John Tierney: “Thank you very much. I understand that much in the manager's amendment is technical and clarifying corrections, but it…”

“Thank you very much. I understand that much in the manager's amendment is technical and clarifying corrections, but it does make one notable substantive change to the underlying bill as it pertains to the designation of local workforce investment areas. Current law calls for automatic designation of a local workforce area with a population of 500,000 or more. It also ensures that the voices of local elected officials, businesses, and workforce development officials, among others, are heard. That's a good thing. Now, the underlying bill--the so-called SKILLS Act--radically changed this. It repealed the automatic designation that I just mentioned, and it essentially empowered the Governor to designate an entire State as one local workforce area if that Governor chose to do so. This is not viewed as sound policy. Two days ago, the Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Workforce Boards sent a letter to the House leadership that expressed concerns with this particular provision. Specifically, they wrote: H.R. 803 undermines existing governance structures by virtually eliminating the input of local elected officials in the decisionmaking process. They also said: H.R.…”