Date: 1995-09-19
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity. This amendment is offered not only by myself but also the gentleman from Arkansas . my good friend and colleague. This amendment is an amendment we talked about earlier that would strike title V of the CAREERS bill that I talked about on earlier amendments. Even in my opening comments I have expressedgrave concerns about the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that is included in this bill. The Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities held no hearings specifically on title V. Now. on Thursday. the majority staff released changes to the markedup bill. and today our chairman includes even more changes in the managers amendment. We need to spend a great deal more time on dealing with vocational rehabilitation instead of over a weekend. This bill was out ofcommittee for 2 months and we have seen a number of changes just in the last week. Mr. Chairman. we have tried to work on a compromise amendment. and my colleague from South Carolina and I have talked about and I think we share a lot of the same concerns. but. again. on short notice and without having time to sit down like we would like to. that is why I think we should set aside vocational rehabilitation for more judicious concern by this whole Congress instead of on a shortterm basis and include it in this bill. The GreenDickey amendment strikes title V from the CAREERS bill and assures the current vocational rehabilitation program remains intact. The gentleman from Arkansas and I bring this to the floor because the vocational rehabilitation program is too important to continue to make arbitrary changes without any real thought about those most affected. For more than 75 years Federal aid for vocational rehabilitation services has been provided in the form of a block grant to the States. National performance and quality standards have been established and States have been given broad discretion to determine how best to meet them. This is the original block grant. It just did not happen this January here in Congress. Mr. Chairman. expanding consumer choice and integrating vocational rehabilitation services in a comprehensive system are worthwhile goals which I fully support. In its current form. title V would not advance these objectives. In fact. it could erode the quality and reduce the availability of rehabilitation services for persons with disabilities. People with disabilities face extreme challenges in the pursuit of meaningful employment. challenges far beyond those" faced by the average person who accesses Federal job training programs. We want to ensure that any eligible individual is guaranteed access to the same quality and range of rehabilitation services no matter where they reside in a State or in which State they reside. The many people served by the current State vocational rehabilitation programs are coping with new disabilities. new selfimages. new feelings about their competencies. new technologies and new ways to perform old tasks. Rehabilitation professionals are specifically trained to assist people in disabilities in these areas. Employees of more general training services do not have that ability. I like the CAREERS bill when it deals with average employees who are laid off. We need to merge the programs. But when we deal with vocational rehabilitation. we should not lump people who are the recipients or the beneficiaries of vocational rehabilitation in with the general population. Mr. Chairman. there is a great deal of concern. and we have letters from among the supporting organizations for the removal of vocational rehabilitation. The concern from these client agencies. not from the State bureaucrats as we heard. but from the clients. they are worried they will get lost in the shuffle when their provisions are included in this bill. As I said earlier. I voted for the bill as it came out of committee. I tried to amen(d it in committee and we lost. with the understanding that we would try to work something out. We have not been able to work it out to the support of the client organizations that raise this concern. I can mention some of these groups. We have letters. but we also have. and a lot of Members will see this as they come in the door to vote in a few minutes. a yellow sheet of paper that talks about the number of groups from the client groups who are supporting this amendment to strike title V. Another concern we have had is that we have heard the concern for the last 2 months and duringour committee markup. in process. the Governors Association wanting to be able to have flexibility. The concern I have about the original bill. the substitute I saw last week. and even the managers amendment today is that it gives a great deal of flexibility to Governors and maybe not dealing with their legislatures in addressing it. I have a letter from the National Governors Association and it says. and I will paraphrase. we believe that the bill could be improved by adoption of two amendments that would be offered on the floor today and ask that Members support these changes. the amendment by Representative GREEN of Texas to maintain existing law with respect to vocational rehabilitation programs. If we want to address the Governors concern. the National Governors -Association supports this amendment.