and who will help them learn and the tools to help them do that. >> thank you very much. mr. seaton? >> thank you again. one of the things -- yes, we do need federal involvement. we need your money. and in order to say that we need your money, you need to be able to have some involvement in the guidance of where and how that money is spent. i do believe in tennessee that we are moving forward and a culture has been created by no child left behind that looks at the numbers, that looks at data. and we're willing to change and update our strategies on a regular basis. there are three things that i want to talk about, evaluation real quickly. it has to happen. in the military they used to say inspect what you expect. so evaluations will cause us to look at how we're going to accomplish the things that we need to accomplish. leaders, we need leaders.

and a lot of times people think that becoming an administrator in a school system you teach three to five years and you can just become a leader. leaders don't happen like that all the time. so there needs to be something -- this guy collins wrote "built to last" and "good to great" and they look to be effective over a course of time and what they did to last. we need to be able to take those same types of data points and benchmark what it takes to be a good leader in a school. and we need to look at the top 5% of schools as well as the bottom 5% because those bottom 5% of schools are our dropouts. i think that no child left behind pointed us in the right direction. but it didn't give us the resources that we necessarily needed to make those changes. so as i look at what you are

talking about, we have a program in memphis called cradle to career. and it looks at education from birth to your career. and so the college readiness program that you are all have been incorporated, i applaud and i think that we as educators and as a family of americans need to get together and we just need to kind of accept the direction that you all have given us and i thank you for this time. >> thank you, mr. seaton. again, what's good and what's bad about the bill? mr. grier? >> thank you, senator. thank you, senator. first, we want to say thank you for having a accountability component in there focusing on the bottom 5% of our schools that are persistently low achieving schools that have an achievement gap and allowing states some discretion in developing an accountability system in their state i think is

all positive. we also would like very much that we no longer have to set aside money for a supplemental education services. in our district, this after-school tutoring program has not yielded any results. we actually have had vendors that would give students rides to movie theaters and stretch limousines for signing up. last year in our district we created our own tutorial program in our schools. we reconstituted four -- five middle schools and five high schools and we tutored those students in math every day. one tutor per two children and at the end of the year, we had twice the academic gains that the harlem school program -- and based on our own experience with

turn-around models, we would like to really encourage you to modify the one that where -- the current legislation limits the schools that reclassify persistently low achieving to only use the closure and restart models. we believe that repeat classifications should only prevent the lea from using the same model they used during that initial classification. we also would like to caution the committee on the additional reporting requirement that is we fear may be attached to our parental involvement and in the successful safe and healthy students initiatives. we worry that potentially a large portion of funding allegations to these reforms will go simply into reporting mandates. we don't need that type of additional bureaucracy. we just don't. finally, one of the things that concerns us in houston and it concerns a lot of our colleagues -- my colleagues and a lot of the large school

district is this issue about comprability and i would like to work with you to work out some of this but the way you would come in and determine the formula around comparability is very problematic. >> which is in the bill. >> which is in the current bill. it needs major attention. >> which in the current bill we have, not the current law. >> current law we have. >> i just want to be clear. >> it's just a huge issue particularly in a district, for example, like in houston where turning around our nonlowest performing secondary schools -- and these were schools that were tagged with the label of dropout factories, we went out this past year and raised almost $15 million from private sources. we lengthened the school day by an hour. we added a week to the school year. we hired all these additional tutors well, that cost more money. so to do that and bring those

outside dollars and now all of a sudden those are there in the bill's current language if we had to use the comparability formula that you have here, these schools would be penalized our efforts to go out and raise additional dollars. another thing that bothers me as school superintendent, it simply cost more money to turn these schools around. and i wish your current bill had some type of set-aside in the title 1 revenues that we received that would be required to be spent on those schools. people would say you have the flexibility to do that, yes you do. you also don't have the political will to do that and that's very, very tough because you're then taking money away from another school to insert in your lowest performing schools. i don't have the magic number for the set-aside.

we have a set-aside for parental involvement. some people would argue it is too low. it is a set-aside that requires us to spend money to make sure we can engage our parents. these schools that are so low performing -- it takes more money. i can promise you one of the things i'm more concerned about than anything we've talked about here today -- and i don't know how your bill addresses this, is the human capital that's required to address these 5% schools. quality principals, quality teachers in the classroom. those are easy words to say. but when you get out and start recruiting, in our nine turn-around schools we recruited nationally we offered 30 to $40,000 annually to get princes. we didn't have anyone from the highest performing schools and we recruited 70 principals to hire 9.

we hired those nine principles and after a year we replaced four of them. it is just hard work. and this whole issue of turning around these lowest performing schools -- the biggest issue that we'll talk about is the issue around human capital. >> thank you very much, mr. grier. ms. danks. >> thank you again. something that i really liked about the bill is each state would be adopting the college and career readiness standards. i think having those high standards for all the students is very important and getting our students ready for the 21st century workforce or college or whatever they end up doing. something that i think has been missing for far too long from many of our students are life skills standards, standards that address those skills that our students with the most severe cognitive disabilities need to master in order to be successful after their high school term is finished. so we focus a lot on the students that are typically developing on what they're going

to do after high school. but this other population is i think left behind by not having those standards so that teachers know what to teach so that we can effectively measure progress towards those standards so that we can be sure that those students are ready for what may be getting into when they're finished with high school. everyone says that we assess too much. i think that we assess ineffectively too much. i agree. we have a lot of progress tests for the practice tests in order to take the real tests. i think that's completely ineffective. if we were able to adopt a more effective assessment that provided teachers and administrators with the data necessary in order to inform our instruction and improve our instructional strategies so that we can push our students to those higher levels, then we would be able to assess quickly, efficiently, and more often that data would be collected immediately. i know we've talked about computer-based assessments. those often are able to give us

more quick results and provide them -- provide them in such a way that the teacher can use those the next day in order to inform their instruction and make better strategy decisions. something that was always a struggle with no child left behind that i didn't fully understand how it was addressed in this bill are the highly qualified standards. i know when i came through teaching i did come through a teaching alternate program and the standards were a lot of paperwork. no one ever came in my classroom to make sure i was highly effective and my paperwork was in and that's all that mattered. i feel i'm missing the target in on that. everyone can turn in transcripts but not anyone can be a highly effective teacher in the classroom. we talked about principals and with that comes support and guidance and i think that's a huge piece missing in those -- in that highly qualified standards discussion. just because the teacher is

highly effective one year at a new student population or at a new school may not be highly effective so that that continued support to help our students grow into a better instructors will be paramount for our students' success. >> thank you, ms. dank. mr. henderson. >> thank you, senator harkin and senator enzy, i want to thank you for inviting me to this important bipartisan round table discussion on the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act. now, mr. chairman, uncharacteristically quiet this morning and i hope it will give me an additional minute to lay out things that we like about this bill as well as those that pose a concern. so let me begin. let me say at the outset that i think all of us tend to agree that no child left behind is in need of significant improvement. and we would also agree that the

global economy has imposed new demands on our nation to improve the quality of public education available both k-12 but also post-secondary education. and the fact that our workforce is going to be drawn from an increasingly diverse population of individuals both native-born and immigrants in our country makes this not just a moral issue -- and that is improving education reform is a moral issue. but it's also a national security issue. and the fact that this committee is taking seriously its responsibilities for a deeper dive in this area is extremely important. there are things in this bill that indeed represent improvements over current law. i'm going to outline them very briefly and then i want to talk about the other things which pose concer

pose concern. i would disagree with mr. grier with respect to the responsibilities of the federal government to use its leverage and its resources to help encourage improvement in this area. i think the bill does improve effort to improve the problems of dropout factories which are those schools that represent a significant part of the schools where individuals drop out annually and for african-americans and latinos and native americans, we often lose perhaps as many as 50% of our high school graduating class annually. i think the bill does a great job in providing college and career-ready standards. i would agree with ms. danks that there is improvement. i'm pleased about the importance of data collection to ensure that the subgroups of boys and girls aren't masked and that intervejs can be targeted more

effectively. i think that's important. we think the s.t.e.m. courses are available to underrepresentative groups is an improvement. all those represent significant improvements and we were especially pleased with senator franken's effort to provide additional protections for students in foster care. so those things we think are very important. but, unfortunately, from our standpoint, these improvements are overshadowed by the bill's albeit perhaps unintended but nonetheless historic retreat on the accountability question. and because of this retreat, dozens of civil rights, education and business organizations including the u.s. chamber of commerce have determined that we cannot support the bill at this time. we have issued a statement to that effect which i would request be entered into the record of this discussion this morning. now, we are troubled by several provisions in the bill. so let me see if i can just

outline them with the same ways with the things we like. we're concerned that the states would be required to take action to improve only a small number of low performing schools. that is the bottom 5% of the schools in most states. and that while the bill does identify an additional 5% of schools with achievement gaps and those considered dropout factories, the bill does not require these schools to make any significant academic progress and proscribes no interventions. moreover, it decides which achievement gaps merit attention and which do not. in the remaining 5% of the schools that are not among the state's very worst performing public schools, large numbers of low achieving students will simply slip through the cracks and obviously that happens today. but that is not the measure that

we use to determine whether a newly reauthorized elementary and secondary education act is responsive to those problems. and many states these students will be low-incomed students, students of color, those learning english and students with disabilities. the bill also does not require states to set targets for significantly improving school graduation rates despite the fact as i noted that every year about 1.3 million students drop out and only a little over half of the students of color including african-american, latino, native american and southeast asian students graduate on time. and then finally for english language learners, the bill eliminates annual measurable objectives which is a critical accountability for the title 3 program. finally, the bill weakens requirements in the current law requiring that low income students, and students of color,

taught at higher rates by inexperienced, unqualified or out of field teachers. we know we can't close the achievement gap and we also close the teacher inequality gap. many of the teachers and principals who work on the ground every day. but i am a board member, a trustee of the educational testing. the educational testing service is a nonprofit corporation has launched a series of symposiums and seminars working on ways to close the achievement gap. and then i think highly academics will identify a number of elements that lead to reducing the achievement gap between students but all of them are based on the core principle of accountability. it is indispensable to advancing the common goals that we have about closing the achievement gaps and maintaining our

country's competitiveness on the global economy. so i think it's fair to say and without hyperbole that the provisions in the bill that we have focused on with greatest concern really represent the de facto end of a national accountability system as we have come to understand it. and while i believe that this notion of providing flexibility for individual school districts and schools may be important given the context in which it's raised, it is not appropriate to offer flexibility that in effect represents an end to the establishment of national standards that have been the significant factor of public schools that we've seen in the past years of no child left behind. with that in mind, thank you, i appreciate it. >> i thought that was very thorough. mr. thomas, you got the hammer. >> thank you, senator.

i really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. and i just want to say as a principal i love my students, i love my job as principal and i love working with our students every day and with our teachers every day and in looking at this reauthorization there are two or three things that i'd like to mention that i think are very positive and then some things that we can certainly work on. certainly, i think as everyone is in mind, we're looking out for interest of students and so some good things i think that are in the bill, in the recommendation would be the student growth model. you've heard that quite a bit. and i think that's a real positive thing to get rid of the punitive ayp sanctions with was ineffective and i appreciate that effort and it's also -- and it's been a lot of my work has been based on the college and career readiness standards. i think that's a good start there as well. i do think it's important with the college and career readiness standards that we look at what our states are doing and allow the states to determine what those standards are. and in kentucky we've begun that work and are certainly very appreciative of that opportunity

to set the standards as a state. there are some things with the reauthorization that certainly should be looked at and thought about thoroughly before we move forward with anything. once again locally determine what our college and career readiness standard looks like. in addition, approving some assessments for our students with special needs based on their accommodations set forth in their ieps. i think our local arc the release committees can determine what those assessments look like. and in so doing, there's going to have to be a removal of the 1% cap on some of our alternative assessments for our special needs students. an example of that would be if you look at madison central high school, we are about 1750 students. and if you take 1% of that, for alternative assessment, that would be 17.5, let's round up, 18 students. and at madison central we have -- our severe disability

students, we have three classrooms 10 students each for a total of 30 students and so now we're looking at an accountability that doesn't include the entire population that could have an iep that says that they should be an alternative assessment. and so i would like that local iep and local assessment consider that and that would be really good. an issue that we find that we struggle with at least in my district, and my previous district is the highly qualified part of the reauthorization. whenever we look at the highly qualified, it's very burdensome. our teachers struggle -- we struggle to hire special needs teachers. and as we're all very well aware, some of the best teachers don't come through a natural path through certification. and so we'd like some alternative ways and not really put the burden on the highly qualified mandate about the testing. so, for example, to be highly

qualified and we want to get highly qualified teachers for all of our students and special needs is one that we struggle and we want to have high standards and put the best teachers in place there. but to do so requires a very burdensome testing process. we'd like to advocate for some local decision there on what that highly qualified status looks like. and then lastly, just simply as a principle, i was very fortunate a month ago to come to capitol hill and petition on behalf of principals across the united states, but i have to talk about the four-school turn-around models that includes getting rid of the principal in each one of those models if they have been in their position for more than two years. and, obviously, you know, i think there are certainly principals out there who are poor principals, who need to be removed. but certainly if we just put one

assessment or if we put one measure on those principals and remove them, then it's going to be quite difficult to keep some of our best principals. a really good principal -- who has been just just over two years and he's in the bottom 5% his school is and we want to turn that school around and he seems to be doing a really good job. and if you look at their college and career readiness standards, they're doing very well but based on the sanctions listed by the 5%, he's got to lose his job. so as a result, i cannot support the four-school turn-around model and i would just like to ask for a fair analysis to determine whether the existing principle is making those gains and use some alternative measures to make those gains. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. thomas. let's see. senator paul? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i want to that i think --

thank about the chairman and the ranking member and when i hear about no child left behind and about various ideas. i think it's a recommendation for the hearing that we have a packed crowd. we've had standing room only the whole time and so i think it's very good and i for run see problems as a physician. you try to diagnose the problem. you try to fix it. and we should continue to look at it as a problem-solving orientation for this. i do think that there's a large philosophical sort of debate and battle that is part of this. for example, i hear ideas from people who are probably right turn, democrat, liberal, conservative on this panel and a lot of them are good ideas. to my mind it's not really it's a good idea or bad where it's instituted that gets make a difference. mr. grier has ideas. mr. seaton has good ideas but they all sound good but once we make them universal. i would probably vote for mr. grier of superintendent or mr. luna to be superintendent of their school. i don't want them to be the

national superintendent of schools and so it is a big difference. how much is it federal? i think for the most part -- this is a philosophical point. the farther we get away from the local school, the worse it gets. and the farther we get away from local government to national government, the worse the oversight gets. we don't know who we can judge a good teacher. i would have to sit in her class and i would have to look at that and i would have to maybe judge on how well her students are doing. it's complicated. and i don't think i can ever know here whether she's a good teacher or not. in columbia is different than kentucky, it's different than houston. and so my argument for it is to keep in mind that there is a philosophical question here on local versus federal. and i think we're coming together in understanding that maybe federal overbearing or federal overreaching education hasn't been good. and that it sometimes makes people a number. people talk about special needs kids and special education kids. i think to put a number on them

makes them some sort of abstract mathematical percentages is a mistake. i can't tell how 17 or 30 is right for the school district in richmond, kentucky. i would think only locally they could figure that out so i don't think we should have numbers in our bill that we are all concerned. i don't think mr. thomas is not concerned about special needs. he's concerned about being judged unfairly or his school is. and i think we've gone a long way in the -- a long way towards fixing some of these problems, you know, with ayp, with the yearly progress. but i still am concerned that we still have the testing mandates, which will have people practicing to do tests to do tests. i don't think we fixed that. i think that is still a problem that should be and could be fixed and so i'm glad we're having this hearing because we still will try on the floor and i would encourage through your organizations, anybody through any teaching organization still to continue to lobby congress because i've been at least given some indication that we may allow amendments on the floor,

relevant amendments, and i hope we will so we can make it better. we don't do this very often. we haven't done it in a long time and so we need to try to make it better. i am concerned and i would like to ask this question is that we're still going to judge the bottom 5% the way we've been judging schools. but we've kind of determined the way we've been judging schools wasn't very good. so somebody can help me out if i'm wrong on this. i think we're still going to judge the bottom 5% the way we've been judging schools. the problem i have with that is that my kid goes to a public high school and it gets awards of forbes or "newsweek" as being one of the best schools and it's told it's failing by no child left behind. 37 states won out and so really that makes me think the law is not very good. and maybe we need more dramatic changes than what we're actually addressing. but i guess my question is, is how are we going to determine if our model is not working for determining which is a good school now. is it a good thing to keep the 5% or do we need to re-assess

how we judge who are the bottom 5%. and i'd like to start out with mr. thomas and see if he'll make a comment on that. but then i'd be more than welcome to hear other folks on this as well. >> thank you, senator paul. >> well, i just think it's very difficult whenever you use one measure to determine what your school is going to be successful as. understand the old law, certainly madison central high school has never met ayp and so, therefore, we have struggled historically to meet that standard and, of course, the standard as it rose became quite frustrating. however, whenever we look at our new model, madison central high school is in the top third of college and career readiness. so whenever you're using just one kind of goal to determine what's meeting that standard, it's quite frustrating because it becomes -- one target is successful, another target is not. it's kind of what you're mentioning about your local school is that according to one standard, they're a very good

performing school but according to another standard, they're not meeting that and so that's the issue that i struggle with there as well. is that we need to use multiple forms of assessment, not over testing. i'm not advocating for that but let's look at the school holistically and see what we're doing. >> everybody -- okay. [laughter] >> we might as well just continue down the loin. i assume all the ones who are able to respond to mr. paul said -- but since we were there, let's go that way. >> to your opening comment about a philosophical difference that are the best laboratories for establishing significant reforms for education -- [inaudible] >> i don't think anyone had --

[inaudible] >> a party addressed that issue. [inaudible] >> is acknowledged that --.. 1974 case, which has acknowledged that public education is not a fundamental right under the constitution. with that same supreme court sought to examine early efforts to implement a state's rights philosophy with regard to public education and found it deeply wanting and offensive to the constitution because the results of the effort did not provide simply just an equality of educational opportunity, but significant investment in those communities that had the least amount of political power or influence, or were tainted by racial bias which was evident in a number of the states that

spoke most loudly in favor of states rights in public education. the decision in brown versus the board of education established, established a federal interest which no child left behind essentially sought to vindicate by ensuring that the use of federal dollars could be an incentive to improve the quality of that included people like senator alexander who as secretary of education sought to implement similar efforts and george w. bush who in fact signed no child left behind into law. this is not about a philosophical conversation about how best to educate students. it's about the practical effects of the failure to recognize the constitutional interest that every student has to a quality public education which was not being adequately served by state law. and so under the circumstances i don't think this bill represents an extension of that principle. i think it represents a fair

representation of where the principle stood. i've expressed my concerns about the accountability system because i think under the guise of reform the provisions in the bill go too far to knee bate the legitimate federal interest that we recognize exists. so rather than weakening that federal interest, given the history of bias and discrimination under the state system, if anything we should be looking to reinforce it in a more significant and positive way. so i don't see this as a philosophical debate at all. i see it as a practical debate affecting real live students and the consequences of a failure to educate them properly. >> mr. grier? >> thank you, senator harken, as i understand the bill as it is written today, doesn't address the 5% lowest performing schools and with the achievement gap, it gives states the option of

identifying additional low-performing schools in that state and i think the state should be commended. whether or not we get into a debate whether or not some states are different than the other, i happen to believe the states ought to have some flexibility in that arena. i also believe local school districts should, when our state told us last year we had four low-performing high schools that they labeled dropout factories. quite frankly we had three or four other high schools that had, we had some input. we may have didded -- decided needed more attention than two of the ones on the list. they were identified by one narrow definer and so how you, how you intertwine all that local flexibility and the state flexibility i think is important. it is often more difficult to do than it is to say we ought to do it. >> now i'm going to skip over one, two, three. i know both mr. hess and

mr. schnur have to leave. it is 11:30. i will go to those two and come back to the three. okay, so mr. schnur and mr. hess. >> chairman harken i got word i was able to move the meeting back. i have longer time to get back to new york. >> i will get to you later [laughing] >> thank you. i'd like to just say a couple words about senator paul's question and really just a couple other points i would like to share with the committee. one i think senator paul is precisely right. one of the design flaws in no child left behind, one of its great strengths as mr. henderson indicated it essentially took a national x-ray where students were. it told us how students were performing at a given point in time. the problem with that, the way it was used an x-ray doesn't tell you the cause. knowing that students of this demographic profile in

this community are at this level of achievement in reading, math or science does not tell us whether it is due to the school's performance, whether it is due to their home environment or where it is due to all their prior years of schooling. so one of the problems with that x-ray that no child left behind took we tried to then use it as the basis for identifying whether schools were performing adequately or not. and i think that was a profound design flaw. many of us pointed this out close to decade ago. it is very healthy to see the senate wrestling with this today. the superior alternative to try to identify the 5% again recognizing there will be murkiness whether it is exact right 5%, is to focus how well those students are faring in the course of that academic year. we want to look how much those students are learning in things we deem essential in the cows of a academic year. that is the right essential starting point whether identifying schools are doing their jobs well.

again, because i think it is an i'm presize science, i don't know matter how well-intentioned federal intervention will be they likely do more harm than dprood i think it is not useful to try to describe models. picking up 10 cents on the dollar it is prepare that federal government insist states identify and come up with strategies to address these. couple other points real quick since i'm unfortunately required to lead. one, i heard what i would regard asterisk suggestions and practices how to educate children in schools and districts. i think the mistake to imagine when they were good ideas we need to try to promote them and encourage them from washington. it is not, there is one question which the senator paul pointed out which is the philosophic question. even pragmaticly when mr. grier is trying to drive school improvement in houston, what he is doing is working with a, with a

teacher unit headed by, houston federation of teachers. he is working with a district over which he oversees control. he is working with a board. he is working with employees who report to him. that is profoundly different from what the senate and house are attempting to do in writing legislation. all the sea can do is empower the u.s. department of education to issue regulation attached to funding we must be fun they would through state education agencies we must be picked up by school district superintendents. at the end day we wind up with rules regs, case law which contain enormous unanticipated compliance burdens. one very provocative illustration is robert bob did a couple years as detroit financial manager. one of the crazy ideas he tried to promote the idea they ought to be moving title one dollars out of substitute teacher funds and field trips into early childhood literacy. the state education agency

told him he was not permitted to. this was in violation of federal guidelines around title one. now the u.s. department of education said that was incorrect. that he was actually consistent with the appropriate interpretation of the law but at that's what happens when we try to write laws from washington they wind up on books at the state and district, we wind up creating enormous and unexpected hurdles for people trying to solve these problems in schools and districts. two other really quick points. one, let me say that when it comes to school turnarounds, when it comes to teacher evaluation i have enormous respect for what mr. schnur is talking about, mr. luna, mr. grier. i would argue decades in experience in education and particularly out of education tell us it is not whether you do it, but how well you do it. there are three decades for instance on turnarounds, total quality management, corporate reengineering. in the best-case scenarios these work 30% of the time. to imagine that we can identify some models that we

will then require folks to use and imagine that that is going to increase the likelihood they will succeed is, i think, just to, to our aspirations to exceed what we can competently, use fully do. to give one concrete example i think particularly on the teacher evaluation front, what i'm concerned about you may have read or heard about new school models, hybrid schools, like rocket ship academies or, you know, or the school of one in new york city. one of the important things to note is these school models become very nearly illegal under much of what we're talking about in terms of state of the art teacher evaluation. these schools do not have a teacher of record in the conventional fashion. so in order to try to track students to a teacher and hold that teacher accountable in a hybrid model or an online model or the school of one model, simply doesn't work. if you require that teachers are going to be evaluated in

this fashion you either need to provide substantial waivers an loopholes or make sure that we are not regulating in a fashion that locks us into the 19th century schoolhouse. thank you so much. i was honored to be here today. >> thank you very much. very good. i had three more. englehart, luna and schnur. i want to get to senator isakson and senator franken. just a couple minutes please. >> i will be brief. review quickly with the committee who are students with disabilities? i think there is a great deal of confusion who is a student with a disability who is getting special education services. '85% of students in special education have a disability that does not prohibit, that does not bar them from doing grade level work. so if we look at who the categories are, 42, almost 43% of kids in special

education have a specific learning disability. almost 20% have a speech or language delay. 11% have something called other health impaired. so for the kids who could probably be appropriately in an alternate assessment on alternate academic achievement standard, those 1% kids, if we added up all the kids in the category of mental retardation, all the kids category of autism, all the kids in the category of traumatic brain injury and all the kids in the category of multiple disabilities, we have far, we're still close, not all those kids are going to be incapable of learning grade level work but a lot of those kids are being directed to an inappropriate assessment for them simply because of the nature of their disability category. i have been in too many iep meetings and i agree with my

colleagues here on the panel who say the test is driving too many things. i've been in iep meetings in virginia for kids who can do grade level work in certain subjects who have been told they can't access the general curriculum because the test dictates what curriculum they have. we can't put more kids into this track where they can't, they can't have access to the general curriculum and they can't learn what all their other kids are being exposed to. i think that's just a really important point we understand who are these kids and in a very, very, very small number of them are kids who can not do grade level work. the second thing is, i think it is absolutely essential that teachers have the skill and knowledge to do the job they have been asked to do. and that third, that testing has to inform instruction. i don't know why we're testing if we're not doing something that will turn around and benefit kids. so i think, the issues and concerns we have with the bill, and we need to make

sure we're not putting more kids in an inappropriate assessment which is tracking them out of the general education curriculum. i want to add just one quick thing about accountability. as you know the bill, your bill limits accountability to the bottom-performing 5% schools. and with the other 95% of the schools one of the things we're very concerned about is we still have the disaggregated reporting requirement which is really good but where there are achievement gaps we think there should be some trigger something has to happen. i keep calling it subsection do something where, where, if there is an achievement gap, we do something more than report it. that schools need to look at why that gap is there and take some action to address it. i'm not going to sit here and tell you what that should be. schools know what that should be but they need to do something. so those are my two points.

>> thank you. again, couple minutes if i can. i want to get senator isakson waiting a long time to say something. >> thank you, senator. i just wanted to comment that under the current no child left behind law we are on track for 100% of our schools to be held to federal sanctions. under the new law, it is 5%. so i think it finds the proper balance. i think it is also important to understand that states have the responsibility under the new law, states would have the responsibility to intervene for all schools. it is just the federal government is only prescriptive on 5%. i think that finds the balance, senator paul, those of us who consider ourselves conservative are looking for, what is the proper role for the federal government here? the u.s. constitution is silent when it comes to education. so the 10th amendment says it is left to the state. my constitution at the state level is very specific, that i have a responsibility to provide a uniform thorough

system of common public schools. i think there are some who on this panel think if the federal government does not mandate something the states will not do it. i think our actions speak otherwise. 10 years ago we had a law that required, before no child left behind we had federal laws that required standards and assessments for all students but 39 states opted out of it. today we have states that are on their own without any mandate from the federal government have adopted a standard that is comparable to any academic standard in the world and we've, we're moving toward assessments that will be less intruce i have and -- intrusive and more informative and we have put forth a plan for an accountability system that is even a higher level of accountability than the current no child left behind requires. i don't think it is an accurate portrayal of the attitudes of states today to move forward with a bill that is based on the premise if the federal government doesn't mandate it, states will not do that. i think states have

demonstrated that there are more than willing on their own have adopted a higher standard and higher level of accountability. >> thank you. quickly. >> miss neas must be a little ahead of the ball game trying to close these achievement gaps. when we see these gaps that does mean something needs to be done and that is the problem. we're working very hard closing these gaps. i also agree with her that the esa and no child left behind have helped tremendously. the majority of the special ed students as she was saying, many of those students are able to work at grade level but the ones i was referring to were those that are not capable, no matter what we do, with those students, no matter what interventions we use. they are not, they are identified because they are not capable of working at grade level. and they should be assessed according to their ieps

rather than according to -- >> they full into that 1% category. >> that depends on your numbers and your district and we have never had been the number in our district to fall into that 1%. so we, you know, they go in with our regular accountability. while i do have this mic i do want to emphasize what mr. hess said as far as funding. that is so very important. i don't think that more funding is the answer by any means to education. the answer is to get funding channeled in the right direction. there's an awful lost of waste in education funding. there needs to be more flexibility and, as far as the use of funds. >> very good. lastly i will go to senator isakson. >> thank you, chairman harken. three quick points on testing turnarounds and urgency of passing the bill. first on testing, senator paul, in this country there are school systems that have

become too myopicly focused on test as one indicator. we haven't seen a good organization drive progress without a set of measurable goals driving progress every day. this bill includes important components as i understand it to go beyond just testing but looking at high school completion rates and college enrollment rates and kids going to college without remediation. that is goal to focus on out comes not just tests that is one point. second on turnarounds i must say that i think the, i do think that it's, from my perspective the capacity to turn around low-income schools is very limited in this country. i just don't believe from a practical perspective in next few years we have capacity to more than low percentage of low achieving schools. while i agree with many of mr. henderson's comments on accountability i don't think we should overreach.

we don't have the capacity to do it. my concern though on the achievement gap schools i do i this, i was public schoolkid. my kids are going to public schools. there are public schools around the country serving many kids well but not kids in great need and kids of color. i don't think those schools will not improve if there is not some press to improve that i think that is area of focus. third and lastly i would say on the urgency of this bill overall, we, this is race against technology. it is a race against the economy. you know, one piece of data that strikes me in 1973 there were only a quarter of jobs in the united states that required some post-secondary education. a quarter. in a few years, 2/3 of the jobs in the united states will require some post-secondary education. this is a change of seismic and rapid proportions by historical standards. we will, once first in the world in college completion rates, high school come lesh shun rates. we have slipped to 15th. we have not gotten worse, we've stayed the same while

other countries went ahead. economy is demanding more. we don't have sit around, leadership your providing here to move this is important. kids and educators and teachers are not looking for prescription from washington but they're looking from leadership from washington and salute your efforts to provide that here. >> senator isakson, thank you for your patience. >> thank you, mr. chairman for the courtesy. i want to thank all the guests that have been here to testify today. as i always do when educators are present i learn something and you've all had great input into the conversation. i know miss neas and mr. thomas both expressed themselves already on issue of special assessment and special education kids. i would like to ask miss danks and mr. seaton who are in the classroom, you're the lead special needs teacher is not that correct, miss danks? one of things i've been advocate as the chairman knows in this committee flexibility in assessment of special needs children in particularly proposed rather

than have a limited narrow waiver for cognitive disability we allow the iep to determine the assessment vehicle each year the, special education child is subject to. that is the one time you have the parent, teacher and school present making a decision for that child in terms of how you're going to measure the progress of that child in that next year. i would like to have miss danks and mr. seaton just comment on that. >> i agree with you. i think the iep process is great getting everyone together focusing that one student when. we come to assessment on state and national standards or whatever we're talking about we forget the individualized part of the individualized educational plan. i know at my school we're constantly battling state standards far beyond our students cognitive ability at this point in time and their iep which addresses skills in order they need to finks after they're done with the public school system. unfortunately a lot of times those two documents are not

working together. so we're wasting, we're using a lot of our time to, to figure out that balancing game. as far as assessing stupid with special needs i think it is essential, whether, i think an alternative assessment is great. i know in maryland we had the typical assessment that most students took and then we also have an alternative assessment. for a while we also had a modified assessment for students that fell outside of that 1% but still were not able to complete grade level work. and they are doing away with that i'm not sure of the policies with that. but as far as assessing what students with special needs i think our students have enough obstacles. for us to be another one saying they can't do i think that is such a disservice to them. i think we need to continue holding our high standards and provide an effective assessment and i think that can be determined at various levels like you had mentioned with the iep process. we can do that during, we can assess students based on the iep and we may be serving them better.

at our school we actually went through a process where we created an assessment. we got a waiver from our district assessments and we created a assessment to look at our students continuous progress. that is the exact phrase we used. took us about a year to create this assessment where we're continually looking at student progress as it relates to that student's capabilities. so we're not holding them to some standard that someone else told us to. we're actually looking at what the student is able to do throughout the school year based on what they have been able to do and what we're hope to push them to do in the future. >> before i get to mr. seaton, if you please, get a chance to allow the committee to have the maryland alternatives that you're using in terms of measuring progress for special education kids. i would love to see what you've developed. >> again. that is just our school level. >> i understand. >> this was fantastic we were able to go through a process that taught our entire school staff much about our students and our staff's needs and coming away from that process we have a much greater

appreciation for how difficult it is to create an assessment. so we applaud people for doing that. but i can certainly share that with you. >> thank you very much. mr. seaton? >> i do agree also that the iep is a great place to start with using it as a driver for assessment. one of the things that's happening in tennessee now is we have guidelines that are set for alternative assessments. what i have found in my classroom is, i try to make sure that do a thorough evaluation of the records and, and try to find anything that will allow me toe to use all tern tougher assessments if that individual needs it. if they don't, i continue to use the tennessee standards that we have. a roll more work for me but i outline those things that i believe are necessary at the time. so i stay in compliance nationally to make sure i'm meeting the special ed

requirements but i also, so you're looking at an iep inside of an iep. you have a set of standards that it says that regulatory standards that we have to have that are grade-level functions but then i have another set that functions that are necessary for that young person to be successful enough to want to go to the next level and then move forward. >> i thank you both. i don't have time to go to another subject except to say mr. luna or dr. luna, whichever it is idaho is doing great thing by engaging parents more in the education of children. i know in your paper of performance the parents have some say in that merit based system. i commend what you will all are doing thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i would like to ask miss neas put yourself in to involve yourself in that last discussion with mr. seaton and miss danks. >> my colleagues have said what is appropriate and

available under current law. under the individuals with disabilities education act an essential decision that each child's iep team needs to make and iep team includes the child's parents which assessment is appropriate to that child? does the child take an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards? does the child take a regular assessment with or without accommodation or modification? that is something currently required under idea. what my colleagues describe is exactly what is supposed to happen. for those kids on alternate achievement standards you have to design something appropriate to that child. those kids are on a unique, unique place where they are not on grade level. i often times call them act of god kids. short of an act of god these kids are never going to be on grade level. doesn't matter how much their mother loved them, what they had for breakfast, how many books are in their home. these kids are not going to

be on grade level. they need a different measure but they need to make progress. someone needs to make sure this year they learned more than they learned last year. whatever it is to that child, is what we need to have continue. so, there is nothing in the law that says for those, that what my concern is, is when you put kid who don't belong in that category of kids with the most significant cognitive disabilities. when kids who are outside of that are put in that and then otherwise -- >> i think there is some confusion here if i might interrupt. there is a 1% rule. >> that's right. >> says that schools can automatically, i guess, if that is the right word, automaticly take up to 1% of kids who have in ieps? >> what the law says is that up to 1% of kids, all kids, which roughly translates to about 10% of kids with disabilities. >> yes. >> can have their progress measured on an alternate achievement standard.

an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards. what the current regulation allows is that states can count those 10% of kids in the 1% as proficient. there is nothing that says states can't give more tests, can't assess more kids but they can't count them as proficient outside of that 1%. and that's what we're seeing in a number of states where they're giving more than 1% of the kids are taking this alternate achievement standard and that's where our concern is. we think too many kids are being inappropriately placed in that 1% but we absolutely believe there are kids who are appropriate to that 1%. >> do you disagree with that, miss danks? >> i don't disagree but i know something i've seen in at the lo of iep meetings with students who attend a comprehensive school so that other percentage that we've been talking about, not the students with the most severe disabilities. a lot of times when parents

come to the meetings, i don't want my kid to be taking that test so we'll opt out of that because this testing and assessing has gotten so out of control and the parents see that it is out of control and they don't want their child participating in it. and we, sometimes there is a lot of pressure from the parents to exclude the student from that general assessment just because of the stigma attached with that. so i agree that's an issue. i'm not sure if 1% is the magic number. we're talking about, states rights versus the federal government. i'm not sure if 1% is the correct number. i'm not sure if there is a correct number but i do know that is definitely something to be considered. i also think on top of that, just to go back to the original question, i think a huge component we're missing with this 1% are the life skills standards. so that we can use the iep which are the academic standards and some life skill standards but there are no state, there is not a requirement states have those life skill standards. some states do and some

states don't. seeing that i think that is huge disservice to these students. we're not preparing them for what happens for most of them when they're 21 years old and they exit the public school system. we're not doing a good job of getting them ready. >> senator harken, i could just add i think the whole notion of life skills is so important and i don't know the answer but it may be an idea issue and what is appropriate to that child and not necessarily a esea issue. so i just wanted to raise that. >> mr. seaton. >> yes, for tennessee we have a built in a way to catch some of that 1%. . . seatton? >> yes, for tennessee, we have built in a way to catch some of that 1%. young people that have a certain iq score, we use that as a baseline. if they are average-functioning, close to, they are not allowed to be placed in that alternative assessment bracket. so one of the things that, you

know, people who want to opt out are not able to do that just based on the fact that they are young people or you believe that this will be better for your scores. >> i'm sorry, can i just add one thing? i think -- i think the problem we're falling into too, there is either an alternative >> and so i'm not sure exactly how it's worded in the law but the idea of continuous progress can mean a student takes an assessment and they score 34% in this month and they score 35% in the next month and that's continuous progress and for some of our students who don't fall in that 1% but who are also not performing at or above grade level, that's still a way for that student to show they are making that continuous progress and for the school to demonstrate that they are progressing and continuing the student's progress. >> senator franken. >> that's kind of a good jumping-point off where i want comments from. and it's about computer adaptive

testing. and to what extent does this certainly in terms of special ed. kids and measuring growth? i've been struck by -- mr. luna talked about the growth model and i know mr. luna is concerned with gifted kids. and i know to let some teachers in minnesota the way the testing has been done in no children left behind in what percentage of kids have some arbitrary benchmark proficiency. and you know the kid is going to have proficiency and so they

ignore the kid. and i think ms. geisselhardt talked about that as well. ms. danks, you talked about computer adaptive testing. and imminent you to follow up on that and a growth model and why a growth model is so important and mr. hess, before he left, was talking about just how kids are progressing during the year. and you can do that with a computer adaptive test 'cause you can take it multiple times during the year and what we've been doing is giving a test at the end of april and the results come back. and you talk about going beyond one test and the thing with the computer adaptive tests and you can take it over multiple times

of the year and you can measure growth i just kind of would like, if anyone wants to, talk about -- do they see any downside to the computer adaptive tests? the one thing we've done is made it voluntary. that's one of the federalism issues that we've responded to is i think -- i think every station of computer adaptive tests but i deliberately said this is something you can do. you may do. you're allowed to do. so does anyone have any feelings about that? any thoughts? >> i'd like to take a quick stab at that time. i think not only what you're proposing, i think the infrastructure across the country is very sorely lacking for schools to be able to do this on a large scale basis. you just can't march kids into

one computer lab in school in groups of 25 and think you're going to be able to do this. i worked in school districts where there was computers in classrooms and it was wonderful and teachers could get feedback immediately on a daily basis, every two weeks or whenever you wanted them to. but i work in a school district now where we don't have that type of -- >> do you have a computer lab? >> we have a computer lab in most of our schools, but very few of our schools have a computer in every classroom. >> right. you don't have to all -- not everybody at the school has to take this the same day. >> no, we're just talking about special ed. students that may be different. but i think this technique you're talking about applies to all students. it makes it just more difficult for -- >> yeah, but what i'm saying is that i don't think all the grades have to take it the same day. third grade can take it one day or one classroom in third grade

can take it one day and one classroom -- and they can -- as long as you have a computer lab, which i think schools probably should have. >> with all due respect, i'm just saying from living it every day, one computer lab in the school would not support the kind of testing model you're talking about. it just won't do it. >> okay. in minnesota they seemed to be able to -- i talked to schools where they've had one computer lab and they've been able to do this. but maybe they're smaller schools or something. i don't know. >> senator, in -- >> you're supposed to call. senator and mr. chairman, in idaho we've done computer testing since no child left behind started. we are never done computer and pencil. and we've done computer tests all the time. and the first test we rolled out was an adaptive test and it

showed growth. but it did not pass muster under no child left behind and the law that is being considered today will allow us to go back to the kind of tests we were actually doing eight or nine years ago where we could actually measure growth without a floor or a ceiling so that we could actually see where a student is -- how they're performing. i think what you're talking about, senator, is right now we have assessments of learning. we give them at the end of the school year. those are great for accountability systems and they help inform instruction somewhat for the next year. so what we need are assessments of learning -- or i'm sorry. assessments for learning where there are assessments that are less intrusive and they happen during the regular classroom period. i've gone into classrooms before where the -- the -- it's a very high level of engagement where children are engaged and there's a lot of learning going on. and all of a sudden, the teacher says, okay, it's time for the quiz. everybody close your books and

it's just like somebody sucks the oxygen out of the room. the technology is available to capture assessment data during a regular lesson plan while it's being delivered. it means a heavy dose of technology in every classroom. it's not going to get done with just one or two computer labs per school. in our state, we've chosen to make heavy investments in technology, not with race to the top dollars, not by raising taxes, not by spending more money in education, but by -- we're willing to spend the money we already have differently. and so i won't go into the details of our technology improvements, but they're very expansive. and every one of our classrooms will have the technology available to do the kind of assessments that you're talking about without rotating kids through a computer lab. >> my only reaction to that -- i've seen tests -- or i've seen classrooms where you can immediately -- where they do exactly what you're talking about. and that's -- and that's fabulous.

what i'm advocating on computer adaptive tests is one of the aspects is exactly what you're talking about. is the test results -- if they can be done as the year is going by, they're allowing -- they're forelearning because the teachers can see what's going on and use the results for instruction. and i think ms. danks is going to probably speak to the special ed. fact if you're measuring -- if you're allowed to go outside of grade level, you're able to measure growth and that makes the problem we are talking about before -- it actually, i think, addresses it to some extent anyway, which is that if you're least measuring growth, kids who are below grade level -- and you

can still see that they're learning. >> i think you make a great point and i think that applies to all students, not just students with special needs. seeing that continuous growth is going to be much more rich data that the teachers are going to be able to use than that one time in march or april where the school has probably completely stressed out the child to get ready for its assessment. the parents know about it, everybody knows about it. and then those results don't come back till june. and like you said, it's like an autopsy. and then that information is not always useful and a lot of times it's given too late. well, here's this skill we taught in september which this student never mastered. i wish i would have known that in september. i think that testing has become such an event and it comes with so much pressure. and i think like you were saying it doesn't need to be everybody does it on the same day. it could be two to three kids coming in. and, you know, some of these kids know how to use a computer better than anybody know. as far as that being a barrier

even with students with special needs, i don't think that's an issue. our school does work with the partnership board, they've helped us tremendously in raising a great deal of funds. we have several computers in every classroom, a whiteboard in every classroom and i would encourage schools who are gaining that technology to reach out to your community partners, businesses that are getting rid of computers because then you can implement this in your school schools. >> i think you have the right to focus on computer-based adaptive assessments. i think in the future that's going to be universal in education. i think it's a good example of something which, you know, you're showing judiciousness in not mandateing it. there's bills on both sides of the party. i think it's good not to require it. one of the things for the goals to arrive this changing the transparency and the goal requirements and accountability will enable growth and improvement is crucial to help

kids, lowest achieving, highest achieving. one thing at a minimum of state setting schools for goals to get some efficiently growth and graduation. i think it's important. otherwise, we're going to -- make slight improvements but not keep up with the race -- >> i think we're talking about mandate ago certain rate of growth so that by the end of 12th grade, they're ready for college is what we're -- the goal is anyway. >> i think that's the right direction. >> i'm not sure -- i'm not sure how that language is in the bill in terms of mandating that every year there will be a er i wouldn't of growth. >> mr. seaton, you put your card up. >> yes, i teach in the orange mound community which is the second oldest african-american community in the nation, only behind harlum and we're raising

money through our districts but we need the support of the national government in order to fully use technology throughout our system. i believe that the rapid assessments that we can get through those computer-based tests will be fabulous for us to use it as an ongoing tool, but i think we still need to think how long will it take to get better type of technology in our school and i think one of the things that was mentioned, the common core standards -- and this is where i believe we need some national leadership in having those common course standards for our base for our national assessments since we're looking at being competitive globally, we need to know where we all are from california to the bottoms of mississippi. >> are you saying, mr. seaton,

that there's an inequality of funding for schools based upon their zip code? >> no, sir. [laughter] >> we should rectify that. >> no, sir. i'm not saying that at all. [laughter] >> you should be. [laughter] >> i read this language just to respond to mr. schnur, because now i have it in front of me. if a state uses to use academic growth and determine if students are on track for career readiness, a student performing below the on-track level of performance for the student's grade level under subsection blah, blah, blah, on the academic assessment for the subject under subsection blah, blah, blah is attaining a rate of academic growth in the subject that indicates that the student will be on track to college and career readiness in not more than a specified number of years until a student who is

performing at or above the on-track level for the performance of the student's grade level on the academic assessment is continuing to make academic growth. so for states that choose a growth model, we are addressing i think what you raised, i think. are you satisfied? >> i think that's good. not having it federally prescribed but state some big goals about increasing percentage much kids to meet big goals is important but i think that's a larger conversation but i think that's a great step in the right direction. >> thank you. >> we have a roll call that's just been statement. senator murphy has been very patient. and we probably won't come back so mr. murphy. >> thank you all for bringing your expertise here to the capitol. i'll follow up on the

computerized adapting and i think folks can't imagine any other way of doing it. if schools are out there that are using paper tests that the results come back months later that is crazy. if you're trying to have teachers to be able to utilize the results in order to understand how their students are progressing. and the cost of the technology has come down so much that i certainly would encourage folks to explore it. i wanted to note a different issue which is we're replacing the current requirements for adequate yearly progress for college and career-ready standards and the goal of developing state-wide accountability systems in order to receive federal funding by 2014 and 2015, states vary in

terms of the progress that they have made and will be making to develop this new accountability system based on college and career ready. and so i thought superintendent luna perhaps from idaho's perspective and other people are welcome to chime in could give us is sense of how the states progressing in developing and adopting these and the timeline and the insights about the challenge that will occur in terms of this transition? >> mr. chairman, and senator, oregon and other states 30 are part of the smartest balance consortium is working to develop the adaptive computerized assessments that we're talking about. i believe that they will begin piloting them in two years, and then -- and then after the pilot begin to administer them.

at the same time, those assessments are going into place, we're also going through the process of adopting the common core. and so we have to go through the process of aligning our curriculum to the higher standard and now an assessment that measures to this higher standard and all of that is, as i said, in place to be piloted i believe in 2014. and then the year after it becomes part of the accountability. it's the measures we use in our state for our system. >> do you think the ayp will be used now -- if it's piloted in 2014, do we anticipate wide adoption following a year or two years later? >> mr. chairman and senator, i think that's going to be up to the plan that the state puts together. i know that if it's a state -- i believe that if it's a state that's pursuing a waiver, that there's actually one year where everything kind of stays the same. and that is the transition year

and i believe that is 2013 and then there's the transition. but i think it has to do -- it depends on the plan that the state puts together. >> do we have time for any feedback on this question? thank you. >> i want to address what senator -- i'm sorry. i want to address what senator franken said in terms of formative assessment. i think there's a lot of emphasis on formative assessment and it's used for instruction but as far as the test that we would use for data collection, in comparing students in compare growth, we would have to have -- as i said, we would still have to have a testing window where testing is done within a particular time frame in order to use it for comparison.

>> mr. chairman, i had one more quick comment. and it was in response to senator paul's early concern where he said that currently we have basically everyone that's frustrated with the current law but now we're going to just take what we're frustrated with but only apply it to 5% of our schools. under the new law, the 5% are not going to be held to the same frustrating parts of no child left behind today. we will use a growth model which we cannot use under the current no child left behind. it will be a growth model that we will use to measure how those schools are improving and i think the most important part is now under the new law, there's flexibility. we receive federal funds right now where it's very proscriptive where the school may need to focus on a specific area but the funding forces us to spend it elsewhere. now because of the flexibility in the law, we can take the federal dollars and we can combine them and focus on the

area where we know that low 5% school needs assistance so it is a different approach. and i think it will be a far more successful approach. >> yeah, i'll entertain a couple more but when the second bell is rung, we'll go. mr. schnur had one and mr. grier and mr. henderson. okay, go ahead. >> senator merkley, i think the -- i think your question is a really important one. and i think there is a risk -- there's many good elements in the bill. i have some reservations, significant ones, about the incentives that i mentioned before and on teacher evaluation and around the press for accountability and transparency. and i think there's a risk without more steps being taken that you won't in this bill drive the crucial transparency needed to look at performance across the whole system. and in the effort to provide flexibility i think your question got at this risk that we may not actually give the public the transparency at how well the states and schools are doing at educating kids at all levels and i think flexibility is good but i think there's some

important improvements that need to be in this area or otherwise what you suggested may become a real downfall of this law but i hope it can be addressed in this legislative process. >> senator -- >> senator grier? >> yes, i want to come back real quickly about the issue of comparability. this is really a serious issue and i might suggest that the committee consider a detailed impact analysis from the general accountability office or where the congressional research service only impact that these changes before you move forward. the last thing i wanted to say is most of the really good charter networks in this country that are doing a great job are spending between 1,000 and $2,000 more per student in these low performing and are getting good results and i want to come back again that if we don't look at some type of set-aside to provide some additional title one funding for these low performing schools, that we just

aren't going to be willing to make the tough political changes that we need to make in giving them the amount of funding that they need to do this work. >> i thought it was ringing a bell and we have a 4% set aside in this bill just precisely what you're saying. >> the bottom 5% schools. >> thank you. >> mr. henderson? >> thank you, mr. chairman. because this discussion is coming to a close i just want to make a conclusion observation if i might, look, we began at the outset conceiving that no child left behind is imperfect and in need of reform. i don't think anyone disputes that. i think there are some who would argue, however, that the current draft bill represents a, shall we say, overreach on the part of the federal government by using its federal dollars of investment to try to guide state accountability. i got that. the truth is, however, that esea really establishes a floor, not

a ceiling. on accountability and that states are, obviously, free to exceed and create new standards that, in fact, hold all students accountable. my only point is this, look, i celebrate the fact that over the last 50 years, the country has changed significantly for the better and become a more perfect union but i also recognize that americans often are ahistoric. and fail to take into account the specific elements that led to the change that we support today. had the federal government not chosen to interve states activities in this area, we would not have had the improvement the we have seen. and those who seem to argue that states, when left free of their own devices, can achieve the kind of goals that we all seek, need only look at the record that has been established over the past to recognize that the states themselves are not perfect, and that they have, in turn, improved their academic involvement, because of the federal government.

not in spite of it. so i think in that sense, this does -- the discussion of government's role, a disservice to the extent that we fail to recognize the contributions that the federal government has made in improving the quality of education for all. >> well, thank you very much. thank you all very much. i thought this was a great two hours. i guess as chair, i get to have the last word, i guess. let me just sum it up this way. the whole issue of elementary and secondary education is a complex issue. but we can't just throw up our hands and say because it's complex, and there's all these moving parts, that we can't do anything and we walk away menti. there's a role to be played by the federal government, the state government and the local government. we just have to figure out what those roles are and they may vary from time to time depending upon circumstance. i will state that this bill that we have will not solve every problem in elementary and secondary education.

mr. luna said -- when he talked about no child left behind, he said there's the good, had bad and the ugly what we tried to do is get rid of the bad and the ugly and try do good and expand on it somewhat. yes, we've retreated in some areas, advanced in others. now, every bill -- every bill that passes a committee or a congress, i can poke a hole in it. you know, no bill has everything everybody wants. i understand that. this bill is not mr. enzi's bill. and it ain't mine either. but it is ours. and in that way we make those kind of agreements. i think the central question is, is it better than the present bill? does it advance the causes of finding the proper balance between federal, state and local. and does it warrant general

support across a wide spectrum knowing full well that everyone here that they would like to change in that bill, including mr. enzy and me. but the question is, is, does it advance the cause of what we're trying to do in finding those proper roles and try to provide a better structure and framework for every child in america to get a really good education so we have really good, effective teachers, good leaders in schools. that we have comparability. that we have -- that we even out these -- mr. seaton, i don't think you got my subtly in that. jonathan cole wrote about this a long time ago about salve vaj inequalities. they still exist out. in fairfax counties our schools have the best computers have the best of everything. why don't your schools have those? well, there's a little bit of inequality in zip codes. so we have to figure out how we make sure that kids who happen

to be born to -- in bad circumstance, have a bad family circumstance, low income, impoverished area, maybe english learning learners and maybe have a disability. how do you reach down? that child who has the least and make sure they get the benefit of our education system? that's what we're trying to do. imperfect as it is, that's what we're trying to do and so i thank you very much. it's been a great discussion. we stand adjourned. we got to go vote.

>> general james mattis heads the u.s. central command overseeing u.s. military operations in the middle east. he talks about his military career in the conference last week with service members, veterans and students for the army, navy and air force academies.

this runs half an hour. >> i want to thank you all for inviting me here this morning and share a few minutes with you. it's always privilege to be introduced by a fellow northwesterner and one who is aiming towards serving in the army infantry and those are the lads who go in close and mix it up with the enemy. what i thought i would do is just basically cover about three basic subjects here. i want to talk just a little bit about the connection between you young folks in the audience on whom so many of our hopes rest and the veterans. i want to talk a little bit about central command which called the middle east just because it's going to play a role in new cadets future and i want to talk a little bit about the military in general. and i want to talk with you in a way not to give you a lot of advice. a lot of people want to give you advice. what i want to do is alert you to what i've seen in my life since i was 18 years old, 40

some odd years ago, and joined the marines. and the lessons that i learned along the way because it's appropriate for those of us who have been moderately successful in our professions could turn around and run the elevator back down and try to pick you young folks up and bring you up based on the sometimes very grim lessons that we've learned. and one point i want to make to you young folks in the audience and i think the veterans will re-enforce this that surprise is going to be your constant companion. you'll make all your plans, some of them come true. many of them will not and surprise is going to be a dominant factor to each one of you. it's simply the nature of life. nobody can tell what's going to happen in your futures, my fine young folks, and the veterans will tell you that probably december 6th of 1941, or in a 1949, or in 1959, none of them

realized that world war ii, korea, vietnam was in their future. we don't think like that. and yet it came and they dealt with it and there's a lesson in there and when the situation comes knocking, maybe an opportunity, maybe a challenge, did one thing you want to do southbound ready. the worst thing -- and i never thought my fine young folks that i would be standing here today. if you asked me 40 years ago would i be a four star general, it wasn't in the cards, okay? i'd been -- i'd been in trouble as a lad. the marine corps straightened me out in a a lot of ways but i never would think i was going to be here. so what do you fall back on when that surprise hits you? what do you fall back when you went to school that day thinking it was going to be one way and you're going to do fine on the test and you didn't do so well. what do you do when you get a phone call at someone at four stars and you still have to say sir to them and you imagine there's only a few people at that point and they say we want

you to do a certain job and you've got to be ready. and i would just tell you what you're going to fall back on when these surprises strike you, what you're going to fall back on is your ingenuity and your resolve and your faith and your character, your education and your self-confidence. that's what you're going to fall back on. and so as you develop every day, recognize these are the days that one day you will come back and you'll say, thank goodness i read that book, thank goodness i sat and thought about that. good thing that i sat up in class and paid attention when i heard that because i think if you're ready, when that tap on your shoulder comes, then your horizons are unlimited. and we've all seen people who made bad choices in life and much of what you're going to do in life has to do with making the right choices. and it's why i wanted to talk to this group. i turned down, ladies and gentlemen, 98% of these requests. but to connect veterans to the young people are going to carry

on this experiment that you and i call america, it's very, very important. believe me there's nothing preordained that this country is going to continue. this comes down to blood, sweat and tears by those who are willing to commit yourselves to danger and discomfort to protect this country just like our veterans did. back in the last millennium when i was going to college, there was a rock 'n roll group out called crosby, stills, nash & young, and the only way to hear them now you have to listen to pbs but in my day they were wild young radicals, right? but they had a line in a song that i didn't pay much attention to then but i learned over many years and challenges over the years after that to recall it. and they said you when you're on the road you must have a code that you can live by. and i'll tell you right now, my fine young midshipmen and cadets you're coming of age at a time of remarkable challenges and

remarkable opportunities. but you're going to have to have a code that you can live by. up in cypress hills cemetery in new york city there's one on a baseball player's grave and says that a life is unimportant except in the impact it has on other lives. now, why would a man who's been at the top of his game in baseball been an absolute success and look back on his life when it only counts when you're serving people. could it be that he had discovered something through his experiences that he wanted to pass on and he had it engraved on his tombstone. that was his code and it's a pretty darn good code. i think our country right now, more than any other time because of the information technology and what we learn about leaders needs leaders who live by a code. i don't care if you're leading in industry, academia, military or politics we need people who live by a code who can look in the mirror and not have to duck

away from what they see. and you're going to have to write your own code. it's not all that pretentious, my young folks. it's not like you have to go to some course or something like that. you just have to sit down and figure out who you are and be proud of it. the first thing to be proud of it. be proud of every single thing that makes you different. and be proud of everything inside you, the potential you have, and don't let anybody tell you can't get somewhere. it's not all that difficult to write the code. it's much more difficult to live your code. but one point about the military, those of you who go into it, you'll be given the opportunity to live your code and you'll be rewarded for living your code because an organization that gets the behavior it rewards and the u.s. military is a national treasure. it's the envy. you know, i deal with people now and the first words i have to say to them is -- are mr. prime minister or mr. president or king or sultan, every one of

those leaders would love to have u.s. military every single one of them. it is a treasure worth more than all the gold in ft. knox and it's a treasure not because of the technology, which is very good. it's a treasure because of the selflessness and the commitment of the young folks who join up. the cadet who addressed me is going to the infantry. the people who do 85% of the fighting for this country are very, very young. but don't think you're alien from the people who did this back in 1776 who were fighting for our country or in 1918 or in 1943 and some of the veterans who are here today. you're not alien from. they were just like you sitting there wondering what life was going to bring them and they turned their lives into something that became in many cases what we call today, the

greatest generation. the point about jumping in and playing the game, you know, i know people who -- when they get to my age, they look back and say, did i really make a difference in this sort of thing? you never have to worry about that if you join the u.s. military. you'll never have to be concerned about that. and why do i bring that up? some people want to play it safe and sit on the sidelines. you'll usually find them because of the loudest complainers about what's going on. they're not getting in the game and they are not taking the bangs and the scrapes and the falls and not going up against the ethical dilemmas. when you know it's the right thing to do and you're going to pay a price in doing it but it's better than taking the easy way out. and in the u.s. military, you'll get repaid for taking that kind of life and that kind of challenge in stride. i think it's oftentimes that you're permitted to learn about yourself and the military. you're privileged in a way that many other people will never have the opportunity to learn. they simply won't.

you'll learn things about yourself. at times you'll be disheartened and you'll have to reach down and pull yourself back up. but i don't have to tell you about this in detail because you have veterans here today who have lived this. and who have actually passed down to us the standard that all of us are expected to live up to today. i'll tell you -- let me just show you what this means instead of putting it in big words like this. i was ordered when i commanded the first marine division about 25,000 sailors and marines. i was ordered to attack a town called fallujah. two battles going into the first battle i only had a couple of battalions to throw into the fight so the night before they kicked off the attack i went down -- the general goes down and checks out his troops, makes sure they are all set. and about midnight, it's time for generals to get out of the way and let the lads go at it when the sun starts to come up.

and as i was falling back about a mile with radio operators with my vehicles so i could get on them and get back, i was right behind an assault company that had attacked the rest the battalion. about an hour ahead of before dawn to take a railway station outside of the town that would allow the rest of the battalion to move up. and as i walked behind that assault company, all of very, very young men lay in there, very cold, no blankets, laying on the ground stripped down to their combat gear, the enemy caused some mischief nearby so i got down and checked in with the corporal who was in charge of that squad, he said, no commonwealth general, we'll take care of this and things died down. we just waited a few minutes to make sure it really died down. and i heard one of his marines -- now the corporal couldn't have been about 20 years old himself. but one of his younger marines said, corporal, do you think fallujah is going to be bad in the morning? and the -- i'll clean this up

slightly because we have ladies present. the corporal said basically, hush, and get some rest. he said we took iwo jima, fallujah won't be nothing and we have an iwo jima veteran here today, by the way. but the reason i bring this up to you, my fine young people, there's nothing we're going to ask of you that is tougher than what our shoulders of done in shiloh and there's nothing we're going to ask you to do in iwo jima. we'll train you well and you'll be along the best people in the world when you're shivering along the line of departure as you get ready to go into your first fight and we will need you. we will need you for this because it's simply a legacy that's been passed down because it's been necessary because it's still hard to believe how lucky we are to live in this country. but we live here only thanks to the veterans. if the veterans had not been willing to do this, to put themselves on the line, there was nothing preordained that you and i would sit here today in

this free country going to church where we want, studying what we want, girls going to school, all these things that we take for granted -- they would not be happening absent the veterans. it's not a physical fight. it's a ethical fight and a moral fight. it's keeping yourself in an honorable situation and some of you are very, very young. it's hard to pass on how challenging this will be as you go forward. but i assure you, the challenge will be there. i also want you to know your sense of humor is one of your best defenses. like a helmet on your head that protects your head and heart. i walked up behind a marine squad in a place at ramadi and the enemy was shooting back at

them and i walked up to the history of the marine corps i asked the single dumbest question that has ever been asked of the squad leader in combat. i walked up behind the marines and sailors and i said hey, guys, what's going on? [laughter] >> the corporal convinced somebody to release the local village idiot to drop his rifle gun and said well, judge we're taking the fun out of fundamentalism out of here. [laughter] >> i walked away knowing -- i walked away knowing this was a squad that believed in itself, was sticking together and ethically would carry out the mission even though they were fighting again among innocent people because a squad leader who can keep his sense of calm and humor under those conditions are worth more than 100 generals and their speeches to put it very, very bluntly. the area that i'm responsible for is a rather contentious

area. it's got places like egypt, lebanon, iraq, pakistan, syria. i can go on, okay? every time i wake up, i read the newspaper in the morning to see how my day is going to go. it's generally not going to be a bright good day but the fact that i serve alongside some of the most selfless and certainly some of the most competent people in the world, i never lose any sleep, whatsoever, over something like that. there was a frenchman who walked around our country de tocqueville. he said america is a great country because america is a good country. and if america cease to be good, they will cease to be great. 140 years ago a man walking around from europe saying why is this country becoming so different from the other countries in the world? what is going on here? it's kind of interesting to read a very thick book and find that little sentence in there of why

are we good. not because we have beautiful oceans and yellowstone people. but because we have people who are willing to commit to something good and as much as we may at times be frustrated with our country, i have the greatest respect for all of you in this room who looked beyond the hot political rhetoric that often comes down to this city and stepped up to serve your country. and just remember forever, please, that even though generals become very remote to those of you who matter, we have a love for you that i cannot put in words. i also want to remind the young cadets that the veterans will tell you. the military is not there for your own personal aggrandizem t aggrandizement. they will dissolve that image if that's your idea. they will make it clear it's position exception in times of

the most grim fashion about how we're going to protect this country so if there's a better piece for each succeeding generation or if things go wrong. it's interesting to remember that the last veterans of the revolutionary war passed on just before the civil war. that the veterans of the civil war were still with us in the 1930s and the veterans of world war ii are still with us today. there's not that long of history in this country as veterans pass on to the next generation what it is we're trying to keep alive. that's all it is it's a experiment and sometimes hostile laboratory called this world. so you have to look at it as a continuum and it didn't start with you and if you do your job right it will not end with you. i read an interesting word from thomas jefferson. he was a farmer. he really loved his farm and his

garden. he said we hold this country -- [inaudible] >> never heard it before. i went and looked it up. what it says is a farmer can have that ground. he can do whatever he wants with that ground. he can change where the streams are he can plant trees and harvest crops but his obligation is to turn that ground over in as good of condition or better than he got it. that's his obligation for the next generation. and our obligation is to turn america over in as good of shape or better than we found it and when we come down to you young folks who are carrying on this long-standing tradition, if you keep your passions alive, you got to continue to believe in yourselves, i guarantee it will be a great ride as you go forward. now, what i wanted to do was take questions from the audience, and my fine young folks i'm not going to leave until you ask me some questions. let's get the pain over with.

[laughter] >> there's few qualities we look from our petty officers and marines to get promoted. initiative and aggressiveness. who's got the initiative and aggressiveness to ask the first question. someone is going to sit here at this point -- >> you were talking about codes. what was your code? >> it took me a while i need it and go ahead and grab a seat. it's a great question. what i found is that i didn't like a lot of the jobs i got in the marine corps. i can give you an example. i hate -- [inaudible] >> it's just -- call me crazy. i don't like going into mine fields. yet for some reason at age 21 and at age 41 and a lot of in between i kept finding myself in mine fields. in desert stormy commanded a battalion and its job was to go

go into the obstacle belts and open them up. two sets of them. each of them hundreds of meters wide so a marine division can go in and free it from the iraqis. i don't know how i kept getting those jobs going into mine fields. i'd rather be around people who are willing to go into mine fields than anything else. it was more important for me than making money. it was more important to me having a good job in a nice corner office. i just liked hanging around with people who were willing to go into mine fields even though you bit your lower lip every step of the way. and so what i found was that my code was to serve those guys. and to serve them with the best of my abilities. i would come up with fire plans to keep as many sailors and soldiers alive as i possibly could. i would come up with medevac plans to get them out of there if they got hit. it became a code of service to

the people who really like these veterans signed a blank check payable to the united states people that they would put their lives on the line and so that became my code and it's guided me ever since and i've never regretted one day even though i spent some rough nights laying on rocky ground or shivering in the rin. once you know who you are, everything becomes easier. does that answer your question? >> yes, sir. >> okay. yes, right over here. go ahead, young man. >> i'm from the air force. i was wondering if you had any other jobs -- that if you wanted to go anything else other than the military? >> yeah. do i want to do anything other than the military. i've been trying to retire for 10 years now. [laughter] >> and the problem is that when you're asked to do something in the military, there's only one response from the naval service.

it's aye-aye sir. yeah, i want to ride a motorcycle more and i want to teach. i'd love to teach young folks in certain things, especially about civics. because i think we've forgotten how different this country is. and if you look at your school -- what i learned was as i traveled around, i was in cambodia when it first struck me what pol pot and others did to the teachers there and i picked it up very loud and clear again in afghanistan where anybody teaching girls, for example, would be murdered. anybody teaching anything other than a certain book -- these crackpot mumbo jumbo guys over there -- they hate teachers. tyrants can't stand teachers. they detest them because when teachers open minds, you can't close that mind again.

so they fear teachers so i just like the idea of messing around with tyrants, you know what i mean? [laughter] >> i never lost a desire to go after people like that and i would like to pass on some of these lessons learned and see what i can do about passing on things so you young folks can always look beyond what you're being told to come up with your own view especially when it comes to people telling you other things but thanks for the question. yes, back in the back. >> yes, i'm a combat marine from vietnam. and one of the concerns that i have today is about how well trained our young marines are. would you like to comment on what the training our young marines are getting? >> thanks for your service in vietnam. it's your generation that taught mine. on the training, ladies and gentlemen, we are training at a level today in the army, navy,

air force, coast guard, marine corps that we were never able to sustain in year's past. part of it was we have not embraced some of the teaching methodologies and some of the coaching methodologies of sports, of medicine. and it's been brought in now on simulators and i don't mean for just for pilots. the aviation is on its way. the training is tremendous. now, why do i say this? am i just giving you a general officer's view? i go out to bethesda and walter reed, the hospitals here in town, the naval and army hospitals, and i talk to the young lads who are at the most grievously wounded coming home. and i ask every one of them about their training. and there's times instead of this we could have had more of that. but every one of them uniformly will tell me two things. i have great training and i want to go back to my squad.

don't get that sort of response, i want to go back in the fight if someone doesn't have confidence in their training. it's a level of training today that builds confidence and i think right now we will never be c comcommaintain -- complacency. we have nutritionists with the kind of foods they can. we're doing everything body, mind and spirit, i emphasize spirit, to make sure our training puts our lads at the top of their gain as they close in on the enemy. does that answer your question? >> yes, sir. >> thanks again for your service in vietnam. other questions, yes, right over here. >> i want to know how many -- [inaudible] >> how many what? [inaudible] >> i picked them up down the

street. [laughter] >> you know, in our tribe, the u.s. military had a glance and we look at each other and very quickly we looked beyond these. our tribe has us wear them and we do but at the same time, we are more interested -- i am -- i am no more important than -- let's just put it in the marine corps terms than the young person graduating today at paris island, south carolina, as a brand-new u.s. marine. why do i say that? this is not false modesty. the emotional commitment to the marine corps and to this country is the same whether you're a 17-year-old marine graduating from boot camp or you're a 61-year-old four-star general. that is the leveling process that goes on and that's why there's a sense of comradeship

in the military and a sense of respect that cuts across even -- we don't know each other, yet, i do know you or you wouldn't be here. the qualities that bring you here today are exactly keeps me around this low paying outfit, okay? i wouldn't stick around if i couldn't serve alongside with people like you who even are interested in serving your country the way you are. the ribbons relatively unimportant. i'm just telling you up front. i know that we need to have them because we need to recognize what people have done when they're putting their lives on the line. but, frankly, between us you and i aren't a bit different, okay? yes. right back here. >> you shared with us the importance of -- [inaudible] >> could you share how you build your moral foundation on a

day-to-day basis, sir? >> yes, ma'am. got it. one thing i do -- please grab a seat, ma'am. one thing, make sure you read old books. you want some new ideas, read some old books. wherever you get your spiritual guidance, your family, your religion, make sure you don't lose connection with it because it will guide you when those times come. i've got a young officer today, young -- they're all young compared to me who was in the newspaper today that he just got fired because he said something. right now he's feeling pretty lonely. i'll guarantee you. the fact is, if you keep faith with your god, if you keep faith with your family and you read some books -- what kind of books do you read so you have that sort of shock absorber new so when things go wrong and you're up in the public spotlight, you're not worried about it? i'd read mandela. i'd read about martin luther

king, jr., i would read about george washington and abraham lincoln. none of those people had easy lives. i know at times things are going wrong for you, none of them had easy lives. they had terrible things go wrong in their lives. they had questions and doubts about themselves. you're going to find you have more in common with them but also as you read those things, you read a moral model for yourself and you say you know what? if life is about good choices, there's an example of how they dealt with it. i'm not going to be dumb and ignore what ben franklin learned along the way. i'm not going to ignore what john f. kennedy learned when he commanded a p.t. boat that was hit by a japanese destroyer early in world war ii. that's the very kind of challenge that made them the people who cared about you and they hadn't even met you so that's the way i'd do it. i'd do a lot of reading and then talk -- i'd talk to old people and talk to them in korea.

i'd talk to them in america. wherever i go, i talk to old people. i have a heck of a lot of fun doing it by the way. they tell me the darnest things. you've heard some of them down here. i got to get going to an airport, ladies and gentlemen. i've got to be somewhere else here in a couple hours, south of here. but and i'll be back in the middle east next week. and i'm going to sleep very well when i'm over there knowing we got young folks like you coming up who are going to keep america alive, okay? you pass it on just like these veterans did. you pass it on to the next generation, intact and a little bit better. fair enough? >> yes. >> all right. thanks very much. [applause] >> we take you live now to the u.s. senate.

general speeches for the next hour and at 3:00 pm eastern the senate takes up the second so-called mini bus spending bill that covers fiscal 2012 spending for energy, water, financial services and foreign operations. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. holy god, the source of our strength, we need you this day and always. continue to sustain our

lawmakers, fulfilling your promise to supply their needs lord, we confess that we don't have all the answers, for our judgment is sometimes inadequate for the challenges we face. we need you, therefore, to guide our senators to know what is right and do it, to discern your best for america, and to act promptly. lord, we know you are willing to help those who confess their dependence on you, leading them toward workable solutions and creative compromise. we pray in your mighty name.

amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, november 14, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable christopher a. coons, a senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chai. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: we'll be in a period of morning business until 3:00 p.m. today. during that period of time, senators will be allowed to speak for up to tenmans each. following that morning business, the senate will adopt the motion

to proceed to h.r. 2345 -- actually, 2354. there will be no roll call votes today. the next roll call votes will be tuesday morning in relation to two district court judges. mr. president, last week something wonderful and unusual happened here in the senate. we passed a worthy piece of legislation with a nearly unanimous vote. we honored this nation's servicemen and women by passing legislation to support hiring of almost 900,000 out-of-work veterans. 250,000 of these unemployed veterans became members of the armed services because of the threat of global terror. i trust our action last week meant as much or more than our words of thanks and praise for the dedicated men and women who serve us so well. but the senate has much more work to do this work period. this week and into next week if

necessary. i hope that same spirit of cooperation will hold during these next few days. the senate has much more work to be done because we have work that is essential to the functioning of our government. as we continue to focus on the efforts to create jobs and get our economy moving again, we must also pass appropriations bills, which is part of our yearly responsibility. this week we'll include a package that includes energy and water, financial services, and state and foreign operations. we'll need cooperation to move this important piece of legislation. the legislative tree will not be filled. we need to agree on a way to go forward. we need to have some responsible way to move forward on these amendments. we're not going to have another situation like we had a few weeks ago where we worked until recallly in the morning, not that the long hours hurt, but it was just that we had hundreds of amendments, and we had no way of

moving through those without having a lot of votes, some of which were totally unnecessary. we have a continuing resolution we must do before the end of this work period. i know there will be some strident debate over some amendments on the appropriations bill and the defense authorization measure that we have to do. we have to work together. if we're going to move forward on the nation's business. last month the senate passed a bipartisan omnibus. those appropriations bills were essential. that experiencthe senate will ce conference report on that minibus this week. that conference report will include another short-term continuing resolution and will

take us through december 16, which will give congress the time it needs to complete the important work of passing the appropriations bills. this week we'll also confirm a number of judges crucial to help ease the backlog in our nation's jammed courts. we have the supercommittee, all 12 members are trying to come up with some way to move forward to do something about this debt that we have. so we have supercommittee, we have the defense authorization bill, we have the appropriations bill, we have a conference report, we have the deadline that's facing us. we have to get all of this work done by this weekend. if not, then we have to get it done before thanksgiving, which is a week next thursday. i want to be dleer we're going to work until the last moment

before the holiday if that's what it takes to get these important tasks done. with cooperation we can get it all done this week. but we have a lot to do and i understand that. i do hope we can work together to meet this country's necessary work. would the chair announce the business of the day. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. and under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business until 3:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. mr. reid: mr. president, i failed to note that senators feinstein and alexander, the managers of this appropriations bill that we have, are here -- going to be here on the floor this afternoon to give their opening statements. so people should, if they have amendments, talk to the two managers of the bill. i think that works much better than just firing up amendments and hoping some of them stick.

i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. feinstein: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: mr. president, i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is now closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to the considering of h.r. 2354, which the clerk will now report. the clerk: calendar 157, h.r. 2354, an act making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2012, and for other purposes. mrs. feinstein: mr. president, i ask that reading be vitiated and it has been. thank you. mr. president, i'm very pleased to introduce the fiscal year 2012 energy and water

development appropriations on behalf of my ranking member, the distinguished senator, alexander, with whom i've had the great pleasure of working. and i just want to say this upfront. it's been really a pleasure to work with this particular ranking member. he's respected. he's credible. he's direct. and it's been -- and he's reasonable, which i have learned is an endangered species around here so i very much appreciate that. this energy and water bill has an allocation of $1.625 billion, which is $57 billion, or.1%, below last year's enacted leve levels. and nearly $3 billion, or 9.4%, below the president's request. the $3.625 billion is consider

with the budget and control act of 2011. the budget and control act established caps on discretionary spending over ten years with separate caps for security and nonsecurity spending. now, this becomes relevant, as i will explain. the security allocation for energy and water is $11.05 billion. the $11.05 billion funds only four programs under the national nuclear security administration called nnsa: nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, naval reactors and the office of the administrator. i'd like to point out right upfront that funding for the nnsa makes up a growing portion of this bill. last year, the nnsa made up 30%

of the total allocation. this year it has increased to 35%. and in addition, because of the budget control act, a fire wall is created between security and nonsecurity funding so you can't transfer funding back and forth. no funding from the nnsa can be used to fund energy and water projects, and no funds from energy and water can be used to fund the national nuclear security administration. while funding increases for the national security administration help advance national security priorities, it comes at the expense of water and energy projects in the rest of our bi bill. our nonsecurity allocation, which funds the corps of engineers, the bureau of reclamation under the department of interior, and the department

of energy, is $20.575 billion. while our security allocation grew by $528 million, or 5%, the nonsecurity allocation is $584 million, or 2.8%, less than fy2011 and $3.5 billion or 17% less than fiscal year 2010. so you can see the crunch that's put on one part of the budget and the other part of our appropriation bill has actually expanded. as i mentioned, the security allocation is $11.05 billion, which is an increase of $528 million, or 5%. so this is an increase of $1.163

billion, or close to 12%, for the security portion of this appropriation bill. now, to clarify, nnsa is responsible for three primary national security missions. first, maintaining the safety, security, and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. second, responsibility for reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism through nonproliferation programs. and, third, it designs and builds nuclear reactors for safe and effective nuclear propulsion for aircraft carriers and submarines in the united states navy. taking into account competing funding priorities for national security activities, i think this bill strikes as good a balance as it can between funding for nuclear weapons modernization and reducing the

threat of nuclear proliferation. the nuclear weapons program under the bill would see an increase of $294 million, or 4.2%, above fy 2011, with $7.2 billion, the nnsa, which is the agency of concern, would be able to meet the highest priorities of the nuclear posture review and modernization activities discussed during negotiations of the new start treaty. these are three primary activities: first, funds will continue for life-extension programs for the w-76 submarine-launched warhead, the b-61 bomber, and the w-78 intercontinental ballistic missile warhead. second, funds allow for completing design work for two aging nuclear facilities that

may need to be replaced to meet modern safety standards. one for handling plutonium at los alamos national lab and the other for uranium at y-12 facility in tennessee. third, funds will maintain the science, technology, and engineering base to continuing assessing the safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile. the nonproliferation program would see an increase of $109 million, or 4.9 -- excuse me, 4.7% above fy 2011. nnsa would stay on track to meet its goal to secure and remove the most vulnerable nuclear materials for around the world by the end of 2013. these are materials that could

be used by terrorists to build nuclear devices. the united states has already removed 3,086 kilograms of high will he enriched uranium, 120 nuclear weapons' worth of material from dozens of countries. nnsa would also be able to continue deploying portal monitors at seaports and border crossings to detect nuclear smuggling and help countries increase security at nuclear facilities. the united states has installed radiation detection equipment at more than 399 sites across the world. finally, the security allocation will be used to fund the naval reactors program that provides propulsion for the country's submarines and aircraft carriers. an increase of $141 million or

14.6% above fiscal years 2011 is directed to help design a nuclear reactor that will last 40 years for ballistic missile submarines, the most survivable leg of our nuclear deterrent. turning to nonsecurity funding, as i mentioned earlier, our allocation is $20.575 billion, $584 million or 2.8% less than fiscal year 2011. with this significant decrease in funding, the bill focuses its limited nonsecurity funding on the highest priorities, critical water infrastructure projects, and accelerating energy technologies. let me speak for a moment about water infrastructure. the corps of engineers would

receive $4.868 billion, that's an increase of $7 million or .1% above f y 2011 and $291 million or 5.9% above the president's request. and here's why. the corps of engineers, i strongly believe, is responsible for such a wide array of projects -- building, maintaining, repairing locks, levees, dams, dredging for waterway navigation, devastating floods and hurricanes in the last few months that have damaged many communities across the united states, are a stark reminder of why corps of engineers' infrastructure projects receive such a high congressional priority.

with a ban on congressionally directed projects or, as is not so fondly called earmarks, congress cannot direct needed funding to projects that may have been overlooked by the administration or to address emerging needs after the president's budget submission. the president's fy 2012 budget request did not include more than 100 studies and projects for navigation, flood control, and environmental restoration that the administration included in the fy 2012 work plan. without funding in 2012, these studies and projects will likely be suspended. i think that's important to keep in mind. while our bill does not fund any new projects, our bill provides $291 million above the president's request to support

these ongoing studies and projects for the corps that were either unfunded or underfunded in the president's budget request. the bill also provides the department of the interior $1.07 -- $1.067 billio,027 but still 6 billion, 1.4 billion more than the president's request. funding for the department of interior includes the bureau of reclamation which is responsible for oversight and operation of water projects related to irrigation, water supply, hydroelectric power generation in the 17 western states. finally, the bill provides $1.045 billion in disaster relief funding, and i want to

speak about that. this is on top of our base allocation to repair damaged corps of engineers owned, operated, or inspected infrastructure from flooding on the mississippi and missouri rivers and other natural disasters. this level of funding covers damages the corps identified when the committee reported this bill. as i meninged during committee -- as i mentioned during committee markup, we know this amount is insufficient based on the number and severity of natural disasters that have occurred this year. the corps has updated their disaster and we will be working to ensure that increased funding to address disaster recovery needs is provided. i think both the ranking member and i and our subcommittee and the appropriations committee as a whole understands that responding to these disaster

needs is of the highest priority. regarding clean energy, the bill provides stable funding to support science, technology, and engineering programs to advance clean energy technologies. it provides the office of science $4.84 billion, the same as in 2011. the office of science conducts basic research in physics, chemistry, biology to improve our understanding of energy and matter. new discoveries will advance energy technologies. our bill focuses the limited resources of the office of singes -- the office of science towards the highest priorities which include material support, developing the next generation of biofuels, and maintaining united states leadership in

high-performance computing. our bill continues to fund three hubs, which is research centers made up of scientists and engineers from the national labs, universities, & private industry to address a specific energy challenge. the three hubs focus on developing fuels that can be produced directly from sunlight, improving energy efficiency of existing buildings, and using modeling and simulation tools to improve the operation of nuclear reactors. our bill also funds a new hub, a fourth hub, to improve batteries for electric vehicles and for storage of wind, solar, and other intermittent power sources, something the ranking member is very much interested in, and i was very pleased to agree. in addition to the office of science, the bill also provides

$250 million for arpa-e, an increase of $e7 0 million or 39%. now, our arpa-e funds new and innovative energy technologies that would significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce carbon emissions. arpa-e's goal is to demonstrate the feasibility of new technology and then find a private company to commercialize the technology. as a sign of early success in attracting private investment, last year arpa-e awarded a start-up company $750,000 to demonstrate its new, innovative technology related to energy storage, an early demonstration of this start-up's new technology has already attracted $12 million in private

investment to help commercialize it. i think that's good news. while the government continues to invest in innovative energy technologies, nuclear energy continues to provide 20% of the nation's electricity. but it's 70% its carbon-free electricity. this, to me, is a stunning figure. that it's 20% of all power but 70% of carbon-free power. currently, nuclear energy will continue to be an important source of energy for us in the future. however, i deeply believe that before we expand nuclear power in the united states, we must address our spent fuel situation in order to limit the government's liability from its failure to take this waste. today high-level nuclear spent

fuels are stored at 74 locations, most directly adjacent to an active reactor. the fuel remains in either spent fuel pools or dry casks meant to be temporary but in reality now forever. there is simply no place to put it. to date, the united states government has paid out $1 billion to the nuclear industry because of its failure to take custody of this fuel as required by law. few people know this. this liability will grow to $15.4 billion by 2020, and another $500 million for each year of delay after 2020. mr. president, my distinguished ranking member, we simply have to get cracking and find either

regional repositories or a central waste disposal place where nuclear waste can be stored essentially for every. -- forever. the united states is responsible for 65,000 tons of spent fuel at these 74 sites. this is enough l to cover one football field 20 feet deep. and our hraoeblt continues to grow -- our liability continues to grow. according to the blue ribbon commission, if no nuclear reactors are built and the existing fleet of 104 reactors operate until the end of their license, the total inventory of spent fuel by 2050 would be 150,000 metric tons. that's two and a half times as much as we have now. the current absence of a spent

fuel policy and a repository to store spent nuclear fuel is unacceptable and unsustainable. for these reasons, this bill takes the first step in requiring the department of energy to create a strategy for spent fuel storage, including options for consolidating and storing spent fuel at one or more regional site. with regard to funding for the nuclear energy program, the bill provides $584 million -- that's a reduction of $142 million or 24% -- available funding will focus more on safety and the back end of the nuclear fuel site. for example, the bill provides $52 million -- that's an increase of $12 million -- from 2011 to accelerate development of new cladding materials for

nuclear fuel that reduces the likelihood of meltdowns and hydrogen explosions which were observed at fukushima. and i believe as more becomes available about what actually happened at fukushima and the after-effect of fukushima, cladding material is going to become much more significant. in closing, i would again like to thank my colleague and ranking member, senator alexander, for working with me in a cooperative and constructive manner to draft this bill. we have developed, i believe, a well-balanced and responsible bill that addresses the water infrastructure, energy and national security needs of this nation. and i hope every senator can support the bill, and i hope we can conclude floor action in a timely manner.

i yield the floor to my distinguished ranking member. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i thank the distinguished senator from california. she is a delight tworbg with. -- to work with. without disparaging other members of the senate it is nice to work with former mayors because we're accustomed to making decisions, talking directly and make a result. even when we disagree which we sometimes do, we're able to keep working on these issues and still try to come to a result. it is a real privilege to work with senator feinstein. i thank her for her diligence and directness. for instance last week we spent an hour and a half on a very small part of the budget. actually it is not a part of the budget but it is a related matter, just making sure we understood from all sides. i don't think it was a

republican comment or democrat comment. we were trying to find out the right they think to do for our country. there is no need, mr. president, for me to repeat what the chairman has said and said very accurately. i'd like to summarize and comment on a few of the points. i'd like to highlight the areas of agreement that we have, which are for the most part a couple of areas where we have different points of view which we're still, which we're still working on. she emphasized, and i thought it was important to emphasize, that except for disaster spending, this energy and water bill is slightly below the spending levels of last year. when you add in disaster funding, which i'll talk more about in just a minute, it's above that level. and there is no mandatory

spending in the bill. sometimes our bills get complicated indicated by what we call around here manned -- mandatory spending. it is included in our appropriations bill. there is not any of that here. and as the senator emphasized, our bill is divided into two major parts. there's the security part, the defense part, and there's the nonsecurity part, the non-defense part. the security part is up. we're spending more. and the reason for that is that we, in the first place, ask the leaders of the committee to reallocate some money toward our committee so that we could try to live up as much as tweaked our commitment -- as much as we could to our commitment to fund nuclear weapons modernization, an important issue that came up

when the senate ratified the new start treaty. in other words, the new start treaty was about limiting the number of nuclear weapons here and russia, making sure we can inspect what russians are doing and at the same time making sure what we've got left works. this is about making sure that what we have works. we made a commitment to try to go to certain levels. we're moving in that direction. we haven't gotten there yet. that's one reason, perhaps the main reason why we spend more on the security part. on the nonsecurity part, as the senator said, except for disaster spending, it's down. we're spending 3% less than we did before. i want to say a word about disaster funding. in the budget control act in august, a subject of great debate around here, one of the things that was done was to create a formula over the last ten years that determines how

much money we may be able to spend on disasters. the thought was that disaster spending like other emergency spending was getting out of control. we needed to think about it. obviously whenever there's a flood or hurricane or terrible disaster, we rush to help. but that's real money too. it has to come from somewhere. this formula that was created says that during this fiscal year that we're now in, the one that's about a month and a half old, that we phaeup spend about -- may spend about $11.3 billion based on spending over the last ten years. after that, we'll have to reduce spending somewhere if we're going to spend more on disasters. well, with respect to disaster relief, our bill's part of that is in the corps of engineers. we moved quickly in our subcommittee and in the appropriations committee to deal with the epic flooding that the

senator described on the mississippi and on the missouri river this past year, which in some cases exceeded the flood heights from the massive 1927 and 1933 floods. just to give you an idea of how unusual these floods were, at our meeting of the environmental and public works committee two or three weeks ago, 14 united states senators of both parties came to the committee to say to the authorizing committee, the e.p.w. committee, that we needed to do more to deal with the floods. 14 united states senators -- i've never seen that many senators testifying before a committee before on behalf of any subject. that's how much we are concerned about it and that's how much people in the areas affected are concerned about it. so in the appropriations committee, we had a discussion about how much of that disaster funding to fund. and we recommended $1.04 billion.

and there was an amendment by the senator from missouri, i believe, who said it needs to be more because we know it's going to be more than that. and we said in a bipartisan way -- i remember the chairman and the ranking member said we don't have the estimates definite yet from the corps of engineers or from fema, so we're only going to fund those areas that are declared to be presidential disasters, number one. and where we have definite estimates, number two. and when we have more definite estimates of additional damage, we will recommend the funding of that. so we defeated the amendment offered by the senator from missouri with the promise that as real damage estimates come in, they will be met. well, the senator and i will be offering an amendment to address this increase. i want my colleagues to be aware of this because particularly on our side of the aisle we've had a good deal of discussion about funding for disaster.

in the amendment that we'll be offering, part of money fits within the agreed formula that we agreed to in the budget control act. about $550 million will not, and we'll have to fiend some other place in the budget to reduce spending in order to properly fund this disaster spending. but i doubt there's any senator who won't want to fund that because this is spending to be prepared for the next disaster. this will be money for preparedness for sandbags. and i can guarantee you that if the missouri and mississippi flood next year and sandbags aren't available because we couldn't find the money from somewhere else, there will be 28 senators at the next phaoegtd of the environment and public works committee, not just 14. this is an urgent request, and we are suggesting a way to reduce spending so with the disaster funding, which is the only thing that drives our total recommendations above last year's spending, we are, number one, staying within the cap

created by the budget control committee. and, number two, for the amount of money for the sandbags and other preparedness, we're going to recommend a way to reduce spending somewhere else in order to be prepared for the next flood. with respect to the security allocation, senator feinstein mentioned that one part of our budget has to do with national security. another part has to do with nonsecurity. most people, when they think of the energy department don't think of the national security parts. but it's among the most important national defense requirements that we have. as she said, it includes modernizing all of our nuclear weapons to make sure they work, and it includes trying to make sure that nuclear weapons don't spread around the world. that usually stands right up at the top, those two items of our national defense posture. there was a letter that came from members of the house of representatives that seemed to be critical of the senate for using, for -- quote -- "defense

money given to water-related projects." i just want to clear that up. there must have been some confusion over on the other side of the capitol because under the rules of the budget control committee, you can't use defense money for water projects. period. that's against the law. not only did we not do it, we couldn't do it if we wanted to. in fact, we came up with $100 million more for nuclear weapons modernization than the house did. perhaps the house letter was sent to the wrong address. it should have been sent over on that side of the aisle and not sent to the senators. in other words, we understand very well we shouldn't be using defense money for water projects or water project money for defense money. and we haven't done that. we're not allowed to do that. we can't cut weapons to fund water projects. now, we, as i said earlier, senator feinstein and i and senator cochran, senator inouye all said we would support the

president's request for appropriate funding for nuclear weapons modernization, which is why senator feinstein and i asked our ranking member and chairman to allocate more money to the security side of our budget, and they did that. and as a result of that, security spending for weapons activities is up 5%. $100 million more than the house was able to provide in their version of the energy and water appropriations. it is the single largest percentage increase compared to all appropriations subcommittees with security spending in the budget. but it is still $400 million less than the president's full request and $400 million less than i would like to see spent on nuclear weapons

modernization. i'm concerned about that, so i'm committed to continue to work with the full committee, the house, the administration to come as close as we possibly can to the president's number on nuclear weapons modernization. but i want to make it clear that we have bent over backwards to make it a top priority or the top priority to begin with and have had good cooperation from the senior members of our committee. senator feinstein has worked hard to put in bill together in a fair and accommodating manner. she mentioned the office of science and talked about clean energy. recently i was at one of our national laboratories in sandia in new mexico, and the director of science there reminded me, this is what he said: almost every major physical and biological invention of any importance in the united states since world war ii has been funded by government-sponsored

research almost all through our 17 or 18 national laboratories or our 50 or 60 top research universities. these are our real secret weapons for job growth. it was out of the laboratories and out of this kind of government research came the internet, the human genome project, nuclear power itself. whether it's nuclear weapons or the 104 civilian reactors or 104 reactors that run our navy ships. the stealth technology came from this. it's hard to think of any major, any major invention or discovery in physical or biological sciences that didn't have some government-sponsored research. so when we talk about spending the same amount of money this year that we did last year for the office of science, we're talking about a major effort of any jobs bill that the united

states senate could possibly pass. we're talking about jobs growth, this is a very big important part of it. low taxes are some. fewer regulations are some. the right national labor relations policy are some. but any progrowth plan to the united states of america has to include government-sponsored research. no other country in the world has anything like our 18 laboratories or our 50 or 60 top research universities. if we want a high standard of living, we still produce about 25% of all the money in the world, we would do well to invest every spare dollar we've got there as long as it was wisely spent. as long as we're cutting over here, i'm all for that. i don't want to see a situation where we have run-away entitlement spending and as a result of that, we squeeze the inventions that give us the job growth we need. i made a speech at the oak ridge national laboratory in 2008 where i suggested we have a new

manhattan project for clean energy independence focusing on electric cars and trucks, carbon capture, solar power, nuclear waste, advanced biofuels, green buildings fusion. i'm a big supporter of research as an appropriate role for the federal government, and we'll talk more as we have time over the next few days i hope about the wisdom of the proper priorities in the spending. i would say yes to more for research and no to more for subsidies. "the new york times" had a big article on saturday where it talked about rich subsidies powering solar and wind projects, and these are for companies that can pay us back. these are extravagant, extravagant subsidies which i think are completely unnecessary. particularly in a budget time like this. if we have any extra dollars, let's put it into the secret weapons, the research universities and the national laboratories and tackle the big challenges like the 500-mile

battery for cars or finding a solar panel that's so cheap that it's one dollar per kilowatt installed. i agree with senator feinstein that secretary chu is on the right track with these remarks. use nuclear fuel as one. where do we dispose of the waste? dr. chu is doing that, with batteries, with solar, with others. i think it's a good way to concentrate the focus of the federal government and the energy department to solve the problems of rising gasoline prices and electricity prices and do it in a way that helps clean the air. so during our debate, i hope we have a chance to talk about more for research and less for permanent subsidies in the energy area and hope that we have a try to talk about restraining entitlement spending so we could have sufficient funds to fund our secret weapons that have produced almost every

major biological and physical discovery since world war ii. we have broad support for that here. we passed the america competes act in 2007 which set a path out for funding for sciences. we had 35 democrats and 35 republican sponsors of that bill. it was introduced by the democratic leader and the republican leader. when we changed parties after an election, it was introduced by the republican leader and the democratic leader, so we have bipartisan support for that. we need to make sure it's part of the debate. the corps of engineers the senator talked about. those are critical ideas. now, those are the areas that she and i agree on. i will spend just a moment, if i may, on some areas that we have, let's say, some more work to do on before we have an agreement. one is in the area of nuclear power. here's what i agree with her about nuclear power. one is that it is a remarkable statistic that 20% of our electricity is produced by one of our greatest inventions, nuclear power, and that it's 70%

of our electricity without carbon, but also without nitrogen or sulfur or mercury. mercury pollution. we had a big debate here in the senate last week about clean air. well, of all our power, nuclear power, like almost all of it is in france, we wouldn't have a clean air debate because our power plants wouldn't be -- wouldn't be producing any mercury and they wouldn't be producing any nitrogen or sulfur as well as -- sulfur okay identifies as well as -- sulfur oxides as well as carbon. so nuclear is a remarkable advantage of the united states and one which we should continue to take advantage of. i am disappointed that we do not fund in this bill the first steps of a several-year program to jump-start the small nuclear reactor program. this is not just our idea. france, russia, brazil, other countries around the world are

working on this. there are 60 countries who want to introduce nuclear energy onto their grid for the first time. we have phenomenon like south korea building a nuclear power plant for the united arab emirates. so if we don't do it, that doesn't mean no one will do it. it just means we'll be at the back of the line in a technology we invented and that today produces 20% of our electricity and 70% of our clean electricity. now, the it we're talking about are these smaller reactors. we already produce a lot of small reactors for the more than 180 navy vessels but they are of a different kind. but small reactors that might be 100-300 megawatts. they would be cheaper, they would be made in the united states, they could be put together like lego blocks would. they could be hauled back and forth from wherever they were produced at different places. they might be especially useful on a military base or around the national laboratory where you

don't need a 1,200 new megawatts of electricity. and they might be better for an investor-owned utility to buy because they would only have to spend 1/4 or 1/5 or 1/6 as much money. the big reactors we now build are $5 billion, $6 billion, $7 billion or more, quite a big number. so the president and dr. chu have recommended that we move ahead with the small reactor program. the house of representatives agree, i agree we're trying to work away out here that we can join, join that parade. in fact, lead the parade. i think the way to do it is to take seriously senator feinstein's concern about used nuclear fuel. she is exactly right. we are -- we have blindfolds on our eyes if we think that it's responsible for us to move ahead, producing so much nuclear power, even if it is just a football field 20-feet deep without a permanent place to put

the residue. now, it's safe to keep it there, in my opinion, and not just mine, of the nuclear regulatory commission and secretary chu, the president's nobel prize-winning energy secretary says it's safe for 100 years. but what that says to me is that it's safe while we figure out the right way to dispose of it. and i am convinced with our scientists that we can figure out an even better way of disposing of it than does france, for example, which reprocesses nuclear fuel and then stores it there. i suspect that we will be able in the next 10, 15 years to figure out a way to recycle, reuse nuclear fuel, reduce the waste by 95% and then -- but we still will need a permanent place to store it. so what i am commited to do working with senator feinstein -- i am delighted she has this intense level of interest -- is to work with her and senator bingaman, senator

murkowski, the ranking members of the energy committee to try to create an inexorable process toward a result on finding a proper place to store used nuclear fuel. i hope we can do that within a year. that doesn't mean we'll have all the decisions made, but it means that we could have, i believe, a process established that will produce a result. and i'm hoping at the same time we could move ahead with small nuclear reactors because by 2020, the idea is we would only have two or three, and between them then, the nuclear regulatory commission would need this help in creating the proper license and approving the design and working through all of the things that one has to do. it's going to have to do that anyway because somebody will bring one over from korea or france or russia or brazil, and they will apply for a license in the united states and we'll be using their reactors instead of ours. another area of disagreement is there are some provisions in the bill which i won't go into at

great length, but they -- i don't think they belong in an appropriations bill, with all respect. they are based on several recommendations of the 90-day commission created by the nuclear regulatory commission since our bill was reported, the n.r.c. has taken several steps to prioritize their recommendations. of the five recommendations that are in language in our bill, the commission only considered one to be of that urgent a priority. it's going to do the rest of them in the regular order of things. i think we should let our experts do their job. perhaps this calls attention to the importance of it, but i would rather let the nuclear regulatory commission do its job, us to concentrate our efforts on finding a place to put used nuclear fuel. one other area. i suspect within the next few days, we'll have a discussion about the subsidy costs for renewable energy costs, but i think i will relay that -- delay

that until we have an opportunity to have a discussion on the floor and a discussion about the loan guarantee program which hasn't worked as intended. the loan guarantee program was supposed to help put a priority on certain forms of energy and loan money to companies who could pay it back, not to companies who couldn't pay it back, and apparently that's been an issue. there is also a provision in the bill about requiring grantees of the department of energy to change light bull nbc their factories if they don't meet the standards for the new light bulbs. this will be costly. it's inconsistent with current law. i hope we could remove it as the bill moves forward. but, mr. president, in a bill this large and this important, i think chairman feinstein and the other members of the subcommittee and the full committee have come up with a good result, a result that about which there is a consensus between us with very few areas of disagreement, a result that is below last year's spending levels except for disaster

spending, and a result that gives a special emphasis to nuclear weapons modernization that we are committed to and that the president asks for and that does better than the house number but still doesn't reach, we'll acknowledge, where hi hoped we could go. it's been a great privilege to work with chairman feinstein. i like the idea we have an appropriations bill on the floor. this is the basic work of government. we ought to -- we ought to do this before we do anything. if we can't have an appropriations bill to fund the basic work of government, people might say can you do anything at all. so we have done our part. we have got the bill here, and i thank the majority leader for bringing it up, and i hope our colleagues will give us the chance to move forward with the bill this week, to bring their amendments to the floor, let's debate on it, let's vote on a final result, let's pass it into law, and -- and do something that we can be proud of.

i thank the president, and i yield the floor. mrs. feinstein: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: mr. president, i rise to thank the senator. once again, it's been a great pleasure to work with you, and once again, i think we have a lot of this bill in common. we do have some points of difference, and i want to just say a little bit about my point of difference. i very much believe that i want to leave a world for my grandchildren where there is not danger from nuclear weapons or nuclear fuels, and today i don't believe i can say that we have achieved that. i really don't believe that, as permanent storage, and the

vice -- the ranking member was correct. the head of the n.r.c. did testify that in his view the hot rods were safe for 100 years in those spent fuel pools. well, you know, there were problems with spent fuel pools at fukushima. as life goes on, we'll see more of that. we know the design basis of a new nuclear reactor has to meet events which are not necessarily predicted. who would have thought. one of the tsunamis was 47-feet tall that hit fukushima. who would ever believe that that could happen? but it can happen. i'm in california. we are in the ring of fire. and sure enough, there have been quarterbacks in the southern tip of south america, in asia, in

christchurch, new zealand, going right around, very large quarterbacks approaching nine, and the person is what happens next. so i think safety is a very real problem. and i think as we appropriate moneys we should be concerned with safety. the spent fuel pools were really designed to harbor hot rods for a relatively short period of time. the rods could be moved five to seven years out and then they're generally moved into passive storage, and the dry casks and the dry casks it was thought would be transported to repositories, either permanent repository or repositories on a regional basis. so under the supervision of the federal government. and i always felt that effecting that was an extraordinary challenge for us and

particularly when i learned that we were being fined an egregious amount of money because we can't do that every year. so my view is that we really have to get cracking and move that on. and the five things that we have in the bill -- and i just lost my place in the bill. i think all take us to a much safer place with respect to nuclear activities. with respect to the small modular nuclear reactors, what they are is essentially less than 300 megawatts, modular, small reactors. i understand there are still problems with the cladding, but what was asked for was $192 million, not a loan, but a proposal to essentially subsidize up to 50% of the

licensing costs of financial and technically viable corporations. these aren't small corporations. they're big corporations. and the department would have to pick two winners for the subsidy. that would leave at least five american companies out. i mean this is a restricted bid. it doesn't include everybody, and it includes only one kind of reactor. light water reactor. who knows? maybe others of the five are just as viable. so firms not receiving assistance would be substantially disadvantaged. the likely winners include these companies -- babcock and wilcox -- i have nothing against them, 2010 revenues exceeding $2.6 billion. can't they afford their own licensing certification fees? westinghouse, owned by the japanese con glom rat toshiba

which was $64 billion in assets and more than 200,000 employees. in other sectors we don't invest federal dollars to help profitable private companies obtain safety licenses. we don't help ford comply with crash test regulations, nor do we pay for boeing to obtain f.a.a. certification. so before we commit these moneys, we should really seriously evaluate whether any company would change its decision about pursuing a license because of this. so i'm kind of at a different point in looking at subsidies. i really think that most subsidies by the federal government should just go, wherever they are -- oil, gas, nuclear, ag, you name it -- that the time that we should not be subsidizing private industry. now, there's also a fundamental

contradiction in the nuclear industry's argument for funding small nuclear licensing. on the one hand they argue the market will be enormous and we can't afford to fall behind international competitors. on the other hand, these same industry experts argue they won't develop and license a product unless government pays them to apply for an n.r.c. license. they argue that the united states must provide each firm with more than $200 million to motivate them to pursue this business. now, bottom line, the small modular reactor cannot be both a massive economic opportunity with the potential to change the way we power our economy, and an opportunity that industry will not pursue unless the government pays them to do that. so i have real questions about funding this item.

we'll have more to say about it as -- as this goes on. i know it's popular. if there were a spent fuel policy, if we knew that we were going to go for regional repositories, that there was some limit to the storage of fuel at a site, 74 sites now and with advanced modular reactors, this is more, because many people think the only way this can be cost competitive is you have to group these two together. so at a given site i would have five or six small reactors but you'd have the same spent fuel problem. seems to me, we need a place to put spent fuel. i am not opposed to nuclear. if we can properly take care of its waste. so i wanted to respond when my distinguished ranking member

raised this, we have had one meeting with the chairman of the energy committee, the ranking member of the energy committee, senator aland -- senator alexander and myself to discuss how to proceed toward a nuclear storage policy. i think we need to continue this. we're going to ask the secretary in to talk with us in december, and then begin, and senator alexander has been great in doing this, put forward a little agenda of how to proceed toward this so that i know he is in fact in good faith in suggesting it, and i do, he's always been a straight shooter. but it's just very hard for me to go ahead and say okay, we're going to promote a whole new class of nuclear reactors when we don't have a place to dispose of hot spent fuels that will be

hot and dangerous for literally hundreds of years. and if we can move fast, i'm all for it. so i know the senator wants to respond, and i welcome the debate. mr. alexander: i thank the senator. i'm not going to respond at great length because i want to eventually find us in agreement about this. but just -- i appreciate -- your points are very important and very -- and very good point. i think on safety and nuclear power it's always important to start off by pointing out our nuclear reactor is a big, complex operation and obviously there is some risk to it. but nuclear power has the best safety record of any form of energy production in the united states. there's never been a death in connection with any one of our 104 civilian reactors. hasn't been one with the -- more than 100 navy reactors

where we have sailors living on top of reactors. we've all heard about three mile island, which is the most important nuclear accident we've had had in the united states, but no one was even hurt in three mile island. i see the senator from spefl residing today. when i say that to say that, no one was even hush. there have been house of tests and no one was even hurt either from any kind of explosion or radioactivity at a later time. so we always have to look for better ways to be safe but we have that safe record and we do have the chairman of the n.r.c. saying that these --this used fuel, is stored safely for a hundred years and our scientists telling us in 10 or 15 years we can find a way to recycle it and in that time we ought to find a place to put it. we'd have a place to put it if

we would go ahead with yucca mountain but that's been stopped for a variety of reasons, some political, let's say they're all principled but for whatever reason, it's stuck. the other thing i would say is there is a certain urgency about this. as the senator said, 20% of our electricity is nuclear power, 70% of it clean. what if we didn't have that 20%? we don't have to look far to see. in japan they've -- they've shut down temporarily enough of their reactors as a result of fukushima to be without 20% of their electricity. what are they doing? their car manufacturers have been working on the weekends. that's five million workers in japan. temperatures are turned to 82 during the summer heat, 22,000 people have been brought into the hospital from heat stroke. the emperor and empress are wandering around the imperial palace with canalsticks and

flashlights. we don't want a united states of america like that. this is an important part of our ability to create jobs and to have lots of low-cost ticket. we use 25% of all the electricity in the world in the united states as far as subsidies go, after we get through finding a place to put used nuclear fuel maybe this is a second area on which the senator and from california and i can work, do something about energy subsidies. estimates are the federal government spends about $20 billion a year on energy subsidies of one kind or another. and energy information administration did a study three years ago where that money goes. and this is where it goes. sub cities for wind -- subsidies for wind dwarf everything else. it's not big oil, it's big wind. $18.82 per megawatt hour subsidy

for wind turbines. $3.67 for sole rather. $1.36 for land fill gas. 18 cents for biomass, 12 cents for coal, and almost zero for nuclear. it's often cited the insurance program the nuclear programs have as a subsidy, it's a federal law but it's never cost the taxpayer a penny and simply requires the operators to put in $11 billion or $12 billion per reactor. they all share in the result which might will might be a gooy for the oil producers in the gulf, make them worry about each others' plants not just their open. i believing nuclear power is safe. i'd like to move some of the subsidies into the energy research column and maybe the reduce the debt column. reading the "new york times" on saturday, i ask consent to put

the story in the record, rich subsidies powering solar and wind projects, big rise in government aid, companies virtually assured of profits. this is "the new york times." this isn't the conservative washington, d.c. journal saying this. it's a very thorough article, talks about something i've been concerned about for a long time, it said taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of a solar plant halfway between los angeles and san francisco on a former cattle ranch and it quotes the head of n.r.g., a very substantial company saying "i've never seeing anything that i've had to do in my 20 years in the power stli industry that involved less risk than these projects. it's just filling the desert with panels. from 2007 to 2010, federal subsidies jumped to $14.7 billion from $5.1 billion

according to a reernt study "and it goes on and on. my own research shows that the joint tax committee said over the next ten years taxpayer funding for wind which our energy secretary testified is a mature technology, will cost the taxpayers $26 billion over the next ten years. wouldn't that money be better spent on energy research for clean energy, for finding ways to deal with used nuclear fuel, for getting a 500-mile battery, for getting an installed dollar kilowatt or reducing the debt at the time we're borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. i'm absolutely committed to working with senator feinstein on finding a way to deal with the problem of used nuclear fuel. we are urgently need to do that. and we're fortunate that it's safe where it is while we do that. and i hope we can find a way to agree that over the next few years we can move ahead so we at

least get started on -- on small modular reactors. i'm also willing to work with the chairman or anyone else, any other senator, who is willing to take a good, hard look at energy subsidies of all kind and say okay, let's take a look at our own positions on that especially in light of the budget deficit and let's take that money and put some of it into energy research so we can get up to where we need to be and use the rest of it to reduce the debt. so this is a good discussion and one i look forward to continuing and i'm delighted to have chant continuing it with someone i respect as much as the senator from california. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: if i may i want to thank the distinguished ranking member and i believe that completes the opening statements on the bill. and i notice the distinguished senator is on the floor so i think if it's agreeable with you, senator alexander, we can yield at this time to him.

great. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: i can't come to interrupt opening statements. i do have a point directly trolled a matter -- a matter that's directly related to this particular appropriation bill which i would like to discuss and i'm going to offer -- put forward an amendment as a consequence of this. i'm glad that the chairwoman and the ranking member are here so i can put this on the record and they're familiar with what i'm going to do. this is a matter that's important both to my state of indiana and i believe the federal government's involvement in subsidizing or loan

guarantees or other support for various energy development projects. all of us i think are concerned over the situation with solynd solyndra, a $535 million loan guarantee from the department of energy to construct a solar manufacturing facility, has now gone bust and the taxpayer is on the hook for over a half a billion dollars of loan guarantee and money that's lost to the taxpayer. that money likely will never be repaid. however, my concern goes beyond solyndra. i didn't come here to talk about solyndra, but there is a similar situation that may be occurring and i want to raise this -- raise this issue because it goes, again, to decisions that are being made by the departments -- the department's energy renewal offices relative

to loans to private entities and loan guarantees to private entities. this particular situation involves the advanced technology vehicles manufacturing, or atvm, loan program. now, some of that -- those loans are going to what may turn out to be viable improvements in our ability to lighten vehicles, to increase mileage, to provide for alternative sources of fuel. i think that's still up in the air and still to be determined. but this particular program that i want to talk about involves this program that i'm not sure fits within the proper category. earlier this year, the department issued a nearly three-quarters of a billion-dollar, $730 million conditional loan commitment to summerstall north america under

the atvm program. let me read from the department's press release. quote -- "this funding will support the modernization of severstall's existing facilities in deerborne, michigan. in addition to the design, manufacture, and construction of new facility to produce the next generation of automotive advanced high-strength steel. the severstall project has the potential to significantly increase the supply of this advanced high-strength steel in north america as demand continues to grow for fuel-efficient vehicles." continuing the release: "an increased supply for this breakthrough technology of steel will help u.s. automotive manufacturers meet the pending and future design, weight and safety requirements of advanced technology vehicles. severstall estimates the project will generate over 2,500 construction jobs and over 260 permanent manufacturing jobs."

end of the department's press release. now, the department of energy makes it sound like this loan to severstall will promote a completely new breakthrough technology. the problem is that this simply is not true. in fact, six companies already manufacture the advanced high-strength steel that severstall is seeking to receive a loan to help produce. three of those companies have production facilities in my home state of indiana,arcel-matell, u.s. dynamics and u.s. steel. the market and evidenc -- the ee she's the market for this steel is robust in the united states with multiple producers already manufacturing these high-technology products. in fact, i'm told that this high-strength steel has been manufactured in the united states since the 1980's, and the current capacity for this steel actually surpasses current

demand. now, all of this information should be available to the energy departments for their consideration as to whether or not they should go forward with this loan. but the department spokesperson is quoted as saying that advanced high-strength steel is -- and i quote -- "in short supply." this begs the question as to whether the administration has seriously conducted any type of market analysis before deciding to award this loan. did the department research what advanced high-strength steel products are already in the marketplace and whether a taxpayer loan was even needed? based on the department's public comments, it seems unlikely that the administration made any estimates of current and future capacity in the united states for the production of this steel or talked to any steel producers outside of severstall.

i think a legitimate question is: what's the impact of this loan should it be finalized? subsidizing severstall to produce a product already being manufactured would undercut competitors because severstall, of course, will have lower costs due to the nearly three-quarters of a billion-dollar loan guarantee. there's also no job creation here that fits the description of what the department indicated would be the case with new jobs. given this state of supply and demand, any new jobs created as severstall would come at a cost to other producers, creating, at best, a net zero job gain. that means job losses in indiana and pennsylvania, where the high-strength steel is currently already manufactured. moreover, the department claims that over 2,500 construction jobs would be created by thish

thish -- the issuance of the loan. mr. president, that claim is dubious, at best, because most of the plant construction is already manufactured. moreover, the department claims that -- that severstall's own documents claim that two of the three required lines will be finished by december 2011. only an anieling line valued at one-third of the amount of the loan, is awaiting final approval. and the department's own web site states -- quote -- "loans again will not be available on a retroactive basis." so here we have a situation where the department's own release in justification of the loan states a number of construction jobs to be put in play when the construction is virtually finished. and, secondly, when most of the completion includes, with one exception, that only amounts to

one-third of the loan that's being asked for, makes you wonder why the loan is -- is two-thirds greater than that. we have to ask the question: is it proper to give a company more than three-quarters of a billion dollars for facilities that have already been built, and is this -- and for production of a product that is already manufactured in an excess supply in the united states? and particular two states that are impacted by this, the state of indiana and the president's state of pennsylvania. so here we are back in a situation in which the federal government is picking winners and losers in a fully functioning and growing product market. based on these concerns, mr. president, i sent a letter to the department of energy, secretary chu, in june seeking answers to a number of these questions that i've been raising. unfortunately, the department sent back a very nonresponsive reply that did not address any

of my concerns. and as a result, i believe it's necessary to call on the inspector general of the department of energy to investigate the severstall loan and report back to congress his findings. the american taxpayers deserve to know what is happening with our tax dollars. the hard-working employees of other steel companies manufacturing the same steel deserve to know why the department of energy is attempting to undercut their job security by subsidizing a competitor. so today i'm introducing an amendment to the energy and water appropriations bill that would direct the energy department's inspector general to submit a report to congress on the conditional loan agreement currently in play to severstall. such a report by the inspector general can help clarify why or why not this conditional loan to severstall should be granted. the department needs to be more

transparent and forthcoming with how it is using taxpayers' dollars. we need to use lessons from the disaster that is solyndra and the costs to the taxpayer. and the last thing i would think the department of energy, this administration, or this congress needs to do is to authorize a 700 -- nearly three-quarters of a billion-dollar loan for a product that is already being manufactured by domestic energy suppliers and is not needed. we need that -- we need that determination and that's why i'm offering this amendment. mr. president, if time permits, i would also like to step aside from the current topic to discuss another -- briefly discuss another matter, if -- i don't want to exceed a time

limitation that might be in place but it appears that i can go forward with that without a problem. mr. president, i also want to discuss the subject of a vote last week by unesco, the united nations education, scientific and cultural organization, to grant membership to the palestinian authority even though it is not a recognized country. unseco really should not have the authority to do so, but through a vote in the united nations, it -- it did just that. the united states has been an on-and-off supporter of unseco. there's been a lot of controversy over unesco over its lack of effectiveness, the cost to the taxpayer, its appointment of some highly questionable various entities of unesco leading human rights office.

i think -- i think the country of libya had that leadership at one point. and it has resulted in -- in responses as to -- and questions as to whether we should continue funding that organization. we currently support that. but this action that has been taken to admit the palestinian authority as a member state is, i would submit, completely misguided and very deeply damaging. unesco's decision has further dimmed prospects for a negotiated peace in the middle east. my fear is that this step, which the palestinians mistakenly regard as a success, will encourage them to press for membership in other u.n. bodies as well. doing so will harm israel, harm the palestinians' own interests, harm the u.n. agencies involved, and damage our own national interest. as a consequence of this action, the u.s. is obligated -- i want to point out to my colleagues, it's important that we understand that as a consequence of the action taken by unesco,

the united states is obligated under law to terminate all funding for unesco and any other u.n. body that admits the palestinian authority. public law 101-246, which passed in 1990, states that -- and i quote -- "no funds authorized to be appropriated by this act or any other act shall be available for the united nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the palestinian liberation organization, the p.l.o., the same standing as member states." that, mr. president, is the law. that is what has been enacted through votes in this body and signed by presidents of the united states. in 1994, congress passed public law 103-236 which prohibit prohibits -- quote -- ""voluntary or assessed contribution to any affiliated

organization of the united nations which grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the intent intentionally recognized aptitudes of statehood, which the p.l.o. does not have." the senate on a vote codifying this information -- or codifying these laws or refiring, i should say, passed this legislation 92-8, indicating that this is and clearly should be a noncontroversial and nonpartisan issue, a 92-8 vote. the reason i'm speaking here today is that despite our legal obligation to suspend funding sarl of unesco's latest action there, have been some discussions, some speculation that it may be possible to find alternative ways to financially support u.n. agencies like unesco that have taken this step of admitting the palestinians as a member.

that would be a -- a total mistake and i want to reiterate the fact that it would be a violation of the law. and so, therefore, i come to the floor today to introduce a bill that serves as an emphatic statement, restatement of that law, making its consequences more certain. furthermore, i'm introducing this language as an amendment to the current appropriations bill that will clarify that no taxpayer dollars can be used to fund unesco. we must slam the door on any speculation of any kind of backdoor financial support for the united nations -- or the united nations agencies that grant membership to the palestine. this bill is exactly that. there is no reason for this amendment, i would say. there is no reason why this purposesful restatement of -- reinstatement of existing law should not have bipartisan support. the threat to prospects for a negotiated, just and lasting

peace that is posed by this recent palestinian tactic is more tangible now than in the past, and our determination to discourage such a dangerous tactic should be stronger than ever. i ask that my colleagues join in support of this legislation that makes it clear to unesco and to the united nations and clear to israel, clear to the palestinian authority and clear to the rest of the world that the united states will not tolerate attempts to admit the palestinian authority and undercut negotiated peace efforts in the middle east. i'm hoping, mr. president, we will have a vote on this to once again reaffirm our determined commitment to live by the laws that we have passed and to not allow an agency of the united nations or any part of the united nations that is used to grant statesmanship and nationhood to an entity that

does not -- has not qualified for that. and i hope that this reaffirmation will also put to rest any speculation or any attempts to circumvent the laws that exist on the book. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mrs. feinstein: i'd note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the

clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. reid: ask the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer:. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent senate be in a period of morning business allowed to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the executive session to consider the nominations on the secretary's desk, thes nominations be confirmed en bloc and no further motions be in order to any of the nominations,

related statements be printed in the record and president obama be notified of the senate's action and the senate resume legislative session. i ask unanimous consent the "help" committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res 199. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res 199, supporting the goals and ideals of khrons awareness week. woeup without objection the committee. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is discharged and senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask the resolution be agreed to, preamble be agreed to, motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be no further actions or debate and statements he placed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the senate proceed to s. res 322. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res 322 designating november 2011 as copd awareness month.

the presiding officer: without objection the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that we as in executive session he that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following transmittal to the senate on november 14 of this year by the president of the united states. agreement on ports, measures to prevent the terror, eliminated illegal unreported fishing document number 112-4, document 112-4. i further ask the treaty be considered as having been read the first time and be referred with accompanying papers and the be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent when the senate completes its business today it

adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m., tuesday, november 15. following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be autopsy proved to -- be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved. following morning business the time be divided with the majority controlling the first half. following morning business the senate proceed to executive session. following votes in executive session the senate recess until 2:15 for the weekly caucus meetings and at 2:15 the senate resume consideration of h.r. 2354. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: senators should expect two roll call votes at noon in relation to sharon gleason and evon rogers. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the

senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. adjourn: