Ranking Member's Press

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 10 – Senate health committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today chaired the first in a series of hearings intended to solve problems with the federal government’s six-year-old, $30 billion program meant to encourage adoption of electronic health records at doctor’s offices and...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on the Department of Education’s announcement regarding its debt-relief plan for former Corinthian Colleges students: “Students have been hurt, but the department is establishing a...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 5 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) are seeking answers from Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell today, following news that at least six patients at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center received injections in April...

  WASHINGTON, D.C., June 3 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said that it is easier to pay for college than many think, noting that with federal grants, community college can be free for many students, and with state aid and federal loans, 4-year colleges can be affordable. “The question before us is, can you...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 1 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on the announcement of the requests for double-digit rate hikes by four Tennessee health insurance companies, recently submitted to the Tennessee Commissioner of Insurance for approval and posted on the Centers for...

* * *  “My top priority in Congress this year is to fix No Child Left Behind by restoring responsibility to states and local government, reversing the trend to a national school board and ending Washington’s Common Core mandate.” – Lamar Alexander  WASHINGTON, D.C., May 29, 2015 – U.S. Senator Lamar...

*** "Precision medicine—tailoring treatments and cures to individuals—has the potential to affect and improve the life of every American." –Lamar Alexander NASHVILLE, May 28 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today joined a special session of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 21 - Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) today announced several bipartisan, full committee staff working groups to address four major issues related to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act: “The Higher Education Act we see today—a...

*** “If colleges and universities have this incentive, it may not only help students make wiser decisions about borrowing, it could help reduce the cost of college -- thereby reducing debt.” –Lamar Alexander WASHINGTON, D.C., May 20 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said that giving colleges and...

“EEOC is spending too much time initiating lawsuits from investigations which were begun without any individual filing a complaint, and with a clear intention by the agency to achieve a maximum amount of publicity.” –Lamar Alexander   WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today told...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19 –U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate health committee, today praised the work of Tennessee and other federal, state, and local health department officials for their swift work that saved 124 lives and prevented thousands of additional infections, during the multistate fungal...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) led a bipartisan group of 32 senators in urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to provide clarity to businesses before requiring compliance with its final rule requiring chain restaurants and similar retail...

*** “I’ve seen over the last 30 years how our right-to-work law has attracted the auto industry to our state, created competitive industry, good jobs, helped families. … I’m very concerned that this request for briefs on law that has been settled for years suggests to me that the board is thinking about undermining a state...

WASHINGTON, May 13 – Nearly 8 million undergraduate students next year will see their student loan rates drop from 4.66 percent to 4.29 percent, saving borrowers millions of dollars in interest, according to senators who sponsored the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Angus King (I-Maine),...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 13 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate labor committee, led a group of 36 Senate Republicans today in a letter to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez requesting an extension of the comment period from 75 days to 120 days on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule to redefine...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), along with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) today introduced common sense sunshine reforms as a part of S. 1298 to help...

* * *  “Nothing used to make me madder as governor than to look up towards Washington and see some member of Congress coming up with a big idea, holding a press conference, passing a law, taking credit for some great leap forward in sending the bill to me as governor. Then the next thing I know, that congressman would be home in...

*** “We are concerned that federal agencies are increasingly using guidance that appears to create new requirements without the benefit of notice and comment but with the expectation that the public comply.” – Senators’ letter to agencies  WASHINGTON, D.C., May 7 – U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)...

Washington, D.C., May 6 – Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) along with 21 cosponsors, this week introduced a resolution congratulating the students, parents, teachers, and administrators of charter schools across the nation, expressing strong support for public charter schools and marking the 16th annual National...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said that the government has done a better job of collecting information from colleges and universities than it has in sharing that information with students, and suggested that the federal government should enable its dissemination, rather than try to do it...