In the mid-1980s, the number of children in foster care began to climb sharply, while the number of children who were adopted from foster care remained static. Most children who enter foster care eventually return to their families, but concern developed in the 1990s about the growing number of children who did not return home and were remaining in foster care for long periods of time. At the same time, there was a growing perception that federal law needed clarification regarding the importance of child safety. These factors prompted the 105 th Congress to enact legislation with two primary goals: (1) to ensure that consideration of children's safety is paramount in child welfare decisions, so that children are not returned to unsafe homes; and (2) to ensure that necessary legal procedures occur expeditiously, so that children who cannot return home may be placed for adoption or another permanent arrangement quickly. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105 - 89 ) was enacted in November 1997, and is considered the most sweeping change in federal child welfare law since 1980, when the current configuration of federal child welfare programs was established. Since 1997, all states have enacted their own laws to implement parts of ASFA. In January 2000, the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued regulations to implement certain provisions of the 1997 law and, acting on a 1994 congressional directive ( P.L. 103 - 432 ), to establish a review system to monitor state compliance with federal child welfare laws, including ASFA provisions. HHS also has issued several reports that were mandated by ASFA and has awarded six rounds of annual incentive payments, also authorized by ASFA (and subsequently reauthorized in 2003), to states that increased their numbers of foster child and special needs child adoptions. This report provides background information and a description of ASFA, with references to implementation by states and HHS and related actions that occurred after the law's enactment. This report is current as of the cover date and will not be further updated. References to additional CRS reports are provided where relevant. For information on child welfare issues in the 108 th Congress, see CRS Report RL31746, Child Welfare Issues in the 108th Congress , by [author name scrubbed], and for information on the Adoption Incentives program created by ASFA, see CRS Report RL32296, Child Welfare: The Adoption Incentives Program , by Kendall Swenson . In December 1996, President Clinton directed HHS to develop recommendations that would result in a doubling of the number of foster child adoptions by 2002. In response, HHS released a report, Adoption 2002 , on February 14, 1997. At the same time, related proposals were being developed in Congress. In April 1997, the House passed the Adoption Promotion Act ( H.R. 867 ) by a vote of 416-5, and a bipartisan group of Senators introduced the Safe Adoptions and Family Environments (SAFE) Act ( S. 511 ) in March 1997. The SAFE Act was superseded by another bipartisan package—the Promotion of Adoption, Safety, and Support for Abused and Neglected Children (PASS) Act ( S. 1195 )—that was introduced in the Senate on September 18. The PASS Act, with some changes from the introduced version, was approved by the full Senate on November 8 as a substitute for the House-passed version of H.R. 867 . Differences between the House and Senate were resolved, and a final, amended version of H.R. 867 —renamed the Adoption and Safe Families Act—was passed on November 13 by a vote of 406-7 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. President Clinton signed the bill into law ( P.L. 105 - 89 ) on November 19, 1997. Most of the provisions in the 1997 law amended Title IV-B or IV-E of the Social Security Act, which authorize grants to states for child welfare activities. The majority of these grants are permanent authorizations and received appropriations totaling $7.6 billion for FY2004. As enacted in 1980 ( P.L. 96 - 272 ), these provisions require states to make "reasonable efforts" on behalf of abused and neglected children or children at risk of abuse and neglect, to ensure that services are provided to their families so they can remain safely at home or return home if they have been placed in foster care. States also must conduct administrative and court hearings on every child's case according to a prescribed timetable and establish a permanent placement plan for each child. Periodically during the years since P.L. 96 - 272 was enacted, there was concern that some states and judges interpreted the federal child welfare laws as requiring family preservation and reunification at all costs, including in cases where the child's health or safety was in jeopardy. The Adoption and Safe Families Act was intended to clarify federal policy to ensure safety for children who come into contact with the child welfare system. Moreover, in response to concern about the growing numbers f children in foster care, starting in the late 1980s and continuing through the 1990s, ASFA was intended to expedite permanency for foster children and to promote adoption for those children who cannot safely return home. The 1997 law established significant new procedural requirements to promote safety and expedite permanency, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated would save federal money by shortening the time that some children spend in foster care. At the same time, the new law also contained some spending provisions. These included financial incentive payments to states that increased their numbers of adoptions from foster care; a requirement that states provide health insurance coverage to special needs adopted children who are not eligible for federal subsidies; a provision that continued eligibility for federal subsidies to special needs children whose adoptions are disrupted; and a reauthorization and expansion of the family preservation program under Title IV-B. CBO estimated the net cost of P.L. 105 - 89 at $40 million over a five-year period. To offset these costs, the law reduced spending for the contingency fund under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. The Adoption and Safe Families Act amended the existing federal child welfare law to require that a child's health and safety be of "paramount" concern in any efforts made by the state to preserve or reunify the child's family, and to provide new assurances that children in foster care are safe. States continue to be required to make "reasonable efforts" to avoid the need to place children in foster care and to return them home if they are removed, but ASFA established exceptions to this requirement. Specifically, states are not required to make efforts to preserve or reunify a family if a court finds that a parent has killed another of his or her children, or committed felony assault against the child or a sibling, or if his or her parental rights to another child were previously involuntarily terminated. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracked the enactment of state laws to implement ASFA, most states incorporated these exceptions in their statutes. In addition, the federal law established that efforts to preserve or reunify a family are not required if the court finds that a parent has subjected the child to "aggravated circumstances." Each state may define these circumstances in its own laws, although ASFA cites abandonment, torture, chronic abuse, and sexual abuse as examples. Moreover, P.L. 105 - 89 states that it does not preclude individual judges from using their discretion to protect a child's health and safety in any case, regardless of whether the specific circumstances are cited in federal law. At the same time, the federal law does not prohibit states from making efforts to preserve or reunify a family in any case. According to NCSL, the aggravated circumstances most typically included in state definitions are those listed in the federal law. As of August 1999, some states also included other circumstances, such as: physical abuse, assault or battery of child (21 states); serious or chronic neglect (14 states); discretion of the court (14 states); physical or sexual abuse or assault of another child (13 states); failure to comply with or make progress under treatment plan (7 states); parent cannot be located after diligent search (7 states); previous removal of child for physical or sexual abuse (7 states); conviction of various crimes (7 states); violent crimes against a parent of the child (7 states); parental substance abuse (6 states); and mental illness or deficiency precluding care of a child, even with services (6 states). In final regulations issued on January 25, 2000, HHS specified that judicial findings of "reasonable efforts," including findings that reasonable efforts to prevent removal or reunification are not required, must be explicitly documented and made on a case-by-case basis. The regulations also state that such findings must be made within 60 days of the child's removal from home. To further promote safety, the 1997 law required that states conduct criminal background checks for all prospective foster or adoptive parents and deny approval to anyone who has ever been convicted of felony child abuse or neglect, spousal abuse, a crime against children (including child pornography), or a violent crime including rape, sexual assault, or homicide. In addition, states must deny approval to anyone with a felony conviction for physical assault, battery, or a drug-related offense, if the felony occurred within the past five years. States may opt out of the ASFA criminal record check provisions either through a letter from the state's governor to the Secretary of HHS, or through legislation enacted by the state legislature. According to HHS, as of August 2004, three states (Idaho, Oklahoma, and Oregon) had opted out through enactment of legislation and six states (Arizona, California, New York, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Ohio) opted out through a letter from their governors.