS must pro-rate the award amount paid to a state based on its 
share of total incentive payments earned in these three award 
categories.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would replace these award categories 
with four new award categories based on improvements in a state 
rate (or percentage) of adoptions and/or guardianships. 
Specifically, a state that improved its rate of--
     Foster child adoptions would receive $4,000 for 
each foster child adoption calculated to have been completed 
due to the state's improved foster child adoption rate;
     Special needs (under age 9) adoptions would 
receive $4,500 for each such adoption calculated to have been 
completed due to the improved rate;
     Older child adoptions or older child guardianships 
would receive $8,000 for each such adoption or guardianship 
calculated to have been completed due to the improved rate; or
     Foster child guardianships would receive $4,000 
for each such guardianship calculated to have been completed 
due to the improved rate.
    A state would be found to have improved its rate in any or 
each of these four categories if the rate (or percentage) of 
adoptions and/or guardianships it achieved in the given 
category for a fiscal year was higher than the average rate it 
achieved in that award category for the three immediately 
preceding fiscal years. (That rolling three-year average rate 
for each award category is referred to as the state's ``base 
rate'' for the given award category. These state-specific 
rates--discussed more below--is the base measure against which 
the state's most recent performance would be compared.)
    The sum of any amount earned in each of the four award 
categories would be paid at the same time to each state out of 
any available appropriations. If funds were insufficient to 
fully pay the awards, HHS would be required to pro-rate 
payments based on a state's share of total incentives earned 
across all four award categories.

Timely adoption pool

            Present law
    If in a given fiscal year, the appropriated Adoption 
Incentive funding exceeds the amount needed to make full 
incentive payments to states that increase their number of 
foster child, older child, and/or special needs (under age 9) 
adoptions (in any of FY2008-FY2012), HHS must provide an 
additional inc0entive amount to any state that improves upon 
its ``highest ever foster child adoption rate.'' A state is 
considered to have made this improvement if its foster child 
adoption rate for a fiscal year is higher than the rate it 
achieved in FY2002 or in any succeeding fiscal year (prior to 
the fiscal year for which the award is being determined). The 
award amount for an improvement on a state's highest foster 
child adoption rate is equal to $1,000 multiplied by the number 
of adoptions calculated to have been completed by the state due 
to the improved rate. These additional incentive award 
provisions applied to adoptions completed in FY2008 through 
FY2012. (Sec. 473A(d)(3))
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would strike this provision and include 
instead the following: If in a given fiscal year, the 
appropriated incentive funding exceeds the amount needed to 
make the awards for the four award categories described above, 
these unused funds must be considered the ``timely adoption 
award pool.'' Further, HHS must award additional incentive 
payment funds to each state that it determines to be a ``timely 
adoption award state.'' A state is a timely adoption state if 
it is one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia and if 
HHS determines that more than 50% of the foster child adoptions 
that were finalized in the state during the fiscal year were 
for children for whom an adoption was finalized not more than 
12 months after the date on which the child became legally free 
for adoption. [A child is considered legally free for adoption 
when all parental rights to the child have been terminated.] 
These additional incentive award provisions would apply to 
timely adoption performance by states for each of FY2013 
through FY2015.
    The Chairman's Mark was modified to accept this amendment 
proposed by Senator Hatch.

Definition of foster child adoption, associated rate and base measure

            Present law
    A ``foster child adoption'' is defined as the final 
adoption of a child, who at the time of the adoptive placement, 
was in foster care under the supervision of the state. A 
state's base number of foster child adoptions is the number of 
those adoptions it completed in FY2007. A state's ``foster 
child adoption rate'' is the percentage determined when the 
state's number of foster child adoptions that occurred in the 
fiscal year is divided by the number of all children who were 
in the state's foster care caseload on the last day of the 
preceding fiscal year. (For example, if the state completed 150 
adoptions in the fiscal year and it had 1,000 children in 
foster care in the last day of the preceding fiscal year, its 
foster child adoption rate would be 15%.) A state's ``highest 
ever foster child adoption rate'' is the highest percentage of 
foster child adoptions the state completed in any fiscal year 
(beginning with FY2002) that is before the fiscal year for 
which an incentive award is being determined. (Section 
473A(g)(1),(3) (7) and(8))
            Committee bill
    Under the Committee Bill, the definition of ``foster child 
adoption'' and ``foster child adoption rate'' would be 
effectively the same as in present law. A state's ``base rate 
of foster child adoptions'' would be a rolling percentage equal 
to its average foster child adoption rate for the three fiscal 
years immediately preceding the year for which the award is 
being determined. (There would be no definitions of ``base 
number of foster child adoptions'' or of ``highest ever foster 
child adoption rate.'')

Definition of foster child guardianship and associated rate and base 
        rate

            Present law
    No provision.
            Committee bill
    Would define a ``foster child guardianship'' as a child's 
exit from foster care to a legal guardian if the state agency 
reports to HHS that it has determined all of the following: 1) 
the child was removed from his/her home pursuant to a voluntary 
placement agreement or a judicial determination that the home 
was contrary to the welfare of the child; 2) returning the 
child to that home is not an appropriate option; 3) the child 
demonstrates a strong attachment to the prospective legal 
guardian and the prospective legal guardian has a strong 
commitment to caring permanently for the child; and 4) if the 
child is at least 14 years of age, he/she has been consulted 
regarding the legal guardianship. Alternatively, a foster child 
guardianship could also mean any exit of a child from foster 
care to a legal guardian if the state reports to HHS the 
alternative procedures it used to determine that legal 
guardianship is the appropriate option for the child.
    A state's ``foster child guardianship rate'' would be the 
percentage determined by dividing the number of foster child 
guardianships that occurred in the state during the fiscal year 
by the number of children who were in foster care in the state 
on the last day of the preceding fiscal year. The ``base rate 
of foster child guardianships'' would be equal to the state's 
average foster child guardianship rate for the three fiscal 
years immediately preceding the year for which an award is 
being determined.

Definitions of an older child adoption or older foster child 
        guardianship and associated rate and base rate

            Present law
    An ``older child adoption'' is defined as the final 
adoption of a child who is age 9 or older, if, at the time of 
the adoptive placement the child was in foster care under the 
supervision of the state or, if the state had entered into a 
Title IV-E adoption assistance agreement on the child's behalf. 
The ``base number or older child adoptions'' is the number of 
older child adoptions the state finalized in FY2007. There is 
no rate associated with older child adoption award category.
            Committee bill
    Under the Committee Bill, an older child adoption would be 
defined as in present law. An older foster child guardianship 
would mean the placement into legal guardianship of a child who 
is age nine or older if at the time of that placement the child 
was in foster care under the supervision of the state. A 
state's ``older child adoptions and older foster child 
guardianships rate'' would equal the percentage determined by 
dividing a state's combined number of older adoptions and older 
foster child guardianship finalized in the given fiscal year by 
the number of children age nine or older who were in the 
state's foster care caseload on the last day of the preceding 
fiscal year. A state's ``base rate of older child adoptions and 
older foster child guardianships'' would be the average of the 
older adoptions and older foster child guardianships rate for 
the state for the three fiscal years immediately preceding the 
year for which an award is being determined. (There would no 
longer be a ``base number of older child adoptions'' 
definition.)

Definitions of special needs adoption (of children under age 9) and 
        associated rate, and base rate

            Present law
    The term ``special needs adoption'' refers to the final 
adoption of a child on whose behalf the state has entered into 
an adoption assistance agreement (under the Title IV-E foster 
care and adoption assistance program).
    The term ``base number of special needs adoptions that are 
not older child adoptions'' (i.e., the number of special needs 
adoptions of children under the age of nine) is the number of 
those adoptions the state completed in FY2007. There is no rate 
associated with special needs adoptions.
            Committee bill
    In the Committee Bill, the term ``special needs adoptions 
that are not older child adoptions'' would be effectively the 
same as in present law, i.e., adoptions of children who are 
under 9 years of age and for whom the state has entered into a 
Title IV-E adoption assistance agreement. The state's ``special 
needs adoption that are not older child adoptions rate'' would 
be the percentage determined by dividing the number of those 
adoptions in the state during the fiscal year by the number of 
children in the state's foster care caseload who were under age 
9, on the last day of the preceding fiscal year. A state's 
``base rate of special needs adoptions that are not older child 
adoptions'' would be the average of the special needs adoptions 
that are not older child adoptions rate for the state for the 
three fiscal years immediately preceding the year for which an 
award is being determined.

                     SEC. 113. RENAMING THE PROGRAM

Present law

    The incentive program is named in statute as ``Adoption 
Incentive Payments.''

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would rename the program ``Adoption and 
Legal Guardianship Incentive Payments'' and make conforming 
amendments throughout the program provisions, including 
headings to reference both adoption and legal guardianship.

           SEC. 114. LIMITATIONS ON USE OF INCENTIVE PAYMENTS

Present law

    A state must spend incentive awards it earns in this 
program to provide any of the broad range of child welfare-
related services to children and families that are authorized 
under Title IV-B or Title IV-E, including post-adoption 
services. The state may not count spending of these incentive 
awards as non-federal spending for purposes of meeting 
``matching'' requirements for programs authorized in Title IV-B 
or Title IV-E, (i.e., Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare 
Services Program, Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program, 
Foster Care Maintenance Payments and Adoption Assistance 
program, and Chafee Foster Care Independence Program).

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would retain these limitations on state 
use of incentive funds received under this program. The 
Committee Bill would further stipulate that a state must use 
any such incentive awards earned to ``supplement, and not 
supplant'' any federal or non-federal funds used to provide 
services under Title IV-B or Title IV-E. Additionally, any 
state that is paid such an incentive award in a given fiscal 
year that exceeds $100,000 would be required to spend at least 
25% of this award to provide services to children who have been 
reunited with their families to support and sustain the 
reunification. This includes services to youth who after 
emancipating from foster care return to their families (to 
support and sustain those returns).

SEC. 115. STATE REPORT ON CALCULATION AND USE OF SAVINGS RESULTING FROM 
  THE PHASE-OUT OF ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR ADOPTION ASSISTANCE; 
     REQUIREMENT TO SPEND 40 PERCENT OF SAVINGS ON CERTAIN SERVICES

Present law

    States are required to document savings in state spending 
(if any) that result from expanding federal eligibility for 
Title IV-E adoption assistance and to spend any of that savings 
on the broad range of child welfare-related services to 
children and families that are authorized under Title IV-B or 
Title IV-E, including post-adoption services. [This expanded 
eligibility was authorized by the Fostering Connections to 
Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (P.L. 110-351) and is 
primarily the result of removing income eligibility for Title 
IV-E adoption assistance]. (Section 473(a)(8))

Committee bill

    Under the Committee Bill, states would be required to 
calculate the savings (if any) resulting from expanding 
eligibility for Title IV-E adoption assistance using a 
methodology specified by HHS, or one proposed by the state and 
approved by HHS. Each state would be required to report 
annually to HHS on--1) the method it used to calculate the 
savings (regardless of whether any savings were found); 2) the 
amount of any savings identified, and 3) how any such savings 
are spent. This report would need to be provide a ``detailed 
account'' of the spending (in accordance with requirements 
established by HHS) to ensure the state meets the requirement 
for reinvesting these savings in child welfare services. 
Additionally the report on any spending of these funds would 
need to be made separately from other reports on spending made 
by states to HHS for programs under Title IV-B or Title IV-E.
    Additionally, states would be required to spend not less 
than 40% of any state savings identified (due to expanded 
eligibility for federal Title IV-E assistance) to provide 1) 
post-adoption or post-guardianship services and 2) services to 
support and sustain positive permanent outcomes for children 
who otherwise might enter state foster care. This spending 
would need to be used to ``supplement, and not supplant'' any 
federal or non-federal funds being used to provide any child 
welfare-related service authorized under Title IV-B or Title 
IV-E.
    Finally, HHS would be required to post the annual reports 
made by each state regarding any such savings and how they are 
spent on the agency website in a location that is easily 
accessible to the public.

    SEC. 116. PRESERVATION OF ELIGIBILITY FOR KINSHIP GUARDIANSHIP 
             ASSISTANCE PAYMENTS WITH A SUCCESSOR GUARDIAN

Present law

    To be eligible for federal (Title IV-E) kinship 
guardianship assistance a child must, among other requirements, 
have entered foster care after having been removed from a home 
with low income and must have lived with the prospective legal 
relative guardian for at least six months while in foster care. 
(Section 473(d)(3))

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would permit a child who has already 
been determined to be eligible for Title IV-E kinship 
guardianship assistance to remain eligible (without re-entering 
foster care or otherwise re-determining eligibility) in the 
event his/her relative legal guardian dies or becomes 
incapacitated. Specifically, the Committee Bill would allow the 
Title IV-E kinship guardianship assistance payments made on the 
child's behalf to be paid to a successor legal guardian who is 
named in the child's Title IV-E kinship guardianship assistance 
agreement (including any amendment to that agreement).

  SEC. 117. DATA COLLECTION ON ADOPTION AND FOSTER CHILD GUARDIANSHIP 
                       DISRUPTION AND DISSOLUTION

Regulation to require state collection and reporting of data on 
        adoption

            Present law
    HHS was required to establish, by regulation, a data 
collection system, to provide for comprehensive national 
information with respect to children in foster care and those 
who are adopted. Any data collection system developed was 
required to assure that the data collected are reliable across 
jurisdictions through the use of ``uniform definitions and 
methodologies.'' Pursuant to these requirements, HHS developed 
the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System 
(AFCARS), which, effective with FY1995, required states to 
submit case level data on children in foster care and children 
adopted with child welfare agency involvement. The data must be 
reported using a set of data elements that are provided in 
regulations.
    States are required to report annually to HHS on their 
planned and actual spending of funds received under the 
Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program (Title IV-B, Subpart 
2), including, separately funds spent for ``adoption promotion 
and support services.''
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill, no later than 12 months after 
enactment, would require HHS to promulgate final regulations 
providing for states to collect and report information 
regarding children who enter foster care because their 
adoptions or foster child guardianships disrupt or are 
dissolved. The regulations would need to require that the 
information collected and reported include the numbers of such 
children, and, for each of those children, the length of 
adoptive or foster child guardianship placement before 
disruption or dissolution, the reason for the disruption or 
dissolution, and the agency that handled the adoption or foster 
child guardianship placement. Further, the regulations would 
need to require states to collect and report this information 
for children born in this country or another country. However, 
with regard to children born in another country, states would 
only need to report this information with regard to disrupted 
and dissolved adoptions (not foster child guardianships) and 
states must also be required to report the country of birth for 
each of any such children.
    The regulations would further need to provide for state 
reporting of additional illustrative, supplemental or 
descriptive material elaborating on reasons for disruptions and 
dissolutions of adoptions or foster child guardianship, as well 
as use of pre- and post-adoptive services to lower rates of 
disruption and dissolution. Finally, the regulations would need 
to require states to report how they spend funds received under 
the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program to promote 
adoption, and separately, to provide pre- and post-adoptive 
support services.
    Generally, HHS would need to require that this collection 
and reporting of data occur via AFCARS. However, as 
appropriate, the regulations would permit HHS to require states 
to report any ``supplementary, descriptive, or spending 
information'' in a separate system or as part of other already 
required reporting under Title IV-E or Title IV-B.

HHS required to provide annual data on disruptions and dissolutions

            Present law
    HHS must annually submit to Congress a report on the 
performance of each state with regard to achieving specific 
child welfare outcomes (e.g., ensuring placement stability for 
children in foster care, finding children adoptive homes as 
appropriate) and must examine in this report the reasons for 
variation in state performance and, when possible, suggested 
how states could improve their performance. HHS must also 
include in this annual report, state-by-state data on the 
number of children in foster care who are visited by their 
caseworkers on a monthly basis. (Section 479A)
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require HHS to annually (beginning 
with FY2016) include in this report information collected, as a 
result of the new data collection and reporting regulations, on 
the numbers and rates of disruptions and dissolutions of 
adoptions. This information would need to be shown in the 
report on both a national and a state-by-state basis.

                       SEC. 118. EFFECTIVE DATES

    Generally the provisions of this subtitle (related to 
Adoption Incentives, successor guardianship, and other 
adoption-related issues) would be made effective as if enacted 
on October 1, 2013. However, the provisions changing the 
incentive payment structure and renaming the program would not 
take effect until one year later, October 1, 2014 and are 
subject to additional transition rules. Under these transition 
rules, incentive awards made in FY2014 (for adoptions finalized 
in FY2013) would be paid under the incentive structure 
described above as present law. Further, awards paid in FY2015 
(for adoptions or foster child guardianships completed in 
FY2014) would be paid as one-half of any amount a state would 
earn under the incentive structure in present law (as described 
above) plus one-half of any amount a state would earn under the 
incentive structure included in the Committee Bill. Finally, 
the incentive structure included in the Committee Bill would be 
fully implemented with FY2016.

           SUBTITLE B--EXTENSION OF FAMILY CONNECTION PROGRAM

         SEC. 121. EXTENSION OF FAMILY CONNECTION GRANT PROGRAM

Continue mandatory funding for family connection grants

            Present law
    Family Connection Grants support demonstration projects to 
implement four kinds of services: kinship navigator programs, 
intensive family finding efforts, family group decision making 
meetings, and residential family treatment programs that 
address substance abuse and mental health issues. Annual 
funding for these grants ($15 million) was provided on a 
mandatory basis for each of FY2009-FY2013. The FY2013 
appropriation was subject to sequestration which reduced 
program funding provided for that year to $14 million.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would extend annual mandatory funding of 
$15 million for these grants for three years (FY2014-FY2016).

Entities eligible to apply for family connection grants

            Present law
    HHS may award Family Connection grants to state, local, or 
tribal child welfare agencies or to private nonprofit 
organizations that have experience working with foster children 
or children in kinship care arrangements.
            Committee bill
    Would additionally permit HHS to award Family Connection 
grants to ``institutions of higher education'' as defined in 
Section 101 of the Higher Education Act.

Foster family homes for youth in care who are parents

            Present law
    Kinship navigator programs supported with Family Connection 
Grant funding are intended to assist kinship caregivers in 
finding and accessing services and programs to meet their own 
needs and the needs of the children for whom they care. Among 
other requirements these programs must promote partnerships 
between public and private agencies--including schools, 
community-based or faith-based organizations, and relevant 
government agencies--to increase knowledge among these entities 
of the needs of kinship caregiver families and to promote 
better services for those families.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would provide that the efforts to 
promote public-private partnerships to improve awareness of, 
and services for, kinship care families must also extend to 
individuals who are willing to be foster parents for youth in 
foster care who are parents.

Reservation of funds

            Present law
    HHS must annually reserve $5 million in Family Connection 
Grant funding to support kinship navigator programs.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would do away with this specific 
reservation of Family Connection funds (although grants could 
still be made available to support these programs on the same 
basis as the other authorized services).

                 SUBTITLE C--UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION

     SEC. 131. IMPROVING THE COLLECTION OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 
                 OVERPAYMENTS THROUGH TAX REFUND OFFSET

Present law

    States are required to have certain laws in place as a 
condition or receiving federal funds related to Unemployment 
Compensation. The Treasury Offset Program authorizes states to 
recover certain state unemployment benefit overpayments but 
does not require them to do this.

Committee bill

    As a condition of receiving federal funds related to 
Unemployment Compensation, the Committee Bill would require 
states--after two years of attempting to collect state 
unemployment benefit overpayments--to recover any remaining 
state overpayments through reduced federal income tax refunds.

 TITLE II--IDENTIFYING AND SERVING YOUTH VULNERABLE TO SEX TRAFFICKING

    Title II of the Committee Bill may be cited as the 
Protecting Youth At-Risk for Sex Trafficking Act.

  SUBTITLE A--ADDRESSING THE RISKS THAT MAKE YOUTH VULNERABLE TO SEX 
                              TRAFFICKING

  SEC. 211. IDENTIFYING AND SCREENING YOUTH AT RISK OF SEX TRAFFICKING

Present law

    State child welfare agencies are required as part of their 
current Title IV-E plan to report to an appropriate agency or 
official known or suspected instances of physical or mental 
injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, or negligent treatment or 
maltreatment of a child receiving aid under any federal child 
welfare program authorized in Title IV-E or Title IV-B.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would amend this Title IV-E plan 
provision to further require that the state child welfare 
agency, in consultation with the state child protective 
services agency or unit, develop policies and procedures for 
identifying, screening, and determining appropriate state 
actions and services for any child who the state has reasonable 
cause to believe is a victim of sex trafficking or is at risk 
of being a sex trafficking victim.
    These policies and procedures would need to apply to any 
child (individuals under the age of 18) without regard to 
whether that child is in foster care as well as to any 
individual in foster care up to age 19, 20, or 21 (if the state 
has chosen to provide foster care up to that older age). 
Additionally, states would be permitted to apply these policies 
and procedures to any individual (regardless of current or 
former foster care status) up to the age of 26. Each state 
would need to demonstrate to HHS that it had developed these 
policies and procedures no later than one year after the 
enactment of this provision, and would need to demonstrate that 
it was implementing them no later than two years after 
enactment of this provision.
    Sex trafficking would be defined, as it is in the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act,+ as the ``recruitment, 
harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person 
for the purposes of a commercial sex act'' and any severe form 
of trafficking in persons in which a commercial sex act is 
induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person 
induced to perform the act is under 18 years of age.

SEC. 212. IMPROVEMENTS TO ANOTHER PLANNED PERMANENT LIVING ARRANGEMENT 
                     (APPLA) AS A PERMANENCY OPTION

APPLA may not be the permanency plan for a child under 16 years of age

            Present law
    A state must have procedures to ensure that each child in 
foster care has an annual hearing (in a court or before a 
court-appointed administrative body) to determine (or re-
determine) a plan for how the child will achieve permanency. A 
child's permanency plan may be established as 1) reuniting with 
parents; 2) adoption; 3) guardianship; or 4) if the state has 
documented for the court a compelling reason that none of these 
permanency plans is in the child's best interest, ``another 
planned permanent living arrangement'' (APPLA).
    Further, a state must have a service program designed to 
help children in foster care achieve permanency through 
returning to their parents (when safe and appropriate), 
adoption, guardianship, placement with a fit and willing 
relative, or, if none of those options is appropriate, 
placement in some other planned permanent living arrangement 
(including residential education programs).
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would amend both of these provisions to 
further stipulate that no child under age 16 may have a 
permanency plan of APPLA. Further, before APPLA could become 
the permanency plan for a youth in foster care, the state would 
need to document for the court why, as of the date of the 
permanency hearing, there was a compelling reason to determine 
that reunification, adoption, or guardianship was not in the 
youth's best interest.

Additional permanency hearing and other requirements for youth with 
        APPLA as permanency plan

            Present law
    As part of its case review system, a state must have in 
place procedures to ensure that each child in foster care has a 
permanency hearing within 12 months of entering foster care, 
and every 12 months thereafter while he/she remains in foster 
care. The permanency hearing must be held in a court (or by a 
court-appointed administrative body) and it must determine, or 
re-determine, the child's permanency plan (i.e., reunification, 
adoption, guardianship or APPLA). Further, the state must have 
procedures to ensure that any court or court-appointed 
administrative body holding the permanency hearing consults 
with a child, in an age-appropriate manner, regarding any 
proposed permanency plan.
    Additionally, certain consideration must be made at the 
permanency hearing for children in specified circumstances.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require additional actions at any 
annual permanency hearing involving a youth for whom the 
permanency plan is APPLA and additional state agency 
appearances before a court for any youth with APPLA as his or 
her permanency plan. Specifically, at each permanency hearing 
involving a youth with APPLA as his or her permanency plan:
    The state child welfare agency must document for the court 
the ongoing, but, to date, unsuccessful, efforts to return the 
youth to his/her parents or to secure a placement for the youth 
with an adoptive parent, legal guardian, or a fit and willing 
relative. These efforts must include use of search technology 
to locate biological family members of the child.
    The court or court-appointed administrative body holding 
the hearing must--
     Ask the youth if he or she wants to be adopted;
     Determine, separately, the compelling reasons why 
it continues to be not in the child's best interest to be 
returned home, placed for adoption, placed with a legal 
guardian, or placed with a fit and willing relative;
     Identify barriers to permanency plans other than 
APPLA for the child;
     Make a new determination regarding whether APPLA 
is the appropriate permanency plan for the child and submit 
findings as to why, as of the date of the hearing, APPLA is the 
best permanency option for the child; and
     Require the state child welfare agency to 
document, at the child's next permanency hearing, the intensive 
efforts to address those identified barriers and allow a 
different permanency plan to be established for the youth.
    Additionally, for each child living in another planned 
living arrangement, would require the state child welfare 
agency to appear before the court (or an administrative body 
appointed or approved by the court), at least once every six 
months to demonstrate--
     That an individual other than the child's 
caseworker is the child's caregiver for purposes of making 
reasonable and prudent parenting decisions on the child's 
behalf, including signing permission slips and giving informal 
permission for the child to participate in age-appropriate 
activities; and
     The steps being taken to reduce barriers 
(including paperwork) to the child's regular and ongoing 
opportunities to engage in age-appropriate activities, 
including social events.

Conforming amendments: definition of ``reasonable and prudent parent 
        standard,'' and ``age or developmentally appropriate''

            Present law
    Includes definitions that apply to the federal foster care 
program under Title IV-E, as well as other child welfare 
programs in Title IV-E and in Title IV-B. (Section 475)
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would add definitions of the 
``reasonable and prudent parent standard'' and of the related 
term ``age or developmentally appropriate.''
    The ``reasonable and prudent parent standard'' would be 
defined as ``characterized by careful and sensible parental 
decisions that maintain a child's health, safety, and best 
interests while at the same time encouraging the child's 
emotional and developmental growth,'' and, further, as the 
standard that a caregiver--the child's foster parent or a 
designated official at the child care institution where a child 
is placed--must use when determining whether to allow a child 
in foster care to participate in extracurricular, enrichment, 
and social activities.
    ``Age or developmentally appropriate'' would be defined as 
``activities or items that are generally accepted as suitable 
for children of the same chronological age or level of maturity 
or that are determined to be developmentally appropriate for 
the child, based on the development of cognitive, emotional, 
physical, and behavioral capacity that are typical for an age 
or age group.'' With respect to a specific child, the term 
would mean ``activities or items that are suitable for that 
child based on the developmental stages attained by the child 
with respect to the child's cognitive, emotional, physical and 
behavioral capacities.'' The Committee Bill would stipulate 
however, that if any of these activities have implications 
relative to a child or youth's academic curriculum, nothing 
included in Title IV-E or Title IV-B would be permitted to be 
understood as authorizing an officer or employee of the federal 
government to ``mandate, direct, or control a state, local 
educational agency, or school's specific instructional content, 
academic achievement standards and assessments, curriculum, or 
program of instruction.''

Conforming amendments: State plan requirements

            Present law
    As part of their program plan under Title IV-B, Subpart 1 
(Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program) states 
must meet all the requirements of the case review system for 
each child in foster care. Under the Title IV-E program plan, 
states are required to meet some of the case review procedures 
on behalf of children in foster care who are eligible for Title 
IV-E foster care assistance. In addition, federal regulations 
require states to meet all requirements of the case review 
system as a condition of eligibility for federal foster care 
maintenance payment support under the Title IV-E program.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require states to meet all case 
review system requirements, including the new provisions 
related to children with APPLA, as part of their Title IV-E 
plan. Would also require states to meet the new case review 
system requirements, related to APPLA, under their Title IV-B, 
Subpart 1 state plan.

Collected child support directed to certain youth in care

            Present law
    States are required to use any child support payments 
collected on behalf of a child (while the child is receiving 
Title IV-E foster care maintenance payments) to pay back the 
cost of the foster care maintenance payment. The child support 
funds collected must be divided between the state and the 
federal government in proportion to their share of the Title 
IV-E foster care maintenance payments made.
            Committee bill
    Under the Committee Bill, for any youth with a permanency 
plan of APPLA and who is receiving Title IV-E foster care 
maintenance payments, the state child welfare agency would be 
required to deposit all child support payments collected on the 
youth's behalf into an account specifically for the youth and 
which must only be used by the state for payment of fees or 
other costs attributable to the child's participation in age or 
developmentally appropriate activities. Any funds remaining in 
a youth's account at the time he or she exits care (for any 
reason) must be provided to the youth.
    Also under the Committee Bill, for any youth in foster care 
under the responsibility of the state at age 18 or any older 
age, up to 21 (as elected by the state), the state would be 
required to pay any child support collected on his or her 
behalf directly to the youth. None of the funds would be 
returned to the federal government and none of them could be 
used by the state to reimburse its part of the cost of foster 
care maintenance payments.

Procedures to implement these child support collection efforts must be 
        documented by child support agency

            Present law
    To receive federal child support funds states must have a 
plan for child support enforcement (CSE) that meets federal 
requirements.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require each state, as part of its 
CSE plan, to provide a description of the procedures it has in 
place to comply with the requirements related to distribution 
of child support collected for youth with an APPLA permanency 
plan or for youth who are in foster care at age 18 or older.

Effective dates for Section 212

    Generally, all of the changes in Section 212 related to use 
of APPLA and child support collected on behalf of certain youth 
in foster care are effective one year after the date of 
enactment of the bill. However, in the event the state needs to 
enact legislation (other than legislation appropriating funds) 
to enable it to meet the new child support requirements (under 
Title IV-D) it may have specified additional time to meet the 
requirements.

     SUBTITLE B--EMPOWERING OLDER YOUTH VULNERABLE TO DOMESTIC SEX 
                TRAFFICKING AND OTHER NEGATIVE OUTCOMES

 SEC. 221. EMPOWERING FOSTER YOUTH AGE 14 AND OLDER IN THE DEVELOPMENT 
    OF THEIR OWN CASE PLAN AND TRANSITION PLANNING FOR A SUCCESSFUL 
                               ADULTHOOD

Case planning for youth age 14 and older

            Present law
    Each child in foster care is to have a written case plan. 
Among other items, the plan must (1) provide certain 
assurances, including that the child receives safe and proper 
care, and that services are provided to the parents, child, and 
foster parents in order to improve the conditions in the 
parents' home and to enable the child to return home or to 
another permanent setting; and (2) address the needs of the 
child while in care, including a discussion of the 
appropriateness of the services that have been provided to the 
child under the plan.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would add that the case plan for any 
youth 14 and older must be developed and amended in 
consultation with the youth--and at the youth's option, up to 
two members of the case planning team who are chosen by the 
youth and who are not the youth's foster parent or caseworker. 
The Committee Bill would permit a state to reject an individual 
selected by the child if the state has good cause to believe 
that the individual would not act in the best interests of the 
child. Would also note that one individual selected by the 
child to be a member of the case planning team may be 
designated as his or her advisor, and, as necessary, advocate, 
with respect to application of the reasonable and prudent 
parent standard.

Permanency hearings for children

            Present law
    As part of its case review system, a state must have in 
place procedures to ensure that each child in foster care has a 
permanency hearing within 12 months of entering foster care, 
and every 12 months thereafter while he/she remains in foster 
care. The permanency hearing must be held in a court (or by a 
court-appointed administrative body) and it must determine, or 
re-determine, the child's permanency plan (i.e., reunification, 
adoption, guardianship or APPLA). For any child in care age 16 
and older, the court or administrative body conducting the 
hearing must determine at the permanency hearing any services 
necessary to assist the child to make a transition from foster 
care to independent living.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would extend the case plan requirements 
for youth age 14 or older to a youth's permanency plan. It 
would also make the permanency hearing requirement for youth 
age 16 or older applicable to those youth age 14 and older, and 
would replace ``independent living'' with ``a successful 
adulthood.''

Report to Congress on case planning team

            Present law
    No provision.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require HHS to submit a report to 
Congress, within two years of enactment, that includes: (1) an 
analysis of how states are administering the requirements 
pertaining to the youth selecting up to two members of their 
case planning team for purposes of developing and amending 
their case plan and permanency plan; and (2) a description of 
best practices of states with respect to the administration of 
this requirement.

Planning for a successful adulthood for older youth

            Present law
    In addition to other case plan requirements, the case plan 
for youth in foster care at age 16 or older, where appropriate, 
must also include a written description of the programs and 
services that will help the child prepare for the transition 
from foster care to independent living.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would stipulate that this case plan 
requirement would extend to all children age 14 and older, and 
would replace ``independent living'' with ``a successful 
adulthood.''
            Present law
    The court or administrative body conducting the permanency 
hearing--including any hearing regarding the transition of the 
child from foster care or independent living--must consult, in 
an age-appropriate manner, with the child regarding the 
proposed permanency plan or transition plan for the child.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would replace the reference to 
``independent living'' with ``a successful adulthood.''

List of rights included in case planning for children age 14 or older

            Present law
    No provision.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require that the case plan for a 
youth who is age 14 or older and who is in foster care or who 
receives federal adoption assistance or kinship guardianship 
assistance payments must include a written document that 
describes the youth's rights. The rights to be listed would 
pertain to education, health, visitation, and court 
participation, and to staying safe and avoiding exploitation. 
The document would need to be signed by the youth to 
acknowledge that he or she was provided with a written copy of 
the rights.

Credit reports for children age 14 or older

            Present law
    As part of the case review requirements, the state child 
welfare agency must provide any child in foster care at age 16 
or older a copy of any credit report pertaining to the child 
(in each year that he or she remains in care), free of charge, 
along with assistance in resolving any inaccuracies in the 
report.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require state child welfare 
agencies to make credit reports and assistance in resolving any 
inaccuracies in the report available to any child age 14 or 
older.

    SEC. 222. ENSURING FOSTER CHILDREN AGE 14 OR OLDER HAVE A BIRTH 
CERTIFICATE, SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, DRIVER'S LICENSE OR EQUIVALENT AND A 
                              BANK ACCOUNT

Case review system requirement for birth certificate, Social Security 
        card, and bank account, and credit reports

            Present law
    The state child welfare agency must provide any child age 
16 or older a copy of any credit report pertaining to the child 
(in each year that he or she remains in care), free of charge, 
along with assistance in resolving any inaccuracies in the 
report.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would amend the credit reporting 
requirement to ensure that a child age 14 and older who is 
exiting foster care, must also have a copy of his or her 
official birth certificate, Social Security card, driver's 
license or identification card issued by a state in accordance 
with the requirements of Section 202 of the REAL ID Act of 
2005, and fee-free or low-fee bank account established in his 
or her name at an insured depository institution or insured 
credit union. However, a youth could, after consulting with the 
youth's selected members of his or her case planning team (if 
any), elect not to have a bank account.

Reduced Federal Title IV-E administrative support for failure to ensure 
        youth leaving foster care at age 14 or older have certain 
        documents

            Present law
    Under the Title IV-E program, states are entitled to 
receive 50% federal reimbursement for eligible program 
administrative costs.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would stipulate a penalty for states 
that do not comply with the requirements to provide each child 
exiting foster care at age 14 or older with an official birth 
certificate, Social Security card, a driver's license or state-
issued identification card, and a bank account (unless the 
child determines not to establish the bank account). 
Specifically, the penalty would be one percentage point in 
federal reimbursement for Title IV-E administration costs (not 
including training or certain data collection and related 
costs) for every ten children that are discharged from foster 
care without such documentation or bank account within a given 
fiscal year quarter. The penalty would be imposed in the fiscal 
year quarter following the quarter for which the non-compliance 
is identified by HHS. It could not exceed 25 percentage points, 
which would equate to 250 youth.
            Effective date for Section 222
    Generally, all of the changes in Section 222 related to the 
case review system requirement for the official birth 
certificate, a driver's license or state-issued identification 
card, Social Security card, and bank account--and the reduced 
federal Title IV-E administrative support for failure to comply 
with this requirement--would be effective as of October 1, 
2015. However, in the event a state needs to enact legislation 
(other than legislation appropriating funds) to enable it to 
meet these new requirements (under Title IV-B or Title IV-E) it 
may have specified additional time to meet the requirement.

                      SUBTITLE C--DATA AND REPORTS

 SEC. 231. STREAMLINE DATA COLLECTION AND REPORTING ON SEX TRAFFICKING

State plan requirements on data collection and reporting on sex 
        trafficking and on missing or abducted children

            Present law
    No provision.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require, as part of the Title IV-E 
plan, state child welfare agencies to identify and document 
appropriately in agency records each child identified as a 
victim of sex trafficking who is in foster care or otherwise 
under the supervision of the state, including a child who is in 
foster care, a child for whom a state child welfare agency has 
an open case file but whom has not been removed from the home, 
and a youth who is not in foster care but is receiving services 
under the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program.
    The Committee Bill would further require each state child 
welfare agency to include in its Title IV-E plan a regularly 
updated description of the specific measures it has taken by 
child welfare agencies to protect and provide services to 
children who are victims of sex trafficking, including efforts 
to coordinate with state law enforcement, juvenile justice 
agencies, and social service agencies, such as runaway and 
homeless youth shelters.
    For purposes of these Title IV-E state plan provisions, sex 
trafficking would be defined as the ``recruitment, harboring, 
transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the 
purposes of a commercial sex act'' and any severe form of 
trafficking in persons in which a commercial sex act is induced 
by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to 
perform the act is under 18 years of age. These definitions are 
taken from Section 103(9)(A) and (10) of the Trafficking 
Victims Protection Act.
    The Committee Bill would also add as part of the Title IV-E 
plan, that state child welfare agencies immediately report (and 
in no case later than 24 hours after receiving) information on 
missing or abducted children to the law enforcement authorities 
for entry into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and 
to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 
(NCMEC). The NCIC is a computerized index of information on 
crimes and criminals that is maintained by the Federal Bureau 
of Investigation (FBI). NCMEC is a non-profit organization that 
receives federal funding from the Missing and Exploited 
Children's program and other sources to support law enforcement 
agencies and families in missing children and child sexual 
exploitation cases.

State reporting via adoption and foster care analysis and reporting 
        system (AFCARS)

            Present law
    Twice a year states must report certain data to HHS via the 
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, 
(AFCARS). Among other things, these data concern each child in 
foster care, including the child's age, current placement 
setting, and length of stay in the current setting.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require HHS to promulgate 
regulations to ensure that states report, via AFCARS, on the 
number of children in foster care who are victims of sex 
trafficking. Further, to the extent HHS determines this 
feasible, the regulations may also require states to report on 
the number of other children who are victims of such sex 
trafficking and over whom the state child welfare agency has 
responsibility for supervision (including children for whom it 
has an open case file but who have not been removed from the 
home, and youth who are not in foster care but are receiving 
services under the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program).

HHS reporting on sex trafficking victims

            Present law
    HHS must annually submit to Congress a report on the 
performance of each state with regard to achieving specific 
child welfare outcomes (e.g., ensuring placement stability for 
children in foster care, finding children adoptive homes as 
appropriate) and must examine in this report the reasons for 
variation in state performance and, when possible, suggest how 
states could improve their performance. HHS must also include 
in this annual report, state-by-state data on the number of 
children in foster care who are visited by their caseworkers on 
a monthly basis.
            Committee bill
    As part of this existing report the Committee Bill would 
require HHS to annually include information on the aggregate 
number of children in foster care who are victims of sex 
trafficking beginning in the first fiscal year for which those 
data are reported by states.
    The Committee Bill would separately require HHS to submit a 
report to Congress within two years of enactment that contained 
information (based on a survey of states) on the number of 
children in foster care who are victims of sex trafficking, as 
well as other children who are under the supervision of the 
state child welfare agency and who are victims of sex 
trafficking (including children for whom the agency has an open 
case file but who have not been removed from the home, and 
youth who are not in foster care but are receiving services 
under section 477). The report would also include any 
information HHS determines appropriate related to the 
identification of, and provision of services for, these victims 
of sex trafficking.

Effective date for Section 231

    Generally, all of the changes related to the Title IV-E 
state plan requirements would be effective one year after the 
date of enactment of the Committee Bill, without regard to 
whether final regulations are promulgated to implement a 
related data reporting requirement described below. However, in 
the event a state needs to enact legislation (other than 
legislation appropriating funds) to enable it to meet these new 
requirements (under Title IV-E) it may have specified 
additional time to meet the requirement.

 SEC. 232. RECOMMENDATION TO CONGRESS FOR EXPANDING HOUSING FOR YOUTH 
                         VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING

Present law

    No provision.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would require that within one year of 
enactment, five agencies--Department of Defense, HHS, 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of 
Homeland Security, and Department of Justice--must submit a 
report to Congress that contains recommendations for 
administrative or legislative changes necessary to use 
programs, properties, or other resources owned, operated, or 
funded by the federal government to provide safe housing for 
youth who are ``victims of trafficking'' and to provide support 
to entities that provide housing or other assistance to such 
victims. The Committee Bill would require the report to include 
(with respect to programs, properties, or other resources 
owned, operated, or funded by each of the four agencies) 
information regarding (1) the availability and suitability of 
existing federal, state, and local housing resources that are 
appropriate for housing youth victims of trafficking or for 
providing support to entities that provide housing or other 
assistance to such victims, including in rural and isolated 
locations; and (2) the feasibility of establishing or 
supporting public-private partnerships to provide housing for 
such victims or support to entities that provide housing or 
other assistance to such victims.
    In this section ``victim of trafficking'' would refer to 
both sex trafficking and certain labor trafficking.

  SUBTITLE D--NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC SEX TRAFFICKING

   SEC. 241. NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC SEX TRAFFICKING

Present law

    No provision.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would create the National Advisory 
Committee on Domestic Sex Trafficking.

Committee composition and compensation

    The Committee Bill would require the HHS Secretary to 
establish the National Advisory Committee on Domestic Sex 
Trafficking and to appoint all members of the committee (in 
consultation with the Attorney General) within 180 days after 
the date of enactment. The Committee Bill would require the 
committee to be composed of not more than 21 members ``whose 
diverse experience and background enable them to provide 
balanced points of view with regard to carrying out the duties 
of the committee.'' The Committee Bill stipulates that the 
committee must not be composed solely of federal officers or 
employees and that appointments would be made for the life of 
the committee.
    Further, a vacancy in the committee would be filled in the 
same manner in which the original appointment was made and 
would not affect the powers or duties of the committee. 
Committee members would serve without compensation, except that 
they would be reimbursed for official travel expenses and per 
diem for travel expenses.

Committee duties

    The committee would advise the HHS Secretary and the 
Attorney General on practical and general policies concerning 
improvements to the nation's response to domestic sex 
trafficking of minors from the child welfare system and the 
commercial sexual exploitation of children. The committee would 
also advise the HHS Secretary and the Attorney General on 
practical and general policies concerning the cooperation of 
several entities--(1) federal, state, local, and tribal 
governments; (2) child welfare agencies; (3) social service 
providers; (4) physical and mental health providers; (5) victim 
service providers; (6) state or local courts with 
responsibility for conducting or supervising proceedings 
relating to child welfare or social services for children and 
their families; (7) federal, state, and local police; (8) 
juvenile detention centers and runaway and homeless youth 
programs; (9) schools; and (10) businesses and organizations 
that provide services to youth--on responding to domestic sex 
trafficking of minors and the commercial sexual exploitation of 
children, including the development and implementation of:
     Successful interventions with children and teens 
who are exposed to conditions that make them vulnerable to, or 
victims of, domestic sex trafficking and commercial sexual 
exploitation;
     An understanding that the safety and well-being of 
children and teens can be compromised by the sexualization of 
children; the commodification of children; and a lack of 
normalcy characterized by isolation, disconnection from 
positive appropriate, and healthy relationships with peers and 
adults, and an inability to engage in age appropriate 
activities; and
     The relationship between children and teens who 
are trafficked and the overall coarsening and desensitization 
of society to violence that puts the public safety of 
communities across the nation at risk.
    The committee would also be required to recommend a 
comprehensive definition of what constitutes the ``commercial 
sexual exploitation of children.''

Best practices for states

    The Committee Bill would require the committee to develop 
two tiers (Tier I and Tier II) of recommended best practices 
for states to follow in combating the domestic sex trafficking 
of minors and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. 
Tier I would provide states that have not yet addressed 
domestic sex trafficking of minors and the commercial sexual 
exploitation of children with an idea of where to begin and 
what steps to take. Tier II would provide states that are 
already working to address domestic sex trafficking of minors 
and commercial sexual exploitation of children with examples of 
policies that are already being used effectively by other 
states to address trafficking issues. The best practices would 
be based on multidisciplinary research and promising, evidence-
based models and programs; would be user-friendly and 
incorporate the most up-to-date technology; and include the 
following:
     Sample training materials, protocols, and 
screening tools to prepare child welfare personnel to identify 
and serve youth who are at-risk or are victims of domestic sex 
trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation.
     Multidisciplinary strategies to identify victims, 
manage cases, and improve services to meet the unique needs of 
this youth population.
     Sample protocols and recommendations for 
effective, cross-system collaboration between several 
entities--(1) federal, state, local, and tribal governments; 
(2) child welfare agencies; (3) social service providers; (4) 
physical and mental health providers; (5) victim service 
providers; (6) state or local courts with responsibility for 
conducting or supervising proceedings relating to child welfare 
or social services for children and their families; (7) 
federal, state, and local police; (8) juvenile detention 
centers and runaway and homeless youth programs; (9) schools; 
and (10) businesses and organizations that provide services to 
youth. The Committee Bill would require these protocols and 
recommendations to include strategies to identify victims and 
collect, document, and share data across systems and agencies, 
and should be designed to help agencies better understand the 
type of trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation involved; 
the scope of the problem; the needs of the population to be 
served; ways to address the demand for trafficked children and 
youth and increase prosecution of traffickers and purchasers of 
children and youth; and the degree of victim interaction with 
multiple system.
     A list of recommendations to establish safe 
residential placements for foster youth who have been 
trafficked (as defined by the committee) as well as training 
guidelines for caregivers that serve children and youth being 
cared for outside the home.

Reports

    The Committee Bill would require the committee to submit an 
interim and a final report on the work of the committee to the 
HHS Secretary, the Attorney General, the Senate Finance 
Committee, and the House Ways and Means Committee. The 
Committee Bill would require the interim report to be submitted 
not later than one year after the committee is established and 
the final report to be submitted not later than two years after 
its establishment, unless the Secretary establishes an 
extension period for the committee. In this case, the final 
report would be submitted not later than the last day of this 
extension period.

Committee administration

    The Committee Bill would require the HHS Secretary to 
direct the head of the Administration on Children, Youth and 
Families (ACYF) to provide all necessary support for the 
committee. It would also require the committee to meet at the 
call of the HHS Secretary at least twice a year to carry out 
the duties of the committee, and more often as otherwise 
required. The Committee Bill would require the Secretary to 
call all of the meetings, prepare and approve all meeting 
agendas, attend all meetings, adjourn any meetings when the 
Secretary determines adjournment to be in the public interest, 
and chair all meetings when directed to do so by an official or 
entity to whom the committee reports.
    The Committee Bill would authorize the committee to 
establish subcommittees or working groups, as necessary and 
consistent with the mission of the committee. The Committee 
Bill would require any such subcommittees or working groups to 
operate under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act of 1972, the Sunshine in Government Act of 1976, and other 
appropriate federal regulations. Any such subcommittees or 
working groups would have no authority to make decisions on 
behalf of the committee or to report directly to the HHS 
Secretary, Attorney General, or any other official or entity 
that are referenced under the committee's duties (i.e., child 
welfare agencies, social service providers, physical and mental 
health service providers, etc.). The Committee Bill would 
require that the records of the committee and any subcommittees 
or working groups be maintained in accordance with appropriate 
HHS policies and procedures, and be maintained for public 
inspection and copying, subject to the Freedom of Information 
Act (FOIA).

Termination of committee

    The Committee Bill would require the committee to terminate 
two years after the date it is established, unless the HHS 
Secretary determines that more time is necessary to allow the 
committee to complete its duties, in which case the committee 
would terminate at the end of the extension period established 
by the Secretary (not to exceed 24 months).

Funding

            Present law
    Provides certain mandatory funds for the Census Bureau to 
carry out the Survey of Income and Program Participants (SIPP).
            Committee bill
    Would transfer $400,000 of unobligated mandatory funds for 
the SIPP to establish the commission and allow it to carry out 
its duties. The $400,000 would not be subject to reduction 
under a sequestration order issued under the Balanced Budget 
and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. Any amounts made 
available for the commission that are unobligated on the date 
on which the committee terminates would be returned to the 
Treasury.

                  TITLE III--CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT

    Title III of the Committee Bill will be cited as the Child 
Support Improvement and Work Promotion Act.

           SUBTITLE A--INCREASED RELIABILITY OF CHILD SUPPORT

    SEC. 311. COMPLIANCE WITH MULTILATERAL CHILD SUPPORT CONVENTIONS

Secretary's authority to ensure compliance with multilateral child 
        support convention

            Present law
    The United States has generally dealt with international 
child support enforcement cases by negotiating bilateral 
agreements with individual countries. The U.S currently has 
bilateral agreements with 15 countries and 12 Canadian 
provinces/territories. Unlike multilateral agreements, the 
procedures and forms of bilateral agreements vary from country 
to country. Although courts and child support enforcement 
agencies in the United States already recognize and enforce 
most foreign child support orders, many foreign countries have 
not been processing child support requests from the United 
States.
    On November 23, 2007, after four years of deliberation, the 
Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support 
and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (referred to herein as 
the Convention) was adopted at the conclusion of the Twenty-
First Diplomatic Session of The Hague Conference on Private 
International Law at The Hague, The Netherlands. The United 
States delegation was the first country to sign the Convention. 
Other signatories currently include Albania, Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, the European Union, Norway, and Ukraine. The 
Convention offers the United States the opportunity to join a 
multilateral treaty, saving the time and expense that would 
otherwise be required to negotiate bilateral agreements with 
individual countries around the world. The Convention is 
expected to result in more U.S. children receiving the 
financial support they need from their noncustodial parents, 
regardless of where the parents live.
    The Convention does not affect intrastate or interstate 
child support cases in the United States. It only applies to 
cases where the custodial parent and child live in one country 
and the noncustodial parent lives in another country.
    On September 29, 2010, the U.S. Senate approved the 
Resolution of Advice and Consent regarding the Convention. In 
order for the Convention to enter into force for the United 
States, Congress must adopt, and there must be enacted, 
implementing legislation for the Convention.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require the Secretary of HHS to 
use federal and, if necessary, state child support enforcement 
methods to ensure compliance with any U.S. treaty obligations 
associated with any multilateral child support convention to 
which the United States is a party.

Access to the Federal Parent Locator Service

            Present law
    Under current federal law, the Federal Parent Locator 
Service (FPLS) is only allowed to transmit information in its 
databases to ``authorized persons,'' which include (1) child 
support enforcement agencies (and their attorneys and agents); 
(2) courts; (3) the resident parent, legal guardian, attorney, 
or agent of a child owed child support; and (4) foster care and 
adoption agencies.
    The FPLS is an assembly of computer systems operated by the 
Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), to assist states in 
locating noncustodial parents, putative fathers, and custodial 
parties for the establishment of paternity and child support 
obligations, as well as the enforcement and modification of 
orders for child support, custody, and visitation. The FPLS 
assists federal and state agencies to identify overpayments and 
fraud, and assists with assessing benefits. Developed in 
cooperation with the states, employers, federal agencies, and 
the judiciary, the FPLS was expanded by P.L. 104-193 (the 
Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 
1996) to include the following:
     The National Directory of New Hires (NDNH): a 
central repository of employment, unemployment insurance, and 
wage data from State Directories of New Hires, State Workforce 
Agencies, and federal agencies.
     The Federal Case Registry (FCR): a national 
database that contains information on individuals in child 
support cases and child support orders.
     The Federal Offset Program (FOP): a program that 
collects past-due child support payments from the tax refunds 
of parents who have been ordered to pay child support.
     The Federal Administrative Offset Program (FAOP): 
a program that intercepts certain federal payments in order to 
collect past-due child support.
     The Passport Denial Program (PDP): a program that 
works with the Secretary of State in denying passports of any 
person that has been certified as owing a child support debt 
greater than $2,500.
     The Multistate Financial Institution Data Match 
(MSFIDM): a program that allows child support agencies a means 
of locating financial assets of individuals owing child 
support.
    In addition, the FPLS also has access to external sources 
for locating information such as the Internal Revenue Service 
(IRS), the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department 
of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Defense (DOD), 
National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation (FBI).
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would expand the definition of an 
``authorized person'' to include an entity designated as a 
Central Authority for child support enforcement in a ``foreign 
reciprocating country'' or in a ``foreign treaty country'' in 
cases involving international enforcement of child support.

State option to require individuals in foreign countries to apply 
        through their country's appropriate central authority

            Present law
    A CSE state plan must provide that any request for CSE 
services by a foreign reciprocating country or a foreign 
country with which the state has an arrangement must be treated 
as a request by a state.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would give states the option to require 
individuals in foreign countries to apply for CSE services 
through their country's appropriate central authority for child 
support enforcement. If the individual resides in a foreign 
country that is not a ``reciprocating'' or ``treaty'' country, 
the state may choose to accept or reject the application for 
CSE services.
    The Committee Bill would include requests for CSE services 
by a ``foreign treaty country'' that has a reciprocal 
arrangement with a state as though it is a request by a state. 
It would include a ``foreign treaty country'' and a ``foreign 
individual'' as entities that do not have to provide 
applications, and against whom no costs will be assessed, for 
CSE services.

Note

    The Committee Report corrects an error in the Chairman's 
Mark. The Paragraph describing that the Mark ``Would give 
states the option to require individuals in foreign countries 
to apply for CSE services through their country's appropriate 
central authority for child support enforcement. If the 
individual resides in a foreign country that is not a 
``reciprocating'' or ``treaty'' country, the state may choose 
to accept or reject the application for CSE services.'' was 
omitted from the Chairman's Mark and the paragraph directly 
following was repeated twice. The corresponding legislative 
text is correct.

Amendments to international support enforcement provisions

            Present law
    P.L. 104-193 (the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity 
Reconciliation Act of 1996) established procedures for 
international enforcement of child support. The Secretary of 
State, with the concurrence of the Secretary of HHS, is 
authorized to declare reciprocity with foreign countries having 
requisite procedures for establishing and enforcing child 
support orders.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would establish a definition for three 
terms: (1) ``foreign reciprocating country,'' (2) ``foreign 
treaty country,'' and (3) ``2007 Family Maintenance 
Convention.''
     It would define a ``foreign reciprocating 
country'' as a foreign country (or political subdivision 
thereof) with respect to which the HHS Secretary has declared 
as having or implementing procedures to establish and enforce 
duties of support for residents of the United States at no cost 
or at low cost.
     It would define a ``foreign treaty country'' as a 
foreign country for which the 2007 Family Maintenance 
Convention is in force.
     It would define the term ``2007 Family Maintenance 
Convention'' to mean the Hague Convention of November 23, 2007 
on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms 
of Family Maintenance.
    The Committee Bill would make it the responsibility of the 
HHS Secretary to facilitate support enforcement in cases 
involving residents of the United States and residents of 
``foreign reciprocating countries'' or ``foreign treaty 
countries.''
    The Committee Bill would include ``foreign treaty 
countries'' as entities which can receive notification as to 
the state of residence of the person being sought for child 
support enforcement purposes. It would include ``foreign 
reciprocating countries'' and ``foreign treaty countries'' as 
entities that states may enter into reciprocal arrangements 
with for the establishment and enforcement of child support 
obligations.

Collection of past-due support from federal tax refunds

            Present law
    The Federal Income Tax Refund Offset program collects past-
due child support payments from the income tax refunds of 
noncustodial parents who have been ordered to pay child 
support. The program is a cooperative effort between the 
federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), the 
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and state CSE agencies. Under 
the Federal Income Tax Refund Offset program, the IRS, 
operating on request from a state filed through the Secretary 
of HHS, intercepts tax returns and deducts the amount of 
certified child support arrearages. The money is then sent to 
the state CSE agency for distribution.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would amend federal law so that the 
federal income tax refund offset program is available for use 
by a state to handle CSE requests from foreign reciprocating 
countries and foreign treaty countries.

State law requirement concerning the Uniform Interstate Family Support 
        Act (UIFSA)

            Present law
    In the past, collecting child support across state lines 
was difficult. Laws varied from state to state, often causing 
complications that delayed the establishment and/or enforcement 
of child support orders. Congress recognized this problem and 
mandated (pursuant to P.L. 104-193) that all states adopt UIFSA 
to facilitate collecting child support across state lines. 
(Section 466(f)) P.L. 104-193 required that the 1996 version of 
UIFSA be adopted. It has been adopted in every state, the 
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
    The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State 
Laws (NCCUSL) approved additional amendments to UIFSA in August 
2001. However, there is no federal mandate for states to enact 
the 2001 amendments. To date, only 21 states and the District 
of Columbia have adopted the 2001 amendments to UIFSA. In July 
2008, the NCCUSL approved amendments to the 2001 UIFSA 
(referred to as UIFSA 2008), to integrate the appropriate 
provisions of the Convention. Similarly, there is no federal 
mandate for states to enact UIFSA 2008. To date, only 11 states 
have adopted the 2008 amendments to UIFSA. States that have 
adopted UIFSA 2008 now stand ready to immediately implement the 
Convention if it is ratified.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would require that for a state to 
receive federal CSE funding, each state's UIFSA must include 
verbatim any amendments officially adopted as of September 30, 
2008, by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform 
State Laws (NCCUSL). States would be required to adopt the 2008 
amendments verbatim to ensure uniformity of procedures, 
requirements, and reporting forms.

Full faith and credit for child support orders

            Present Law
    Federal law requires states to treat past-due child support 
obligations as final judgments that are entitled to full faith 
and credit in every state. This means that a person who has a 
child support order in one state does not have to obtain a 
second order in another state to obtain child support due 
should the noncustodial parent move from the issuing court's 
jurisdiction. Congress passed P.L. 103-383, the Full Faith and 
Credit for Child Support Orders Act (FFCCSOA), in 1994 because 
of concerns about the growing number of child support cases 
involving disputes between parents who lived in different 
states and the ease with which noncustodial parents could 
reduce the amount of the obligation or evade enforcement by 
moving across state lines. P.L. 103-383 required courts of all 
United States territories, states, and tribes to accord full 
faith and credit to a child support order issued by another 
state or tribe that properly exercised jurisdiction over the 
parties and the subject matter. P.L. 103-383 addressed the need 
to determine, in cases with more than one child support order 
issued for the same obligor and child, which order to recognize 
for purposes of continuing, exclusive jurisdiction and 
enforcement. P.L. 103-383 restricted a state court's ability to 
modify a child support order issued by another state unless the 
child and the custodial parent have moved to the state where 
the modification is sought or have agreed to the modification. 
The 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) clarified the 
definition of a child's home state and made several revisions 
to ensure that the full faith and credit laws could be applied 
consistently with UIFSA.
    One of the most important aspects of UIFSA is its 
provisions related to continuing, exclusive jurisdiction. 
Consistent with UIFSA's policy of ``one order, one time, one 
place,'' only one court is authorized to establish or modify a 
child support order at a time. UIFSA provides that the court or 
administrative agency that issues a valid child support order 
retains ``continuing, exclusive jurisdiction'' to modify an 
existing order, as long as the custodial parent, the 
noncustodial parent, or the child remains in the issuing state. 
This provision limits the number of duplicate and conflicting 
orders, and reduces ``forum'' shopping by parents seeking to 
increase or decrease the amount of child support payments.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would clarify present law by stipulating 
that a state court that has established a child support order 
has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify its order if 
the order is the controlling order and (1) the state is the 
child's state of residence or that of any individual contestant 
or (2) the contestants consent in a record or in open court 
that the court may continue to exercise jurisdiction to modify 
its order.
    The Committee Bill would also clarify that a state no 
longer has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction of a child 
support order if the state is not the residence of the child or 
an individual contestant, and the contestants have not 
consented in a record or in open court that the court of the 
other state may continue to exercise jurisdiction to modify its 
order.
    The Committee Bill would provide further clarification of 
under what conditions a state could modify a child support 
order.

    SEC. 312. RELIEF FROM PASSPORT SANCTIONS FOR CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS

Present law

    P.L. 104-193 (the 1996 welfare reform law) authorized the 
Secretary of State to deny, revoke, or restrict passports of 
debtor parents whose child support arrearages exceed $5,000. 
P.L. 109-171 (the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005) included a 
provision that lowered the threshold amount from $5,000 to 
$2,500 for denial of a passport to a noncustodial parent who 
owes past-due child support.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would allow the Secretary of State to 
issue certain noncustodial parents (with child support 
arrearages over the $2,500 threshold) passports if the 
Secretary of State certifies that the noncustodial parent's 
passport application includes evidence that he or she (1) has 
an income below $100,000; (2) only owes child support 
arrearages (and is not incurring any new child support 
obligations); (3) does not owe child support arrearages for a 
child under age 18; (4) has been making child support payments 
consistently and in good faith for the last 12 months; and (5) 
has a current offer to work outside of the United States, an 
offer to interview for work outside of the United States, a 
professional history of working outside of the United States, a 
job that requires travel outside of the United States, or is 
enrolled in a professional training program that requires 
travel outside of the United States.
    The Committee Bill would require the Secretary of State to 
revoke a passport issued to a noncustodial parent upon a 
determination that the individual has failed to make child 
support payments consistently and in good faith for more than 
six months.
    The Committee Bill would require the Secretary of State to 
report the issuance of such passports to HHS. It would also 
require HHS to report the issuance of such passports to state 
CSE agencies.

Committee note

    This provision appears as modified by the amendment offered 
by Senator Grassley.

     SEC. 313. CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS FOR INDIAN TRIBES

Tribal access to the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS)

            Present law
    In contrast to the federal matching rate of 66% for CSE 
programs run by the states or territories, pursuant to P.L. 
104-193 (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity 
Reconciliation Act of 1996), the CSE program provides 90% 
federal funding for approved CSE programs operated by tribes or 
tribal organizations during the first three years of full 
program operation, and provides 80% federal funding thereafter. 
Tribes and tribal organizations also may apply for two-year 
start-up grants which receive direct federal funding equal to 
100% of approved and allowable CSE expenditures during the 
start-up period. As of June 2013, 51 Indian tribes or tribal 
organizations operated comprehensive tribal CSE programs and 
nine Indian tribes or tribal organizations operated start-up 
tribal CSE programs.
    There is no statutory authority for direct tribal access to 
the FPLS and federal tax refund offset. However, the tribe 
could receive FPLS data from a state through an 
intergovernmental agreement. Under current federal law, the 
FPLS is only allowed to transmit information in its databases 
to ``authorized persons.''
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would provide Indian tribes or tribal 
organizations access to the FPLS by designating them as 
``authorized persons.''

Waiver authority for Indian tribes or tribal organizations operating 
        child support enforcement programs

            Present law
    The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) is 
authorized to fund state demonstration grants to test and 
evaluate new policies and practices that are intended to 
improve the operation of the child support program.
            Committee bill
    The Committee Bill would allow Indian tribes or tribal 
organizations that operate a CSE program to be considered a 
state for purposes of authority to conduct an experimental 
pilot or demonstration project under the section 1115 waiver 
authority to assist in promoting the objectives of the CSE 
program. (An Indian tribe or tribal organization that is 
applying for or receiving funding for a start-up CSE program 
would not be eligible for section 1115 demonstration grants.)

                 SEC. 314. PARENTING TIME ARRANGEMENTS

Present law

    To promote visitation and better relations between 
custodial and noncustodial parents, P.L. 104-193 (the Personal 
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) 
created the Access and Visitation Grants program. Funding for 
the program began in FY1997 with a capped alottment of $10 
million per year, with each state required to contribute ten 
percent of the total program costs. Each governor designated a 
state agency which uses these grant funds to establish and 
administer programs to support and facilitate noncustodial 
parents' access to and visitation with their children. The 
statute specifies certain activities which may be funded, 
including: voluntary and mandatory mediation, counseling, 
education, the development of parenting plans, supervised 
visitation, neutral drop-off and pick-up, and the development 
of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody 
arrangements.
    The Access and Visitation Grants program funding is 
separate from funding for federal and state administration of 
the Child Support Enforcement program. According to data from 
the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), all 50 
states plus the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and 
the Virgin Islands have provided access and visitation services 
to over a half million noncustodial parents and their families 
since the program became operational in FY1998.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would require states to implement 
procedures for the establishment of voluntary parenting time 
arrangements (sometimes known as visitation) at the time a 
child support order is initiated for unmarried parents, just as 
custody arrangements are typically settled at the same time 
divorces are finalized. Voluntary parenting time arrangements 
procedures are to be implemented in cases that are not 
contested (for such services) and where there are safeguards 
against family or domestic violence, dating violence, sexual 
assault, or stalking.
    The Committee Bill would require states, as part of their 
CSE State Plan, to provide for a process for including in the 
mandatory annual reviews and reports on the state CSE program 
(to the HHS Secretary) information regarding the policies and 
practices implemented by the state or which the state plans to 
implement to facilitate access to and visitation of children by 
noncustodial parents.

SEC. 315. EFFICIENT USE OF THE NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF NEW HIRES DATABASE 
FOR FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FEDERAL 
   POLICIES AND PROGRAMS IN ACHIEVING POSITIVE LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES

Present law

    The National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) is part of the 
FPLS. It is a database that contains personal and financial 
data on nearly every working American, as well as those 
receiving unemployment compensation. Contrary to its name, the 
NDNH includes more than just information on new employees. It 
is a database that includes information on (1) all newly hired 
employees, compiled from state reports (and reports from 
federal employers), (2) the quarterly wage reports of existing 
employees (in Unemployment Compensation (UC)-covered 
employment), and (3) unemployment compensation claims
    The NDNH was established to help states locate noncustodial 
parents living in a different state so that child support 
payments could be withheld from that parent's paycheck. Since 
its enactment in 1996, the NDNH has been extended to several 
additional programs and agencies to verify program eligibility, 
prevent or end fraud, collect overpayments, or assure that 
program benefits are correct.
    Current law requires that states have safeguards against 
unauthorized use or disclosure of all confidential information 
handled by the CSE agency.
    In addition, any person who unlawfully discloses the Social 
Security number of another person shall be guilty of a felony 
and upon conviction thereof shall be fined, imprisoned not more 
than five years, or both.
    Under current law new hire reports must be deleted from the 
NDNH 24 months after the date of entry.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would allow the HHS Secretary to provide 
access to data in each component of the FPLS as well as 
information reported by employers via the NDNH for (1) research 
undertaken by a state or federal agency (including through 
grant or contract) for purposes found by the Secretary to be 
likely to contribute to achieving the goals of Title IV-A of 
the Social Security Act (which includes the TANF block grant 
program and the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood 
programs) or the CSE program (Title IV-D of the Social Security 
Act), or (2) an evaluation or statistical analysis undertaken 
to assess the effectiveness of a federal program in achieving 
positive labor market outcomes (including through grant or 
contract), by a specified federal department or agency.
    The Committee Bill would stipulate that applicable data or 
information may include a personal identifier only if the state 
and federal agency conducting the relevant research or the 
federal department or agency undertaking the evaluation or 
statistical analysis enters into an agreement with the HHS 
Secretary regarding the security and use of the data or 
information. It would require the agreement to include such 
restrictions or conditions with respect to the use, 
safeguarding, disclosure, or re-disclosure of the data or 
information (including by contractors or grantees) as the 
Secretary deems appropriate. The Committee Bill would also 
require that the data or information be used exclusively for 
the purposes described in the agreement. In addition, the 
Committee Bill requires the Secretary to determine that the 
provision of data or information is the minimum amount needed 
to conduct the research, evaluation, or statistical analysis 
and that it will not interfere with the effective operation of 
the CSE program. (Note that these provisions are in addition to 
the current law provisions concerning disclosure and use of 
research information as well as information integrity and 
security.)
    The Committee Bill would stipulate that any individual who 
willfully discloses a personal identifier (such as a name or 
Social Security number) in any manner to an entity not entitled 
to receive the data or information, shall be fined, imprisoned 
not more than five years, or both.
    The Committee Bill would require that new hire reports be 
deleted from the NDNH 48 months after the date of entry.

Committee note

    This provision was included as a result of a roll call vote 
on an amendment offered by Senator Wyden.

            SUBTITLE B--CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT TASK FORCE

             SEC. 321. CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT TASK FORCE

Present law

    No provision.

Committee bill

    The Committee Bill would establish a Child Support 
Enforcement Task Force to study and evaluate the effectiveness 
of existing CSE programs and collection practices by state CSE 
agencies and make recommendations to Congress. The Committee 
Bill would require the Task Force to be composed of 15 members: 
(1) the Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Youth and 
Families (HHS); (2) five members appointed by the Senate, one 
selected by the Majority Leader, one selected by the Minority 
Leader, one selected by the Finance Committee chairman, one 
selected by the ranking member of the Finance Committee, and 
one jointly selected by the chairman and ranking member of the 
Finance Committee; (3) five members appointed by the House, one 
selected by the Speaker of the House, one selected by the 
Minority Leader, one selected by the Ways and Means Committee 
chairman, one selected by the ranking member of the Ways and 
Means Committee, one selected jointly by the chairman and 
ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee; and (4) four 
members appointed by the President. The Committee Bill would 
require that the appointments of the members of the Task Force 
be made not later than six months after enactment. Would 
require the Task Force to hold at least three public meetings 
which would include: (1) CSE program administrators; (2) family 
court judges or judges that preside over issues related to 
child support enforcement, child welfare, or social services 
for children and their families, and organizations that 
represent such judges; (3) custodial parents and/or 
organizations that represent them, (4) noncustodial parents 
and/or organizations that represent them; and (5) organizations 
that represent fiduciary entities that are affected by CSE 
policies. The Committee Bill would transfer $2 million from the 
unobligated balance of funds for Section 414 of the Social 
Security Act (i.e., study by the Census Bureau related to the 
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program) for the 
Task Force to carry out its duties. The funds would remain 
available through FY2016. The Committee Bill would require the 
Task Force to submit its report to Congress by January 1, 2016.

                      SUBTITLE C--EFFECTIVE DATES

                       SEC. 331. EFFECTIVE DATES

    The Committee Bill would require the provisions to take 
effect on enactment, except for the UIFSA amendment and the 
parenting time arrangements amendment to the CSE state plan 
which would take effect on October 1, 2014. If states must 
amend state law to comply with the two amendments mentioned 
above, the changes must be made no later than the first day of 
the first calendar quarter beginning after the close of the 
first regular session of the state legislature that begins 
after the date of enactment of this Act. For purposes of the 
previous sentence, in the case of a state that has a biannual 
legislature, each year of the session is considered to be a 
separate regular session of the state legislature. The 
Committee Bill would require amendments related to relief from 
passport sanctions and CSE programs for Indian tribes to take 
effect one year after the date of enactment.

                             List of Terms

    ACYF: Administration on Children, Youth and Families
    AFCARS: Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting 
System
    APPLA: Another planned permanent living arrangement
    CSE: Child support enforcement
    DOD: Department of Defense
    FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation
    FAOP: Federal Administrative Offset Program
    FCR: Federal Case Registry
    FOP: Federal Offset Program
    FFCCSOA: Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act 
(P.L 103-383)
    FOIA: The Freedom of Information Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-231)
    FPLS: Federal Parent Locator Service
    HHS : Department of Health and Human Services
    IRS: Internal Revenue Service
    MSFIDM: Multistate Financial Institution Data Match
    NCCUSL: National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform 
State Laws
    NCIC: National Crime Information Center
    NCMEC: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
    NDNH: National Directory of New Hires
    NSA: National Security Agency
    OCSE: Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
    PDP: Passport Denial Program
    SIPP: Survey of Income and Program Participants
    SSA: Social Security Administration
    TANF: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
    TVPA: Trafficking Victims Protection Act (P.L. 106-386)
    UIFSA: Uniform Interstate Family Support Act
    VA: Department of Veterans Affairs

                    III. BUDGET EFFECTS OF THE BILL


               Information Relating to Unfunded Mandates

    The statement of unfunded mandates from the Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office was not available at the time the 
Committee Report was submitted. Pursuant to section 423(f)(2) 
of the Unfunded Mandates Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-4) the statement 
will be published in the Congressional Record in advance of 
floor consideration of the Committee Bill.

                             Cost Estimate

    In compliance with paragraph 11(a) of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, the following statement is made 
concerning the estimated budget effects of the ``Supporting At-
Risk Youth Act'' as reported.
                                                  January 27, 2014.
Hon. Max Baucus,
Chairman, Committee on Finance,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
    Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has 
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 1870, the Supporting 
At-Risk Children Act.
    If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be 
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contacts are David 
Rafferty and Elizabeth Cove Delisle.
            Sincerely,
                                    Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director.
    Enclosure.

S. 1870--Supporting At-Risk Children Act

    Summary: S. 1870 would make numerous changes to programs 
for children and families within the Department of Health and 
Human Services (HHS). Among those changes, the bill would 
extend funding for Family Connection Grants, impose new 
placement and reporting rules in foster care, and require 
states to provide services so that unmarried parents could 
establish visitation agreements when setting up their child-
support order.
    CBO estimates that enacting the bill would increase direct 
spending by $487 million over the 2014-2024 period; therefore, 
pay-as-you-go procedures apply to the bill. Enacting S. 1870 
would not affect revenues.
    In addition, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would 
have a discretionary cost of $125 million over the 2014-2024 
period, assuming appropriation of the authorized amounts.
    S. 1870 would impose intergovernmental mandates, as defined 
in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), by increasing the 
stringency of conditions on state governments in their 
implementation of the Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, and 
Child Support Enforcement programs. CBO estimates, however, 
that the cost of the mandates would not exceed the threshold 
established in UMRA for intergovernmental mandates ($76 million 
in 2014, adjusted annually for inflation). The bill contains no 
private-sector mandates as defined in UMRA.
    Estimated cost to the federal government: The estimated 
budgetary impact of S. 1870 is shown in the following table. 
The costs of this legislation fall within budget functions 500 
(education, training, employment, and social services) and 600 
(income security).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                           By fiscal year, in millions of dollars--
                                                             -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                2014      2015      2016      2017      2018      2019      2020      2021      2022      2023      2024    2014-2019  2014-2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                   CHANGES IN DIRECT SPENDING

Parenting Time Arrangements:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         0        15        32        33        35        36        37        39        41        42        44        151        354
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         0        15        32        33        35        36        37        39        41        42        44        151        354
Identity Documents for Youth in Foster Care:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         0         4         5         7         7         7         7         6         6         6         6         30         61
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         0         4         5         7         7         7         7         6         6         6         6         30         61
Family Connection Grants:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................        15        15        15         0         0         0         0         0         0         0         0         45         45
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         *        10        14        15         5         1         0         0         0         0         0         45         45
Child Support for Youth in Foster Care:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         *         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         15         30
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         *         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         3         15         30
Foster Care and Guardianship Assistance:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         *         *         *         *         *        -1        -1        -1        -1        -1        -1         -1         -7
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         *         *         *         *         *        -1        -1        -1        -1        -1        -1         -1         -7
Data Collection and Reporting Requirements:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         0         2         2         1         0         0         0         0         0         0         0          5          5
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         0         2         2         1         0         0         0         0         0         0         0          5          5
Compliance with Multilateral Child Support Conventions:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *          *         -1
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *          *         -1
Total Changes in Direct Spending:
    Estimated Budget Authority..............................        15        39        57        44        45        45        46        47        49        50        52        245        487
    Estimated Outlays.......................................         *        34        56        59        50        46        46        47        49        50        52        245        487

                                                                          CHANGES IN SPENDING SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION

Authorization Level.........................................        43        43        43         0         0         0         0         0         0         0         0        129        129
Estimated Outlays...........................................        15        36        41        27         6         *         0         0         0         0         0        125       125
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes: Components may not sum to totals because of rounding.
* = between -$500,000 and $500,000.

    Basis of estimate: For this estimate, CBO assumes that the 
legislation will be enacted in 2014, that the authorized 
amounts will be appropriated for each year, and that outlays 
will follow historical spending patterns for the programs.
    Direct spending: In total, CBO estimates that enacting S. 
1870 would increase direct spending by $487 million over the 
2014-2024 period.
    Parenting Time Arrangements. Section 314 would require 
states to provide services so that unmarried parents could 
establish visitation agreements when setting up their child-
support order. (Divorcing parents often establish parenting 
time arrangements as part of their divorce proceedings in 
family court.) According to HHS, the majority of the 1.2 
million child-support orders established each year are for 
children whose parents were not married at the time of their 
birth. Based on information from the Office of Child Support 
Enforcement, CBO anticipates states would establish around 
750,000 parenting time arrangements each year. CBO expects an 
average federal cost of around $50 per arrangement, as the 
federal government reimburses states for 66 percent of their 
costs to administer the child support program. As a result, 
enacting section 314 would increase direct spending by about 
$350 million over the 2014-2024 period, CBO estimates.
    Identity Documents for Youth in Foster Care. Section 222 
would require states to ensure that certain youth have a birth 
certificate, Social Security card, state identification 
document or driver's license, and (if desired) bank account 
before exiting foster care. The bill also would require HHS to 
penalize states that do not comply by reducing the federal 
reimbursement to such states for foster-care administrative 
expenses. CBO expects that states would achieve a high level of 
compliance given the potentially significant penalties--but 
that those penalties nonetheless would amount to several 
million dollars per year, partially offsetting the federal 
costs for implementing this provision. Based on data from the 
Department of Homeland Security, Social Security 
Administration, state motor-vehicle and vital-records agencies, 
and HHS, CBO estimates that on net, enacting section 222 would 
increase direct spending by about $60 million over the 2014-
2024 period.
    Family Connection Grants. Section 121 would appropriate $15 
million for each year from 2014 through 2016 for Family 
Connection grants to assist children who are either in foster 
care or at risk of entering foster care to re-establish 
connections with family members. Based on historical patterns 
of spending in the program, CBO estimates that extending the 
program for those years would increase direct spending by $45 
million over the 2014-2024 period, with most of those outlays 
falling in fiscal years 2015 through 2017.
    Child Support for Youth in Foster Care. Section 212 would 
require states to pass through child-support collections to 
specified youth in foster care who are age 14 or older instead 
of retaining those collections to reimburse the state and 
federal government for foster-care payments on the child's 
behalf. Based on data from the Adoption and Foster Care 
Analysis and Reporting System and HHS, CBO estimates that 
enacting this provision would increase direct spending by $30 
million over the 2014-2024 period.
    Foster Care and Guardianship Assistance. Section 116 would 
preserve a child's eligibility for a kinship guardian 
assistance payment if his relative guardian were replaced, 
because of death or incapacity, with a successor legal guardian 
named in the kinship guardian agreement. Based on the 
difference in federal costs for eligible children in kinship 
guardianships and other child-welfare placements, CBO estimates 
that this provision would decrease direct spending by $7 
million over the 2014-2024 period.
    Data Collection and Reporting Requirements. Sections 117 
and 231 would require states to collect in their child-welfare 
information systems certain data about disrupted or dissolved 
adoptions and guardianships and trafficking victims. Based on 
information from state child-welfare and information-technology 
agencies and from HHS about likely programming and 
implementation costs and federal reimbursement rates, CBO 
estimates that enacting those two provisions would increase 
direct spending by $5 million over the 2014-2024 period.
    Compliance with Multilateral Child Support Conventions. 
Section 311 would implement the Hague Convention on the 
International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of 
Family Maintenance, to which the U.S. Senate gave its consent 
in September 2010. The bill would simplify some administrative 
steps related to enforcing child support orders involving 
another treaty nation. CBO estimates that implementing section 
311 would reduce direct spending by $1 million over the 2014-
2024 period.
    Other Provisions. Additionally, S. 1870 includes several 
provisions whose net effect on direct spending would not be 
significant.
     Improving Collection of Unemployment Insurance 
Overpayments. Section 131 would require states to use the 
Treasury Offset Program to seek to recover overpayments of 
unemployment compensation. However, a nearly identical 
provision that targets substantially the same overpayments was 
enacted in December as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 
2013 (Public Law 113-67). Consequently, CBO expects that 
section 131 would have little or no additional effect on the 
budget.
     Identifying and Screening Trafficking Victims. 
Section 211 would require states to attest in their state plan 
for child welfare that they have developed and are implementing 
policies to identify, screen, and provide services to child 
trafficking victims. Based on conversations with numerous state 
officials about existing state laws and policies regarding 
victims of trafficking, CBO estimates that enacting section 211 
would not significantly affect direct spending by the federal 
government.
     Planned Permanent Living Arrangements for Youth in 
Foster Care. Several provisions in section 212 would make 
changes to Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to encourage 
or require states to seek reunification with parents, adoption, 
or placement with a legal guardian as the planned permanent 
living arrangement for youth in foster care age 14 or older. 
Consequently, some youth could be placed in a living 
arrangement with a higher cost to the federal government (such 
as remaining in federally reimbursed foster care instead of 
being emancipated from foster care), while others could be 
placed in a lower-cost setting (such as a kinship guardianship 
instead of foster care). Based on information from several 
states and HHS, CBO estimates that the effects of those 
provisions in section 212 would roughly offset each other and 
thus would not have a significant net effect on direct 
spending.
     Advisory Committee and Task Force. Sections 241 
and 321 would establish an advisory committee and task force to 
be funded from unobligated balances in a particular Census 
Bureau account. CBO estimates that insufficient unobligated 
balances exist to fund the committee and task force. 
Furthermore, CBO projects that all of the funds that will be 
made available in future years will be spent, leaving no 
unobligated balances to use for those new purposes. Therefore, 
enacting sections241 and 321 would have no effect on direct 
spending.
    Spending subject to appropriation: The bill would 
reauthorize and amend the Adoption Incentives program through 
2016. This program provides payments to states for increasing, 
within different categories, the number of children they place 
in adoption each year above baseline standards. The bill would 
authorize the appropriation of $43 million each year from 2014 
through 2016. Based on historical patterns of spending in the 
program, CBO estimates that implementing the reauthorization 
would cost $15 million in 2014 and $125 million over the 2014-
2019 period, assuming the appropriation of the authorized 
amounts. The bulk of that spending would occur in fiscal years 
2014 through 2017.
    Pay-as-you-go considerations: The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go 
Act of 2010 establishes budget-reporting and enforcement 
procedures for legislation affecting direct spending or 
revenues. The net changes in outlays that are subject to those 
pay-as-you-go procedures are shown in the following table.

              CBO ESTIMATE OF PAY-AS-YOU-GO EFFECTS FOR S. 1870 AS ORDERED REPORTED BY THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE ON DECEMBER 19, 2013
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                    By fiscal year, in millions of dollars--
                                                      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020   2021   2022   2023   2024  2014-2019  2014-2024
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                               NET INCREASE IN THE DEFICIT

Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Impact.......................      0     34     56     59     50     46     46     47     49     50     52       245        487
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Intergovernmental and private-sector impact: For large 
entitlement grant programs like Foster Care, Adoption 
Assistance, and Child Support Enforcement, UMRA defines an 
increase in the stringency of conditions on states or 
localities as an intergovernmental mandate if the affected 
governments lack authority to offset those costs while 
continuing to provide required services. Under the Foster Care 
and Adoption Assistance programs, the bill would require states 
to comply with new standards for collecting and reporting 
program information to federal authorities. States also would 
be required to ensure that a child who leaves foster care 
receives a copy of his or her official birth certificate, a 
Social Security card, and a driver's license or identification 
card, and that the child is able to open an account at a bank 
or credit union. S. 1870 also would require states to implement 
procedures for establishing voluntary visitation arrangements 
at the time a child support order is initiated.
    Since these requirements would be additional conditions for 
receiving federal assistance from large entitlement programs 
and since states have limited flexibility to amend their 
responsibilities under those programs to offset the additional 
costs, the requirements would be intergovernmental mandates. 
CBO estimates the costs to states to comply with the mandates 
would total more than $50 million by 2018 but would not exceed 
the threshold established in UMRA for intergovernmental 
mandates ($76 million in 2014, adjusted annually for 
inflation). The bill contains no private-sector mandates as 
defined in UMRA.
    CBO has not reviewed section 311 for intergovernmental or 
private-sector mandates because section 4 of UMRA excludes from 
the application of that act any legislative provisions that are 
necessary for the ratification or implementation of 
international treaty obligations. CBO has determined that 
section 311 falls within that exclusion.
    Estimate prepared by: Federal Costs: David Rafferty and 
Elizabeth Cove Delisle; Impact on State, Local, and Tribal 
Governments: Lisa Ramirez-Branum; Impact on the Private Sector: 
Chung Kim.
    Estimate approved by: Peter H. Fontaine, Assistant Director 
for Budget Analysis.

 ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATIONS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE

                            SENATOR PORTMAN

    Post-adoption services are not available to internationally 
adopted children, even though they are citizens of the United 
States. There was a Reuters series this fall about the 
underground ``child trading'' within international adoption 
community. Since state child welfare agencies are not involved 
in international adoption proceedings, there is really no way 
for them to track internationally adopted children at the state 
level. I offered an amendment to open up resources for kids and 
families who are struggling and need help after the adoption is 
complete--before problems rise to the level greater child 
welfare or foster care involvement. I am encouraged that the 
Chairman has agreed to examine this issue further and has 
committed to hold a committee hearing on this subject. In light 
of this commitment, I will withdraw my amendment.
    I am pleased that the Finance committee will advance 
provisions from the Child Sex Trafficking Data and Response Act 
as part of a broader child welfare package.
    Senator Wyden and I introduced this legislation in June 
2013 and we have received strong bipartisan backing from many 
members of this committee. This measure is critical because we 
know that there are many instances when state child welfare 
systems fail to properly identify and assist trafficked and 
exploited children. This legislation would streamline data 
collection and reporting on sex trafficking. It would ensure 
that exploited children qualify for and receive services 
through the child welfare system. It would also enhance data 
collection on children who have been identified as victims of 
sex trafficking.
    I am grateful the Chairman and my colleagues for joining me 
to support this important measure to better deal with child sex 
trafficking.

                             SENATOR WYDEN

    On December 12, 2013, the Senate Finance Committee advanced 
legislation that would have an immense positive impact on the 
lives of vulnerable children in this country. I am proud of the 
work this Committee has done in the arena of child welfare and 
profoundly grateful for Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member 
Hatch's dedication to advocating for this nation's most 
precious resource: our children.
    I would like to take this opportunity to describe and 
restate my strong support for an amendment that I offered and 
the Committee accepted to the Supporting At-Risk Children Act. 
This amendment, Wyden #1, would allow specified federal 
agencies to access the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) 
for research projects in order to evaluate the effectiveness of 
federal policies and programs--many of which were created and 
are overseen by this Committee--in achieving positive labor 
market outcomes.
    In Fiscal Year 2013, the federal government spent over $185 
billion on higher education and workforce development programs 
including tax subsidies, grants, work study, student loans, and 
employment and training programs at various federal agencies. 
State and local governments spent even more. Despite these 
significant outlays, relatively little is known about the 
return on investment of taxpayer dollars.
    This amendment would take a critical step forward in 
providing the hard data needed to ensure that money is not 
being wasted on ineffective programs and policies--and another 
important step toward true evidence-based budgeting. In an era 
of constrained resources, it is crucial that reliable data is 
available to measure performance and conduct cost-effective, 
rigorous evaluations of federal investments.
    Simply, this amendment would allow the NDNH's earnings 
records to be used to determine the extent to which federal 
education, training, and social service programs help people 
get jobs and earn family-sustaining wages. The language is 
identical to language included in H.R. 1896, which was passed 
in the House of Representatives by a vote of 394-27.
    As some have expressed a concern over the data security and 
privacy implications of my amendment, I would like to take this 
opportunity to address this concern in more detail. To begin, 
it is important to note that this amendment does not authorize 
any new data collection; it would narrowly expand the 
authorized uses of earnings data that the federal government 
currently collects, to enable this data to be used in a smarter 
and secure way.
    The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of 
Child Support Enforcement, where the NDNH is housed, goes 
through a rigorous process to protect the privacy and 
confidentiality of the data, as required by statute. HHS 
follows the Government Accountability Office's recommended best 
practices, including ensuring that the NDNH data is only 
accessed by authorized parties, is only accessed for narrowly 
authorized purposes, that only the minimum amount of data 
needed is accessed, and that the data will be protected during 
the entire chain of custody--including agency contractors. 
Importantly, the NDNH has never had a data breach in its 16-
year history.
    Under current practice, the exact same wage record data 
contained within the NDNH is accessible for research purposes, 
but only after a burdensome and expensive process. Gordon 
Berlin, on behalf of MDRC, explained in his testimony before 
the House Ways and Means Committee:

          Research firms that are funded by federal agencies to 
        evaluate programs often rely on data collected by 
        states from employers on employment and earnings, data 
        that the states already report to the federal 
        government for certain child support enforcement and 
        other purposes. These data are housed in accessible 
        form at the federal level within the National Directory 
        of New Hires (NDNH) database. However, research 
        contractors are generally unable to access this 
        essential database for assessing whether federally 
        supported programs actually work. Instead, they are 
        forced to get the very same data directly from the 
        states, at great cost to the federal government and at 
        considerable burden in duplicative reporting for the 
        states. If the NDNH database were made available to 
        evaluators (with appropriate privacy safeguards), it 
        would enable Congress and the federal agencies to 
        assess the impact that social programs have on jobs and 
        earnings at much less cost and burden to the federal 
        government and the states.

    Current federal law forces researchers and evaluators to 
gather data in a piecemeal and state-by-state fashion, and 
because state data laws governing data privacy and security 
vary widely in strength and enforcement, a singular, defined 
federal process will not only improve the quality of data, it 
will enhance the security of such data.
    This amendment expands access to the NDNH in a narrow way 
to facilitate better evaluation and to reduce taxpayer and 
state cost and burden. The narrow expansion would allow 
particular units within 10 agencies to use the data for a very 
specific purpose. Seven of the 10 agencies in the legislation 
currently have statutory authority to access the NDNH. This 
language simply expands the authorized purposes to include 
research and statistical uses to study labor market outcomes, 
and allows the data to be used in ways that are more conducive 
to research. This limited expansion reduces cost to taxpayers, 
burden to states, and has strong safeguards.
    The narrow expansion in this amendment would increase 
privacy protections. The amendment only allows access to 
outside entities if they are acting as agents of the designated 
federal agencies. Both the federal agencies and their agents 
are subject to a number of requirements designed to protect 
privacy and confidentiality--including the Privacy Act and the 
Federal Information Security Management Act. The legislation 
goes even further than these baseline protections, making 
unauthorized disclosure of personally identifiable information 
a Class E felony. Any individual who willfully discloses a 
personal identifier in any manner to an entity not entitled to 
receive the data or information, would be subject to fines 
under Title 18, United States Code, imprisoned not more than 
five years, or both.
    Similarly-sensitive data are safely used for research and 
evaluation today. For example, the Centers for Medicare and 
Medicaid Services (CMS) collects and protects such information 
about all Medicare and Medicaid enrollees, including 
information about individual doctor visits, diagnoses and 
prescriptions. CMS has long made its data available for 
research purposes, consistent with the Privacy Act and the 
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's strict 
privacy requirements.
    To conclude, this amendment would eliminate unnecessary and 
duplicative data collection efforts, save federal and state 
taxpayer money, reduce reporting burdens on state governments, 
and improve the quality and efficiency of federally-supported 
evaluation research, all while continuing to protect the 
privacy of individuals. It would achieve these goals by using 
earnings data that states and the federal government collect in 
a way that will better inform federal lawmakers and this 
Committee's ongoing efforts, without authorizing any new data 
collection.

   MINORITY VIEWS OF SENATORS BURR, CORNYN, ENZI, CRAPO, and ROBERTS

    We respectfully file dissenting views to Wyden Amendment 
#1, ``Evaluating the Effectiveness of Federal Programs'', which 
was adopted during committee consideration to The Supporting 
At-Risk Children Act of 2013.\1\ Although we support the 
underlying legislation Senator Wyden amended and on which the 
Chairman and Ranking Member worked hard to offer for committee 
consideration, we have serious concerns over the unintended 
consequences this amendment will have for the security of 
Americans' data and the proper role of the federal government 
in our personal lives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\During committee consideration, the Wyden Amendment was adopted 
by a vote of 14-10, with all Democrats and Senator Grassley supporting 
and all other Republicans opposing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The purpose of the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) 
is to provide a national directory of employment and 
unemployment insurance information that will enable state Child 
Support Enforcement agencies to be more effective in locating 
noncustodial parents, establishing child support orders and 
enforcing child support orders.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act 
of 1996, Section 4316(i), P.L. 104-193.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Certain other agencies, however, like Social Security, use 
NDNH to confirm employment and income verification with 
limited, Congressionally-authorized purposes. The Wyden 
Amendment would expand the use of NDNH data to allow ``personal 
identifiers'', such as Social Security numbers and specific 
wage data on all Americans, to be used without apparent limit 
on Washington bureaucrats and private research organizations 
and for the broad purposes of program evaluation of federal 
job-training and education programs.
    The Wyden Amendment would expand upon current law's narrow 
usage to include the Departments of Labor, Education, Housing 
and Urban Development, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, 
Health and Human Services, the Bureau of Census, and the 
National Science Foundation as agencies having access to 
personal identifiers. It would then allow private organizations 
at request by the aforementioned agencies, again without any 
discernible limits within the Wyden Amendment's text, to use 
this personal information to conduct various research studies 
outside of Congress' oversight or explicit authorization. 
Furthermore, it would extend the number of years personal data 
could be stored in Washington for these vast new uses from two 
to four years.
    We share Senator Wyden's goals for this amendment of 
eliminating wasteful, duplicative, and ineffective federal job-
training and education programs. In our view, however, the use 
of personal information on all Americans for the purposes of 
program evaluation and general research by outside groups 
raises basic privacy concerns and goes beyond the narrow 
purposes for which NDNH was originally created. It also 
enhances the possibility one individual in the federal 
government, with whom we've entrusted these data, will act in 
bad faith and disclose this information.
    On this point, Congressional Research Service (CRS) in a 
July 15, 2013 report analyzing the expansion of the NDNH for 
program evaluation and research goals made the following 
observation:

          ``The expansion of access to and use of personal 
        information contained in the FPLS, especially in the 
        National Directory of New Hires, could potentially lead 
        to privacy and confidentiality breaches, financial 
        fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. There is also 
        concern that a broader array of legitimate users of the 
        NDNH may conceal the unauthorized use of the personal 
        and financial data in the NDNH. Moreover, concerns 
        about data security and the privacy rights of employees 
        have been a point of contention in many of the debates 
        regarding expanded access to the NDNH.''\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\Congressional Research Service (CRS) ``Hague Convention Treaty 
on Recovery of International Child Support and H.R. 1896'', July 15, 
2013.

    Far from being a controlled expansion or even cautious 
authorization by Congress for agencies to conduct a limited 
number of studies, the Wyden Amendment amounts to a blank check 
for Washington bureaucrats to conduct program research and 
evaluation as they choose with the personal data of every 
working American at risk and without their knowledge or 
consent. Even the worthy goals of program consolidation and 
elimination, theoretical at this point as they are, do not 
justify the insouciance with which this amendment grants access 
to these data to federal agencies.

                       IV. VOTES OF THE COMMITTEE

    In compliance with paragraph 7(b) of rule XXVI of the 
standing rules of the Senate, the Committee states that, with a 
majority and quorum present, the ``The Supporting At-Risk 
Children Act'' was amended and ordered favorably reported as 
follows:
    The Committee on Finance met on December 12, 2013 to 
consider an original bill entitled, ``The Supporting At-Risk 
Children Act.''
    The Chairman's Mark was modified and amended as follows:
    Amendment 9, Portman 1--To clarify that post-adoption 
services are extended to internationally adopted children and 
their families
    Amendment withdrawn
    Amendment 3, Menendez/Grassley 1--Strengthen and Vitalize 
Enforcement of Child Support (SAVE Child Support) Act (S. 508) 
Amendment withdrawn
    Amendment 1, Wyden 1--Evaluating the Effectiveness of 
Federal Programs
    Approved by roll call vote, 14 ayes, 10 nays--Ayes: Baucus, 
Rockefeller (proxy), Wyden, Schumer (proxy), Stabenow, 
Cantwell, Nelson (proxy), Menendez, Carper, Cardin, Brown 
(proxy), Bennet, Casey, Grassley; Nays: Hatch, Crapo (proxy), 
Roberts (proxy), Enzi (proxy), Cornyn (proxy), Thune (proxy), 
Burr, Isakson, Portman (proxy), Toomey
    Amendment 5, Grassley/Rockefeller/Casey 1--Promoting 
Sibling Connection
    Accepted as modified
    Amendment 4, Hatch 1--Timely Adoption Award Pool
    Accepted
    Amendment 8, Grassley 4--Allowing Parents With Child 
Support Enforcement Arrearages to Petition the Department of 
State for a Waiver of Passport Sanctions
    Accepted as modified
    The Chairman's Mark, as amended, was ordered favorably 
reported by a voice vote.

           V. REGULATORY IMPACT STATEMENT AND RELATED MATTERS

                          A. Regulatory Impact

    In accordance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate the Committee makes the following 
statement concerning the regulatory impact of the Supporting 
At-Risk Kids Act.

                  Impact on Individuals and Businesses

    In general the bill provides improvements to adoption, 
child welfare, and child support programs. Regulations are 
needed to implement these provisions and as such will likely 
affect individuals eligible for certain services. Businesses 
are likely not to be effected.

               Impact on Personal Privacy and Paper Work

    In general the bill provides improvements to adoption, 
child welfare, and child support programs. In the context of 
implementing these provisions states may ask individuals 
eligible for certain services for information that the state 
deems relevant. The bill should not adversely impact or 
increase the amount of personal information and paper work 
required relative to current law.

       VI. CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL, AS REPORTED

    In the opinion of the Committee, in order to expedite the 
business of the Senate, it is necessary to dispense with the 
requirements of paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the Standing Rules 
of the Senate (relating to the showing of changes in existing 
law made by the bill as reported by the Committee).

                                  
