by Mark H. Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

From the NATSAP Conference in San Diego

On Thursday morning we received a briefing by NATSAP’s government relations representative, Kristina Pisanelli. She both provided an update on the Miller bill as well as set the scene for the legislative landscape in DC.

Back in 2007 when the Miller bill was proposed, it contained a number of provisions that would have effectively closed therapeutic schools and programs. The most onerous provision would require programs to meet not only the laws of the state where they were located, but also all applicable laws for all the states from which current students permanently reside. This would have meant, for example that a program in Idaho might have to meet the laws of 32 individual states—a list that could change weekly.

That bill died with the 110th Congress. In January a new bill was introduced in the House and quickly passed the Education Committee and the House. THIS new version of the bill was greatly influenced by NATSAP’s legislative work, including the editing out of the provision noted above. Aspects of the new legislation are far more acceptable to NATSAP schools and programs, although it still creates a new government oversight that duplicates efforts already done by other agencies and in many states. It was this new version that was the subject of a debate at the IECA conference last fall.

NATSAP’s effort will now shift to the Senate, where no regulatory bill has yet to be introduced, although Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced an alternate bill. Hatch’s bill would create federal minimum guidelines but would leave the development of specific regulations and enforcement to the states rather than create a new level of federal bureaucracy. This is the approach that is supported by NATSAP. With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the newly installed chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is Tom Harkin of Iowa. A new bill would have to make it through Harkin’s committee and be approved by the Senate and reconciled with the House bill within a year.

Given the current legislative agenda: jobs, the economy, health care, terrorism, education, and more that were articulated during President Obama’s State of the Union address, it is unclear if the Senate will be able to tackle the issue of regulating therapeutic programs in this Congress.

It is also worth noting that with President Obama calling for a freeze in discretionary domestic spending, it may be less likely that the government would create a new bureaucracy as called for in the House version.

Prior to the start of this session, I had breakfast with a number of the members of IECA’s Special Needs Committee and we brainstormed the possibility of new PR initiatives. I look forward to sharing these after the matter has made its way through the committee and the IECA board.