Important news from this week:
- This
week, we celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Every Student
Succeeds Act -- bipartisan legislation I introduced that restored
to states, including Tennessee, communities and
teachers the responsibility for improving student
achievement.
- Amazon purchased two properties in Wilson
County, which will bring more jobs to Middle
Tennessee.
- Vanderbilt’s Dr.
Josh Denny will serve as the new chief executive officer
for the All of Us Research Program, the centerpiece of the
Precision Medicine Initiative at the National Institutes of
Health. Dr. Josh Denny is an experienced team leader and has
precisely the skills needed to finish the important job
of collecting health information from one million people and using that
information in a way that saves lives.
- The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Dr. Stephen Hahn to
serve as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). Now he can get to work approving new life-saving drugs
and devices, regulating tobacco and e-cigarettes, addressing the
opioid crisis, ensuring pain patients can receive the medications they
need and protecting our nation’s food supply.
Announcing a bipartisan
agreement on legislation to lower health care costs for Tennessee
families
This week, I
announced a bipartisan agreement with health committee leaders in
the House of Representatives on legislation
to lower what Americans pay out of pocket for their health
care.
I do not think it is
possible to write a bill that has broader agreement than this among Senate
and House Democrats and Republicans on Americans’ number one
financial concern: what they pay out of their own pockets for health
care. This legislation includes proposals from 80 senators, 46 Democrats
and 34 Republicans. It would end the practice of surprise
billing for patients – this occurs when you go
to an emergency room covered by your health insurance, and are
surprised several weeks later by an unexpected bill in the mail that can cost
hundreds or thousands of dollars. It will also provide
nearly $20 billion for five years of funding for the nation’s 1,400
community health centers, including the more than 200 community
health centers in Tennessee, and lower the cost of prescription
drugs and other medical services by requiring transparency and
spurring competition. Congress should pass the bill promptly and give the
American people a very good Christmas present.
Permanently funding Historically
Black Colleges and Universities and simplifying the federal student aid
application form
The United States Senate
passed on Tuesday the FUTURE Act, which included a
bipartisan amendment I sponsored that permanently reauthorizes $255
million in annual funding for Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions and
simplifies the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) --
the complex, archaic form that 20 million families, including 8 million
minority students and 400,000 Tennessee families, fill out every
year to qualify for federal student aid. This legislation is now
headed to the president’s desk so it can be signed into
law.
It’s hard to think of a piece of
legislation that would have more of a lasting impact on minority
students and their families than this bill. First, this legislation
provides permanent funding, fully paid for, for HBCUs and
other Minority Serving Institutions attended by over 2 million minority
students. Second, after five years of bipartisan effort, the
legislation takes a first step to simplify the
FAFSA which removes a huge roadblock for the millions of Americans
who apply for federal grants and loans to attend college. Former
Governor Bill Haslam has called the FAFSA the single biggest impediment
to Tennessee students taking advantage of our state’s two free
years of community college. This bill is now headed to
the president’s desk to be signed into law.
Celebrating the fourth anniversary
of fixing No Child Left Behind
On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) --
bipartisan legislation I introduced that restored to states,
including Tennessee, communities and teachers the responsibility
for improving student achievement -- calling it
a “Christmas miracle.” This week, I celebrated the fourth
anniversary of what the Wall Street
Journal called “the largest devolution of federal control to the states
in a quarter-century.” Under ESSA, every state plan for
spending federal dollars has now been approved by the U.S. Department
of Education. More than half of states have already improved those
plans with amendments based on feedback from superintendents,
principals, teachers, parents and students. Less time is being focused just on
test scores. States have begun to identify their lowest performing
schools and provide extra support in order to improve during
this school year. I hope states will continue to take advantage of
this new flexibility.
I enjoyed celebrating ESSA’s fourth
anniversary this week in a panel discussion with a few of
my congressional colleagues.
New trade agreement with Mexico and Canada is
“good news” for Tennessee auto workers and
farmers
Updating the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) makes sense, and the agreement announced this week will continue to raise family
incomes and create even more good-paying jobs, which is good news for
Tennessee auto workers and farmers. I believe the president’s
stated goal of “zero tariffs, zero non-tariff
barriers, and zero subsidies” is exactly the right goal
for Tennessee’s auto industry, manufacturers and farmers, and a
welcome movement away from piling tariffs on top of tariffs that
threaten to destroy jobs and lower family incomes.
Tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. Tennessee’s
automotive industry is so important to me because in 1978, when I was
running for governor, Tennessee hardly had any auto jobs. Now, 136,000
Tennesseans -- one third of our state’s manufacturing jobs --
work in the automotive industry at plants and suppliers in 88 of our 95
counties. One of the reasons Tennessee has been able to have so much
success building cars and SUVs is because NAFTA was fundamentally a
zero tariff trade agreement.
It was good
meeting with Tennesseans this Tuesday with my colleague and friend Senator
Blackburn.
Passing the most important new law for
over-the-counter drugs in 40 years
The
Senate Tuesday passed the most important new
law affecting the safety, innovation, and affordability
of over-the-counter drugs since the 1970’s. In 2015, as
the Senate health committee I chair was working on the 21st Century
Cures Act, I asked Janet Woodcock, the director of the Center
for Drug Evaluation and Research at the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, if there was any change she needed but hadn’t been
able to get done. She replied that the over-the-counter
monograph -- the rules that govern how all drugs sold at pharmacies other
than prescription drugs are approved -- hadn’t been updated since
the 1970’s and that she hadn’t been able to persuade
Congress to do it.
Sens. Johnny Isakson
(R-G.A.) and Bob Casey’s (D-P.A.) Over-the-Counter Monograph
Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act will now modernize those rules. It
is a great testament to Senator Isakson’s legislative skill and
determination, and I thank him and Senator Casey for their work to get
this update across the finish line.
Confirming Dr. Stephen Hahn to lead
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Senate confirmed Dr.
Stephen Hahn to serve as the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner by a bipartisan vote of
72-18. Dr. Hahn’s experience as a practicing oncologist, a
successful leader of the MD Anderson Cancer Center and work at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) make him the right leader for the FDA
at this critical time. Dr. Hahn can now get to work
approving new life-saving drugs and devices, regulating tobacco and
e-cigarettes, addressing the opioid crisis, ensuring pain patients can receive
the medications they need and protecting our nation’s food
supply.
Health committee approves legislation to help states prevent child abuse
and ensure safety and welfare of children
I often suggest Tennesseans look at Washington, D.C., as
if it were a split-screen television. This week, on one side, you had
hearings on impeachment and the Department of Justice’s
Inspector General report. On the other side, Thursday, the Senate health
committee approved legislation to help states ensure the safety and welfare of children and legislation to fill
shortages in the pediatric and geriatric health care
workforce.
The bills passed
included the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2019 introduced by Senators
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Doug Jones (D-Ala.) that reauthorizes the
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act -- the federal legislation
that gives states funding to prevent and respond to child abuse -- and
also included the Adoption Opportunities Reauthorization Act of
2019 and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act. The committee
also passed the Geriatrics Workforce Improvement Act, the Investment in
Tomorrow’s Pediatric Health Care Workforce Act, the Child Care
Protection Improvement Act of 2019, and the NIMHD Research Endowment
Revitalization Act of 2019.
Below are
some articles from this week I thought you would
enjoy:
Roll Call: Amid impeachment saga, a kitchen sink
of legislative dealing
WMC-NBC
Memphis Channel 5: Loved ones and dignitaries
pay respects to Bishop William H. Graves
Maryville
Daily Times: Alexander touts success of Oak Ridge
Corridor
Consider yourself in
trouble if you say, “And now in conclusion,” and the audience
starts to applaud.
#12 in Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid
Book
