Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 113 Part 3.djvu/474

 113 STAT. 1992 CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—APR. 15, 1999 as the "Act"), Congress found that improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. (2) In the Act, the Secretary of Education is instructed to make grants to States to assist them in providing special education and related services to children with disabilities. (3) The Act represents a commitment by the Federal Government to fund 40 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States. (4) The budget submitted by the President for fiscal year 2000 ignores the commitment by the Federal Government under the Act to fund special education and instead proposes the creation of new programs that limit the manner in which States may spend the limited Federal education dollars received. (5) The budget submitted by the President for fiscal year 2000 fails to increase funding for special education, and leaves States and localities with an enormous unfunded mandate to pay for growing special education costs. (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS. —I t is the sense of Congress that the budgetary levels in this concurrent resolution assume that part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.) should be fully funded at the originally promised level before any funds are appropriated for new education programs. Subtitle B—Sense of the House Provisions SEC. 311. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON THE COMMISSION ON INTER- NATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. (a) FINDINGS. — The House finds that— (1) persecution of individuals on the sole ground of their religious beliefs and practices occurs in countries around the world and affects millions of lives; (2) such persecution violates international norms of human rights, including those established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Helsinki Accords, and the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief; (3) such persecution is abhorrent to all Americans, and our very Nation was founded on the principle of the freedom to worship according to the dictates of our conscience; and (4) in 1998 Congress unanimously passed, and President Clinton signed into law, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which established the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to monitor facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom and authorized $3,000,000 to carry out the functions of the Commission for each of fiscal years 1999 and 2000. (b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE. — It is the sense of the House that— (1) this concurrent resolution assumes that $3,000,000 will be appropriated within function 150 for fiscal year 2000 for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to carry out its duties; and

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