Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GREGG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3144

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask that my amendment be called up.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may need. Mr. President, first of all, I, once again, thank the members of the committee for assisting in pulling together a bill which is a very positive piece of legislation in the area of special education. We all understand the historical development of special education. It has been outlined quite adequately and well by the Senator from Massachusetts, the fact that for many years these children were put in special rooms or put in the basement and left there to basically be warehoused, for all intents and purposes. Then, with the passage of the special education law back in 1976, that all changed, and these kids ended up having an opportunity, a shot at decent education, and, where mainstreaming came into play, we tried to get them into the classroom, and to the extent they could not be in the classroom, they would get high-quality care. I have had a personal involvement in this issue for a long time. I chaired, was the president of, and a member of the board of directors, of a very excellent center for special needs children, which is an educational facility, not a hospital, called the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, in New Hampshire. I was basically very active in that center for many years, until the mid to late 1980s. So it is an issue that concerns me a lot. I want to make sure these kids get adequate care and adequate education. This bill makes giant strides toward addressing some of the problems that have evolved over the years relative to special needs students, especially as we attempt to reduce the amount of bureaucracy and paperwork that teachers for special needs children specifically have to handle. It is estimated that some teachers for special needs children-- probably even a majority--spend almost a day and a half of every week essentially doing paperwork to maintain the lesson plans and the planning process and making sure all the different regulatory activity is addressed relative to their jobs, instead of actually being with the child and doing the classroom work that is so important. So this bill tries to address that. It also tries to address the excessive litigiousness that has occurred over the years relative to special needs children, trying to reduce that, and getting us out of the courtroom and back into the classroom with these kids. It is a very important factor. It also addresses the question of discipline. This has been a problem. It tries to give teachers and school officials a little more control, significantly more control, in how they manage their classrooms and dealing with children who are, unfortunately, disruptive, but does it without uniquely penalizing a child whose disruption is a function of their problem which they may have which gives them special needs. So I think we reach a balance that is very constructive. The bill is a positive step forward in trying to make the special education laws more responsive to the outpouring of concerns we heard from school teachers, administrators, and parents across the country, but especially, in my case, from New Hampshire. So we are trying to address and improve the law to make it more efficient and effective. We focus it now more on accountability. We want to make sure these children learn to the extent they are capable of learning. Rather than just going through a series of checking off boxes because this has been done and that has been done, what we want to know is, are there results? We try to adjust the process to focus on results versus bureaucracy and input. So that is the goal of this bill. It is a good piece of legislation. It is bipartisan, as has been mentioned. The issues which remain are significant, but they are not the core of the bill. The core of the bill is how it addresses the needs of that child. One of the major issues, obviously, that remains is how we fund this legislation. This has been a primary concern of mine since I was elected. When I had the good fortune to serve as Governor of New Hampshire, I believed that the single largest unfunded requirement the Federal Government was putting on us, outside of some of the environmental requirements, was this issue of how we paid for special education. I did come here with the intention, and have, I believe, had reasonable impact on getting those dollars up, getting the Federal dollars up, the commitment up. It has been a long and very difficult road, but it has been a road where significant success has been accomplished also. I do not think we should ignore the fact that we have dramatically increased funding in the special education accounts. In fact, if you look at the special education funding accounts, I believe you will find they are, as a percentage--obviously, not in gross dollars, but as a percentage--the fastest growing funding area in the Federal Government, and have been in that arena for the last 4 years during this President's time, and even prior to that since the Republicans took over the Senate. I think it is important we refer to some of the history of what was happening, and how we have increased funding in these accounts. First off, in 1996, when we Republicans retook control of the Senate, myself and other Members of the Senate, including Senator Lott and Senator Specter, decided to make it an absolute priority. In fact, it became S. 1 at that time, the first bill we introduced, that we would increase the funding for special education programs. We started a process of increasing the commitment to funding to those programs, which was significant. This chart reflects that increase. We have gone from $2.3 billion--and each one of these increases represents very substantive and dramatic increases. By the way, almost $1 billion a year, since 1996, on a compounded basis, has been going into the special education accounts. So we went from $2.3 billion, when we started this aggressiveness--and I would like to think I was one of the initiators of this, as was Senator Jeffords at the time--and have now moved it up to $11.3 billion. As a percentage, in 1996, when we started, the Federal Government was paying maybe 6 percent of the cost of special needs children. Now we are paying about 20 percent of the cost of special needs children. I think it is very important in the context of the debate to put this in perspective relative to what the commitments made by the Clinton administration were during this time because what happened during this period was that, actually, President Clinton did not send up any budgets which increased special education funding until the last 2 years of his administration. In fact, he was flat-funding special education throughout his administration, for all intents and purposes. It was not until the Republican Senate insisted that dollars be put into special education, and we increased the funding by $1 billion a year, as I mentioned, starting in 1996, that President Clinton actually responded to that, and in the last 2 years of his administration started to put funds into this account. If you look at it by year, you will notice essentially the Clinton administration's funding levels were basically flat. If you look at our funding, you will see that it increased dramatically during this period. In fact, in gross terms, over the 8 years of the Clinton administration, his commitment to special education was $29 billion. In the first 4 years of the Bush administration, the increase is $38 billion. So just in a period of 4 years, President Bush has dramatically increased--almost by 50 percent--the total increases which were made to special education funding during the 8 years of President Clinton's administration. This reflects the fact that once the Presidency changed, and President Bush came into office, there was actually even an acceleration of funding into the special education accounts beyond what was occurring when we had a Republican Senate and a Democratic President and the Republican Senate was pushing the issue. Now we had an actual President who was in agreement with accelerating special education funding, and we accelerated that funding rather dramatically. President Bush, in every budget he has brought forward since becoming President, has proposed an increase of at least $1 billion--and that is a compounded number--so that we have seen this rather dramatic increase in funding from the administration over this period of time which has led to this huge increase--significant increase--which, as I said, is one of the fastest growing percentages in the Federal budget, if not the fastest growing percentage in the Federal budget of funding for any account. And that has occurred in the special education accounts. In fact, when I looked at Senator Harkin's chart, I found it interesting that at least he gave credit to the fact that the President was increasing funding $1 billion a year--$1 billion a year; $1 billion on top of $1 billion. That was not enough to reach the goals that we had hoped to reach. But it was those big increases that he was reflecting there. And it is ironic that that would be attacked, that the President would be attacked for only increasing funding $1 billion a year--``only,'' using the term from the other side--only increasing funding $1 billion a year and $1 billion the next year which is $2 billion, and a billion dollars the next year which is $3 billion, that he would be attacked for that. When the Democrats controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled the Presidency, they flat-funded this account. When President Clinton was President and we controlled the Senate, we had to really pull teeth to get the funding up. Now we have a President who has been actively promoting the expansion of funding in these accounts, aggressively and rather dramatically expanding it, and what do we hear from the other side: You are only doing $3 billion, $1 billion 1 year, $1 billion on top of that, $1 billion the next year. It is a little inconsistent, to say the least, if not a touch hypocritical to make that statement in the context of the last time the budget was actually under their control. In fact, if you go back to the last time Senator Harkin was the appropriating chairman--there was a period here where the Democratic Party did control the Senate, while President Bush was President, has been President. During that period Senator Harkin brought forward an appropriation, when he had control over the appropriations accounts that deal with special education, which did not come anywhere near the number which he now claims should have been funded. He is claiming the funding increase should have been $2.2 billion a year under his own chart. That is what he is saying. Under his budget, as he brought it out--actually he never brought it at the floor of the Senate. It was passed through committee. They never actually brought a budget to the floor and they never brought an appropriations bill to the floor. Under his appropriations bill as it passed out of his committee, I believe his number was $875 million that he had for an increase in the account. It might have been $1 billion. Whatever it was, it was less than the full funding he now says has to be given or should have been given, even during that time under his own charge, to special education. So there is a disconnect. When they are in charge, when they control the Presidency, when they control the Senate, they flat-fund special education. When they control the Presidency and we control the Senate, we have to pull teeth to get their President to send up a budget that increases special education. When they control the Senate and we control the Presidency, they send out an appropriations bill which is at least $1 billion less than what they claim we should be doing. There is, to say the least, a disconnect. The fact is under this President we have seen the fastest growth in special education funding that has occurred in the history of the accounts. We have seen growth in special education funding in 4 years of $38 billion by President Bush as compared with $29 billion over 8 years of the Clinton administration. I believe when we make the case on this side of the aisle that we are committed to special education funding, that we are doing what we think is reasonable and capable within the context of this budget process-- remember, we are running a deficit--to fund special education, where we are giving it the single biggest increases of any account in the Federal Government year after year after year on a percentage basis, that we come to this argument with significant credibility on our commitment to fund special education and fund it aggressively. That brings us to the substance of the debate on the amendment today. What Senator Harkin has proposed is we take prospective payments to special education accounts and make them mandatory. Remember, this creates a whole new concept of how we fund things around here. This is a brand new idea--and not a very good one--which suggests we create a new highway where you are going to have discretionary accounts funding the vast majority of the spending, and then you are going to put on top of the discretionary accounts, like a layer cake, a mandatory account. This creates some pretty significant problems. The first problem it creates is it creates a new mandatory account. Mandatory accounts are not a good idea when you are running a deficit because they basically mean you do not set priorities. We as a government, when you are running a $300 billion deficit, maybe more, $400 billion--according to Senator Kennedy, we are going to save $100 billion this year, so maybe we are down to $300 billion or we may be at $400 billion--but when you are running this type of deficit, we as a government have some responsibility to our constituents to be responsible and to make choices, to prioritize needs. We, as the Senate, have historically prioritized special education very highly, at least whenever the Republicans have controlled the Senate. And we have asked for what would amount to a pathway to full funding by 2010. We have put in Senate proposals that have represented that approximately $2.2 billion in annual increases. We have done it the right way. We have, when we have done that, cut other accounts. When we have passed these increases in our budget proposals that have been at $2.2 billion, we have reduced other accounts to offset those increases. That is the priority we should set as a government. But when you set up a mandatory account, you basically ignore priorities and you essentially say, let's add the money to the deficit, which is exactly what the Senator from Massachusetts is suggesting. That is a different approach. It doesn't happen to be our approach on this side of the aisle. We think fiscal responsibility requires, especially in a time when we are running a deficit, that you set priorities. We believe we have shown, beyond any question on the facts, with these dramatic increases in special education funding, which we have done under Republican Presidents, under a Republican Senate, that in a competition for funds, special education wins and has won and will continue to win. So to set up a mandatory account is a mistake, especially when you are running a deficit. It also creates a couple of other problems. One is that under the rules of the Senate, when you set up a mandatory account, you must reduce discretionary accounts dollar for dollar for that mandatory account. That is our budget rule. So as a practical matter, it is very possible that unless we decide to waive that budget item, we will actually end up reducing the discretionary spending that is committed toward special education, the $11 billion, in order to fund the mandatory spending. And we will probably end up or we potentially could end up, because this bill calls for $2 billion of mandatory spending, with a $2 billion reduction in discretionary spending so you would level-fund the mandatory. You would level-fund special education if the budget rules kick in the way they are written. The practical effect would be there would be no net gain for special education funding, or it would be very limited. So this becomes a bit of an illusory term, when you are using mandatory and you merge it with discretionary accounts. If it were pure mandatory, I guess you could argue the funding would occur. But under our rules, it is not going to be pure mandatory. It is going to be this new hybrid, this layer cake, half mandatory, half discretionary. The practical implication under our rules is you have to reduce dollar for dollar the discretionary accounts by the mandatory increase. What does that mean? Zero increase for special education, if these rules are applied in their present form. There is another problem this creates, this new hybrid animal. For example, if we accept the fact the mandatory money is coming through and that the discretionary accounts are not reduced--in other words, say we waive this budget rule--we will create a scenario where the appropriators--of which I happen to be one and am very proud, and we do a wonderful job, but as an appropriator, I will tell you what I am thinking. I am thinking I just got $2 billion I don't have to spend on this discretionary account. I can put it somewhere else. Basically you are not guaranteeing this money at all. What you are doing is you are creating more dollar availability for the appropriator who has that discretionary account to use in some other area. That is the distinct potential here because there is no--let us call it ``maintenance of effort'' language in this amendment for the Appropriations Committee. So as a practical matter, you don't resolve the problem this way. The only way you resolve the problem is to do it straight up, which is to say we should fund this account on a glidepath toward full funding, which is what the Senate has said. We should use our appropriations authority and keep that discretion within the appropriations authority to accomplish that. We should set the priorities so that special education gets fully funded. That is what my amendment does. It sets up the authorization levels to allow the Appropriations Committee to proceed down that path. Why do I think it will occur? Well, primarily because of the history here, which is that when we as Republicans control the Senate--and now we have a Republican President--we are making these huge increases in the special education accounts. So the alternative that we presented here is the more fiscally responsible way to do this. I think it is the more practical way to get to the ends at which we are aimed. You can throw out this term ``mandatory.'' When you go home to your town meetings, it resonates well. I don't deny that for a second. But it is illusory when it is used in conjunction with the discretionary funding accounts and when used in conjunction with the budget rules as presently structured in the Senate. It literally means nothing. The only thing that is going to accomplish full funding for special education is the willingness of the Senate and the House, hopefully, which has not joined us in the past, to assert the $2.2 billion increase and move down that road and protect ourselves in conference with the House. To pass the Harkin amendment may make us feel good politically, but it creates bad policy and doesn't accomplish our goals, which is to get full funding of special education. That is why I have put forward this alternative, which I think is a much more constructive approach. I reserve our time and yield the floor.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the opening statements by the two managers, Senator Harkin be recognized to offer his amendment regarding funding. I further ask that immediately upon the reporting of that amendment, it be temporarily set aside and the I be recognized to offer a first-degree amendment regarding funding; provided further, that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two managers, or their designees, to debate both first-degree amendments concurrently. I ask also that following that debate, the Senate proceed to a vote in relationship to my amendment, to be followed by a vote in relationship to the Harkin amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order to either amendment. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that no further amendments relating to funding be in order to the bill, and that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between the votes, and that the votes begin at 1:45 p.m.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I join the senior Senator from Massachusetts. I specifically thank the senior Senator from Massachusetts for his cooperation and the cooperation of the entire committee. This is a bill that is 90 percent agreed to. There are some public policy issues we are going to debate on the floor, specifically on the process of funding this bill. It is a very strong step forward in the area of addressing the needs of children who have special needs, basically focused on making sure there is less bureaucracy and more care, that teachers have more flexibility and parents have more involvement, and that there is less litigation and more results. Kids who have special needs, rather than just being put through a process of checking off boxes, are actually given the opportunity to learn, and we have accountability standards for that learning. It is a very good bill. We will get into more depth on its substance as we move forward. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Iowa for moving expeditiously his amendment, along with one of the amendments I will be offering, one of the primary issues that needs to be addressed on the floor. I look forward to him offering his amendment. I will offer mine, and we will get into the substance of that debate. Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a landmark civil rights law that has had a powerfully positive impact on millions of Americans. Before moving to the substance of my remarks, I would like to thank the chairman of our committee, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, and the ranking member, my friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, for their dedicated work on this bill. The reauthorization of a bill of this size is a considerable undertaking, and I want to recognize the excellent work of Annie White of Senator Gregg's staff, and Connie Garner of Senator Kennedy's staff, along with many other committee staff who have worked so hard on this reauthorization. Let me take a moment to put the Individuals with Disabilities Act in historical context. IDEA was passed almost three decades ago, in 1975, the year after I was first elected to the House of Representatives. So I have watched the progress of this law since its inception. I am proud of what IDEA has achieved. No question, we have further to go to achieve equal educational opportunity for children with disabilities. But we have made tremendous progress since 1975. We must not forget that, prior to the early 1970s, children with disabilities were routinely kept out of school. More than 1 million children were excluded entirely from their local public schools, and more than half of all children with disabilities in the United States did not receive appropriate educational services. If they did get an education, it was often in segregated schools or institutional settings. But in the early 1970s, that began to change. Two landmark cases, PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1971, and Mills v. Board of Education in 1972 established that children with disabilities had the right to an equal opportunity for education under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. In 1975, Congress wrote IDEA for two reasons. First, we fleshed out the substance and details of what was required to achieve equality for children with disabilities. Congress specified critical protections for parents and children to transform the constitutional requirement into a practical reality throughout the country. While we still have further to go, I believe that we have made major progress since the days when 1 million children were entirely excluded from school. The latest figures available indicate that some 6.6 million children are receiving services under IDEA. A second important purpose of IDEA was to help States meet their constitutional obligations. And here we have fallen far short of our goals. When IDEA was passed, the Federal Government pledged to help with 40 percent of the excess costs of special education. At the present time, we are funding less than 20 percent of these costs. I will have more to say about this later when I offer an amendment along with my friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Nebraska. I think it is important to keep fixed in our minds these two historic purposes of IDEA, because these purposes must inform our discussion over the next few days here in the Senate. The protections that we wrote into the law to ensure opportunity for all continue to be critical today. And the need for Federal help to meet states' obligation also continues to be critical to realizing the full promise of this law. These matters are vitally important because the education that a child receives has a profound impact on his or her future. This is true for all children, whether or not they have disabilities. IDEA is a critical cornerstone of the Federal Government's commitment to ensuring equality for individuals with disabilities. When we passed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, we said that this Nation's four great goals for individuals with disabilities are equal opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency. These same goals are referenced in IDEA. Obviously, a quality education is essential to achieving all four of these goals. These may be broad goals, but they are not abstractions. To the contrary, they have enormous practical, nitty-gritty consequences for individuals with disabilities. They have the power to transform individual lives. On that score, I want to tell you about my good friend, Danny Piper from Ankeny, IA. Tragically, Danny died in a car accident more than a year ago, but he left behind a legacy of friends, family, and personal achievement. From an early age, Danny's parents insisted that he be educated with his peers. He was an integral part of his school community, performing in the school play and active in a variety of school activities. Once, after he testified before my subcommittee on the ADA, I asked him how testifying before Congress compared to being in the school play. He answered, ``Not so bad.'' Danny went on to finish high school and get a job. I spent one day with him on the job at Osco drugstore, where he worked everyday. He showed me the ropes--how to correctly stock the shelves, how to load the cardboard box machine to avoid getting hurt, and so on. We had lunch together, too. It was a day I will always cherish. Danny had what we want for all of our children--a fulfilling life of independence and dignity. He lived with a friend in an apartment. He worked every day. This is what IDEA is all about. It is why I strongly support the protections this law provides--and why it is time for the Federal Government to fully fund the act. We have a long way to go to ensure that all children have access to a quality education, and the opportunities that come with it. This reauthorization correctly emphasizes enforcement of the act. I thank my friend from Massachusetts for his leadership on this issue. This bill contains provisions that require states to meet compliance benchmarks. It specifies that the Secretary and the States must take action if there is a consistent failure to provide an appropriate education to children with disabilities. The bill also ensures that a child's individualized education program, known as an IEP, provides services up front to ensure that a child succeeds. So each child will have access to the behavioral health services that will ensure a good experience for the child and his or her classmates. Getting that plan in place in the first place, rather than after any problems occur, is critical to making this law work for everyone. The bill has several important provisions to assist deaf children get the education that they need to succeed. It specifies that interpreters are a related service required under the act, and it preserves critical access to captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. These provisions are very important to me because, as many of you know, my brother Frank was deaf. These are the kinds of services that would have made a huge difference for Frank. So I am especially proud to support these provisions in the reauthorization. This bill also maintains all of the early intervention and preschool education programs that get children off on the right foot so they can achieve in school. As we debate this reauthorization, let's be guided by the vision that IDEA is an investment in children's lives and futures. We are investing money at the front end--with early intervention, with interpreters, with behavioral health and other related services. And the return on that investment is productive, independent, taxpaying citizens. We get individuals who are prepared to go on to higher education, to gainful employment, and to independent living in our communities. But we have to make investments in order to get the results we want. We have to ensure that schools provide the appropriate education required by the law. And we have to meet our commitment to help local public schools by, at long last, providing them with full Federal funding IDEA. As I said, IDEA was passed in 1975. It has been almost three decades, and we are not even half way toward meeting our original commitment to pay 40 percent of the excess costs of special education. I will be offering an amendment later with my friend, the senior Senator from Nebraska, to remedy this longstanding failure of the Federal Government. Over the years, we have talked again and again about full funding. I say to my colleagues that its time for us not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk. It is time to make good on the critical investment of federal funds that we pledged over 30 years ago. I will have more to say on this later. For now, I conclude by noting that IDEA is about the kind of country we want America to be. We must fully fund the act, and we must renew our commitment to its cornerstone protections. Only then will every child in America have the opportunity not only to dream, but to make his or her dreams a reality.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Texas for her work on this issue. I agree that the District of Columbia is a unique situation and understand it has required unusual actions to ensure the rights under the IDEA law are not abused.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia for his extraordinary leadership in the Senate, especially with the extremely difficult issues in our country today. We are very fortunate to have him as chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. GREGG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we have agreed to accept this amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately following morning business on Thursday, May 13, the Senate resume consideration of the pending IDEA bill and there then be 30 minutes equally divided with respect to the pending Santorum amendment No. 3149; provided further that there be one relevant second-degree amendment in order to the amendment and it be offered by Senator Bingaman; further, that the amendment be limited to the same time limitation of the first degree. I further ask unanimous consent that the only other amendment in order be a Gregg-Kennedy managers' amendment to be agreed upon by both managers. I further ask consent that following disposition of the above amendments there be an additional 20 minutes of debate equally divided between the two managers for closing remarks, and following that time the provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.