Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, and I have been working for 1 year to make it easier for the 20 million American families who fill out the Federal application form each year in order to receive grants and loans for college. The piece of demonstrative evidence that Senator Bennet and I have been carrying around in Tennessee and Colorado is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. This is the form that 20 million Americans fill out. It is familiar to many families as it has 108 questions, and it is important to them because about half of the American families who have students in college have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college. The problem with the 108 questions is that they are generally unnecessary. Senator Bennet and I were at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. We heard four witnesses representing different perspectives in our country saying that we only need two questions to know whether we could make a Federal grant or loan to a student from Wisconsin who wanted to go to community college with roughly 95 percent accuracy. So today we are introducing legislation which is named the Federal Aid Simplification and Transparency, or FAST, Act. It will turn these 108 questions into two--one about the amount of family income and one about the size of family. It will free students and their families from the dreaded FAFSA. It will eliminate thousands of hours of busywork by guidance counselors, college administrators, parents, and accountants. I will use a specific example. On Friday I am going to Tennessee with President Obama, who has been attracted to our great State because we have become the first State to say to all of our high school graduates that community college is tuition-free. How can we do that in Tennessee? Tuition at community colleges, like in some places in the country, is about $3,600 per year, and the Pell grant can pay up to $5,700, but on average needy students receive about $3,300. So for about half the students, there is only a small gap between the amount the Federal Pell grant pays and what tuition costs. Tennessee has committed to make up the difference. But here is the catch: The major obstacle to Tennesseans who want to take advantage of the new Tennessee Promise Program is the 108-question form. The president of the community college in Memphis, Southwest Tennessee Community College, tells me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the form. They just don't fill it out. So it is a terrific example of how the Federal Government, with good intentions, has built up over the years an enormous amount of paperwork that is getting in the way of the single greatest need our State has, which is to have more of our students better trained. This will help the businesses that are attracted there offering good jobs will be able to hire people who are properly trained. In addition to that, our bill does the following things: It not only eliminates the 108 questions and replaces them with 2, it tells families the result earlier in the process. For example, if you have a daughter who is a junior in high school, now you will be able to go online and find out--answering two questions--how much money you are eligible for in grants and loans. Now you have to wait until the second semester of your senior year. The next thing it does is it streamlines the Federal grant and loan programs by combining two Federal programs into one Pell Grant Program and reduces the six different Federal loan programs into three--one undergraduate loan program, one graduate loan program, and one parent loan program--resulting in more access for students. Fourth, it enables students to use a Pell grant in a manner that works for them. They can use it year-round--now they cannot use it for three straight semesters--or at their own pace. Next, it discourages overborrowing. Too many students borrow extra money they do not need to go to college. For example, under the Federal rules a student is entitled to borrow the same amount of money if they go full time as they are if they go half time. That makes no sense. It saddles students with debt they cannot pay back. Finally, it simplifies the repayment options. Now there are nine different ways to make repayments. We suggest two. Senators King and Burr have their own bill, which they will be introducing today and talking about a little later, that streamlines repayment options. I have been delighted to work with Senator Bennet. I congratulate him. His background as the Denver school superintendent and as a father has made him a very effective advocate for this effort. We have listened to educators and parents in our own States. The bill has been out there now for more than half a year. We have attracted other sponsors, including Senator Booker and Senator Isakson. We hope other Senators will want to join us. Finally, I would say before going to Senator Bennet that as chairman of the Senate committee that handles education--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--we are ready to move on this. As soon as we can finish our work on fixing No Child Left Behind, which we have been working on for 6 years and have held 24 hearings. In addition, almost all of the members of the current committee were there last year when we reported a bill--as soon as we can finish that work, we will be ready to move to reauthorize the Higher Education Act to deregulate higher education starting with the FAST Act and the legislation Senators King and Burr have promoted. I thank the Senator from Colorado for his partnership on this. I salute him for his leadership.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from New Jersey is known in his State and across the country as a pioneer in education, putting children first. Having his support and advice on this bill will be a great advantage in helping it go from the Senate floor through the House to the President's desk and into law. In 2013 the Congress and President Obama made significant steps forward in improving the student loan program--a $100 billion per year Federal program to help students go to college. That law created a market-based, market-pricing system, and it had the effect in that year of reducing the rate for undergraduates, cutting it about in half. The two Senators who led that were the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, and the Senator from Maine, Mr. King. Senator Burr and Senator King have continued to work on student loans, making it easier for students to go to college, easier for them to pay their loans, and easier for them to pay them back. We are proud to have them as cosponsors, but they have their own legislation on student loan repayments, which I am pleased to cosponsor and which will be a top priority in the Senate HELP Committee as soon as we finish fixing No Child Left Behind. I now yield in this colloquy to Senator Burr.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from North Carolina. No one was more instrumental in the work in 2013 that reformed student loans to reduce the interest rate for undergraduates by nearly half that year. In his State of North Carolina there are many of the best universities and 2-year colleges in the country, and I know education has been and is foremost for him. I look forward to working with him, the members of our committee and every Senator on the floor, as we go through the process with a full and honest debate on important issues using an open amendment process. Then I hope we are able to work with President Obama again this year in the same way we were in 2013 to achieve a result. A forceful advocate for that result in 2013 was the Senator of Maine who has the advantage of having been a Governor, Senator King, and we will let him have the final say in this colloquy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet. I would like to send to the desk the FAST Act that Senator Bennet and I are introducing, with the cosponsorship of Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, and Senator Isakson. In this colloquy, I would like now to recognize the Senator from New Jersey for 5 minutes to comment on the bill, if he would like. Mr. President, following that--the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Maine, who are cosponsors of this bill, are here, but they also have a separate bill on income repayments which they will discuss.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, as the colloquy is concluding, I want to thank the Senators from Maine and New Jersey for their leadership and the Senator from North Carolina. I can assure them the King-Burr bill, with the support of Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, will be combined with our bill and be front and center on the agenda of the HELP Committee as early as we can this year. As far as I am concerned, it is the next priority after we fix No Child Left Behind. I am hopeful we can bring it to the floor by the spring, give the full Senate a chance to consider it, combine it with action of the House and work with the President, just as we did in 2013. I am going to turn to Senator Bennet for just a minute to let him have a concluding word, but I wanted to say this. As I mentioned, President Obama is going to Tennessee on Friday. He is going to celebrate an initiative Tennessee has taken by itself to say to all high school graduates: Two years of community college education is tuition free. Of course, that is based upon the Pell grant. The State just makes up the difference, which isn't that much. I am going to have an opportunity to say to the President: Mr. President, the one thing the Federal Government can do to make it easier for more Tennesseans to take advantage of Tennessee Promise is to get rid of the FAFSA. Because the President of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis says 1,500 students a semester are not enrolling in community college, who ought to be going, just because they and their families are intimidated by this form or can't fill it out. There is no excuse for that, and we are going to fix that. Maybe the solution is three questions, maybe it is four questions, but surely it is not 108 questions, and 70 or 80 pages of instructions, wasting the time of administrators, guidance counselors, parents, accountants, students, and discouraging Americans from taking advantage of education. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a one-page summary of the FAST Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Presiding Officer for the time, I thank my fellow Senators, and I yield for the final words of the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask consent that the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Bennet, and I, along with the Senator from Maine, Mr. King, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, and the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, be able to engage in a colloquy on higher education for the next half hour.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I further ask unanimous consent to use a piece of demonstrative evidence in my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, and I have been working for 1 year to make it easier for the 20 million American families who fill out the Federal application form each year in order to receive grants and loans for college. The piece of demonstrative evidence that Senator Bennet and I have been carrying around in Tennessee and Colorado is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. This is the form that 20 million Americans fill out. It is familiar to many families as it has 108 questions, and it is important to them because about half of the American families who have students in college have a Federal grant or loan to help pay for college. The problem with the 108 questions is that they are generally unnecessary. Senator Bennet and I were at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. We heard four witnesses representing different perspectives in our country saying that we only need two questions to know whether we could make a Federal grant or loan to a student from Wisconsin who wanted to go to community college with roughly 95 percent accuracy. So today we are introducing legislation which is named the Federal Aid Simplification and Transparency, or FAST, Act. It will turn these 108 questions into two--one about the amount of family income and one about the size of family. It will free students and their families from the dreaded FAFSA. It will eliminate thousands of hours of busywork by guidance counselors, college administrators, parents, and accountants. I will use a specific example. On Friday I am going to Tennessee with President Obama, who has been attracted to our great State because we have become the first State to say to all of our high school graduates that community college is tuition-free. How can we do that in Tennessee? Tuition at community colleges, like in some places in the country, is about $3,600 per year, and the Pell grant can pay up to $5,700, but on average needy students receive about $3,300. So for about half the students, there is only a small gap between the amount the Federal Pell grant pays and what tuition costs. Tennessee has committed to make up the difference. But here is the catch: The major obstacle to Tennesseans who want to take advantage of the new Tennessee Promise Program is the 108-question form. The president of the community college in Memphis, Southwest Tennessee Community College, tells me he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of the form. They just don't fill it out. So it is a terrific example of how the Federal Government, with good intentions, has built up over the years an enormous amount of paperwork that is getting in the way of the single greatest need our State has, which is to have more of our students better trained. This will help the businesses that are attracted there offering good jobs will be able to hire people who are properly trained. In addition to that, our bill does the following things: It not only eliminates the 108 questions and replaces them with 2, it tells families the result earlier in the process. For example, if you have a daughter who is a junior in high school, now you will be able to go online and find out--answering two questions--how much money you are eligible for in grants and loans. Now you have to wait until the second semester of your senior year. The next thing it does is it streamlines the Federal grant and loan programs by combining two Federal programs into one Pell Grant Program and reduces the six different Federal loan programs into three--one undergraduate loan program, one graduate loan program, and one parent loan program--resulting in more access for students. Fourth, it enables students to use a Pell grant in a manner that works for them. They can use it year-round--now they cannot use it for three straight semesters--or at their own pace. Next, it discourages overborrowing. Too many students borrow extra money they do not need to go to college. For example, under the Federal rules a student is entitled to borrow the same amount of money if they go full time as they are if they go half time. That makes no sense. It saddles students with debt they cannot pay back. Finally, it simplifies the repayment options. Now there are nine different ways to make repayments. We suggest two. Senators King and Burr have their own bill, which they will be introducing today and talking about a little later, that streamlines repayment options. I have been delighted to work with Senator Bennet. I congratulate him. His background as the Denver school superintendent and as a father has made him a very effective advocate for this effort. We have listened to educators and parents in our own States. The bill has been out there now for more than half a year. We have attracted other sponsors, including Senator Booker and Senator Isakson. We hope other Senators will want to join us. Finally, I would say before going to Senator Bennet that as chairman of the Senate committee that handles education--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--we are ready to move on this. As soon as we can finish our work on fixing No Child Left Behind, which we have been working on for 6 years and have held 24 hearings. In addition, almost all of the members of the current committee were there last year when we reported a bill--as soon as we can finish that work, we will be ready to move to reauthorize the Higher Education Act to deregulate higher education starting with the FAST Act and the legislation Senators King and Burr have promoted. I thank the Senator from Colorado for his partnership on this. I salute him for his leadership.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from North Carolina. No one was more instrumental in the work in 2013 that reformed student loans to reduce the interest rate for undergraduates by nearly half that year. In his State of North Carolina there are many of the best universities and 2-year colleges in the country, and I know education has been and is foremost for him. I look forward to working with him, the members of our committee and every Senator on the floor, as we go through the process with a full and honest debate on important issues using an open amendment process. Then I hope we are able to work with President Obama again this year in the same way we were in 2013 to achieve a result. A forceful advocate for that result in 2013 was the Senator of Maine who has the advantage of having been a Governor, Senator King, and we will let him have the final say in this colloquy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet. I would like to send to the desk the FAST Act that Senator Bennet and I are introducing, with the cosponsorship of Senator Booker, Senator Burr, Senator King, and Senator Isakson. In this colloquy, I would like now to recognize the Senator from New Jersey for 5 minutes to comment on the bill, if he would like. Mr. President, following that--the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from Maine, who are cosponsors of this bill, are here, but they also have a separate bill on income repayments which they will discuss.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from New Jersey is known in his State and across the country as a pioneer in education, putting children first. Having his support and advice on this bill will be a great advantage in helping it go from the Senate floor through the House to the President's desk and into law. In 2013 the Congress and President Obama made significant steps forward in improving the student loan program--a $100 billion per year Federal program to help students go to college. That law created a market-based, market-pricing system, and it had the effect in that year of reducing the rate for undergraduates, cutting it about in half. The two Senators who led that were the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, and the Senator from Maine, Mr. King. Senator Burr and Senator King have continued to work on student loans, making it easier for students to go to college, easier for them to pay their loans, and easier for them to pay them back. We are proud to have them as cosponsors, but they have their own legislation on student loan repayments, which I am pleased to cosponsor and which will be a top priority in the Senate HELP Committee as soon as we finish fixing No Child Left Behind. I now yield in this colloquy to Senator Burr.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, as the colloquy is concluding, I want to thank the Senators from Maine and New Jersey for their leadership and the Senator from North Carolina. I can assure them the King-Burr bill, with the support of Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, will be combined with our bill and be front and center on the agenda of the HELP Committee as early as we can this year. As far as I am concerned, it is the next priority after we fix No Child Left Behind. I am hopeful we can bring it to the floor by the spring, give the full Senate a chance to consider it, combine it with action of the House and work with the President, just as we did in 2013. I am going to turn to Senator Bennet for just a minute to let him have a concluding word, but I wanted to say this. As I mentioned, President Obama is going to Tennessee on Friday. He is going to celebrate an initiative Tennessee has taken by itself to say to all high school graduates: Two years of community college education is tuition free. Of course, that is based upon the Pell grant. The State just makes up the difference, which isn't that much. I am going to have an opportunity to say to the President: Mr. President, the one thing the Federal Government can do to make it easier for more Tennesseans to take advantage of Tennessee Promise is to get rid of the FAFSA. Because the President of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis says 1,500 students a semester are not enrolling in community college, who ought to be going, just because they and their families are intimidated by this form or can't fill it out. There is no excuse for that, and we are going to fix that. Maybe the solution is three questions, maybe it is four questions, but surely it is not 108 questions, and 70 or 80 pages of instructions, wasting the time of administrators, guidance counselors, parents, accountants, students, and discouraging Americans from taking advantage of education. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a one-page summary of the FAST Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Presiding Officer for the time, I thank my fellow Senators, and I yield for the final words of the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senate at its best has been said to be the one authentic piece of genius in the American political system. Carl Levin is the Senate at its best. I thank him for his courtesy, his decency, his scholarship, and his sense of public service. I thank him for his reminder that if we are going to have the trust of the American people to write rules for them, we should follow our own rules. It has been a privilege to serve with Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Senator Harkin's legacy is he stands as a champion of Americans with disabilities. It will be a long time before there is a greater champion of Americans with disabilities in this body and I salute him for that. I salute him secondly for his leadership and style of leadership. I had the privilege of the last 2 years as ranking member of the HELP Committee. Senator Kennedy used to say that we have 30 percent of the jurisdiction of the Senate, and it seems like it sometimes. If you know our committee, down one row is the murderers' row of liberals or progressives who are of the Democratic persuasion; and down the other side is a pretty good row of conservatives of the Republican persuasion--12 on this side, 10 on this side. So we have plenty of differences of opinions and we don't hesitate to express them. Yet during these 2 years, Senator Harkin and his leadership style have found a way for there to be 24 pieces of legislation, signed by the President of the United States, many of them very significant, some of which took several years to do, whether it was the compounding pharmacy, which was so important in our State, the tragedy of meningitis from unsterile products; whether it was the track-and-trace legislation or the changes in workforce development that gave more discretion to Governors and the citizens in their communities. His style of leadership permitted that to happen and I am grateful to him for that. I would suggest to the Senate as we look forward to a time when the Senate might be more functional and more productive that one way to earn the respect of the people of this country for this body, which is supposed to be the one authentic piece of genius of the American political system, is to look at the way the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has operated over the last 3 years under the leadership of Senator Harkin. I salute him for his service and I thank him for that.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent all time be yielded back.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today we are voting on the nomination of P. David Lopez to serve as general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC is an important agency with a critical task. In August 1963, I stood in the crowd on the National Mall and listened to Dr. Martin Luther King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech when he called for our Nation to ``make real the promises of democracy.'' The next year, the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, establishing the EEOC as an important, independent agency to put an end to workplace discrimination, particularly in hiring, firing, and promoting. Today, employees are protected by law if they are discriminated against because of race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. The EEOC is charged with investigating complaints of discrimination to determine whether or not they have merit, and then attempting to resolve them informally, through conciliation and mediation. The general counsel at the EEOC has a great deal of responsibility-- he or she is in charge of conducting litigation at this important agency. Mr. Lopez is being re-nominated for the general counsel position. I do not believe he has fulfilled his charge over the last four and one- half years and will not support extending his time at the agency. I would strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination as well. It is critical that the general counsel make wise decisions about which cases to litigate and how. Unfortunately, Mr. Lopez, often has failed to meet this standard. I have three primary concerns about the EEOC. First, EEOC has placed too much emphasis on litigating high profile lawsuits, some of which have been rebuked by the courts, rather than resolving its backlog of discrimination charges filed by individuals. Second, EEOC has not been fully transparent in how it issues guidance to the public and in the information it shares with the public about its activities. And third, EEOC is suing employers for following the President's very own health care law. On the first concern, a judicious general counsel should view costly and time-consuming litigation as a last resort. However, this EEOC has placed too great an emphasis on litigating high-profile cases, some of which have been rebuked by the courts, rather than resolving its backlog of discrimination charges filed by individuals. In fiscal year 2014, more than 88,000 charges of discrimination were filed with the EEOC and at the end of November 2014, EEOC reported it had 75,935 unresolved discrimination charges pending. A backlog of charges pending is nothing new for EEOC, but given this backlog, I am disappointed that this EEOC has placed such a strong emphasis on actions and lawsuits--predicated upon not a single complaint--that do not address actual charges of discrimination brought to the Agency by employees. Under this administration, the EEOC has focused too heavily on headline-making lawsuits at the expense of fair and swift resolution of claims for those alleging workplace discrimination. The desire to win big lawsuits has backfired. Numerous Federal courts have criticized EEOC's litigation practices, failure to attempt to resolve cases and avoid court, misuse of authority, and reliance on faulty expert analysis, among other complaints. Example No. 1--EEOC's case against Kaplan Higher Education Corporation received such a sharp rejection by a unanimous three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014 that The Wall Street Journal named it the ``Opinion of the Year.'' EEOC sued Kaplan for alleged race discrimination due to the use of credit background checks. The court wrote, ``EEOC brought this case on the basis of a homemade methodology, crafted by a witness with no particular expertise to craft it, administered by persons with no particular expertise to administer it, tested by no one, and accepted only by the witness himself.'' The court also criticized EEOC for bringing a case against Kaplan for ``using the same type of background check that the EEOC itself uses.'' Example No. 2--Another Federal court reprimanded EEOC for being ``negligent in its discovery obligations, dilatory in cooperating with defense counsel, and somewhat cavalier in its responsibility to the United States District Court.'' Example No. 3--EEOC caused a small employer to spend $100,000 attempting to comply with requests for information that, according to a Federal judge, ``EEOC had no authority to obtain.'' Since 2011, EEOC has been ordered to pay attorney's fees in 10 different cases. In six cases, fees were awarded under a rare step allowed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which according to the U.S. Supreme Court is reserved for cases that are ``frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation'' or ``continued to [be] litigate[d]'' after those circumstances became present. In the four other cases, the court awarded fees for failing to prevent the destruction of evidence, for discovery abuses and for pursuing a case that lacked substantial justification. Not all of these cases where EEOC was ordered to pay attorney's fees were initiated on this general counsel's watch, but he did initiate five of them and it appears he continued to pursue four of them. These court losses cost taxpayers and hurt the victims of workplace discrimination whose charges are backlogged at EEOC. EEOC's credibility is at risk. As one commissioner described, EEOC's ``reputation and credibility has . . . suffered from several recent lawsuits where [EEOC was] not only sanctioned, but openly chastised by the courts.'' EEOC should immediately reconsider the strong emphasis on lawsuits that are not based on any complaint and do not even have a victim plaintiff. In recent years, EEOC has pursued a number of cases without complaints, such as age discrimination cases against large accounting firms--PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and KPMG--whose partners have voluntarily adopted a mandatory retirement age. Age discrimination is certainly a significant problem that EEOC should work to address. But they should go about it by assisting the more than 21,000 people who complained to EEOC of age discrimination in 2013, rather than directing investigations at an industry they find suspect. The five-member Commission has exercised too little restraint over the general counsel. In 1995, the EEOC's then Commissioners gave the general counsel far more authority to bring whatever cases he wanted, with no check from the Commission. By 2012, this practice led to only 3 of the 122 lawsuits filed that year coming before the Commission for approval. Although EEOC has taken some steps to increase the Commission's role in approving litigation, more should be done. The Commission has the authority and duty to reverse this imprudent decision and return to performing its statutorily obligated responsibilities. On my second concern, I believe the Commission has not been transparent in its issuance of guidance and the information it shares with the public about its activities. The EEOC sets national workplace discrimination policy by issuing formal regulations as well as guidance, which are meant to help employers and employees understand how the law applies to them. EEOC does not allow the public to review or comment upon its draft guidance, even in cases of novel, significant or controversial guidance. This is especially concerning because in two cases last year, the Supreme Court rejected substantive positions found in EEOC guidance. EEOC's issuance of guidance is not in compliance with the administration's own best practices recommendations or the recommendations of three of the current Commissioners. I am concerned about this because agencies expect people to follow guidance. At a hearing in June, I asked the head of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education whether she expected higher education institutions to comply with the Office for Civil Rights guidance and she said yes. Senator Enzi also urged greater transparency on significant guidance when he was ranking member of the HELP Committee, and I share his view. So what harm would come from allowing the public to comment on draft guidance prior to issuing it? Finally, my third concern about EEOC and its general counsel, Mr. Lopez, is this. Employer wellness plans with premium discounts were specifically authorized in the health care law and I worked on it with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--it was one of the few provisions of Obamacare with Republican and Democrat buy in. I am concerned that EEOC has pursued litigation against employers who have followed the health care law and implemented voluntary employer wellness plans to encourage healthy lifestyle choices. These wellness plan lawsuits are sending a confusing message to employers--reliance on the health care law's authorization of wellness plans does not mean you would not be sued by the EEOC. This is why I intend to introduce legislation to prevent EEOC from suing employers who are following the law in offering wellness programs. Employers who are acting in good faith, relying on a law should not face uncertainty of litigation due to an agency's misguided priorities. EEOC is tasked with an important mission--to ensure workplaces are free from discrimination. EEOC's misdirected focus and high-profile litigation failures are coming at significant cost to taxpayers and victims of workplace discrimination. Unfortunately, when questioned about these missteps and the Agency's focus on litigation without a single complaint, Mr. Lopez was not forthcoming with his answers. Therefore, I cannot support Mr. Lopez's nomination.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I wish to acknowledge once again my gratitude for Senator Harkin and his leadership for these past 2 years that I have had the privilege of working with him as ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and to acknowledge once again that there has been no one in this body on either side of the aisle who has been a greater champion for Americans with disabilities.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa. Inland Waterways Trust Fund Fee Increase Mr. President, the House of Representatives is expected to pass tonight legislation that should be very good news to Americans who care about their jobs and Americans who care about the condition of our inland waterway systems. Inland waterway systems aren't on the front page of the U.S. newspapers until a lock closes or something happens and the cargo can't get down the river, and then it is big trouble. Which is the case in Tennessee with the Chickamauga Lock, an old lock that the Army Corps of Engineers says could close. It is in such bad shape, and if it were to close it would throw 150,000 heavy trucks on I-75 and disrupt the economy in all of eastern Tennessee. That same picture applies in many other parts of our country to these important waterways: The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Tennessee, and the Ohio--rivers that carry so much of the heavy cargo that provides income and jobs for so many American families. Tonight the House of Representatives is expected to enact the third part of a three-part plan that was envisioned in the American Waterworks Act of 2012, which would provide a permanent, long-term solution to having the kind of inland waterway system that a great country such as the United States deserves. I wish to speak for a moment about the effect that has not just on our country but on my home State of Tennessee. For our country, it would be hard to imagine how we could carry cars and coal and agricultural equipment from the great Midwest and the South to the rivers to be shipped overseas without the barges that carry that equipment, millions of tons of cargo every year, and it is usually cheaper and faster than many other forms of transportation. That means more jobs and more money in the pockets of Americans who are able to work for industries that are competitive. The legislation the House is expected to pass will provide $260 million for inland waterway projects across the country over the next 10 years. It is important to note that this fee is paid entirely by the owners of the big commercial barges that use the locks when they go down the rivers, and that none of it would be paid by the fishing boats and recreation boats which also use the locks. In other words, the big commercial barges are going to pay more to get through the locks faster, to save money and to save time, and that is good for the fishermen as well, without any cost. This is the third step in the American Waterworks Act that was proposed in 2012. This step would increase by 9 cents the way the fee is calculated that the big barge companies pay to go through the locks. The barge companies have volunteered to do this. They have been pleading with the U.S. Congress, saying, ``Please raise the fee we pay to go through the locks so you can use the Corps of Engineers to replace the locks so we can go through faster and cheaper.'' So the House is taking steps to do that tonight. The fee will increase from 20 to 29 cents per gallon of fuel used and, as I said, $260 million of that over the next 10 years will go to help repair these locks. The first two steps in the plan of the American Waterworks Act were enacted by law earlier this year as part of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. Step 1 was to take the Olmsted lock in Ohio and treat it separately, because it was soaking up all the money that might be available for all the other locks in the country. Step 2 was to create a prioritization of the locks, so we didn't come here every year and say my lock is more important than your lock. And, in fact, with that, the Chickamauga lock in Tennessee became No. 4. And Step 3 is the user fee I talked about earlier. What difference does this legislation mean for the State of Tennessee and the Chickamauga lock? Well, for years the Chickamauga lock has been subject to year-by-year efforts by those of us in Congress to find a little money to repair it, to keep it from closing, all knowing full well that if we didn't replace it, it would one day soon close. Those days are over. This is a long-term solution that says, No. 1, the Olmsted lock which has been soaking up the money has been reduced, Chickamauga lock is a fourth priority in the government, and now we have money paid by the big barge owners that, when combined with the annual appropriations, should make it possible to begin to replace Chickamauga lock beginning in the year in 2016. That would mean it would still take several years to replace the lock. It would mean it would still cost about half a billion dollars. But it would mean that instead of year-by-year appropriations and guessing games that the Army Corps of Engineers can have a long-term plan and begin to do the job, and those who are making plans to invest in our part of the region--not just in Chattanooga but in eastern Tennessee--can know if they do that, the lock would be there to help provide low-cost transportation for what they manufacture and what they grow. I want to thank a variety of people who have taken great leadership in this. The Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, and I have been the joint sponsors of this legislation in the Senate. We are very hopeful that the House will do its work tonight and the Senate will do its work next week and that the bill will go to the President before the end of the year and this will be law by the end of the year. So I thank him for his leadership. I also want to congratulate Congressman Fleischmann of Chattanooga who rounded up a group of Republican Members to support this effort, and Congressman Duncan from Knoxville. Speaker Boehner has been very helpful, and Congressman Camp has been very helpful. In the Senate I would like to thank Senator Vitter, who is the ranking member of the Environment & Public Works Committee for his leadership on this effort, and I would like to thank Senator Reid, the majority leader, and Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, for their cooperation on this. Nothing is ever done in the U.S. Congress until it is finally done. So this is passing the House tonight and it is expected to pass the Senate next week, which is very good news for Americans who depend on the inland waterways for their jobs, and in Tennessee where change-- instead of a year-by-year appropriation, it is an effort, it is the first chance we have had to have a long-term solution to the replacement over the next several years of Chickamauga lock beginning as early as the year 2016. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last week I released a staff report that found litigation missteps at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are costing taxpayers millions, while at the same time EEOC faces a deep backlog of discrimination complaints. The report finds that the EEOC has had a recent pattern of pursuing questionable cases through sometimes overly aggressive means and as a result has suffered significant court losses that are embarrassing to the agency and costly to taxpayers. Courts have found EEOC's litigation tactics to be so egregious they have ordered EEOC to pay defendants' attorney's fees in 10 cases since 2011. The courts have criticized EEOC for misuse of its authority, poor expert analysis, and pursuit of novel cases unsupported by law. While the agency has pursued high-profile lawsuits without a complainant, in March 2014 EEOC reported almost 71,000 unresolved complaints of discrimination from individuals who filed charges. The agency's litigation has recovered almost $200 million less for victims than under the previous administration over the same timeframe. The report finds that EEOC also has suffered from a troubling lack of transparency. In the past 2\1/2\ years, EEOC has ignored calls from current Commissioners and Congress to allow public review of significant and controversial guidance prior to its adoption. Also, the Office of General Counsel has, since 2010, failed to issue its standard annual report, and the agency is being sued for violating the Freedom of Information Act. Certainly, the EEOC of today has had successful enforcement efforts and court victories for victims of discrimination, but this report finds the agency is increasingly demonstrating poor judgment and using questionable tactics in pursuit of cases that are not fulfilling the EEOC's objective of protecting employees from workplace discrimination. The full report, ``EEOC: An Agency on the Wrong Track? Litigation Failures, Misfocused Priorities and Lack of Transparency Raise Concerns about Important Anti-Discrimination Agency,'' may be viewed on the HELP Committee's website, http://www.help.senate.gov/. I ask unanimous consent to have the report's executive summary and key findings printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Senator Enzi has been a leading proponent of the Marketplace Fairness Act. I congratulate him for his persistence in recognizing its importance. I will make three points in support of what he said: No. 1, why conservatives support it; No. 2, why it is easy to do; that is, to comply with it; and No. 3 is to ask the basic question, which is: Do you trust Washington or do you trust your Governor and your State legislature to decide what your State taxes ought to be? Do you trust Washington or do you trust people closer to home? I will begin with why conservatives support it. If I were to ask the question, what do the following people have in common, and the following people would be Al Cardenas, the most recent chairman of the American Conservative Union; the late William F. Buckley; Art Laffer, who is President Reagan's favorite economist; Governor Mike Pence, the conservative Governor of Indiana; Governor Gary Herbert; Governor Robert Bentley; former Governor Mitch Daniels; and former Governor Jeb Bush, you might say: What do they have in common? Well, they are Republicans; that is right. They are conservatives; that is true. But the other thing we could say is they all support the Marketplace Fairness Act or the principles that underlie it. Why is that? Because the Marketplace Fairness Act is a 12-page bill about two words, which are States' rights. If I am the Governor of Tennessee--which I once was--and I am sitting down there thinking: Well, we have a State sales tax in Tennessee such as almost every State has, and the way we collect it is this--let's say I am in my home town of Marysville, TN, and I want to buy a television set. I can go downtown to buy it from one of my local stores. They collect the State sales tax, which in our State, including State and local taxes, is nearly 10 percent. They send it to the State. If I go online or into a catalog and order the same television set, the seller does not collect it. This bill is about allowing the State of Tennessee to decide whether it wants to require the out-of-state sellers to do the same thing that instate sellers do, whether it wants to prefer some distant seller over the local man and woman on Main Street, the mom-and-pop stores. That is the decision. Whatever decision they would make, the question is this. Do you think we should be deciding that for Tennessee? Our Governor doesn't think so, our Lieutenant Governor doesn't think so, our legislature doesn't think so. They don't trust Washington to make the decision. They trust themselves to make that decision. Ohio doesn't think so. Ohio has already taken a look at this subject and said: We would prefer to collect our sales tax from everybody who owes it. Rather than have everybody in Ohio fill out a form every time they go online to order from a catalog, Ohio wants to require the out- of-State sellers do the same thing in-State sellers do, and that is to collect the tax when they sell it. Ohio has said if they do that, they will lower taxes. Ohio has already passed a law and says if Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act taxes in Ohio will go down. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a list of conservatives and Republican Governors who support e-fairness and why they do so. The other point is how complicated is this for somebody who might sell online? Well, as Senator Enzi said, it exempts 99 percent of all out-of-state sellers. So if you are selling on eBay today and you are worried about this bill, the chances are 99 out of 100 it is not you this bill affects because it has a $1 million exemption. But even if it did affect you, how hard would it be to comply with the requirements. It must not be too hard because you could also go on eBay, I am assured, and you can purchase software from eBay that costs $15 or $20 and it will do the work for you. In other words, if you are selling something online and you are selling it to Maryville, TN, they will put the zip code in and tell you the tax. You can collect it and remit it to the State government. It is about as easy as what I do every morning. I go to my computer, I type in ``Google,'' put my zip code in, and I put ``weather.'' I want to know it is 24 degrees in Washington, DC, this morning. It tells me in an instant. If you are selling online--unless you are selling more than $1 million in out of state sales it doesn't affect you at all. If you need some help to figure that out, you can get software that figures out the tax for you. But remember, all we are asking--we are not even saying that we think if you sell online or if you sell by catalog that you ought to be made to collect the tax when you sell. We are just saying we think States should make the decision about their own tax policy which is consistent with the 10th Amendment to our Constitution. That leads me to my last point. The real issue here is two words. You can make a lot of good conservative reasons why this bill attracted half the support of Republicans and passed with 69 votes when it was considered by the Senate, and why it has so much support from Governors and mayors of all political persuasions across the country. But the bottom line is all we proposed to do is to let States make decisions about their own tax policy. The Supreme Court more than 20 years ago said it was too complicated to require businesses to collect, but they invited Congress to create a way that was simple enough to do that. Twenty years has gone by, software is already available, the Internet is advanced, and so today it is very easy to do. There is no reason in the world for Senators to say: You know, I just flew from Nashville today. It took me an hour. That makes me a lot smarter than the Governor of Tennessee, so I am going to decide for Tennessee whether it can collect all the taxes that are already owed. I am going to say I am going to let the Governor of Tennessee make that decision. If I were the Governor of Tennessee, I would collect it, and I might lower the taxes for everybody. I don't think it is fair to say to shopkeepers in Maryville, TN, that you have to collect the tax and send it to the State, but to say to some seller in Illinois or some catalog seller in North Dakota that you don't have to collect the tax, because that means our local businesses are being dealt with in an unfair way. I also don't think Tennesseans appreciate what will happen if we don't act, because do you know what is going to happen? The Governor is going to collect the sales tax. How is he going to do it? Well, he is going to have to start auditing everybody. If you buy online--which everybody almost does today; just think of the Christmas season coming up--you would have to write down every single thing you bought. You would have to put the tax down, and you would have to send it in--that is the law. That is a very difficult thing to do and most people don't do it. So the easy way to do this and the right way to do this is for Congress to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, which is a 12-page bill about two words--States rights--and say to Tennessee, Wisconsin or Wyoming, of course you should make your own decision about how to collect your taxes. Let them decide, as Ohio decided. They will collect the State sales tax which is already owed from everybody who owes it. The collectors of the tax will be anyone who sells into Ohio or Tennessee or Wisconsin or Wyoming. That is the fair thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is what respects our constitutional federalism and the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. It shows that we in Washington, DC, aren't so arrogant to think that we should make those state tax decisions. I conclude by saying I just had the pleasure of going through a reelection campaign. A lot of Members, about one-third of the body, were in an election this year. I was trying to remember this morning if one single person came up to me in the past 2 years and said: I just wish you would give Washington more control over how Tennessee collects its taxes. I don't think one single person said that to me. But I will guarantee that about every other person said to me: I wish you would stop Washington from telling us to do things or decide things that we should be deciding for ourselves. That is what this bill is about. This bill empowers every State to make its own decision about how to collect its taxes--to do what Ohio did, to do what other Governors have said. We are going to collect it from everybody who already owes it and, when we do, we are going to lower everyone's taxes. That would be a very happy result. We have 2 or 3 weeks left in the session. This Senate has fully considered this. The bill is in the House of Representatives. I very much hope that the Speaker and the Members of the House will decide that it is time to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act and recognize the principle of States rights in the spirit of the 10th Amendment of our Constitution.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.