News
House Democrats Introduce $100B School Infrastructure Bill
by Sara Friedman
01.31.19 While schools in the United States aim to deliver a word-class education for students, there is a $46 billion shortfall in annual funding for school building maintenance and digital infrastructure each year nationwide, according to a 2016 report from the 21st Century School Fund. In order to change the paradigm, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced the Rebuild America's Schools Act Jan. 30 to invest $100 billion for schools through two program… Continue Reading
Labor Department Waters Down Injury Reporting Rule Targeted by Business
by Eli Wolfe
01.31.19 A requirement that employers disclose more information about worker injuries to safety officials and the public has been scaled back by the Trump administration. The Labor Department action, reflecting the administration's broad push to ease regulations on business, weakens an Obama-era initiative to improve safety enforcement and crack down on underreporting of job injuries. The 2016 rule, which had been hailed by safety advocates, drew the ire of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other busines… Continue Reading
Democrats Push $100 Billion for School Infrastructure Fixes
by Emily Wilkins
01.30.19 Public schools serving low-income students could see a $100 billion boost in funding for buildings and technology infrastructure via legislation introduced by Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate. The bill (H.R. 865) would target K-12 schools that have difficulty raising additional funds and have severe issues with their buildings. About half of schools said they needed repairs, renovations or modernization for the buildings to be in good condition, the National Center for Educational S… Continue Reading
Schools Would Get $100 Billion for Repairs, Rebuilding in Democrats' Bill
by Andrew Ujifusa
01.30.19 Washington Democrats are once again pitching a big plan to fix up America's schools. But it follows several false starts in the last few years to address this issue inside the Beltway from both parties. Under the Rebuild America's Schools Act, unveiled by House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday in Washington, the federal government would provide $70 billion in direct funding for school repairs and rebuilding, along with $30 billion in tax-credit bonds. The bill would also create "a comprehensi… Continue Reading
Lawmaker vows to protect student loan forgiveness program for troops, others
by Natalie Gross
01.30.19 A controversial Republican proposal from last Congress to eliminate a student loan forgiveness program for public servants, including military service members, may be off the table. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill this week, the new chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said the program isn't going anywhere - "not if I have anything to do with it." Plans to scrap the public service loan forgiveness program, or PSLF, were part of a larger… Continue Reading
House Ed and Labor plans hearing on pre-existing conditions
by Dan Diamond
01.29.19 The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on protecting workers with pre-existing conditions, part of an intended focus on health policy under new Democratic leadership. "We have a duty to ensure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all Americans, particularly those with pre-existing conditions," Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said at an organizational meeting today. The hearing date has not yet been finalized, a spokesperson for Scott told POLITICO. … Continue Reading
Scott vows ‘aggressive oversight’ by House education committee
by Michael Stratford
01.29.19 The House Education and Labor Committee will conduct "aggressive oversight" of the Trump administration, the panel's new chairman, Rep Bobby Scott, said today. Scott (D-Va.) said at the committee's first meeting of this Congress that oversight of the executive branch would be a priority. "The committee will lead aggressive oversight to ensure that the departments, agencies, programs and statutes in our areas of jurisdiction are operated and executed in an effective, efficient and transpa… Continue Reading
House Democrats ready $100B school infrastructure plan
by Staff
01.29.19 - The House Education and Labor Committee today gavels into session for the first time this Congress under Democratic leadership. Lawmakers will vote on subcommittee assignments and an "oversight plan" for the year. - Democrats are planning a new push this week on school infrastructure. Rep. Bobby Scott, the House education chairman, will unveil a $100 billion plan to improve the "physical and digital infrastructure" of schools across the country. - Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Senate educa… Continue Reading
After eight years, Democrats assume power over education policy in House of Representatives
by Louis Freedberg
01.29.19 On the first work day after the end of the partial government shutdown, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the newly empowered chairman of the committee with the most say over federal education policies in the House of Representatives, signaled a significant shift on Capitol Hill on a range of issues, from early education to higher education. The House Education and Labor Committee, now in Democratic hands for the first time in eight years, had planned a number of hearings and other pronouncements over t… Continue Reading
Black Lung Clinics Call For Action But Top Regulator Plans No New Measures
by Jeff Young
01.28.19 In the wake of an NPR and PBS Frontline investigation into the surge in cases of black lung disease, a coalition of black lung clinics is calling for action to better protect coal miners from dust exposure. NPR reports that more than 2,300 miners in central Appalachia are sick with the most serious form of the disease. The investigation also documents the inaction by industry and government regulators, despite decades of warnings that tighter controls on coal and rock dust exposure were needed.… Continue Reading
House Education and Workforce Chair Discusses Priorities
by LaMont Jones
01.28.19 WASHINGTON - In a half-hour session Monday afternoon that seemed to pass faster than a New York minute, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., spoke and fielded a range of questions about education from about 40 media professionals attending a two-day Education Writers Association seminar titled "Covering Higher Education's New Political Landscape." A growing student loan default crisis and college affordability are among the biggest topics in education, and the new chairman of the House Committee on Ed… Continue Reading
How radical Republicans and the Trump Administration are killing American workers
by DC Report
01.27.19 Reuters reporters Julia Harte and Peter Eisler have assembled a powerful investigative article on how "the Trump administration's plan to weaken the beryllium rule offers a case study in the renewed power businesses can wield in the regulatory process." OSHA's standard to protect workers from the disabling and deadly effects of beryllium exposure was issued in the waning days of the Obama administration. Exposure to beryllium dust causes chronic beryllium disease and lung cancer. Symptoms inclu… Continue Reading
First House Education Committee hearing will focus on government shutdown, school lunches
by Kimberly Hefling
01.25.19 The House Education and Labor Committee said today that its first hearing of the congressional session under Democratic control of the chamber will focus on how the partial government shutdown could affect the nation's school lunch program. The USDA has been caught up in the dispute over funding for President Donald Trump's border wall. Even though the department has said the program is funded through the end of March, school districts have expressed alarm that they won't have the money to prov… Continue Reading
Most Obama-Era Job Injury Reporting Requirements Rescinded (1)
by Bruce Rolfsen
01.24.19 (Updated with additional reporting.) Large employers won't be required to send OSHA detailed injury and illness reports that had been due by early March, the agency announced Jan. 24. The rule change, which goes into effect Feb. 25, rescinds the Obama-era requirement for establishments with 250 or more employees to electronically submit every year information from Occupational Safety and Health Administration Form 300, an annual report of injury and illness cases, and Form 301, a detailed … Continue Reading
Labor Market Is Doing Fine With Higher Minimum Wages
by Barry Ritholtz
01.24.19 Almost three years ago, we got a chance to watch a real-time experiment of the impact higher minimum wages would have on job creation after some localities passed laws to raise pay floors. Although opponents immediately decried the increases as job killers and as proof that leftists are intent on destroying the economy, the wiser course was to wait and see what the data produced. We now have a growing body of evidence that tips the scale in favor of the proponents, bolstered by several decades … Continue Reading
Raising The Minimum Wage Would Save American Lives
by Kunal Sindhu
01.23.19 House Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act on Jan. 16, which would raise the hourly federal minimum wage from $7.25 for most workers to $15 by 2024. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), one of the co-sponsors of the bill and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, stated, "No person working full-time in America should be living in poverty." For years, arguments in favor of raising the minimum wage have focused on providing American workers a living wage. A full-time worker m… Continue Reading
Democrats Balk at Trump Funding Offer; What’s in the Senate Bill
by Brandon Lee
01.22.19 Lawmakers have returned from the holiday weekend without much progress on ending the partial government shutdown, now in its 32nd day. President Donald Trump is offering protections for DACA immigrants, in exchange for wall funding and asylum limits on Central American minors, a proposal Democrats said they'll reject. Meanwhile, furloughed workers are about to miss their second paycheck. Here's what Bloomberg Government is tracking so far today. Asylum Limits in Bill to End Shutdown Anger Demo… Continue Reading
`Crumbling’ Schools Spur Democrats to Renew Infrastructure Push
by Emily Wilkins
01.22.19 Students at Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre enter their school building through a shed, a safety precaution in case part of the school's crumbling façade falls at the wrong moment. Two elementary schools closed in Arizona after the district found structural defects that could pose safety risks to students. And in Baltimore, students wore coats to class after heaters broke. Some schools didn't bother to open. "It's hard to educate people in schools that are crumbling," said Rep. Bob… Continue Reading
Special Report: The political battle behind the dismantling of a worker safety rule
by Julia Harte and Peter Eisler
01.22.19 NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (Reuters) - When Wardell Davis landed work with a Norfolk, Virginia, shipbuilding contractor in the fall of 2007, he felt lucky. Then 24 years old, with no high school diploma, Davis had for years bounced between part-time jobs. The contractor, he says, promised better pay for grueling labor: blasting the hulls of U.S. Navy ships with coarsely ground coal particles to remove rust and paint. He recalls the fog of dust created as workers fired the crushed coal - a residue from c… Continue Reading
Calls For Change Follow NPR/'Frontline' Black Lung Investigation
by Howard Berkes
01.22.19 Thousands of coal miners are dying from an advanced form of black lung disease, and federal regulators could have prevented it if they had paid closer attention to their own data. That's the conclusion of a joint NPR/Frontline investigation that aired last month and continues Tuesday night on PBS. The regulatory system that is supposed to protect coal miners from exposure to toxic silica dust failed to prevent dangerous exposures more than 21,000 times since 1986, according to data collected b… Continue Reading