GRASSLEY: Tomorrow I'm going to be announcing the formation of a new caucus on foster youth, which I'll chair with Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. So it will be a bipartisan leadership.
The purpose of the caucus is to focus attention on the needs of older kids who remain in foster care and young adults who have just aged out -- and that's, kind of, a term that we use for people that get to be, I think, over 21, age out of foster care -- and then are disconnected from support and stability of a permanent family that they had in foster care.
The issue challenging these young people, whether it's school attendance and the performance there or substance abuse; many lack a financial literacy; the issues of teen pregnancy, homelessness and juvenile delinquency -- they've come to my attention through my efforts to foster -- other efforts I've had on foster care and adoption, going back at least 12 years.
The statistics associated with young people who leave foster care system without a safe, permanent family are significant. One study found that 25 percent of foster care alumni who aged out -- and that happens between ages 18 and 21, depending on the state -- don't have a high school diploma or a GED. Over half of them experience some homelessness. And nearly 30 percent of them are incarcerated. They are less likely to be employed.
So our caucus that I'm forming will focus on this group. It will be an opportunity for current and former foster youth to have their voices heard. It'll be a way to make senators more aware of these issues, and a way to generate ideas for preventing and responding to the kind of negative outcomes that I've just described.
I intend to organize briefings for senators by think-tank experts, foster care coalitions, and other groups close to these kids and the issues they face. I intend to have the Senate caucus be a clearinghouse for up-to-date research and policy initiatives in the area of child welfare.
Going back to some of the things I've done in this area in the past, last year Congress passed and the president signed a bill I initiated to make major updates to foster care laws and dramatically increase adoption into permanent loving homes. The law also broke new ground establishing opportunities for states to extend care and helped aged-out kids, particularly with education and vocational training.
Monitoring the implementation of this law that I sponsored is another goal of mine in the new caucus.
Finally, and best of all, I'm going to have three young Iowans out here, and they've been in and out of foster care, and are actively involved in helping other kids who've aged out. These three are going to join me tomorrow, also with other supporters of this initiative, in an event to launch the caucus.
There's nothing like a real-life story that these kids'll tell, putting a face and a focus on the project, so I appreciate their involvement.
I'm ready for questions, and I'm going to start with Bret Hayworth.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
I wanted to see what you think should emerge out of the Copenhagen climate change conference.
GRASSLEY: Well, I think it'd be better if you'd ask me that question next Wednesday instead of this Wednesday, because I think the big thing -- well, there's two things about conferences like this. One, the heads of state are not coming in until Thursday, I believe. And another thing is, at conferences like this, the big things tend to always happen in the last midnight hour, the big agreements.
But I can tell you what I would want to come out of it, and it probably won't come out of it. But it would be China willing -- and the reason I say this about China is because they're the number one polluter of CO2, and then you've got the United States two and you've got India three and then you've got Indonesia four and probably Brazil in there someplace -- America and China being on the same level playing field of reducing pollution.
We should obviously expect China to be the number one polluter, to be doing as much as we're doing. And then that gives a level playing field for our economy so we don't lose more manufacturing to China.
QUESTION: Is there a certain limit level that you -- that you would throw out as a number that should -- that should be a target that should be enacted or (inaudible)...
GRASSLEY: No.
QUESTION: ... come out of this?
GRASSLEY: Well, there will be a target comes out, but it wouldn't be the specific number.
Ideally, according got to environmentalists, the ideal number is 350-something. I don't know whether that's trillion or tens of trillions or what -- but, anyway, 350 parts. And -- and I believe we're at something like 370 or 380 now, and if nothing happens, it goes up to 450 or something. But, anyway, just a level playing field between the United States and China.
QUESTION: I guess the question I'm asking is, is there a number that you personally could -- could support?
GRASSLEY: Oh, that's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is a level playing field for America and China.
And that can go two ways. China's already committed to slowing down its growth of putting more CO into the air. So either we go China's way or China comes our way.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Yes, now to Jim Boyd, WHO? Jim?
OK, let's go on to Tom Beaumont.
QUESTION: Senator, what's the long-term implication of Senator Lieberman's refusal to back the Senate health care bill, in your opinion?
GRASSLEY: No, he's now announced he's going to back it.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: Yes, and it's based on dropping Medicare and public option and going with something that's not defined yet. Ninety-nine senators, as far as I know, haven't seen any paper on just exactly how some process -- so this is something I'm trying to describe to you that -- that I think how it might work, but nobody has seen anything on paper.
Office of Personnel Management, separate from what they normally do on health care, which is for the 10,000 -- 9 million federal employees, retirees and family.
This agency would administer some sort of competitive program that at least two national -- through the private sector, two national programs would be approved for people to buy in to.
And I assume that's meant to be competition to all the other plans that are out there. So I don't know how it differs from a public option accept you got -- you don't have one public option, you've got at least two.
But, presumably, this has satisfied Lieberman; that he isn't going to go -- wouldn't go along with public option or wouldn't go along with age 55 for Medicare.
QUESTION: Then...
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Is there anything that you plan to do or can do to stop Guantanamo detainees from coming to the Thomson Correctional Facility?
GRASSLEY: Yes. Yes.
Well, not specifically going to Thomson. But, specifically, Congress has to pass a law for these people to be moved from Guantanamo, it's my understanding. And so I'd have an opportunity at that point to do things, like make speeches and vote.
QUESTION: And would you vote against -- I know you stated the position that you don't want them in the United States, but would you vote against -- I mean, is that the way you would vote?
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: Tim Rohwer?
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Senator, getting back to your opening comments on the foster care, I know, obviously, the caucus -- you're going to give a lot of ideas on the problems and everything, but just -- and your knowledge over the years. I mean, what are some of the -- you know, I mean, is it kind of overcrowding of these foster care facilities, lack of training by...
GRASSLEY: (inaudible)
QUESTION: ... adults that -- is it a concern?
GRASSLEY: OK. I think I would have to just make one minor change or inference in your question, and then I'll answer your question.
Foster care, I don't think -- except for maybe short periods of time -- doesn't involve what you might call an institution or a facility.
So you don't have staff of people set up to -- but -- so the staff that is involved with foster care is mostly absorbing who's a foster child and why are they a foster child and getting them out of what would be normally their birth home, I presume, or adopted home, and then finding a series of temporary homes.
And the major problem is this: that there tends to be an incentive -- and this is something we have made some progress in, in the last 10 or 12 years, but prior to those 10 or 12 years there was a lack of incentive for states to move people from foster care to adoption or back to the permanent home, because the longer people were in foster care, the more money the state got. So if they moved a person out of foster care into permanency, then, you know, the state lost a certain amount of money.
So it was never on -- it was always about money for the state; never about the needs of the child.
And so we've changed some of those incentives, and we've -- we've increased tremendously the amount of adoptions that are going on. Now, what I've learned from these kids is that, you know, when you -- when you meet with these kids, particularly people that are 13, 14, 15 years old, they say to me something like, you know, "What I want is a mom and dad." What they're really saying is they want permanency.
And when you're -- when you go from one foster home for a couple years to another foster home to another foster home, you never have that permanency and you never really have a loving mom and dad, regardless of how loving foster parents are. Because I'm not here to bad-mouth foster parents. They've got tremendous burden when they take these kids in.
So that's one problem, the incentives for permanency.
The other one is, even if they -- if they don't ever get permanency and then they do what you call age out -- and in my mind now I can't think of that, whether that's 18 or 21. But it's 18 or 21 depending on what state they're in. So anyway, at 18 or 21, or somewheres in between, they age out, and it's just like throwing them out in the street.
So what we tried to do in the bill a year ago is to have some -- some time to be on Medicaid for health care after you age out and then to get some sort of training: finish high school, college or vocational training, whatever might be their interest and their attribute.
So I guess to answer your question, one, to change the incentives and, number two, to make sure we help people go from foster care, where they haven't had permanency, transitioning into public life.
And another thing now, come to think of it, the bill that I'm referring to that I got passed last year, there was an incentive to allow other relatives that take people in -- in other words, maybe an aunt or an uncle or a grandma or something -- to give some help to them in -- in transitioning these people from -- after they get to be 18 or 21 into adult life.
Does that answer your question?
QUESTION: Yes.
Do you have just any rough figures on how many may be in Iowa?
GRASSLEY: Yes, we can get you an answer very definitively from Becky. We'll get back to you on that in a little while.
QUESTION: Sure.
GRASSLEY: Yes. And we can also give you some figures on increases in adoption, because I think we've made some progress in that area.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: Yes. Let's see, that's was Tim. We'll go to Mike Glover.
OK, I -- I've gone through the entire list. Does anybody have follow-up questions?
QUESTION: Senator?
GRASSLEY: Yes, who is this?
QUESTION: This is Bret Hayworth again.
GRASSLEY: Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: As long -- since we're relatively short here, this is, kind of, buried in our paper, but I wanted to get your impression.
The House had a voice vote yesterday to cut the volume on TV ads, and it looks like it could be something that's coming the Senate way. Do -- and basically, you had a few Congress -- members of Congress saying the ads -- commercials on television are just too loud.
Do you have impressions of that, and was that something you would support?
GRASSLEY: No, I don't think I would. I haven't studied it, so maybe I shouldn't tell you one way or the other until I've -- until I've studied it, but I can -- but I think, maybe, a better way to answer your question, so there's a legitimacy for what I said without having read that bill, first of all, that's Congress interfering in the marketplace.
And don't forget, in recent years, maybe over the last 10 or 15 years, there's been two or three Supreme Court cases where they've tended to give commercial speech the same freedom that -- that political speech has had under the First Amendment.
Another thing is, right now, in broadcasting and radio, and as you see, even in newspapers, with this recession, there's just a tremendous downturn in income coming into these businesses.
Well, you pass something like this and you're probably going to hurt the recession for media even to a greater extent.
Another issue that I've dealt with that's, kind of, unrelated to your question, but there have been -- I've cast votes that they've tried to limit the tax deductibility of certain advertisement, and I voted against that.
So with that background then, it, kind of, gives you an idea how I would look at this piece of legislation without actually telling you how I would vote for it.
I'm surprised that it passed on a voice vote.
QUESTION: Yes.
GRASSLEY: I really am.
So maybe it's -- maybe, considering that, it might be less innocuous (ph) as what I originally thought. So let's just put me down instead of being against it, that I'm going to study it, but I come at it from the standpoint of these other positions I've expressed to you.
QUESTION: Not to belabor it, because it's not the heaviest topic in the world by any means, but there's a mention in this piece that a common complaint with the FCC is just how loud TV ads are. And I guess...
GRASSLEY: Oh, it's not about the length of TV...
QUESTION: No, no, I'm sorry, the volume.
GRASSLEY: Oh. Well...
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: And I guess I was looking for your personal impression. Do you...
GRASSLEY: Well, then, for anybody -- for anybody else that's listening and recording, erase everything I've told you.
QUESTION: Starting over. OK.
GRASSLEY: You're talking about the volume of it.
QUESTION: The volume.
GRASSLEY: Yes. I...
QUESTION: A common FCC complaint, and it (inaudible) a voice vote.
GRASSLEY: Yes. Yes.
QUESTION: And I'm curious what your impression is as you watch TV and if you would support it.
GRASSLEY: Well, I might. I might. I'm not going to say I will. But it's something that's enticing to me to support.
And based on the proposition that since I control the channel switcher in my house, I get -- I get tired of my wife's telling me every time a commercial comes on to turn it down.
QUESTION: So that's something that you and your wife both agree on, that they are...
(CROSSTALK)
GRASSLEY: Yes. Yes. Yes.
QUESTION: OK. OK.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: One quick follow-up: How is it that Barbara allows you the authority over the remote control?
GRASSLEY: Well, it's -- it's difficult. It's because I can move faster than she can.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: You bet.
OK. Who else? Is that everybody?
OK. Thank you.
END