Barbara Mikulski: “I want to first and foremost express my thanks to the chairman, and his colleagues, for this bipartisan bill--a long…”

“I want to first and foremost express my thanks to the chairman, and his colleagues, for this bipartisan bill--a long overdue effort that clearly is the result of a painstaking, patient effort by the committee to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant. I wanted to discuss very quickly one provision, section 8(b), that I feel needs additional clarification. Given that the overall priority of all of us to increase quality while ensuring that States can effectively navigate the federal standards--while maintaining their authority to set their own standards--would the Senator agree that the intent of this law is not to rewrite other existing Federal laws or evade requirements of other Federal laws that might diminish services for children?”