Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on the Obama Administration’s proposal to make two years of community college free for qualifying students. “Expanding access to college and making it more...

Washington, D.C—Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) released the following statement on her intention to serve as Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee when the new Congress convenes in January. Senator Murray served as Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee this past Congress and will...

Releases Staff Discussion Draft and Announces Committee Hearing on Testing and Accountability *** “During the last six years, this committee has held 24 hearings and reported two bills to the Senate floor to fix the law’s problems. We should be able to finish our work within the first few weeks of 2015 so the full Senate can act."...

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s involvement in student testing and school accountability would be greatly curtailed under draft legislation U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is circulating as a starting point for fixing the Bush-era No Child Left Behind school-reform law. States would be required to set high standards to measure student...

Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander has three main priorities for his committee: The first is fixing No Child Left Behind. Next, he’d like to turn to the Higher Education Act and the third is reforming the Food and Drug Administration. “That’s the agenda that I hope for,” Alexander said today on the Senate floor....

KNOXVILLE, Jan. 9 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on President Obama’s America’s College Promise proposal: “The right way to expand Tennessee Promise nationally is for other states to do for themselves what Tennessee has done. Then, instead of creating a new federal...

Washington, D.C., Jan. 7 – Senate Republicans today voted to elect U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to be the chairman—or lead senator—of the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. “The work of no Senate committee affects the daily lives of more Americans more than this...

Bill introduced by Alexander, Bennet, Burr, Booker, Isakson, King will simplify financial aid application for 20 million Americans who fill it out each year WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2015 – Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) with Senators Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), and Angus...

“I’m glad to cosponsor this bipartisan legislation offered by Sens. Collins and Donnelly to overturn this damaging Obamacare provision and give a pay raise to more than 2.5 million low-income workers and their families. –Lamar Alexander WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 7 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today cosponsored...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), along with Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), introduced legislation to reform federal student loan repayment programs. The Repay Act, which Senators King and Burr originally...

Republicans are hatching an ambitious plan to rewrite No Child Left Behind this year — one that could end up dramatically rolling back the federal role in education and trigger national blowouts over standardized tests and teacher training. NCLB cleared Congress in 2002 with massive bipartisan support but has since become a political...

“The Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee has produced some of the most significant legislation of any Senate committee this year. In a dysfunctional Congress, among senators with profound ideological differences, our work shows what can happen when you focus on getting results on issues important to the American people."...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 19 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) made the following statement on the complaints filed today by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel, which hold McDonald’s brand corporation liable as a “joint employer”:  “The NLRB general counsel’s complaints...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 19 – House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-TN) issued the following statements after the Department of Education released the framework for an unprecedented college ratings system: “The...

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Capping two years of the HELP Committee’s bipartisan accomplishments, Congress this week sent to the President for his signature two additional bills under the jurisdiction of the HELP Committee. When both are signed by the President, they will be the 25th and 26th bills under the jurisdiction of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Prescription drug overdose death rates in the United States have more than tripled since 1990 and prescription opioid abuse is an ever-growing problem. Following on their creation of a bipartisan Prescription Drug Abuse Working Group earlier this year, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Prescription drug overdose death rates in the United States have more than tripled since 1990 and prescription opioid abuse is an ever-growing problem. Following on their creation of a bipartisan Prescription Drug Abuse Working Group earlier this year, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee...

*** “The surgeon general is known as ‘the nation’s doctor.’ He leads a professional corps of 6,800 commissioned public health officers. …Unfortunately, Dr. Murthy’s experience does not demonstrate the leadership and knowledge of public health that we expect from our surgeons general.”  –Lamar...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 12 – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) made the following statements after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released its final rule today authorizing “ambush elections,” which shorten the length of time in which a labor union certification is...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement today in support of the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) final rule to reform and modernize the union representation process. “Today the NLRB has taken an important step in...