Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, in 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that navigators were not cost-effective in enrolling people in health insurance. During the 2017 open enrollment period, navigators received over $62.5 million in Federal grants while enrolling 81,426 individuals. That is less than 1 percent of those enrolled in the Federal exchanges, which comes out to a cost of $767 per enrollee. In other words, the taxpayer is paying $767 per enrollee for each person enrolled. The CMS also found that nearly 80 percent of the navigators failed to reach their enrollment goals. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I know it is Halloween, and it is time for trick or treat, but I urge my colleagues not to be tricked by this scary fairytale dreamed up by the Democrats that would suggest that the section 1332 waiver that give States more flexibility, which they wrote, somehow jeopardizes protections for people with preexisting health conditions, which they also wrote. Both are in the 2010 ObamaCare law. Preexisting health conditions are protected. The law says so. The law does not allow any 1332 waiver, which is the subject of what we are voting on in a few minutes, to change that. Twelve States have had their 1332 waivers approved by the Trump administration, and in no case did it affect preexisting conditions. Seema Verma, who has to approve all of these waiver applications from the Department of Health and Human Services, says the law doesn't permit any change in preexisting condition protections, and if somehow a waiver asked for it, she would not approve it. What my Democratic friends are voting for today is to take away a tool from States that has been used to reduce rates by 43 percent in Maryland, 20 percent in Minnesota, and 15 percent in New Jersey. It has been used in Hawaii, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Alaska, and North Dakota. Why would you take away a flexibility option that you wrote to give your own voters lower health insurance rates? I know it is Halloween, but don't be tricked. Don't believe this scary fairytale. Protection for preexisting conditions when you buy health insurance is the law. Nothing in the 1332 waiver guidance changes that. I urge my colleagues to vote no. Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today we will vote to reject yet another attempt by the Trump administration to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, ACA. The President has tried to do everything within his power to dismantle the law. He has tried to repeal it through Congress twice and failed both times. When that did not work, his administration joined Republican State attorneys general in a lawsuit that would strike down the ACA with no plan to replace it, one of the reasons Congress rejected his initial repeal efforts. Now, this President has decided to unravel the ACA through other means. We have seen efforts to destabilize the health insurance market by not making cost-sharing payments, reducing funding to help enroll individuals in plans, or by allowing insurers to sell less comprehensive plans through short-term coverage or association health plans. This administration has also welcomed waivers from States that want to restrict Medicaid coverage by conditioning benefits on whether or not someone has a job. Throughout its ongoing efforts to sabotage the ACA, the Trump administration issued its rule to allow States to discriminate against Americans with preexisting conditions. This rule gives States new options for pursuing a section 1332 ``state innovation waiver'' under the ACA. Section 1332 of the law gives states additional flexibility to implement State-specific improvements that expand coverage, reduce costs, and provide more comprehensive benefits. I am proud that Vermont was the first State to apply for a waiver when the application process first started in 2016. Now this administration wants to significantly change the enforcement of the four important guardrails enacted by Congress that waiver proposals must meet in order to be approved. These guardrails ensure that the waivers must offer comprehensive plans at an affordable rate that protect patients with preexisting conditions and do not increase the Federal deficit. Under this rule, States can increase costs for vulnerable populations and reduce their quality of coverage. That is unacceptable, especially for this President who promised on the campaign trail that ``everybody is going to be taken care of.'' The intent of the 1332 provision was to let States innovate, so long as they continue to cover the same number of people and maintain the consumer protections set forth in the law. Vermont's waiver is consistent with the ACA and seeks to expand coverage to improve healthcare outcomes for all Vermonters. By allowing States to permit the sale of health insurance plans that do not cover essential health benefits such as maternity care, emergency room visits, or mental healthcare, those that need comprehensive health insurance coverage will be forced into a high cost plan, or stuck with an insurance plan that can deny benefits for whatever reason. These consumer protections were at the heart of the ACA and are why Vermont and a number of other States have enacted State laws to maintain these critical protections for those with preexisting conditions. Throughout their numerous attempts to sabotage the ACA, this administration has made dubious claims that they support protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. Certainly, their well- established record clearly and unequivocally refutes this claim. Today, Senate Republicans can show the American people that they do genuinely want to protect Americans with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, substance use disorders, behavioral health disorders, or any of the other preexisting conditions that States would not have to cover under this rule. This vote is about the more than 130 million Americans with a preexisting condition who need strong protections. It is about who we are as a nation and how we care for our people. Congress must ensure that all Americans have access to comprehensive, high-quality health insurance plans that meet their needs at an affordable rate. The passage of Senator Warner's the Protect Pre-Existing Conditions Congressional Review Act resolution would be a step in the right direction. We must not send our country back to the days when insurance companies could discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. We must not go backward.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, with all respect, this is no way to help historically Black colleges and minority-serving institutions. What the Senator from Maryland is suggesting is that we pass a bill that would have 2 years' funding that is supported by a budget gimmick that will never pass the U.S. Senate. If we are relying on that proposal to fund historically Black colleges, it is all over. What I have offered instead--and I introduced 3 weeks ago on the floor of the Senate--is a bipartisan package of bills that begins with permanent funding for historically Black colleges and minority-serving institutions that is fully paid for. So if the choice is between 2 years of a gimmick that will never pass the Senate and permanent funding that is fully paid for, that is not much of a hard decision for me. In addition to that, I suggested at the same time that we pass some other proposals that are bipartisan and have been drafted by 32 Senators--18 Democrats, 14 Republicans. In addition to the long-term, permanent solution for minority-serving institutions of $225 million a year, we include simplifying FAFSA, which would help 20 million families a year. Senator Jones and I introduced a bill to do that just yesterday. That can pass this week and go to the President and be signed into law. There is also Pell grants for prisoners, short-term Pell grants. Senator Daines and Senator Portman and many others have suggested that. We have a proposal that simplifies the aid letters. We have a way to pay for the package. We have a way to keep parents from having to send two sets of tax information to two different agencies of government--all in this package. The eight bills--and three bills I hope to include later--ended up being cosponsored by 48 Senators, 25 Democrats and 23 Republicans. All of this is ready to be considered by the Senate and sent to the President and can pass this year. So I am about to object, but what I want to make clear to the historically Black colleges--and there are six of them in Tennessee--is that the Secretary of Education has written a letter assuring them that there are sufficient funds for another year and that the proposal by the Senator from Maryland would only be 2 years, is a budget gimmick, and will never pass the Senate. So let's work together to permanently fund historically Black colleges, simplify the FAFSA, 2-year Pell grants, increase the number of students who get Pell grants--all of that can be done now. Let's not keep pretending that we are helping the colleges with a proposal that is short-term, a budget gimmick, and will never pass the Senate. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Jones, and I have legislation that we propose to introduce tonight. I am prepared to let him speak before I do because I understand he has another event, but I don't see him. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the Senator from Alabama will be here shortly. I will go ahead and make my remarks, and then he can add his. I ask unanimous consent that I may be able to use a piece of demonstrative evidence as a part of my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, about 20 million Americans know what this is. This is the FAFSA. This is the form that about 20 million Americans fill out every year in order to qualify for the Pell grant and the student loan they might use to go to college--20 million Americans. About 400,000 Tennesseans fill this out every year, and what Senator Jones and I propose to do is to reduce the 108 questions that are filled out online to between 17 and 30 as a way of making it simpler and easier for 20 million American families and their children to go to college. Last month, I received a letter from Janet who volunteers with low- income students in Nashville and has seen the challenges students and their families face to apply for college and financial aid. She describes the FAFSA as ``being a huge impediment . . . to students raised in poverty to even attend college.'' Janet continued, saying: ``But a few years ago, a different hurdle became evident.'' She was referring to something called verification. She told the story of an excellent student who began classes at Middle Tennessee State University, but 6 weeks into her fall semester, her FAFSA was flagged for verification--a complicated process that stops Pell grant payments while a student and their families scramble to submit their Federal tax information or prove they didn't have to file taxes. ``Our student had to drop out of school as she lost funding,'' Janet said. ``There has to be a better way.'' Well, today Senator Jones and I are suggesting a better way. We call it the FAFSA Simplification Act, to give students a better, simpler way to apply for financial aid. Every year, nearly 20 million families, as I said, fill out the FAFSA to apply for Federal student aid, including 400,000 families in Tennessee. A volunteer mentor with Tennessee Promise, which is our State's program that provides 2 years of free community college, told me that the FAFSA has a ``chilling effect'' on students and on parents. Former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam told me that Tennessee has the highest rate for filling out the FAFSA--more students fill it out than in any other State by percentage--but it is still the single biggest impediment to more students enrolling in Tennessee Promise, which gives them a free community college tuition. The FAFSA Simplification Act will make it easier for families to apply for Federal student aid by doing three things. First, it reduces the number of questions on the FAFSA from 108 to 17 to 30 questions. Second, it will greatly reduce the need for the burdensome verification I discussed, the process that caused Janet's student to drop out of school. East Tennessee State University said that one-third of its applicants, approximately 10,000 students, are selected each year for verification. Third, this legislation will allow students to find out as early as eighth grade how much Pell grant funding they may be eligible for so students can start to plan for college sooner. This result has been 5 years in the making. In 2014, at a hearing before our Senate Education Committee, witnesses testified that the vast majority of questions on the FAFSA are unnecessary. I asked if the four witnesses, who came from many different directions, would each write a letter to the committee recommending how they would simplify the FAFSA. The witnesses stopped for a moment, they looked at one another, and said: We don't have to write you four letters because we all agree on how to fix the FAFSA. We can write you one letter, and they did. So Senator Michael Bennet, a Democratic member who was on the committee at the time, said: Well, if that is true and if there is that much agreement, then why don't we do what you recommend? I mean, how many times do we go home to Tennessee or Arizona and Alabama and explain something and people say: Well, then why don't you do it? This is a case of, well, then why don't we do it, and Senator Jones and I are here to ask that question and recommend that we do. So we started talking with other Senators, students, college administrators, other experts about how to simplify the FAFSA. In 2015, Senator Bennet and I--now, listen to this list--along with Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, Senators Enzi, Warner, and Isakson, introduced bipartisan legislation that would reduce the number of FAFSA questions to two questions. After discussions with college administrators and States, we realized we needed to keep some questions or States and schools would have to create their own additional forms that students would need to fill out. Over the last 4 years, we have improved that legislation. We now believe that what Senator Jones and I are proposing will permit us to move forward with bipartisan legislation that would reduce the FAFSA to between 18 and 30 questions. That is the legislation we have introduced today. This is one more step to make it easier for families to fill out the FAFSA. In President Obama's administration, with the encouragement of our committee, families were allowed to use the tax information from the previous year so they could apply to colleges in the fall rather than have to wait until the spring. Second, the Trump administration has put the FAFSA application on a phone app. I was at Sevier County High School last November, and I saw students zipping through the FAFSA on their iPhones. Third, last year's Senate passed bipartisan legislation that Senator Murray of Washington and I introduced that allows students to answer up to 22 questions on the current FAFSA with just 1 click, and that will stop requiring students to give the same information to the Federal Government twice. I can't tell you the number of parents and grandparents who said to me: Why do I have to give the same information to the Federal Government twice in order to apply for a student loan or a Pell grant? The answer is, you shouldn't have to. This would dramatically decrease the number of students selected for verification. In conclusion, that third step, along with the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced today, is part of the package I introduced last month to permanently fund historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, provide Pell grants for prisoners, and allow Pell grants to be used for short-term programs. This legislation, which includes our bill to simplify the FAFSA, can and should pass the Senate and the House this year so it can be signed into law by the President. By reducing the number of questions on the FAFSA, reducing the need for verification, and allowing students to learn earlier how much aid they may qualify for, the FAFSA Simplification Act will make it simpler and easier for students and families to apply for financial aid. I have some statements of support which I would like to read into the Record, but I will pause at this moment and give Senator Jones a chance to speak, and then I will come back after he has finished and ask for the floor and discuss these statements of support.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Jones made a very important point, not only about Alabama, but really about every State. The Pell grant that we are talking about is money you don't have to pay back. This is not a student loan that you lay awake at night worrying about. Forty percent of our college students in this country go to community colleges, 2-year colleges. The average tuition at community colleges in America is $3,600. The average Pell grant is $3,600. Just those few facts show that basically 40 percent of those who go to college in America can go tuition-free or close to tuition-free because of the availability of the Pell grant. Now, it is higher in some States and lower in other States, but that is a fact. These are not loans that you have to pay back. These are grants that basically say that, if you want 2 years of college past high school, you can have it. In States like Tennessee and an increasing number of other States, the State government is stepping up to say: Well, if the Pell grant doesn't quite cover your tuition, we will cover the rest of it, so it is tuition-free. It is important for us to say to the American people--to parents, grandparents, and students--that: If you want to go to college, you can; and tuition is probably free or about free, but first, you have to fill out this 108 question FAFSA. That is the problem. A president of a community college in Memphis that has almost all African-American students told me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the FAFSA. At the other end of the State, the President of East Tennessee State University says that 10,000 of his students get their classes interrupted by the so-called verification process. We would fix almost all those problems with this bill. I am glad that Senator Jones has stepped up and so many other Senators are agreeable to this. I hope we can answer the question that people ask me when I go home: Okay. Why don't you do it? We should do it. We have been working on it for 5 years--whether it is Senator Bennet who introduced the first bill with me and a number of others or whether it is Senator Murray who introduced with me the bill that passed the Senate last year that said that, in one click, you can answer the tax questions and you don't have to give that information to the government twice. We can do that this year, and 20 million American families will be grateful. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that statements of support be printed in the Record following my remarks. I will just summarize some of them quickly. Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said: ``In short, this bill makes the process of applying for student aid much easier for all students, but the biggest positive impact will be for our nation's neediest students.'' I would like to thank Justin and his association of financial aid experts for working with us because the first bill we introduced didn't take into consideration a number of points that it should have. The administrators pointed them out to us, and so we believe we have come up with a set of solutions that meets those needs and has their support. The National College Access Network Executive Director Kim Cook said: ``[Our organization] has long advocated for a streamlined FAFSA to lessen one of the barriers faced by many first-generation students going to college. By combining this simpler FAFSA with a Pell Grant look-up table, we can show students, early in their decision-making process, that there is money to help them complete college.'' Stacey Lightfoot testified before our committee. She is vice president of college and career success at the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga: ``The FAFSA is even more complex for families, especially those from underserved backgrounds, who get lost answering over 100 questions on the form. [This] proposal to simplify the FAFSA is long overdue and has been thoughtfully created to ensure better access to college by eliminating unnecessary and irrelevant questions. The new bill takes the most intimidating aspect of the college process away from students.'' Why would we cause 20 million families to answer unnecessary and intimidating questions, and discourage their students from going to college? Why would we do that? We shouldn't. Executive director of Alabama Possible, Kristina Scott, said: ``With the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation of simple, clear Pell Grant look up tables, we will be able to talk with students beginning in middle school about what aid for which they should be eligible and how to access it by completing a shorter, simplified FAFSA. These two changes can shift the conversation about postsecondary education from `if' to `when' for low-income and first-generation college-going students and their families.'' How many times do we hear it said that--particularly in low-income families--parents, grandparents, and others discourage the students from going to college because they are afraid it will mean a lot of debt that they will never be able to pay back. They can't imagine how they can handle this. This bill and all that goes with it will allow conversations to begin with middle school students, including low- income students, and say: You may be in the eighth grade or the seventh grade or a freshman in high school, but you can begin thinking now about at least 2 more years of college after high school that are essentially tuition free, and it is simple to do because of the simpler FAFSA. Mike Krause, director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, said: ``For Tennessee, the complexity of the FAFSA presents a barrier for students attempting to enroll in Tennessee Promise, Tennessee Reconnect, and other financial aid programs like the HOPE Access Grant. . . . Simplifying the FAFSA would improve college access for students in Tennessee by allowing the federal government and our state to better target financial aid to the neediest students.'' Now, what he is saying is that this complicated form is a barrier to free college for students of all ages in Tennessee. They have to fill this out first. If they are discouraged from doing it, they don't go to college. Barbara Duffield, executive director of School House Connection, which helps homeless and foster care children, had this to say: ``The FAFSA Simplification Act removes barriers to financial aid for some of our Nation's most vulnerable youth--those who experience homelessness or foster care.'' This has been a good exercise in the United States Senate. We have had testimony before our committee. Our witnesses told us what to do. Senator Bennet and I, and a group of others who were on the committee at that time, said: Okay. Let's do it. We got advice from the financial aid officers who said: Wait a minute. You didn't think about this and that. For example, if you cut it down to two questions, then Arizona and Tennessee are going to have to ask more questions in order to do the State grant programs that they have. So we recognized that, and we adjusted our position. Then Senator Jones, who is a new member of our committee, stepped up and said he wanted to be a part of it, so now, we are ready to go. Chairman Bobby Scott, chairman of the House Education Committee, introduced a bill that would simplify the FAFSA just last week. It is not the same as our bill, but it heads in the same direction. I think every single Member of this body wants to help students, especially low-income students, have an opportunity to attend college if they want to. We have everything in place for them to do it, yet we have created this single barrier--this 108-question form--with unnecessary, needless questions and a verification process in the middle of the semester that would yank your money and cause you to drop out of school. We can change that this year. If we will do it, we have bipartisan support in the Senate, and the President will sign it. I hope it is law by the beginning of next year.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the Senator from Alabama will be here shortly. I will go ahead and make my remarks, and then he can add his. I ask unanimous consent that I may be able to use a piece of demonstrative evidence as a part of my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, about 20 million Americans know what this is. This is the FAFSA. This is the form that about 20 million Americans fill out every year in order to qualify for the Pell grant and the student loan they might use to go to college--20 million Americans. About 400,000 Tennesseans fill this out every year, and what Senator Jones and I propose to do is to reduce the 108 questions that are filled out online to between 17 and 30 as a way of making it simpler and easier for 20 million American families and their children to go to college. Last month, I received a letter from Janet who volunteers with low- income students in Nashville and has seen the challenges students and their families face to apply for college and financial aid. She describes the FAFSA as ``being a huge impediment . . . to students raised in poverty to even attend college.'' Janet continued, saying: ``But a few years ago, a different hurdle became evident.'' She was referring to something called verification. She told the story of an excellent student who began classes at Middle Tennessee State University, but 6 weeks into her fall semester, her FAFSA was flagged for verification--a complicated process that stops Pell grant payments while a student and their families scramble to submit their Federal tax information or prove they didn't have to file taxes. ``Our student had to drop out of school as she lost funding,'' Janet said. ``There has to be a better way.'' Well, today Senator Jones and I are suggesting a better way. We call it the FAFSA Simplification Act, to give students a better, simpler way to apply for financial aid. Every year, nearly 20 million families, as I said, fill out the FAFSA to apply for Federal student aid, including 400,000 families in Tennessee. A volunteer mentor with Tennessee Promise, which is our State's program that provides 2 years of free community college, told me that the FAFSA has a ``chilling effect'' on students and on parents. Former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam told me that Tennessee has the highest rate for filling out the FAFSA--more students fill it out than in any other State by percentage--but it is still the single biggest impediment to more students enrolling in Tennessee Promise, which gives them a free community college tuition. The FAFSA Simplification Act will make it easier for families to apply for Federal student aid by doing three things. First, it reduces the number of questions on the FAFSA from 108 to 17 to 30 questions. Second, it will greatly reduce the need for the burdensome verification I discussed, the process that caused Janet's student to drop out of school. East Tennessee State University said that one-third of its applicants, approximately 10,000 students, are selected each year for verification. Third, this legislation will allow students to find out as early as eighth grade how much Pell grant funding they may be eligible for so students can start to plan for college sooner. This result has been 5 years in the making. In 2014, at a hearing before our Senate Education Committee, witnesses testified that the vast majority of questions on the FAFSA are unnecessary. I asked if the four witnesses, who came from many different directions, would each write a letter to the committee recommending how they would simplify the FAFSA. The witnesses stopped for a moment, they looked at one another, and said: We don't have to write you four letters because we all agree on how to fix the FAFSA. We can write you one letter, and they did. So Senator Michael Bennet, a Democratic member who was on the committee at the time, said: Well, if that is true and if there is that much agreement, then why don't we do what you recommend? I mean, how many times do we go home to Tennessee or Arizona and Alabama and explain something and people say: Well, then why don't you do it? This is a case of, well, then why don't we do it, and Senator Jones and I are here to ask that question and recommend that we do. So we started talking with other Senators, students, college administrators, other experts about how to simplify the FAFSA. In 2015, Senator Bennet and I--now, listen to this list--along with Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, Senators Enzi, Warner, and Isakson, introduced bipartisan legislation that would reduce the number of FAFSA questions to two questions. After discussions with college administrators and States, we realized we needed to keep some questions or States and schools would have to create their own additional forms that students would need to fill out. Over the last 4 years, we have improved that legislation. We now believe that what Senator Jones and I are proposing will permit us to move forward with bipartisan legislation that would reduce the FAFSA to between 18 and 30 questions. That is the legislation we have introduced today. This is one more step to make it easier for families to fill out the FAFSA. In President Obama's administration, with the encouragement of our committee, families were allowed to use the tax information from the previous year so they could apply to colleges in the fall rather than have to wait until the spring. Second, the Trump administration has put the FAFSA application on a phone app. I was at Sevier County High School last November, and I saw students zipping through the FAFSA on their iPhones. Third, last year's Senate passed bipartisan legislation that Senator Murray of Washington and I introduced that allows students to answer up to 22 questions on the current FAFSA with just 1 click, and that will stop requiring students to give the same information to the Federal Government twice. I can't tell you the number of parents and grandparents who said to me: Why do I have to give the same information to the Federal Government twice in order to apply for a student loan or a Pell grant? The answer is, you shouldn't have to. This would dramatically decrease the number of students selected for verification. In conclusion, that third step, along with the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced today, is part of the package I introduced last month to permanently fund historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, provide Pell grants for prisoners, and allow Pell grants to be used for short-term programs. This legislation, which includes our bill to simplify the FAFSA, can and should pass the Senate and the House this year so it can be signed into law by the President. By reducing the number of questions on the FAFSA, reducing the need for verification, and allowing students to learn earlier how much aid they may qualify for, the FAFSA Simplification Act will make it simpler and easier for students and families to apply for financial aid. I have some statements of support which I would like to read into the Record, but I will pause at this moment and give Senator Jones a chance to speak, and then I will come back after he has finished and ask for the floor and discuss these statements of support.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Jones made a very important point, not only about Alabama, but really about every State. The Pell grant that we are talking about is money you don't have to pay back. This is not a student loan that you lay awake at night worrying about. Forty percent of our college students in this country go to community colleges, 2-year colleges. The average tuition at community colleges in America is $3,600. The average Pell grant is $3,600. Just those few facts show that basically 40 percent of those who go to college in America can go tuition-free or close to tuition-free because of the availability of the Pell grant. Now, it is higher in some States and lower in other States, but that is a fact. These are not loans that you have to pay back. These are grants that basically say that, if you want 2 years of college past high school, you can have it. In States like Tennessee and an increasing number of other States, the State government is stepping up to say: Well, if the Pell grant doesn't quite cover your tuition, we will cover the rest of it, so it is tuition-free. It is important for us to say to the American people--to parents, grandparents, and students--that: If you want to go to college, you can; and tuition is probably free or about free, but first, you have to fill out this 108 question FAFSA. That is the problem. A president of a community college in Memphis that has almost all African-American students told me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the FAFSA. At the other end of the State, the President of East Tennessee State University says that 10,000 of his students get their classes interrupted by the so-called verification process. We would fix almost all those problems with this bill. I am glad that Senator Jones has stepped up and so many other Senators are agreeable to this. I hope we can answer the question that people ask me when I go home: Okay. Why don't you do it? We should do it. We have been working on it for 5 years--whether it is Senator Bennet who introduced the first bill with me and a number of others or whether it is Senator Murray who introduced with me the bill that passed the Senate last year that said that, in one click, you can answer the tax questions and you don't have to give that information to the government twice. We can do that this year, and 20 million American families will be grateful. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that statements of support be printed in the Record following my remarks. I will just summarize some of them quickly. Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said: ``In short, this bill makes the process of applying for student aid much easier for all students, but the biggest positive impact will be for our nation's neediest students.'' I would like to thank Justin and his association of financial aid experts for working with us because the first bill we introduced didn't take into consideration a number of points that it should have. The administrators pointed them out to us, and so we believe we have come up with a set of solutions that meets those needs and has their support. The National College Access Network Executive Director Kim Cook said: ``[Our organization] has long advocated for a streamlined FAFSA to lessen one of the barriers faced by many first-generation students going to college. By combining this simpler FAFSA with a Pell Grant look-up table, we can show students, early in their decision-making process, that there is money to help them complete college.'' Stacey Lightfoot testified before our committee. She is vice president of college and career success at the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga: ``The FAFSA is even more complex for families, especially those from underserved backgrounds, who get lost answering over 100 questions on the form. [This] proposal to simplify the FAFSA is long overdue and has been thoughtfully created to ensure better access to college by eliminating unnecessary and irrelevant questions. The new bill takes the most intimidating aspect of the college process away from students.'' Why would we cause 20 million families to answer unnecessary and intimidating questions, and discourage their students from going to college? Why would we do that? We shouldn't. Executive director of Alabama Possible, Kristina Scott, said: ``With the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation of simple, clear Pell Grant look up tables, we will be able to talk with students beginning in middle school about what aid for which they should be eligible and how to access it by completing a shorter, simplified FAFSA. These two changes can shift the conversation about postsecondary education from `if' to `when' for low-income and first-generation college-going students and their families.'' How many times do we hear it said that--particularly in low-income families--parents, grandparents, and others discourage the students from going to college because they are afraid it will mean a lot of debt that they will never be able to pay back. They can't imagine how they can handle this. This bill and all that goes with it will allow conversations to begin with middle school students, including low- income students, and say: You may be in the eighth grade or the seventh grade or a freshman in high school, but you can begin thinking now about at least 2 more years of college after high school that are essentially tuition free, and it is simple to do because of the simpler FAFSA. Mike Krause, director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, said: ``For Tennessee, the complexity of the FAFSA presents a barrier for students attempting to enroll in Tennessee Promise, Tennessee Reconnect, and other financial aid programs like the HOPE Access Grant. . . . Simplifying the FAFSA would improve college access for students in Tennessee by allowing the federal government and our state to better target financial aid to the neediest students.'' Now, what he is saying is that this complicated form is a barrier to free college for students of all ages in Tennessee. They have to fill this out first. If they are discouraged from doing it, they don't go to college. Barbara Duffield, executive director of School House Connection, which helps homeless and foster care children, had this to say: ``The FAFSA Simplification Act removes barriers to financial aid for some of our Nation's most vulnerable youth--those who experience homelessness or foster care.'' This has been a good exercise in the United States Senate. We have had testimony before our committee. Our witnesses told us what to do. Senator Bennet and I, and a group of others who were on the committee at that time, said: Okay. Let's do it. We got advice from the financial aid officers who said: Wait a minute. You didn't think about this and that. For example, if you cut it down to two questions, then Arizona and Tennessee are going to have to ask more questions in order to do the State grant programs that they have. So we recognized that, and we adjusted our position. Then Senator Jones, who is a new member of our committee, stepped up and said he wanted to be a part of it, so now, we are ready to go. Chairman Bobby Scott, chairman of the House Education Committee, introduced a bill that would simplify the FAFSA just last week. It is not the same as our bill, but it heads in the same direction. I think every single Member of this body wants to help students, especially low-income students, have an opportunity to attend college if they want to. We have everything in place for them to do it, yet we have created this single barrier--this 108-question form--with unnecessary, needless questions and a verification process in the middle of the semester that would yank your money and cause you to drop out of school. We can change that this year. If we will do it, we have bipartisan support in the Senate, and the President will sign it. I hope it is law by the beginning of next year.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I object.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Alabama mentioned music, and I guess a lot of us have been watching Ken Burns' ``Country Music'' film the last several days, which is terrific and includes lots from Alabama and even more from Tennessee. My experience with music and Nashville songwriters is, to get a melody, you need some cooperation. You need cooperation. Usually, they have three songwriters who will write a song. I am interested in harmony, but I think we need some cooperation across the aisle as on our committee--thanks to the distinguished Senator from Washington State, Mrs. Murray, and Senator Jones--we often have. We had it on fixing No Child Left Behind; we had it on the 21st Century Cures; we had it on the Opioid Crisis Response Act; we had it on the Lowering Healthcare Costs Act, which came out of our committee 20 to 3 just recently; and we need to have it on higher education. So I have a suggestion today. I want to speak about it for about 10 minutes. It would, I believe, give an opportunity to deal with the historically Black colleges legislation and indeed an opportunity to do more than that. In the first place, the bill passed by the House is a short-term bill, which is funded by a budget gimmick, which has no chance of passing the Senate. I propose that we do permanent funding of historically Black colleges. That is the way to provide certainty. I propose that we include within it a package of seven or eight other pieces of legislation on which there is bipartisan support--as many as half the Members of the Senate, about half Republican and half Democratic. All of these provisions--simplifying FAFSA, short-term Pell grants, Pell grants for prisoners, increasing the amount of Pell--help low-income Americans go to college and simplify the process for doing that. So if it is urgently important, as I believe it is, to properly fund historically Black colleges, I am ready to do that, but I am also ready to continue to work to pass a small package of bills that will help many of the same people the historically Black colleges legislation would help and then continue to work with Senator Murray and with other members of the committee on a larger package of bills that would include issues that could be part of a more comprehensive Higher Education Reauthorization Act--issues such as accountability, Federal- State partnership, campus safety, and the like. For the last 5 years, Senator Murray and I have been working on a bipartisan reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We have had about 30 hearings on all manner of issues, from accountability, to campus safety, to simplifying the student aid process. We have yet to reach agreement on some of those issues, but on several important issues, as I mentioned, we have bipartisan proposals by members of our committee and Senators who are not on the committee that will make college more affordable for low-income students and make college worth students' time and money. I am committed to working with the Senator from Washington State to develop a larger, more comprehensive bill, but right now, why should we pass up an opportunity to enact a package that includes several of the bipartisan proposals that are the result of our 5 years of work, including permanent funding for historically Black colleges and universities? At the end of the month, as the Senator from Alabama said, the law providing for funding for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions expires. Everyone wants to see that continue. The House of Representatives passed legislation, but instead of the short-term patch that the House passed, we should pass a long-term solution that gives certainty to college presidents and their students. Congress has time to do this. It is true that the law expires at the end of this month, but the money doesn't. The U.S. Department of Education has sent a letter assuring Congress that there is enough funding in the program to continue through the next fiscal year. So there is a year for us to work on permanent funding and this small package of other bills on which we have already spent 5 years. That ought to be enough time even for U.S. Senators. We should reach a long-term solution. That is why today I am introducing a long-term solution to permanently provide funding for minority-serving institutions, including the six historically Black colleges and universities in Tennessee. The solution would be part of a package of 8 bipartisan higher education bills drafted by 35 Senators-- 20 Democrats, 15 Republicans--that will help many of the same students who are helped by the historically Black colleges act. The package of bills will make it easier for millions of students to receive a college education by simplifying the Federal application for student aid, providing Pell grants to parole-eligible prisoners, allowing Pell grants to be used for short-term programs, and increasing the maximum Pell grant award. Here are the eight provisions that I believe should be included in the package. First, permanent mandatory funding of $255 million each year for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. Second, FAFSA simplification reduces the number of questions on the student application for Federal aid from 108 to between 17 and 30 questions that Senator Jones and I have proposed. This means that a quarter of a million students will now be eligible for Pell grants. In addition, 1.3 million students will be eligible for the maximum Pell grant award. There is no excuse for not passing the FAFSA Simplification Act. Senator Bennet and I, as well as Senators Murray, Jones, and others, have been working on this for years. Twenty million American families have to fill out these 108 questions every year that are unnecessary for them to fill out, and delay is unnecessary for us. No. 3, Pell grants for prisoners allows incarcerated individuals who are eligible for parole to use a Pell grant for prison education programs. This is something a number of Senators want to do, including Senators Schatz, Lee, and Durbin. No. 4, the short-term Pell is a proposal that a large group of Senators, including Senators Portman, Kaine, Cardin, Gillibrand, Hassan, Klobuchar, Stabenow, Baldwin, Brown, Capito, Coons, Ernst, Jones, Moran, Shaheen, Sinema, Smith, Wicker, and Braun, support. This legislation has been introduced to use Pell grants for high-quality, short-term skills and job training programs that lead to credentialing and employment in high-demand fields like healthcare and cyber security. No. 5, a proposal to simplify aid letters. Sometimes students get a letter that says they have received money, but some students don't understand that some of it is a loan that has to be paid back and some of it is a grant. Senators Grassley, Smith, Cassidy, Ernst, Hassan, Jones, Klobuchar, Manchin, and Rubio have legislation that would simplify and make that clear. No. 6 in the package increases the maximum Pell grant award. No. 7 is a bipartisan proposal that both President Obama and President Trump have supported, which is to ensure that students who opt to pay back their loans under the income-driven repayment plan pay the full 10 percent of their discretionary income as the law intended. Finally, No. 8 is a proposal by Senator Murray and me, along with Senators Collins, Cornyn, Gardner, Hassan, King, Stabenow, Tillis, and Whitehouse, to allow students to answer up to 22 questions on the current FAFSA with one click by using the data the government already has from the IRS. I can't tell you how many times Tennessean parents have said to me: Why do I have to give the government the same information twice in order for my student to be able to go to college? This would also reduce the burdensome verification process. The Senate has already passed this legislation once. That provision is within the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee and will be included once the package is ready for consideration on the floor. In addition, there are at least three other bipartisan provisions that, with a little more discussion and work, I believe should be included in this package. They have the support of 30 Senators from both sides of the aisle. The College Transparency Act is the first. It creates a student unit record system to help students and families compare how students perform in specific colleges and universities. Senators Warren, Cassidy, Baldwin, Brown, Casey, Cornyn, Duckworth, Ernst, Gardner, Graham, Grassley, Hassan, Hyde-Smith, Jones, Kaine, Klobuchar, Murphy, Perdue, Roberts, Romney, Scott, Sinema, Smith, Sullivan, Tillis, Toomey, Whitehouse, and Alexander all support this provision. There is substantial bipartisan support in both the Senate and House for it. We will work to include it as we move forward. The Education of the Deaf Act simply reauthorizes Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, and has a long history of bipartisan support. The Educational Opportunity and Success Act reauthorizes the TRIO Program, which helps low-income, first-generation, and other disadvantaged students enroll and succeed in a college or university program and has the support of Senators Collins, Baldwin, Capito, and Tester. To continue funding for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, the House of Representatives took a shortcut. They rushed a bill to the floor that has serious problems. First, it is not a bill that can pass the Senate. My objection is not the only objection. Second, it only funds HBCUs and minority-serving institutions for 2 years, setting up yet another artificial cliff. Finally, it uses a budget gimmick to pay for it, which is one reason it won't pass the Senate. This presents Congress with an opportunity to do it right and to pass other important legislation that we have already agreed to--at least half of us. It presents Congress with an opportunity to give certainty to HBCUs and minority-serving institutions and make it easier for millions to receive a college education. The package of eight bills I am proposing--the eight bills I am introducing today and the three bills I hope to include later--has been drafted by 48 Senators--25 Democrats and 23 Republicans. Working together on a bipartisan bill that can pass the Senate now is the best strategy to give permanent funding to HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions, to simplify the Federal application for student aid, to provide Pell grants to parole-eligible prisoners, to allow Pell grants to be used for short-term programs, and to increase the maximum Pell grant award. Senator Murray and I have discussed as recently as yesterday her desire and my agreement to try to work toward a comprehensive higher education piece of legislation. We have been working on that for 5 years. We can continue to work on the issues that still divide us. In the meantime, I agree, it is urgent to deal with historically Black colleges. It is also urgent to deal with 20 million families who fill out FAFSA every year and to work on the other issues I mentioned. We have agreed on those. Let's put it in a package, turn it into law, and keep working on the other issues.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I appreciate the comments by the Senator from New Jersey. To be clear, the House bill for historically Black minority-serving institutions creates a new funding cliff. It is a short-term patch for 2 years that creates a cliff after 2 years. It is supported by a budget gimmick that can't possibly pass the Senate. What I have proposed is a permanent solution to get rid of the cliff--a permanent solution that those institutions and those students can depend on. The proposal is $255 million a year, fully paid for. Second, the U.S. Department of Education has written a letter to Congress and said that no one is going to lose their money at the end of the month. The law expires, but the money doesn't. There is enough money to continue the program for another year. It shouldn't take us another year to work this out. Third, it is urgent to deal with historically Black colleges. Let's look at the students, not the colleges. Who goes to historically Black colleges? Low-income students often go there. And every year, 20 million low-income Americans fill out this ridiculously complicated FAFSA application for student aid that has 108 questions. We agree on both sides of the aisle--and have for several years--that it could be limited to 17 to 30 questions. The president of the Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis, TN, which is almost all African American in terms of its students, tells me he loses 1,500 students a year, almost all African American, who are intimidated by this complicated FAFSA. Let's do both of these things. Let's have a permanent solution for historically Black colleges, and let's help the 20 million families who fill out this ridiculously complicated form every year because we agree on that. There is no need to wait on that. We have Republicans and Democrats who agree on it. We could finish this in a matter of a few weeks. No one is going to lose any money. There is enough money for historically Black colleges for a year, and there is no excuse for creating a new cliff to replace the one that will occur in a year. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Craig Becker, who, after 42 years in the health care system, including 26 years leading the Tennessee Hospital Association, is retiring this month. Considering how the health care system has changed in those four decades, I can imagine Craig has many stories he could tell of what can happen when people seek to help others as our healthcare professionals do. For those of us from Tennessee, we know Craig is an advocate for hospitals, providing an articulate explanation on issues ranging from Medicare hospital wage disparities to leveling the playing field for Tennessee on Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payment issues, to seeking solutions for rural communities in maintaining a medical presence. Craig's dedication has never been about just his job or solely about his service to those working in health care. Several years ago, when was asked in an interview, ``what has been your worst decision,'' he answered, ``dropping out of the Boy Scouts before obtaining his Eagle rank.'' Craig has more than made up for that--for 25 years, he has served as the Assistant Scout Master of Troup 1 in Brentwood Tennessee. Craig has spent dozens of weekends through those two and a half decades hiking and camping with the Boy Scouts of central Tennessee including camping in both Tennessee State and our nation's National Parks. He has participated in jamborees as far away as the World Jamboree in Chile several years ago. Among his many awards, he is a 'Life Scout' which is a badge given for those who can help point Scouts the right way in life ``as truly as does a compass in the field.'' I was a Boy Scout, and know the lessons one can learn about the great American outdoors, serving your community, and lifelong friendships. It makes sense to me that someone so involved in scouting, has dedicated his professional life to improving Tennessee and our nation's healthcare system. While Craig may be retiring from his day job with THA, we are thankful he plans to continue to serve the Boy Scouts and his community. I congratulate Craig on a lifetime of service, and wish all the best in retirement to him, his wife Angie--a retired nurse practitioner--and their two sons.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. today for a briefing.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in a few minutes, I want to speak about President Trump's nomination of Eugene Scalia to be the Secretary of Labor, but first I want to introduce two speeches that I made in Tennessee into the Record. I notice the room nearly cleared when I observed I was about to make some speeches, but at least there are some people watching. The first speech was on August 26 of this year in Clinton, TN. It had to do with the Clinton 12. These were 12 students, some as young as 14 years of age, who walked down a hill and enrolled in Clinton High School in 1956--63 years ago--and became the first students to integrate a public school in the South. Many of us remember what happened the next year in Arkansas, when Governor Faubus stood in the door, and President Eisenhower had to send in the troops to integrate Little Rock Central High School. I remember those days very well. I was in high school myself then. It is hard to imagine the courage it must have taken for those children to walk down that hill and integrate that school. Most of them were there in Clinton, TN, when they were honored in the month of August. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks on the Clinton 12 Commemorative Walk we took that day be printed in the Record following my remarks about Mr. Scalia. Tennessee Valley Fair Secondly, the Tennessee Valley Fair. It is a big event in Knoxville, TN, that was held on September 6. It was attended by almost everybody who has anything to do with politics in Knox County, which means the room was full with 500 or 600 people. It was an opportunity for me to make a suggestion to the people of Knoxville about what to celebrate. Many of us had been watching Ken Burns' ``Country Music'' special on PBS. He reminds us that Tennessee has a lot to celebrate in terms of country music. His first two hours were about Bristol, TN, which is the birthplace of country music. It is where Ralph Peer of New York City went to Bristol, in 1927, put an ad in the paper, saying: ``Hillbillies, come down out of the mountains with your music,'' and here came the Carter family, Jimmy Rogers, and several others. One of the people on Mr. Burns' show this week was Charlie McCoy, the harmonica player, a great musician. It reminded me of a time when I was Governor and recruiting the General Motors' Saturn plant to Tennessee. We had the executives coming from Detroit. We talked about what to serve them for dinner. We served them country ham. We talked about whom to have play a piece of music after dinner, and I invited Charlie McCoy to play his harmonica. A Nashville woman came up to me and said: Governor, I am so embarrassed. I said: Why is that? She said: You had all those fine people from Detroit, and then you had that harmonica player. She said: What will they think of us? Why didn't you offer them Chopin? I said: Madam, why should we offer them average Chopin when we have the best harmonica player in the world? The better people of Nashville had resisted for a long time calling Nashville Music City, but of course Music City is a wonderful signature, a great personality, and it is one reason Nashville is such a celebrated city today. In the same way, Knoxville has violated the Biblical injunction about don't keep your light under a bushel because it rarely talks much about Oak Ridge. So the speech I made would suggest that the sign at the Knoxville airport, which says, ``Welcome to Knoxville: Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains,'' ought to say instead, ``Welcome to Knoxville: Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and the Oak Ridge Corridor.'' There are nearly 3,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians who work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest science and energy laboratory in America, and at the University of Tennessee and at the Tennessee Valley Authority. That part of the personality of the Knoxville area needs to be celebrated. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks on the Clinton 12, that my speech at the Tennessee Valley Fair on September 6 be printed in the Record. Nomination of Eugene Scalia Mr. President, in my remaining time, I would like to say a few words about Eugene Scalia and the President's nomination of him to be Secretary of Labor for the United States. The Senate will vote, probably tomorrow, on whether to confirm Mr. Scalia. I certainly hope the Senate does, and I believe the Senate will. We have known for two months that President Trump intended for Mr. Scalia to be the Secretary. He announced that intention on July 18. We have had all of his papers since August 27. Those are the government ethics papers and the committee papers that are necessary. They all came a month ago. He gave us a copy of all of his writings. He came to a hearing the other day. The Presiding Officer was there. He testified for three hours. We had two rounds of questions. Senators could ask anything they wanted. He offered to visit, over the last month, with every member of our committee and did with all but two. So we know plenty about Mr. Scalia. He answered another 418 questions that committee members asked him after his hearing. I think two months is long enough to consider him and consider all that information. I remember when President Obama's Secretary of Education stepped down in the last year of the President's term. I encouraged the President to nominate John King, whom the President wanted to nominate, but he was afraid he couldn't be confirmed because we, the Republican majority, disagreed with him. I disagreed with him. I said: Mr. President, it is important for you to have a confirmed member of your Cabinet and to have that person considered and confirmed promptly. It is important to the Senate to have a Cabinet member who goes through the process of questions and advice and consent. That is our most important function in many ways. We confirmed John King in a month. We have had two months to consider Mr. Scalia, and that should be enough. He has a broad background in labor and employment law. He is a partner in a major Washington, DC, law firm, so he knows all the issues. He spent a year as Solicitor of Labor in the George W. Bush administration. He left the firm to be Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in 1992. Academically, he is very well prepared. He went to the University of Virginia. He was editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and an adjunct professor at the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia. He is very well qualified. It is important for the Department to have a well-qualified, steady leader. I like the demeanor that Mr. Scalia showed in his hearing. The Democratic members of the committee were there, and they were very vigorous in their questioning. I also like the fact that they were courteous to him. They didn't take the attitude that sometimes happens in U.S. Senate--that you are innocent until nominated. They took the attitude that he was a well-qualified person with whom they disagreed, so they asked him questions. He answered them, and he did a good job. I like the fact that the Trump Administration has taken steps to create a more stable environment by having a more sensible joint employer standard that doesn't make it more difficult for American families to own and operate franchises. There are more than seven hundred thousand American franchise establishments. That is the way you get into the middle class in America. We need a steady hand there to make sure that happens properly. I like the fact that the administration has a more reasonable overtime rule. The overtime threshold needed to be changed, but the last administration raised it too high too fast. It caused church camps to have to lay off people and close in the summer. It had all sorts of unintended consequences and bipartisan opposition. The administration announced yesterday a more reasonable step. Next, association health plans. Among the people in America who have the hardest time paying for insurance are those who make $50,000 a year and don't get a government subsidy. Association health plans help people who work for small businesses to be able to get the same kind of insurance that people who work for IBM or big businesses get--insurance that covers preexisting conditions and offers the same sort of consumer protections. It has been estimated by Avalere that the association health plan rule that the Department of Labor put out would help three to four million Americans be able to afford health insurance and save their premium costs by several thousand dollars a year. Mr. Scalia can work on that. Mr. President, I received 32 letters in support of Mr. Scalia's nomination from small business owners, employers, industry groups, and his colleagues. I will mention a couple. Former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein wrote: His decency is part of what makes him someone who tends to go case-by-case, and to end up where the facts and the law take him. . . . He does not have an ideological straightjacket. He takes issues on their merits. Thomas Susman, who was Senator Ted Kennedy's counsel, wrote: Gene is precisely the kind of person that our country needs in the Cabinet: experienced, ethical, professional, open- minded, fair, and brilliant. There are a number of other letters from former Department of Labor career attorneys, Chicago Law Review editorial board members, Fraternal Order of Police members, and others. Suffice it to say that the country is fortunate the President has nominated Eugene Scalia to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor. He has conducted himself admirably in the two-month process of going through the Senate confirmation. We have a chance to bring that to a conclusion tomorrow. My hope is that the Senate will confirm him and that he will be in office by the end of the week.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr ALEXANDER

Mr ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing Committee on Environment and Public Works The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 9:15 a.m., to conduct a business hearing and the following nominations: Aurelia Skipwith, of Indiana, to be Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, and Katherine Andrea Lemos, of California, to be a Member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, and to be Chairperson of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, and 8 General Services Administration resolutions. Committee on Foreign Relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Foreign Relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 1:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 1:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Danielle J. Hunsaker, of Oregon, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, William Joseph Nardini, of Connecticut, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Jodi W. Dishman, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, Sarah E. Pitlyk, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, and Daniel Mack Traynor, to be United States District Judge for the District of North Dakota. Committee on Veterans' Affairs The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Special Committee on Aging The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 25, 2019, at 10:15 a.m, to conduct a briefing.