Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISAKSON. I have to say first and foremost that it has been a real privilege to work with Senator Murray from the State of Washington. We are across the hall from one another. We see each other coming and going and coming back to the floor and from the office.

We have worked hard, our staffs have worked hard, and finally today lightning has struck. We are about today--in the Congress of the United States--to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and address one of the significant challenges that face America today.

As we sit in this Chamber and talk about this bill, there are 10.6 million Americans who are unemployed. There are also 4 million jobs waiting to be filled by people who need specific skills. This bill deals with the skills deficit in America, and it is going to match some of those unemployed with some of those jobs to lower our unemployment rate and raise the rate of prosperity in American families. This is an important bill.

A lot of people who have watched the Senate over the past few years might have said: How in the world did you reach an agreement on anything? You always seem to be fighting, you always seem to be arguing.

I want to tell a brief story. About 1 month ago Senator Murray and I joined a few other Members of the Senate--Senator Harkin, Senator Alexander, a couple of Members from the House: Representative Foxx of North Carolina and Representative Kline, the chairman of the Education & the Workforce Committee in the House.

We didn't sit around a table and say: What is it that divides us? We said: What is it that unites us?

What unites us is the fact that the American people are looking for leadership from us to deal with the unemployment issue and the training issue. We have been languishing to try to authorize this bill for 12 years. So we sat down and identified what we agreed on. We identified what the problems were. We worked with the Members of the House who opened up and said: Well, we passed the SKILLS Act, but we will sit down, listen to your side, and try to find common ground.

After a few days, really--not weeks--we found common ground on 80 percent of the issues that confront us in workforce and investment areas. There are a few places where we found disagreement, sure--and so did those stop us? No, because the perfect should never be the enemy of the good, and this bill is the good of the Senate in terms of dealing with issues.

I want to brag about a few people in this body, if I can, besides Senator Murray. I want to talk about Scott Cheney for a second, her loyal assistant. He sat in my office with me--about a week and a half ago--side-by-side, staff and Senator, working out some of the details on this bill.

I thank Tommy Nguyen on my staff who has worked countless hours for countless years to make this happen.

David Cleary, the aide to the committee, the aide to Senator Alexander, has done a yeoman's job. In fact, he did probably as much of the hand-holding in the past couple of weeks over amendments as anybody I know.

I thank Senator Enzi from Wyoming, who is my mentor in the Senate. When I was first elected to Congress, I was appointed to a Web-based education joint commission between the House and the Senate. Mike Enzi was the Republican Senator who was appointed to that commission. I was the Republican Congressman. I didn't know Mike Enzi, but I watched him work. I watched him find solutions to problems. I watched his quiet, patient work to find a solution, and I said: That is the guy I want to be like.

He is the guy who really got Mrs. Murray and myself to this point today, because he has forged ahead when nobody else would.

When Chairman Kennedy was chairman of the committee before his tragic loss, Mike continued to work with Senator Kennedy and said: Let's try to find a way to do workforce innovation and opportunity.

I am glad we are doing it today, and we are doing it in large measure because of Senator Enzi.

Senator Tim Scott, who did yeoman's work, introduced the SKILLS Act that was passed in the House and Senate. He could have folded his arms and said: I am going to be recalcitrant, I am not going to cooperate. But he said: What can I do to help? There are some things I want to make sure we do, but one thing I want to make sure we don't do is not address the problem of unemployment and training.

Rob Portman was of tremendous help to us too. We had so many Members whose ideas have been incorporated in this bill to deal with the issue of skill and deal with the issue of unemployment. I am so appreciative of each and every one of them, and I think the American people will appreciate them too.

I want to highlight a couple of features in here that are most important. Unlike most of what government does, we have scaled down the size of workforce investment boards in the States and in the local communities so they are working numbers, not numbers that are so big they can't work.

We put more money into training and less into bureaucracy. We scaled down a number of workforce programs and consolidated them to maximize the Federal dollar to benefit the State level. We gave the State level the local authority to determine the curriculum of what was best for Washington or best for Georgia.

Washington is not a one-size-fits-all town, and workforce development is not a one-size-fits-all issue. Through the labor departments of the various States, we now are going to empower them to train people for the jobs they need in their State, not the jobs Washington might think they might have needed in their State. That is a tremendous advance forward in this legislation and equally very important.

Some people will sit on the floor and say: Well, did we get all we wanted? No, we didn't. Nobody did.

Did you get enough?

We got plenty.

There are a lot of labor commissioners and Governors who are going to be celebrating. In fact, I have had two calls this morning from Governors' offices or from labor department offices saying: Thank you, you are finally giving us the power to address what we need to do in our State to address unemployment and address job training.

It has been a privilege for me to work with Senator Harkin, Senator Alexander, and Senator Murray.

To close, before I turn the floor over to Senator Harkin--who I think will be next on the floor--I commend Senator Harkin on his leadership as the chairman. He and Senator Alexander gave us the encouragement that we could get a bill done. They didn't insist on something they wanted in the bill to be there exactly like they wanted it.

As we all know, Senator Harkin is a champion for those with disabilities. The disability section in this bill is outstanding to provide training, opportunity, and rehabilitation for those who operate with developmental disabilities; and that is what we should be doing on the workforce, because their contribution is as important as the contribution of any other single American.

Today is a great day for the Senate. It is also a great day for the workforce in America. It is a great day for training and for the skills.

We want to fill the 4 million jobs that are vacant in America with 4 million of those 10.6 million who are unemployed in America--to raise prosperity, raise opportunity, and raise hope in America.

With that said, I yield the floor for the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin.

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Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his input, and I want to acknowledge his remarks with regard to the amendment process.

One of the reasons we have a bill which is on the floor today--the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act is here--is because it is one of the few bills where we have had a process in working toward a final passage where we have had a lot of amendments.

This bill has a lot of input from a lot of people. We did that. The fact that he is having his first vote, after offering 85 amendments, is a testimony to the reason we ought to have more voting on amendments, more debate on the floor, and we will pass things and be more productive in our process.

So I thank the Senator for his leadership. I thank him for helping us as we brought this legislation forward and encourage him to continue to offer amendments and work to perfect legislation coming before the Senate.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, as we close the debate, I enthusiastically support and endorse the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act. This is a statement the Senate can send to the United States of America and all people who are on unemployment, looking for better opportunities. We are now going to offer training to see to it those 10,600,000 Americans out of work can find jobs, and hopefully it will be the 4 million jobs available today in America where skilled workers are not trained.

I thank Senator Murray for her kind comments and reiterate my appreciation for her, her staff, Scott Cheney, my staff, Tommy Nguyen.

Chairman Harkin has been a fearless leader on our committee and allowed us the chance to get to where we are today.

Senator Alexander's velvet glove on an iron hand helped us get through an amendment process that was difficult at times but got us to the point we are today.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill and against the two amendments.

I yield back the remainder of our time.

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Mr. ISAKSON. I want to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Harkin and Senator Patty Murray from Washington. I reiterate what I said in my opening statement about how much regard and respect I have for Senator Murray, for the job she has done. We would not be here today if it were not for Patty Murray. I am grateful for her support and her kind words.

I want to reiterate all of the names she said, all the thanks that we have. But I want to particularly thank my staff who have made me once again look good. That is a difficult job to do sometimes. I thank Tommy Nguyen, Amanda Maddox, Michael Black, Brett Layson. I appreciate all they have done; Joan Kirchner, my chief of staff, who came to our aid last week and pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the Republican conference that allowed us to be here.

We all get a lot of credit as Members of the Senate. But it is our staff who make or break what we do. We are very grateful to our staff or the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act would not become law, would not get to the President's desk.

So to Patty Murray, to Senator Harkin, to Senator Alexander, thank you. And to all of our staff, thank you for day in and day out doing the real work of the Senate and for the people of the United States of America.

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