Kaine Applauds Committee Passage of His Bipartisan Bills to Support Substance Use Disorder Recovery, Address Teacher Shortages, and More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, applauded the HELP Committee’s passage of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act and the Advancing Research in Education (AREA) Act. The bills, which now head to the Senate floor, include several provisions Kaine secured to support individuals recovering from substance use disorder and to strengthen education by addressing teacher shortages and more.

“I’m glad the HELP Committee has advanced the SUPPORT Act, which will provide support for those in recovery from substance use disorder, and the AREA Act, which will help collect the data we need to address issues facing our students and educators. The bills include provisions I’ve worked to secure, including support for peer support specialists, who play a crucial role in the recovery process, and resources to expand access to recovery programs. They also include improvements to our education data collection systems to help address teacher shortages. I look forward to working with my colleagues to bring these bills across the finish line.”

The SUPPORT Reauthorization Act will reauthorize and expand the SUPPORT Act of 2018, which expired in September of this year. The bill supports prevention, treatment, and recovery services for individuals with substance use disorder and mental health challenges. Kaine successfully secured the following provisions in the legislation:

• Supporting Peer Support Specialists: Includes provisions from Kaine’s bipartisan Providing Empathetic and Effective Recovery (PEER) Support Act, legislation to codify the Office of Recovery at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and help peer support specialists serving individuals recovering from a mental health condition or substance use disorder by removing barriers to certification and practice.
• Boosting Recovery Resources and Services: Includes bipartisan legislation Kaine cosponsored to reauthorize and expand the Building Communities of Recovery grant program, which provides resources for community-based organizations to develop and improve recovery services, including peer support, advocacy, education, employment assistance, and outreach to families and communities.
• Supporting People Living with Chronic Pain: Includes bipartisan legislation Kaine cosponsored to advance research and help clinicians and scientists more effectively study chronic pain conditions.

The AREA Act reauthorizes the Education Sciences Reform Act, which expired in 2008. The bill authorizes the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to conduct research and collect data on the U.S. education system, which policymakers, education leaders, teachers, parents, and researchers use to improve education outcomes for students. Kaine successfully secured the following provisions in the legislation:

• Addressing Teacher Shortages: Includes new requirements for collection of data on the teacher workforce, including recruitment, retention, and qualifications, to help local, state, and federal officials develop better solutions to address teacher shortages in different states or regions. These provisions are modeled off of Kaine’s Supporting Teaching and Learning through Better Data Act, legislation to help address teacher workforce shortages by strengthening data collection on the teacher workforce.
• Supporting Career and Technical Education (CTE): Includes bipartisan legislation Kaine cosponsored that would ensure federal education data and research incorporates CTE to help improve states’ career readiness programs, meets the needs of the economy, and expands a skilled workforce.
• Studying the Effects of Cellphones in Schools: Includes two amendments Kaine cosponsored that model provisions from his bipartisan Focus on Learning Act. The amendments allow the U.S. Department of Education to collect data on state and local policies about student smartphone use and study the impacts of smartphone use during instructional time on academic achievement and youth mental health. The study would also examine the impacts of policies schools have chosen to implement to restrict student cellphone use.
• Support for Training Grants for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), Including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Includes programs to expand pipelines and increase participation of researchers at HBCUs and other MSIs, including fellowships and early career grants, as well as technical assistance for recipients.

Today, Kaine also helped pass out of the HELP Committee the Screening for Communities to Receive Early and Equitable Needed Services (SCREENS) for Cancer Act to reauthorize the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP), which provides lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services to women with low income, are uninsured or underinsured, and who do not qualify for Medicaid, and the bipartisan Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, which will improve patients’ ability to access medication treatment for opioid use disorder by modernizing outdated rules, empowering board-certified physicians to prescribe methadone to patients, and allowing U.S. pharmacies to dispense methadone.   

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