Important news from this week:
- It’s important to remind
ourselves of the difficulty we have as a country in dealing with racial
discrimination. We've made so much progress over the years, but
obviously we have a long way to go. I think of my friend, South Carolina
U.S. Senator Tim Scott, who is African American and who told me that he
was stopped by police several times even when he was on the Charleston
County Council for “being a black man in the wrong place.”
We must redouble our efforts to change such attitudes and end racial
discrimination.
- This
week, I chaired a hearing in the Senate education
committee with college administrators to explore how schools can
safely reopen in the fall. The question isn’t whether or not students
will return in the fall, but how to create an environment where they
can do so safely.
- Tennesseans in the Chattanooga area affected by the tornadoes on April
12-13: The deadline to apply for disaster assistance is soon – June
23. To apply for assistance, you can click here
or call 1-800-621-3362 or TTY 800-462-7585.
- Next week, the U.S. Senate will be casting the
most important vote on outdoors conservation legislation that we've had
in 50 years. This bill, the Great American Outdoors Act, will fully
fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanently – something
Congress has been trying to do since 1964. The legislation also
includes the Restore Our Parks Act – legislation
I introduced that would cut in half the maintenance backlog at our
national parks and help restore our 419 national parks, including the
Smokies, so Americans can enjoy them.
Remembering the legendary University of Tennessee
player and coach, Johnny Majors
As a teenager, I rode the White Star Lines bus from Maryville to
Knoxville and sold all my U.T. programs before the game started so I could
watch every Johnny Majors run and pass and punt and quick kick. When
he played the game, he WAS Tennessee football, and the Majors family
became the First Family of Tennessee football. I got to know Johnny well
when he was coach of the Volunteers, and I was university president.
That friendship continued for many years. Honey and I send our
sympathy and our great respect for Johnny’s life to Mary Lynn and to
the entire Majors family.
Ensuring Tennessee colleges and universities return in the fall, and do so
safely
I spoke about my hearing and the need for colleges and
universities to return safely this fall on the Senate floor. You can
click here or on the above image for
video.
This week, I chaired a
hearing in the Senate education committee with college administrators
not about whether colleges and universities should open in the fall,
but on how they can open and do so safely. Dr. Logan Hampton,
president of Lane College in Jackson, was one of our witnesses, and I
enjoyed hearing his perspective. President Trump and Congress should not
be telling the University of Memphis that it must open its classes in
person, or telling Vanderbilt University it cannot—or telling
U.T. Knoxville that it must test everyone on the campus or telling
Tennessee State University that it cannot. Colleges themselves, not
Washington D.C., should make those decisions. I was recently on a phone call
with about 90 presidents of Tennessee’s 127 institutions of
higher education, almost all of them are planning to resume in-person
classes in the fall, and the one thing that was made clear was this: all
roads back to college lead through testing. The availability of
widespread testing will allow colleges to track and isolate students who
have the virus or have been exposed to it, so the rest of the student
body doesn’t have to be quarantined.
Many American colleges—overall considered the best in the
world—will be permanently damaged or even have to close if they
continue to be, as a witness at my hearing said, “ghost
towns.” And we know that a single lost year of college can lead to a
student not graduating from college and set back career goals. Two thirds
of college students want to return to campus, according to an Axios
survey. At Purdue University, tuition deposits by incoming freshmen broke
last year’s record. Colleges and universities are micro
cities. College presidents and administrators can make them among the
safest small communities in which to live and work during this next
year. In doing so, they will help our country take its surest step toward
normalcy. As chairman of the Senate education committee, I will
continue to work to ensure the federal government is giving institutions of
higher education across our country the tools they need to reopen
safely in the fall.
Help is on
the way to more than 85,000 Tennessee small businesses and their
employees
The Paycheck
Protection Program (PPP), which was included in the CARES
Act I supported, is a federal relief program that provides sweeping
relief to keep paychecks coming for workers across the country. This
week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the
Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act – legislation that
provides the PPP additional flexibility for the more than 85,000 Tennessee
small businesses who have received forgivable loans through the
program. As of May 30, the Small Business Administration had approved
more than $8.8 billion in loans for Tennessee businesses. Currently,
businesses only have eight weeks to spend the money, which many business
owners in Tennessee have said is not long enough to bridge the
economic gap created by the COVID-19 outbreak. Giving businesses 24 weeks to
use the loans better reflects the real world challenges facing small
businesses and should help Tennessee small businesses retain more
workers.
Preserving our national
parks for future generations
Click here or on
the above image to hear my thoughts on this significant piece of
legislation.
During this next week, the
United States Senate will take up and hopefully pass a piece of
legislation I've been working on for several years, which will be the most
important piece of conservation legislation in the last half century.
It's called the Great American Outdoors Act, and what it does is takes
care of deferred maintenance on our federal lands, including our
national parks. For example, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
there is $224 million of deferred maintenance. That means roads that have
potholes, or trails that are worn out, or sewage systems that don't
work and close down whole campgrounds, or visitor centers that have
become dilapidated. That's true all across our country in 419 different
national park sites. This legislation will take care of one half of all
of that deferred maintenance at our national parks over the next five
years. It has the support of President Trump, 59 United States
Senators, and over 800 conservation and sportsmen’s groups. And it is
my hope that the Senate passes it this month, and it becomes law this
year.
Vaccines save
lives
One of the many disruptions
the COVID-19 crisis has caused is to routine health care visits and
childhood immunizations. This pandemic has proven with more clarity than
ever that vaccines save lives, as we respond to a disease for which we
do not have one. Because of COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) and pediatricians are reporting that millions of
children aren’t getting routine vaccinations for preventable
diseases like measles and whooping cough. The Tennessee Department of
Health says vaccinations in Tennessee in April 2020 are down almost 40
percent compared to April of 2019. That needs to change. As states are
opening back up, doctors, nurses, and state and local public health
departments are working to catch children back up on routine
immunizations. Parents should consult with their child’s doctor and get back
on track with the appropriate vaccines for their child so they are
not vulnerable to diseases like measles. As we look to the flu
season this fall, it will also be important for as many people as
possible to get the flu shot. CDC this week announced, due to the CARES Act,
it is providing $2.4 million to Tennessee and $140 million nationwide
to help states provide flu vaccines to children and adults. This
is welcome news because vaccines save lives.
Lowering out of pocket insulin costs for
Medicare’s seniors
The Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced last week that
certain Medicare plans will be offering lower insulin costs for the 2021
plan year. This announcement means that next year the out-of-pocket
cost of a month’s supply of insulin could drop from hundreds of
dollars a month to $35 a month for many Americans on Medicare. For
seniors with diabetes, this will be a huge step in lowering health care
costs.
Important news from this
week:
Knoxville News Sentinel: Help coming: Bill for Smokies
maintenance backlog on track
Chattanooga Times Free Press: Help Senator
Alexander make this the time to fix our parks
WATE-ABC Knoxville
Channel 6: Sen. Lamar Alexander gives remarks on Great American Outdoors
legislation
WREG Memphis News Channel 3: Senators press colleges on
coronavirus safety plans to reopen campuses
The Tennessean: Legendary
Tennessee football player, coach Johnny Majors
dies
Read Alex
Haley’s Roots
#186 in Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid
Book
