Chair's Press

WASHINGTON, June 9 – Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today voted for the Fiscal Year 2017 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which restores year-round Pell grant availability, and provides additional support for advances in...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., released the following statements in response to President Obama’s veto today of their resolution that would have preserved access to retirement planning for middle income American families by preventing the Department of Labor from implementing its...

WASHINGTON, June 7 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said today that restoring year-round Pell grants in the appropriations process “would be the most important news in higher education so far this year.” In the FAST Act introduced last year, Alexander and Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)...

WASHINGTON, June 7 – The chairmen of the Senate labor committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee today introduced legislation under the Congressional Review Act to block implementation of the administration’s “Time Card Rule,” also known as the Overtime Rule, which will have workers...

WASHINGTON — Late last night, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution formally recognizing the month of May as Mental Health Month. The resolution was originally introduced by U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Chris Murphy (D-CT), along with U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander...

WASHINGTON, May 26 – Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) released the following statements after the Department of Education released its proposed regulation implementing “accountability”...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate today passed a resolution by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to stop the Obama administration from implementing a harmful new rule that will restrict access to retirement planning for hardworking families and small businesses. After the Department of Labor released its final rule – which rewrites its...

Tennesseans have heard a lot of talk from the Obama administration about making college affordable and keeping costs down. So it's hard to see how President Barack Obama can justify the final overtime rule out of his Labor Department last week that could raise annual tuition at one Tennessee college by nearly $850 per student. One of the most...

WASHINGTON, May 19 – A group of 25 Republican senators today told the Obama administration that it cannot tell the nation’s 100,000 public schools how they must answer the question of which bathrooms, locker rooms and showers transgender students may use. “Every transgender person is someone’s child and should be...

“This is the very first opportunity the administration has to write regulations on the Every Student Succeeds Act. In my view, they earned an ‘F.’…. The effect of this would be to violate the law as implemented since 1970. So the administration may get an “A” for cleverness, but an “F” for...

“If the president wants to go around talking about keeping college costs down, how can he justify a rule that could cost some students in Tennessee nearly $850 per year in increased tuition?” WASHINGTON, May 18 – The chairman of the Senate labor committee said that the final “Overtime Rule” released today...

WASHINGTON, May 17 – The chairman of the Senate’s health committee today voted for legislation to help protect Americans from the Zika outbreak with mosquito abatement, vaccine research and health services. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, “Today’s vote will help protect mothers and children from the tragic...

“Wellness programs are the only part of Obamacare that everyone agreed on—everyone except the EEOC. The administration is in the strange position of disagreeing with itself.” WASHINGTON, D.C., May 16 – The Senate health and labor committee chairman today said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Sen. Lamar Alexandar (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Sens. David Vitter (R-La.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wy.)...

WASHINGTON, May 13 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the Department of Education’s guidance letter to local school districts regarding transgender student’s use of school bathrooms: "This is the kind of issue that parents, school boards, communities,...

WASHINGTON, May 12 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said today that Tennesseans will save $1.2 billion over the next 10 years because legislation passed by Congress in 2013 tied loan rates to the market, and today’s market rates are at a record low. Alexander, chairman of the Senate education committee and a former...

WASHINGTON, May 11 – The bipartisan group of U.S. senators who sponsored the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013 today celebrated the news that student loan rates will drop from 4.29 percent to 3.76 percent, putting money back into the pockets of nearly 6.4 million undergraduate student borrowers. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.),...

“(The Education Department’s) interpretation appears to go beyond what would be required under a plain language reading of the statute.” – Congressional Research Service WASHINGTON, May 11 – A new report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) finds the Department of Education’s...

WASHINGTON — Doug Oliver was legally blind. Now he can see. For the first time in a dozen years, Oliver can make out the dollops of sunlight sparkling on the tops of parked cars. He can read road signs, count the leaves on a tree and clearly see the faces of loved ones, including his wife, Ann, whom he met after his vision had begun to...

“The Wall Street Journal called the new law the ‘largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter century,’ which means that control of Blount County schools is back in your hands – and my role is to be your most aggressive defender.” MARYVILLE, Tenn., May 5, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander...