The Every Child Achieves Act, which is a bipartisan bill that would increase the responsibility of the states over educational policy and provide support to charter schools (see summary below), was debated by the Senate with seven pending amendments.

Passed:

Four bills were passed in total: The Veterans Identification Card Act of 2015, the United States-Jordan Cooperation Act of 2015, and the Land Management Workforce Flexibility Act were all passed by the House. The Department of the Interior Tribal Self-Governance Act was passed in the Senate. Only the Veterans Identification Card Act of 2015 received a recorded vote, which was unanimous (see summary below).

39 amendments to the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act were agreed to by the House. Eight were rejected. No amendments received a recorded vote.

Reported by Committee:

Five total bills were reported to Congress by committees. The Truth in Settlements Act (S. 1109), the E-Warranty Act (S. 1359), and a bill to authorize appropriations for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government were reported to the Senate (S. 1705). The 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) and the Veterans Information Modernization Act (H.R. 2256) were reported to the House.

Summaries:

The Every Child Achieves Act is a bipartisan educational policy reform bill that would expand state responsibility over schools, provide grants to charter schools, and reduce the federal test-based accountability system of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The bill was referred to the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, who issued this summary. The chairman of HELP, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), sponsored the bill. In his press release on July 8, Alexander explained that the bill would continue NCLB’s federal assessments of student learning, but would give states the authority to act based on those results. HELP ranking member Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) issued her own press release in support of the bill. The Senate started debate on the bill last Tuesday.

The Veterans Identification Card Act of 2015 has passed the House and Senate and will be sent to the President. It will require the department of Veterans Affairs to issue veteran identification cards upon request. These cards were serve in place of the current paper DD-214 forms. Bill sponsor Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL16) issued a press release following House passage of the bill.