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

Mr. Chairman. Members. the managers amendment is a new amendment that. again. this bill came out of committee 2 months ago with the idea that we were going to work on title V of the vocational rehabilitation section of the bill. and we have �een changes in the last 10 days. We really need more than a weekend to deal with this. But what the managers amendment would do instead of cutting bureaucracy. which all of us want to do. and involve those parents involved in it. they are involved on the State level right now. the State of Texas does not need the Federal Government to tell us to involve parents in their vocational rehabilitation programs for their children. The amendment. the managers amendment. would layer another bureaucracy because it would allow the Governor to appoint another agency to oversee the Federal funding. Again. in the general debate we heard that might be expanded to the legislative. But. again. that is not what I see in this managers amendment that I have had a copy of that we got a copy of earlier. We want to reduce the bureaucracy. We do not want to add another layer in. That is why the managers amendment raises concern. Again. title V of this bill. that substantially changes vocational rehabilitation. needs to be addressed separately in a separate piece of legislation and not in this. because we are going to lose some of the people who need it the most. people who need that vocational rehabilitation effort. I appreciate the concern of my colleague from Florida about parent involvement. and when I was in the legislature in Texas. we required parents to be involved with public schools. We required public schools to get their parents involved. But. again. we do not need the Federal Government here in Washington telling them in Austin. TX. or even in Tallahassee. they have to get involved. That is part of most States plans already. Parents are involved. They should. But most of this money is State money. It is not Federal dollars. Let us leave those decisions locally. I would be glad to lobby my legislature to make sure they include parents because I know they already do. instead of saying we are going to impose a separate possible layer of bureaucracy on vocational rehabilitation. It is so important because we are dealing with. again. our citizens in this country who are harder to educate and harder to train and they are more expensive. We do not need to.lose one dime to a bureaucracy that should be going to direct services for these people. That is why the managers amendment again has made great strides in some ways but still does not go far enough to deal with the concerns that I have and a lot of my colleagues and a lot of the agencies or agencies and individuals that we have with vocational rehab. Let me read some of the individuals. You will see this yellow sheet today a great deal. American Council of the Blind. the American Foundation for the Blind. the National Federation for the Blind. the National Head Injury Foundation. the National Industries for the Blind. people who are opposing this bill and the managers amendment because they are worried they are going to lose the basic support services that we have in Houston. TX. with the Lighthouse for the Blind that are serving a lot of my constituents. With that. Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to oppose the managers amendment.