Chair's Press

 “I want to make sure than any regulation you propose about accountability is consistent with the words we chose and the intent of the bill the President signed.”  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 29 –Senate education chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today told Secretary of Education John King that any regulation the...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 29 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said Vice President Biden’s announcement of a new Oncology Center of Excellence at the Food and Drug Administration brings “exactly the kind of coordination necessary” to get more individualized treatments and cures to...

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said Senate Democrats are letting politics get in the way of providing needed funding to help protect the health of pregnant women and unborn children from the Zika virus and to support veterans programs after they blocked a House-Senate agreement on a fiscal year 2017 funding...

“A clear reading of the law would suggest that this rule, written like so many rules out of this administration—out of thin air and not grounded in the laws as they were written by Congress—is intended only to boost organized labor."  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 27 – Senate labor committee Chairman Lamar Alexander...

“Why on earth would we not take this opportunity to get a result for millions of Americans who want to find a cure for cancer, get electronic health records systems out of the ditch, and spur cures and treatments, especially for rare pediatric diseases and antibiotic-resistant superbugs?” WASHINGTON, D.C., June 23 –...

WASHINGTON, June 22 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said that today’s Medicare Trustees Report projecting that the program will become fiscally insolvent by 2028 – two years earlier than last year’s projection – is proof that Congress needs to “act now to make sure seniors can...

“The whole purpose of the law was to make these sort of Pell grants for early education. It would give working parents a choice of providers. And they might be public, they might be private, they could even be sponsored by religious institutions. And that’s worked very well.” WASHINGTON, D.C., June 15 – Chairman...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 15 – Senior members of the Senate health committee today released two separate reports from the government’s independent watchdog finding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks a clear plan to help the agency keep pace with the science behind the drugs and medical devices it regulates and to ensure its...

Last August, Douglas Oliver, 52, of Nashville, was legally blind. Today, he can see. His story is just one of many stunning breakthroughs in biomedical research that Congress is seeking to accelerate in a “21st Century Cures” Act.   Early last year Vanderbilt University doctors told Mr. Oliver that there was no cure for the...

“This amendment will block the EEOC from implementing its rule—hopefully inspiring the commission to refocus on more worthwhile tasks like its massive backlog of more than 76,000 unresolved workplace discrimination cases.” WASHINGTON, June 15 – The chairman of the Senate labor committee today filed an amendment to block...

“We have reversed the trend toward a national school board and are moving decisions out of Washington into the hands of classrooms, teachers and parents.” WASHINGTON, D.C., June 14, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today welcomed members of the Tennessee School Boards Association to his Washington office. He told the...

WASHINGTON, June 11 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on reports that Tennessee insurance companies will have to raise health insurance premiums by as much as 62 percent next year, as a result of increased costs due to Obamacare: “Six years ago, at the White House Summit, on...

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today introduced S.J. Res. 35, a resolution that would permanently halt the implementation of a final Department of Labor (DOL) “persuader rule” which benefits Big Labor by arbitrarily placing costly and onerous mandates on small businesses...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 9 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on today’s inspector general early alert that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) lack of effective and efficient food recall procedures left Americans “at risk of illness or...

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”...