For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 5, 2002

President's Statement on H.R. 3801, Act to Provide for Improvement of Federal Education Research

Today I have signed into law H.R. 3801, an act to provide for improvement of Federal education research, statistics, evaluation, information, and dissemination, and for other purposes. This Act will substantially strengthen the scientific basis for the Department of Education's continuing efforts to help families, schools, and State and local governments with the education of America's children. This Act is an important complement to the No Child Left Behind Act enacted earlier this year.

The executive branch shall construe sections 115, 116(f), 117(d), 119, 156(b), and 186 of the Act in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and shall construe section 116(f) in a manner consistent with the President's authority under the Recommendations Clause of the Constitution to submit for the consideration of the Congress such measures as the President shall judge necessary or expedient. Also, in accordance with the President's constitutional power to select individuals for nomination, the executive branch shall construe section 116(c)(2) as advisory only. In addition, the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall implement section 186(a) of the Act subject to the supervision and direction of the Secretary of Education. Finally, the executive branch shall construe section 156(b) regarding the furnishing of compilations or surveys in a manner consistent with the principles enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 in INS v. Chadha, which do not permit the Congress by law to authorize a congressional committee to direct an executive branch entity to create a compilation or survey.

The executive branch shall construe provisions of the Act that require taking account of race, culture, gender, age, region, socioeconomics, ideology, secularity and partisan politics, including sections 111(b)(2)(B), 114(f)(7) and (8), 115(a)(1), 116(b)(8) and (10), 133(c)(7), and 151(b)(3), in a manner consistent with First Amendment freedoms and the requirements of equal protection and due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The executive branch shall construe section 174 and title II of the Act as imposing duties on a State or its officials only when the duties are a condition of a Federal grant or contract accepted by or under the authority of a State, as is consistent with the principles governing Federal-State relations enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 in Printz v. United States.

GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
November 5, 2002.

# # #