June 22, 2000
(Senate)
S. 2553 - DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS BILL, FY 2001
(Sponsors: Stevens (R), Alaska; Specter (R), Pennsylvania)
The President's FY 2001 Budget is based on a balanced approach that maintains fiscal discipline, eliminates the national debt, extends the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, provides for an appropriately sized tax cut, establishes a new voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit in the context of broader reforms, expands health care coverage to more families, and funds critical investments for our future. An essential element of this approach is ensuring adequate funding for discretionary programs. To this end, the President has proposed new discretionary spending limits at levels that we believe are necessary to serve the American people.
Unfortunately, the FY 2001 congressional budget resolution provides inadequate resources for discretionary investments. We need realistic levels of funding for critical government functions that the American people expect their government to perform well, including education, national security, law enforcement, environmental protection, preservation of our global leadership, air safety, food safety, economic assistance for the less fortunate, research and technology, and the administration of Social Security and Medicare. Based on the inadequate budget resolution, this bill fails to address critical needs of the American people. While the Senate bill contains higher funding levels for a number of important programs compared to the House bill, the Administration has very serious concerns, discussed below, with the Committee bill. If the bill presented to the President does not address these issues, the President would veto the bill.
The Administration understands that an amendment may be offered to prohibit the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from finalizing its standard to protect the Nation's workers from ergonomic injuries. The Administration strongly opposes any such amendment. Each year approximately 1.8 million American workers suffer musculoskeletal disorders, one-third of which are serious enough to require time away from work. OSHA estimates that its proposed standard would reduce the rate of MSDs by 26 percent over a ten-year period. After more than 10 years of experience with ergonomic guidelines, exhaustive scientific study, five months of public comment and public hearings on the proposed regulations, and millions of unnecessary injuries, it is time to move forward to finalize this standard.
Department of Education
The Senate bill fails to provide adequate funding to help strengthen accountability and turn around failing schools, reduce class size, improve after-school and summer-school opportunities, increase school safety, renovate aging and neglected schools, improve teacher quality, and prepare students for college. The most significant problems with the bill include the following:
- Class Size. The Senate Committee bill does not guarantee
funding to hire 100,000 new teachers by FY 2005 to reduce class sizes
to a nationwide average of 18 in the primary grades. The bill
effectively repeals the bipartisan agreement on class size reduction,
jeopardizing the Federal commitment to hire as many as 20,000 new
teachers next year and to continue support for the 29,000 teachers
already hired. As many as 2.9 million children could be denied the
benefits of smaller classes.
- Urgent School Renovation. The Senate Committee bill provides no
dedicated funding to provide $1.3 billion in loan subsidies and grants
to repair 5,000 aging and neglected public schools buildings,
including $50 million for public schools with high concentrations of
Native American students.
- Accountability. The Senate Committee bill provides no funding
for the Title I Accountability Fund that helps States and districts
turn around low-performing schools and ensure that no student is
trapped in a failing school. As a result, nearly 6,000 low-performing
schools would not receive extra assistance to improve student
achievement. In addition, the bill provides no funds for the proposed
Reward and Recognition program that supports rewards to States that
show significant gains in student achievement and narrow the
achievement gap between high- and low- performing students.
- 21st Century Community Learning Centers. The Senate Committee
bill cuts the $1 billion request by $400 million, denying funding for
over 3,000 centers, which would provide after- and summer-school
programs to over one million children. Extended learning time is an
essential strategy to help all students master challenging academic
material and reach high standards. The request would support 10,000
after-school and summer-school centers serving 2.5 million children.
- Teacher Quality. The Senate bill fails to provide adequate
funding for the proposed $1 billion Teaching to High Standards teacher
quality programs. The request includes $690 million, $255 million
more than the Senate bill, for States and school districts to provide
teacher professional development. Also included in the Teaching to
High Standards programs is $310 million for teacher quality and
recruitment initiatives of national significance such as Hometown
Teachers and Transition to Teaching to help recruit teachers to
high-need communities, Early Childhood Educator Professional
Development, the School Leadership Initiative, and other teacher
quality incentive programs. The Senate bill does not provide any
funding for these programs. The Senate bill also fails to provide the
$10 million increase for Special Education State Improvement and to
support professional development related to the needs of children with
disabilities.
- Helping Schools Create Smaller and Safer Learning Environments.
The Senate Committee bill provides inadequate funding for programs
that create better and safer school learning environments. For Safe
and Drug-Free Schools, the Senate provides no funding for Project
SERV, which would provide emergency assistance to schools affected by
serious violence and other crises, and inadequate funding for National
Programs such as Safe Schools/Healthy Students, which develops
comprehensive community-wide violence prevention strategies. For
Small, Safe, and Successful High Schools, the bill fails to provide
the $120 million requested, denying as many as 700 high schools
support to establish or expand smaller learning communities of no more
than 600 students. Research shows that when students are a part of a
small and more intimate learning community, they are more successful
both academically and socially.
- Comprehensive School Reform Demonstrations. The Senate
Committee bill fails to provide the $240 million requested to help
schools implement comprehensive school reform programs that are based
on reliable research and effective practices. This includes $150
million in Title I and $50 million under the Fund for the Improvement
of Education. As a result, support for nearly 700 schools currently
receiving funds would be discontinued, and 1,900 new schools would not
receive support for research-based school reforms.
- Educational Technology and the Digital Divide. The Senate
Committee bill would hamper efforts to bridge the digital divide and
provide technology training to teachers. The budget requests $150
million to train over 250,000 teachers in the use of technology. The
Senate bill would eliminate training for about 40,000 teachers. The
President's budget also provides funding for 1,000 Community
Technology Centers. The Senate bill would not fund over 300 of these
centers, denying access to computers and technology, particularly
educational technology, to thousands of adults and children residing
in economically distressed, high-poverty areas. Finally, the bill
does not provide funding to expand cutting edge technologies to
improve education through the Next Generation Technology Innovation
program.
- Opportunities to Improve our Nation's Schools (OPTIONS). The
Senate Committee bill provides no funding for the $20 million OPTIONS
initiative to support innovative public school choice programs such as
worksite schools and inter-district choice programs. The bill would
deny 40 States and districts support to develop and implement new
models for enhancing public school choice.
- GEAR UP. The Senate Committee bill provides a $25 million
increase in funding for GEAR UP, $100 million below the request. The
FY 2001 Budget would provide $325 million for GEAR UP to support early
intervention and college preparation services for approximately 1.4
million low-income students. The Senate bill would deny these
services to more than 400,000 students.
- Dual Degree Program. The Senate Committee provides no funding
for Dual Degree Programs for Minority-Serving Institutions, the
initiative to increase academic opportunities for students at
minority-serving institutions. The Senate bill would deny up to 3,000
students the chance to earn two degrees in five years and enter
professions in which minorities are under represented.
- Hispanic Education Action Plan. The Senate Committee bill fails
to increase the Federal investment in essential components of the
Hispanic Education Action Plan. For instance, the Senate bill does
not provide the $75 million requested for Adult Education English as a
Second Language civics. The Committee level would deny 250,000
immigrants and limited English proficient (LEP) adults the literacy
and civics skills necessary to become successful participants in
American society. The Senate bill also provides $17 million less than
the budget for Bilingual Education. This shortfall would prevent
1,200 additional new or certified teachers from receiving training and
skills they need to teach LEP students.
- Research and Statistics. The Senate Committee bill fails to
support increases for education research, including the budget's
requested $30 million increase for Education Research and the $16
million increase for Statistics. Now, more than ever, teachers,
parents, and policymakers are demanding education reforms that are
based on proven educational research. The Department of Education's
research investments and data collection activities are vital to
producing an up-to-date knowledge base for improving student
performance.
- America's Tests. The Senate Committee bill provides no funds
for America's Tests, which would help principals, teachers, and
parents assess how well students are doing compared to challenging
academic standards in reading and math. The tests would help
communities improve their schools and help parents hold their schools
accountable for raising student achievement.
- Departmental Management. The Senate Committee does not provide sufficient increases in administrative funding for the Department of Education, including the Office for Civil Rights. These funds are necessary to ensure proper oversight and management of Federal education programs.
Department of Health and Human Services
The Senate bill shortchanges critical health and social services programs by cutting requested funding for domestic and global HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, the Social Services Block Grant, mental health and substance abuse services, family planning, health care access for the uninsured, and training for health professionals in children's hospitals. The Administration is concerned about the following cuts to key health and social services programs:
- Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). The Administration is
deeply concerned that the Senate Committee cuts the SSBG by $1.175
billion, or two-thirds, below the current level. A cut of this
magnitude would guarantee reductions in essential social services at
the State and local level, and threaten the care and safety of foster
children, child abuse victims, the elderly, and the disabled. State
and local programs already make do with $1.0 billion less in SSBG
funding than they received in 1995.
- Tobacco Litigation. The Senate Committee bill does not include
requested HHS funding to support the Department of Justice's tobacco
litigation efforts. The costs of preventing and treating
tobacco-related disease exceed $50 billion per year, and the
Department of Health and Human Services pays a substantial portion of
these costs. The tobacco litigation is in full accord with the HHS
mission and is vital to efforts to improve the health of all
Americans. We strongly urge the Senate to assist in the Federal
government's efforts to recover health care costs incurred as a result
of tobacco-related illnesses.
- Family Caregivers. The Senate Committee fails to provide the
budget request of $125 million to support caregiver activities for
250,000 families who care for elderly relatives with chronic illness
or disabilities. These funds would provide older persons with quality
respite care and other support services necessary for them to remain
independent in their homes and communities. Support for caregiver
activities is a critical component of the long-term care initiative.
- Advance Appropriations. The Senate Committee fails to follow
past practice of appropriating advance funds for Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and child care. The advance
appropriation for LIHEAP is needed so that States can commit funds
early in the fiscal year to meet winter home heating needs. For child
care, the uncertainty of funding levels for FY 2002 undermines efforts
by States and child care providers to invest the additional funds
provided in FY 2001 in a way that will lead to long-term improvements
in the quality, accessibility, and affordability of child care.
- Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment. The bill would reduce requested
funding by $70 million. This funding would enhance medical services,
including pharmaceuticals, for people living with HIV/AIDS currently
served by Ryan White funds, and provide access to services for people
living with HIV/AIDS who are not receiving care. Ryan White currently
serves approximately 500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, nearly
two-thirds of the individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
- Health Care Access. The Committee bill underfunds the Community
Access Program, which would improve health care access for many
Americans. The full request of $125 million for the Health Care
Access for the Uninsured Initiative would enable the development of
integrated systems of care and better coordinate health services for
the uninsured and underinsured.
- Family Planning. The Committee bill does not include the full
$35 million increase requested for Family Planning services. This
increase would provide family planning services to an additional
500,000 clients who neither are Medicaid eligible nor have health
insurance.
- Health Professions Training. The Committee bill reduces funding
by $67 million for health professions training from the President's
budget. At this level, it may not be possible to fund Children's
Hospital Graduate Medical Education (GME) at the requested level of
$80 million. These funds are necessary to support medical education
programs at the Nation's free-standing children's hospitals, which
receive a very small share of Medicare GME dollars.
- Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund. The bill does not provide
requested funding for Ricky Ray. The Administration urges the Senate
to fund the full FY 2001 request and to act on the Administration's
supplemental request for FY 2000. These funds would provide relief
payments of $100,000 to hemophiliacs who contracted HIV/AIDS, and
their families.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Committee
bill reduces CDC's funding by $78 million below the request for many
critical public health programs, including domestic and global HIV
prevention, infectious diseases, and race and health demonstrations.
This funding level could impair CDC's ability to reduce the number of
new HIV infections, hamper efforts to improve surveillance for
infectious diseases, and slow CDC's ability to understand better and
address racial disparities in health.
- Mental Health Services. The Committee bill reduces funding for
mental health services by $69 million from the requested level. This
includes a $50 million reduction to the Mental Health Block Grant that
could hamper the ability of States to support comprehensive community
systems of care for adults with severe mental illness and children
with serious emotional disturbances. The bill also ignores the $30
million request for new Targeted Capacity Expansion grants, which fund
early intervention and prevention, as well as local service capacity
expansion.
- Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment. The Committee reduces
total funding for substance abuse services by $23 million from the
requested level. Funding for Targeted Capacity Expansion grants is
reduced by $44 million from this request. This would reduce our
ability to provide a rapid, strategic response to emerging substance
abuse trends, and would result in a reduction in prevention and
treatment services for those struggling with substance abuse.
- Bioterrorism. The Administration urges the Senate to provide
the President's request of $265 million for the Department of Health
and Human Services to counter threats posed by terrorism and the use
of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Adversaries
are expected to rely increasingly on these unconventional stategies to
offset U.S. military superiority. These funds requested would improve
our ability to defend against and manage the consequences of an
attack.
- Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) Program Management.
The Senate Committee bill funds HCFA at $2.1 billion, which is $50
million below the FY 2000 enacted level and $203 million below the FY
2001 request of $2.3 billion. This reduction would threaten the
Administration's efforts to ensure the quality and safety of nursing
homes by forcing States to scale back or eliminate facility
inspections and complaint investigations, and eliminate the
Administration's efforts to tighten oversight of Medicare's
contractors as directed by recent General Accounting Office and Office
of the Inspector General reports. Additionally, the Senate has
provided only $15 to $19 million of the President's request of $150
million in Medicare+Choice user fees, which would be used to educate
beneficiaries, enabling them to make informed health decisions.
- State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The
Administration is concerned about the proposed funding shift in SCHIP.
SCHIP was enacted on a bipartisan basis in 1997 to cover millions of
uninsured children. The shift included in the bill has the potential
to disrupt State funding and efforts to reach eligible, low-income
uninsured children. The Administration opposes using unspent SCHIP
funds for any other purpose.
- Office of the Secretary. The Committee bill also fails to fully
fund the Secretary's management and policy oversight activities, as
well as such programmatic activities as health informatics. The
Senate bill also underfunds efforts to address the threat posed by
bioterrorism.
- Abortion. The Administration urges the Senate to strike
sections 508 and 509 of the Committee bill, which would prohibit the
use of funds for abortion. The President believes that abortion
should be safe, legal, and rare. These provisions would continue to
limit the range of conditions under which a woman's health would
permit access to abortion services. Furthermore, section 509 requires
a physician to make a legal determination that these conditions have
been met. The Administration proposes to work with the Congress to
address the issue of abortion funding.
- Medicare Competitive Pricing Demo Project. The Senate bill includes language that would prevent funds from being used to administer the Medicare+Choice Competitive Pricing Demonstration Project. This demonstration was passed by Congress as part of the Balanced Budget Act in order to provide valuable information regarding the use of competitive pricing methodologies in Medicare managed care. The information that could be learned from this demonstration is particularly relevant as the important task of Medicare reform is being considered. The Administration urges the Senate to remove this provision and to allow HCFA to implement the demonstration.
Department of Labor
The Senate Committee bill would cut the Labor Department by $920 million, or seven percent, from the request. This level would provide inadequate funding for initiatives to support dislocated workers with training and re-employment services and to assist at-risk youth develop the skills needed for 21st century jobs. The bill also underfunds efforts to help low-income fathers work, support their families and stay off welfare, and to improve educational alternatives to abusive child labor abroad. The Administration appreciates the Senate Committee's decision to fully fund worker safety and health programs, to establish the new Office of Disability Policy, and to fully fund the international core labor standards and Global AIDS in the Workplace initiatives. The Administration also appreciates the Senate Committee's inclusion of language to extend the availability of the Welfare-to-Work grants funds for an additional two years to allow grantees to take advantage of the program eligibility improvements enacted in the FY 2000 Appropriations Act.
The Administration's most significant concerns with the bill as reported by the Senate Committee include the following:
- Dislocated Workers. The Senate Committee cuts the
Administration's request for Dislocated Worker assistance by $181
million, or 10 percent. This level would deny training, job search,
and re-employment services to over 100,000 dislocated workers.
- Re-employment Services. The Senate Committee bill provides only
half of the $50 million requested. At this level, over 111,000
unemployment insurance claimants would be denied the customized
re-employment services needed to speed their reentry into the
workforce.
- One-Stop Career Center/America's Labor Market Information System
. The Senate Committee bill ignores the President's proposal for an
FY 2001 $44 million enhancement designed to improve access to One-Stop
services for millions of Americans. This initiative would fund
improvements in America's Job Bank, mobile vans for one-stop access to
rural areas, a toll-free telephone number for the workforce investment
system, and improvements in basic labor market information.
- Fathers Win/Families Win Initiative. The Senate Committee bill
does not provide any funding for the President's Fathers Work/Families
Win initiative, for which the Administration has requested $255
million. Building on the partnerships developed under
Welfare-to-Work, this important initiative would help approximately
80,000 low-income fathers and working families get the support and
skills necessary to support their families and avoid welfare.
- Youth Job Training. Funding for the Youth Opportunity Grants
program falls $125 million short of the President's request and would
deny 27,000 youth in high-poverty communities access to vital
education, training, and employment assistance and eliminate the
proposed expansion of the program to 12 to 15 new communities. In
addition, funding for the Youth Activities program, which includes
Summer Jobs, is cut by $21 million, which would eliminate almost
13,000 low income youth from the program. Further, the Senate bill
denies $29 million in proposed Job Corps enhancements thereby
inadequately funding cost increases in that program.
- Youth Violence. The Senate bill partially funds two initiatives
aimed at reducing youth violence. It provides $20 million of the $40
million requested to enable the Department of Labor to join the
interagency Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative. The bill funds
$30 million of the $75 million initiative to bring young offenders
into the workplace through job training and related services.
- Homeless Veterans. The Senate Committee bill's $2.5 million
reduction to the request for job assistance to homeless veterans would
result in 1,400 fewer homeless veterans obtaining meaningful
employment and economic security.
- Unemployment Insurance (UI) Administration. The Senate
Committee has adopted the President's proposal to restructure UI
administrative funding to bring it in line with modern service
delivery systems but has provided $76 million less than necessary to
administer the UI benefit entitlement program, even under continuing
favorable economic conditions.
- International Child Labor Activities. While the Senate
Committee bill fully funds the proposed expansion of International
Labor Organization's International Program for the Elimination of
Child Labor, it only funds $15 million of the requested $55 million
for the President's new initiative to improve access to basic
education in developing countries. This initiative is part of a
comprehensive plan aimed at making global abolition of the worst forms
of child labor a reality.
- Other Worker Protection Initiatives. The Administration
appreciates the Committee's full funding of worker safety and health
programs but is concerned that funding for other worker protection
programs falls short of what is needed to address serious compliance
problems in low-wage industries, including the garment and agriculture
industries, and to expand public education on pension and health care
plans. Funding for these important activities is reduced by $18
million below the Administration's request.
- Information Technology. The Committee bill provides slightly
more than half of the requested $54 million for the Department's
information technology initiative. This initiative would address
information security, infrastructure and web development, and office
automation needs in a more efficient and comprehensive manner, thereby
enhancing the Department's ability to implement its responsibilities
and expand its Internet capacity to serve employers and the public
better.
- National Economic Indicators. The Senate Committee bill reduces the request by $7 million, which would prevent improvements to some of the most sensitive and important economic data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These improvements include expanding price, output, and productivity measures for the service sector, improving State and local employment and unemployment data, and surveying how Americans spend their time in work and non-work activities, including child and elder care.
Social Security Administration
At the Senate Committee funding level, the Social Security Administration would not be able to hire thousands of direct service employees, resulting in longer wait times for individuals filing retirement and disability claims, and diminished service for individuals who call the agency's 1-800 phone service.
