Reed Seeks to Boost Funding for Child Care & Help Lower Energy Bills for Working Families
WASHINGTON, DC – As the U.S. Senate considers President Joe Biden’s supplemental appropriations request for domestic priorities to support public health, energy assistance, economic development, and more, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today attended a key hearing to review the need for additional funding for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The panel heard testimony on a wide range of issues from U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who each discussed their respective departments, and the need for additional funding for priorities like child care and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
To help more working families afford high-quality child care, the Biden Administration is seeking $16 billion in supplemental funding to help child care providers keep their staff paid and their doors open. And as winter approaches, the Biden Administration requested an additional $1.6 billion to help Americans in need lower their energy bills.
Importantly, the President’s request also includes $1.55 billion for the State Opioid Response (SOR) grant program, which has provided tens of millions of dollars to Rhode Island to combat the fentanyl epidemic.
In supporting these requests, Senator Reed noted: “Congress must take bipartisan action to help lower costs for families, strengthen our economy, and keep people safe. The President’s supplemental funding request includes critical funding to tackle urgent priorities. Congress should work together to advance this package and help working families afford the necessities of life.”
In addition to bolstering child care and lower energy bills, the Biden Administration’s supplemental appropriations package requests $13.6 billion to strengthen border security and migrant initiatives, including funding to hire 1,600 new asylum officers and processing personnel; 1,300 new border patrol agents; and 375 immigration judges and legal staff to address immigration court backlogs. The request also includes over $23.5 billion for disaster response, including $9 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund under DHS, to help communities recover and rebuild after disasters.
The Biden Administration’s request also includes $1.3 billion for the State Department to respond to regional migration in the Western Hemisphere, including a new effort to encourage would-be migrants to legally apply for asylum outside the U.S. before crossing the deadly Darien gap between South and Central America.
A partial transcript of the hearing follows:
SEN. JACK REED: Thank you, Madam Chairman. First, let me address Secretary Becerra. Secretary Becerra, this issue has come up by my colleagues also that's the LIHEAP program. We expect this winter heating prices to go up and we expect the number of people seeking assistance to go up. So the administration's supplemental request of $1.6 billion seems to be a step in the right direction. Do you have any additional comments in terms of how we can help people in this heating season?
SEC. XAVIER BECERRA: Senator, first, thank you and many of your colleagues for the work that you've done to make sure that we can keep pace because essentially what the president is requesting is to keep pace with you and many of your colleagues were able to secure last year. So we're not getting more money, we're just trying to make sure we don't fall behind because as you know the cost of heating is going up. The global energy crisis and the global climate crisis are having an impact for families.
And so this money simply makes sure that during the dead of winter, people don't die as we know they do if they don't have the money to pay for heating expenses.
SEN. JACK REED: Well, thank you very much. And Secretary Mayorkas, could you explain the procedures at the border when you encounter someone who is on a list of a possible --
SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: Senator, we screen and vet individuals whom we encounter at the border. If an individual is determined to be a public safety threat or a threat to our national security, they are a priority for removal. If we do not believe it is safe to release an individual when they are subject to immigration enforcement proceedings, then we detain them in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. That is pursuant to the policy memorandum that I promulgated on September 30th of 2021.
SEN. JACK REED: Now if an individual reaches the border, your emphasis is to sort of come -- presume if there’s any doubt at all the worst and to hold that person. Is that a fair --
SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: We make an individualized determination. Our U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel are expert in doing so. We screen and vet individuals against a number of holdings across the federal enterprise and we make a decision of custody or not custody depending on the profile of the individual and our professional assessment based on the information we have.
SEN. JACK REED: And those individuals who are paroled in the United States have basically cleared this process? And in fact, typically as I understand it, they have sponsors that will accept them and the sponsors are also evaluated for their credibility and their reliability. Is that accurate?
SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: That is correct, Senator.
SEN. JACK REED: And in fact, in many cases, the sponsors are religious organizations, is that -- that's my understanding.
SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: There are religious organizations, there are faith based organizations, there are nonprofit organizations, that are businesses, and there are individuals as well that serve as sponsors for parolees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. But we do indeed screen the individual potential parolees as well.
SEN. JACK REED: And do you have a feedback loop with local law enforcement authorities about the behavior of these individuals in the United States?
SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: We work very closely with our state, local, tribal, territorial, and campus law enforcement partners.
SEN. JACK REED: Thank you very much. Secretary Becerra, again this issue touched upon, but I think it’s critical. We learned in the pandemic that child care was not something nice to have, it was essential in order to get to work, in order to maintain really family coherence and being able to succeed. We provided additional resources in ARPA to do that.
Those resources have been exhausted. So now we have to go ahead and I believe we are doing that in this legislation, $16 billion request to help our child care system. In Rhode Island, local organizations calculated that child care in my state is unaffordable for 90 percent of families. It means that it costs more than seven percent of total income. And the irony of course is child care workers are paid about $13 an hour, which is not exactly extravagant. So we have this dilemma. That's why I think we need to get this money out as quickly as possible. Can you comment?
SEC. XAVIER BECERRA: I fully concur and to save not just those families but our economy, we should get to work and get those moneys out there. It was used those stabilization dollars, kept businesses afloat and kept families with decent quality childcare.
SEN. JACK REED: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Thank you.
