Timothy Roemer: “I want to salute the gentlewoman from Connecticut, the gentleman from Michigan, and the gentleman from Florida for their…”

“I want to salute the gentlewoman from Connecticut, the gentleman from Michigan, and the gentleman from Florida for their hard work on this very important bill that I am an original cosponsor of. So often with legislation around this body, we scratch the surface of trying to solve problems. This bill goes to the heart and soul and potentially will save thousands of lives of our Nation's children. Right now, we have two major problems in our foster care system. Because of the 1980 law, oftentimes, we would reunite our children with their families only to find catastrophe to happen later on that week or that month when that child was abused again or hung in a bathroom and killed, and because of that 1980 law, reunification became something that was done in too many terrible instances resulting in catastrophic consequences for that child. This bill helps address that problem. The second problem is now we have too many children languishing in foster care situations. Five hundred thousand children in this Nation are in foster care. We need to develop a way to get them through a fairly judicious and compassionate yet efficient adoptive process. This bill helps do that.”