National Service Reauthorization Act

Floor Speech

NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT -- (Senate - March 24, 2009)

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Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I presided over the last hour and listened to the speeches about this important Serve America Act, and I felt compelled to rise and express my strong support for the legislation as well.

I am a proud cosponsor of this legislation, and I want to particularly thank my colleagues--Senators Kennedy, Hatch, Mikulski, and Enzi--for working in a bipartisan manner to bring this important legislation to the Senate floor.

During these challenging times, we forget that every day millions of volunteers give their time and energy to help others and to make their communities more livable. Thousands of recent college graduates help educate young people in poor and rural schools through the Teach for America program. Millions of men and women join together to build affordable homes or improve health services for those in need throughout America through the AmeriCorps program. Tens of thousands of seniors are foster grandparents to our young people or companions to those who need help with everyday tasks through the Senior Corps program.

These volunteers, as we have been hearing most of this afternoon, are the best of what our country has to offer and the very essence of the American spirit. By working together to pass this bill, we are doing honor to their commitment to civic engagement and public service.

Service to community and country is something that has been an important part of my life. Prior to my career in politics, I served as the executive director of the Colorado Outward Bound School. Outward Bound provides participants with opportunities to test themselves--both physically and mentally--by confronting obstacles and surviving the elements. At the same time, the school teaches participants to rely on each other for support, assistance, and to work better as a team to meet all the challenges that Mother Nature can throw at you.

As part of the Outward Bound program, we considered it important to promote volunteering because we believed it helped strengthen our communities.

Voluntarism also enables young people to develop personal confidence and self-respect, to avoid the temptation to utilize violence to settle differences by instead learning skills and helping others.

I also had the opportunity to work in the House of Representatives with my fellow House Member Tom Udall, where we introduced legislation to promote volunteer efforts on our public lands. The goal of our piece of legislation called the SERVE Act was to enhance the stewardship of the natural and cultural resources for the millions of people who visit them for recreation and education every year.

We also worked together to give the Peace Corps the resources to expand their ranks. After more than 40 years, the Peace Corps remains one of the most admired and successful initiatives ever put in place. The Peace Corps offers an avenue to better understand other cultures and to do a better job of promoting an understanding of American values by citizens abroad.

Many Coloradans have dedicated themselves to community and national service. For example, Colorado has one of the highest levels of recruitment of Peace Corps volunteers nationwide, including my mother, who served in the Peace Corps in Nepal from the age of 56 to 61.

So we have a great volunteer spirit in this country, and we can do more to expand the opportunities for people who would like to give their time to help others in our communities. The bill before us today, the Serve America Act, does that by building on the very strong foundation built by AmeriCorps and other service programs.

Let me discuss a couple of the important elements of this important piece of legislation.

First, it establishes the Youth Engagement Zone to Strengthen Communities program and the Campus of Service program. By engaging high school students and out-of-school youth in community opportunities, we can instill a spirit of service in our young people that will stay with them for a lifetime.

Secondly, the Campus of Service program recognizes colleges and universities with outstanding service-learning programs, and provides resources to support students who want to pursue careers in public service. So many adults who work in Government, nonprofits, and other public service careers got started because of opportunities they had when they were in school. This program will expand the options available to students, so more young people can find rewarding volunteer experiences, and so we can increase the number of young people who want to pursue careers in public service.

Third, the bill creates a set of focused corps: the Education Corps, the Healthy Futures Corps, the Clean Energy Futures Corps, the Veterans Corps, and the Opportunity Corps.

I wish to take a minute to address one, the Clean Energy Futures Corps. In this program, the participants would do a variety of jobs to help make our communities more energy efficient and to preserve our country's natural beauty. These volunteers might help weatherize low-income households to help residents save money or to help clean and improve parks, trails, and rivers.

I was fortunate I was born into a family with a long tradition of working to protect our country's majestic public lands so future generations could enjoy the spectacular scenery and outdoor recreation activities we appreciate today. So I am pleased that Senators Kennedy, Hatch, Mikulski, and Enzi included preserving our national treasures as a core principle of the Clean Energy Futures Corps.

I am also very pleased the corps will encourage energy efficiency and weatherization efforts. Energy efficiency must play a key role in helping us use energy in a more responsible and sustainable way. If you think about it, the most affordable kilowatt of energy is the one that is not used. This is important, especially for families struggling to get by each week. Energy efficiency and weatherization efforts will help ensure these families do not have to choose between paying their heating bill and putting food on their table.

Community service enriches everyone who participates--those who are being helped and those who are offering their service. Volunteers can change a neighbor's life or transform our entire country.

I support the mission of this bill. I commend President Obama as the driving force in promoting service opportunities for Americans of all ages.

Mr. President, as I conclude, I want to offer some additional remarks that amplify what my good friend from Utah, Senator Hatch, said in response to our good friend from South Carolina.

The Senator from South Carolina came to the floor and expressed his concerns about this important legislation. He suggested that civil society is everything government is not. Well, with all due respect to my friend from South Carolina, I could not disagree more. I think civil society and government are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the Founders designed our formal democratic government systems based on what they learned in the civil society of the early days of our country.

Lincoln--probably our greatest President, the founder of the Republican Party--if I can paraphrase him--said: What we cannot do alone, we do together in self-government to accomplish.

There is an increasing demand clearly in our society that Senator Mikulski, Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and Senator Hatch have heard and want to tap into. Senator Isakson was on the floor earlier talking about creating an infrastructure of volunteers that this bill would so importantly promote. He talked about that the corps' participants are only paid stipends and small, cover-your-expenses salaries. So this is not an expensive program for the benefits that are generated.

The Senator from Utah talked about how this is the best of the liberal and conservative philosophies combined. The Senator from South Carolina talked about the great French historian de Tocqueville who identified this wonderful spirit in America of voluntarism way back in the 1820s and suggested somehow that could only be pursued through what he called the civil society. Well, that spirit is unique to America, I believe, and it is alive and well, and it can be promoted by civil society, by private society, as well as by this private-public partnership that is envisioned in this important legislation.

In closing, I cannot help but think of my friend, a mentor, a leader, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, who, in expressing the lessons he had learned in his life, talked about why he joined the military. And he put it simply. He said in order to build his self-respect, he wanted to dedicate himself to a cause greater than his own self-interest. That is what this important legislation will do, and it will allow millions of Americans to have that opportunity, to dedicate themselves to causes greater than their own self-interests.

I urge swift passage so we can go to work.

Mr. President, I thank you and yield the floor.

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