Tom Harkin: “I am pleased to join with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers today in taking up the Workforce…”

“I am pleased to join with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers today in taking up the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act that is a reauthorization of what we always called the WIA bill, the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. As the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I can say we have worked on this bill, the one that we have here now, for 5 years. This is the first reauthorization since 2003 of the Workforce Investment Act. I especially express my appreciation to Senator Isakson, Senator Murray, and Senator Alexander for their great working relationship and sticking to it for all these years when we didn't know if we were ever going to make it. I see that our former ranking member Senator Enzi is here, who started with it when he was ranking member. I thank him also for all of his work to get to this point. What is that old saying? Slow cooking beats fast food any day. This is kind of slow cooking, home cooking. It took a while but some of these things do take time. They take time to work out and get ironed out. I understand that. But, again, I can't express my appreciation enough to my colleagues: Senator Isakson, Senator Enzi, Senator Murray, and Senator Alexander, for their stick-to-itiveness, never giving up, and making sure that we got to this point. I also thank my House colleagues who worked closely with us over the last several months: Representatives Kline, Miller, Foxx, and Hinojosa.…”