Murkowski and Colleagues Advance Legislation to Block Department of Education Interagency Agreements

Murkowski and Colleagues Advance Legislation to Block Department of Education Interagency Agreements

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today joined Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)-all members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee-in voting to advance S. 5046, legislation they introduced to block certain Interagency Agreements issued by the Department of Education that would transfer critical offices and programs to other federal agencies that lack the staff and expertise needed to execute their missions. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who cosponsored the bill, also voted to advance it from committee.

Specifically, the Senators' legislation would prevent the Department of Education from transferring to any other federal departments the Offices of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, Postsecondary Education, Elementary and Secondary Education, and Indian Education, or any programs implemented by those offices. The HELP Committee voted on the bill today and favorably reported it by a vote of 13 to 9.

Full text of the legislation is available here.

Click here to watch Senator Murkowski's remarks on the legislation

TRANSCRIPT

To my colleagues, Senator Kaine, Senator Collins, and Senator Hassan, thank you for your willingness to get to a point where we have a universe where there are some real concerns about these movements between agencies, between departments, and the impact on kids.

And we cannot lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, we're talking about children. Whether it's children with special needs, whether it's children in our elementary schools, whether it's our Native students: (we need to be) making sure that we don't lose that focus.

I had a pretty good conversation with Secretary McMahon. Obviously, she's advocating from a position to keep everything on track, citing for more time to do "proof of concept." And I do listen to that.

But then I think about these kids in school. And when you're in school, when you're in the program that you rely on from day to day, your families rely on that. You're not really interested in knowing whether or not there's greater collaboration between agency folks because you've moved from one building to another.

So, I have taken the position that we allow for the programs that have been situated within the agencies - that Congress has directed for a good reason - that we allow those to continue.

But I think it is important to note that this was not a carte blanche, everything that the department has asked to be transferred we are objecting to. We're looking critically at the programs. We're looking specifically to the intent. I have a large Native population in my state. Alaska Natives are quite concerned about this. There was no Tribal consultation before any transfer was allowed.

So, these are issues that have real-time impact on our children right now and I would support the measure that my colleagues have advanced.

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