Nancy Kassebaum: “I wish also to speak as chairman of an authorizing committee, the Labor and Human Resources Committee, about my…”

“I wish also to speak as chairman of an authorizing committee, the Labor and Human Resources Committee, about my frustration that we cannot act on a piece of legislation I think is very important. It deals with job training reform. It is called the Work Force and Career Development Act. Numerous hearings have been held on this bill over the past 2 years of the 104th Congress. It passed the Senate with only two dissenting votes. It passed the House. And now we have on the calendar a conference report. It is enormously disappointing to me that in the final days of the 104th Congress we are subject to dilatory tactics, and if legislation is not going to be called up today, or at the latest Monday, there is no hope of it succeeding. So I would like to speak for a moment, before this legislation will be put in the dust bin of the 104th Congress, on the need for major job training reform. I would like to speak on why I believe it was so important for us to have been able to consider this legislation and my disappointment that it cannot be brought forward. The legislation would have reformed our job training and training-related programs. There is no doubt that the current maze of training programs is woefully inadequate to address the very real and immediate needs of workers for training and education.”