To make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1777) to make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days during which Members may revise and extend and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1777 into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H.R. 1777, a bill to make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act.

Last year we enacted the first reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 10 years. As the administration has moved swiftly to implement the new law, embarking on a new round of negotiated rulemaking, we have identified areas of the law needing technical corrections or clarifications that require our action today.

While many of the provisions of this bill make minor corrections, there are several amendments included in H.R. 1777 that are of particular importance because of the profound impact that they will have on students and families.

I would like to highlight three areas that deserve special attention, Mr. Speaker.

First, H.R. 1777 will head off a looming logjam in the PLUS Loan Program for parents. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act included a program to pilot using an auction mechanism for setting the rate of return for lenders in the PLUS Loan Program for parents. The auction is scheduled to go into effect this year. Given our fiscal climate, there is concern that there will not be enough bidders to hold the auction. This means that families accepting parent loans in their financial aid packages cannot complete the applications until the lenders are identified through the auction process. H.R. 1777 will delay the auction for another year, thereby ensuring that parents face no delay in the application process for PLUS Loans due to the uncertainty surrounding bids.

H.R. 1777 also makes two important changes to ensure that veterans get the full amount of educational assistance that Congress intended. This legislation clarifies that GI Bill benefits are to be exempted for consideration in calculating eligibility for student financial aid. Additionally, it ensures that this exemption is in place for the upcoming academic year.

Finally, H.R. 1777 will ensure that the Federal Government keeps its promise to borrowers who seek to rehabilitate their student loans. In the Higher Education Act, Congress provided an avenue for borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans to restore their credit and to rehabilitate their defaulted loans.

After nine on-time payments, a borrower in default may rehabilitate the loan and may clean up his credit rating. This policy is a win-win. It helps borrowers establish regular payment histories, and it restores their credit while helping the Federal Government collect unpaid student loans.

Guaranty agencies, such as the Texas Guaranty Student Loan Corporation in my own home State of Texas, have been working diligently with defaulted borrowers to help them restore their credit and to return their loans to good standing. Unfortunately, the last step in the rehabilitation process occurs when the guaranty agency sells the rehabilitated loan to a lender. Because of our financial crisis, there are no buyers for these loans. This means that, despite doing everything that was required of them, borrowers cannot get the benefit of rehabilitating their loans.

This legislation will fix that problem by allowing guaranty agencies to assign or to sell loans that meet the rehabilitation requirements to the Department of Education. This bill also ensures that the record of default is removed from the borrower's credit rating.

According to the Department of Education, without this change this year, approximately 160,000 borrowers will be denied the rehabilitation benefits that they have earned. Last month alone, Texas estimates that over 4,500 borrowers met the rehabilitation requirements but could not complete the process because of the lack of a lender. Today, 19 of the 35 guaranty agencies report having no lender willing or able to buy rehabilitation loans. These include our largest agencies that serve Texas, that serve California, New York, Florida, Illinois, and many other States.

We made a commitment to these borrowers, telling them that, if they stepped up and made the on-time payments, the Federal Government would help them restore their credit. We must keep that commitment by passing

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman from Kentucky if he has any further speakers.

In that case, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, and I thank Ranking Member Guthrie for yielding the time.

Last August, President Bush signed into law the first comprehensive renewal in a decade of the Federal higher education programs. That legislation was a product of years of effort by both Republicans and Democrats. It was and is a good product, but as the implementation of the law has gone forward, it has become clear that minor technical changes are needed to ensure a smooth transition process. We are making those changes today. As we address these minor changes, we also need to act quickly to correct two major challenges in the Federal student loan programs.

The first challenge is a byproduct of the global credit crisis. Student loan borrowers, like many Americans in this struggling economy, can sometimes fall behind on their bills. Before they fall behind, the Higher Education Act helps borrowers through loan deferments, forbearances and income-contingent or income-based repayment. For those borrowers who have defaulted, it provides a process for loan rehabilitation. Student loan borrowers who have defaulted can rebuild their credit and can get their loans back in good standing by making nine on-time payments. At the end of the process, the loan is sold to a lender, and a borrower's credit is wiped clean. Unfortunately, the global credit crunch has prevented many student loan lenders from being able to repurchase these rehabilitated loans, and when these loans are not purchased, the borrower's credit is not restored.

With this legislation, we are incorporating rehabilitated loans into the emergency student loan liquidity measures enacted last year. It is a simple fix that will get credit flowing and that will help borrowers who are doing their best to get their credit back in good standing and make good on the loans they owe. These borrowers have done the right thing by getting themselves back on track. They should not be denied an opportunity to clean up their credit simply because of the current economic situation.

The second change we are making is just as urgent, and truth be told, it is one that could have been avoided. I am speaking not of a byproduct of a short-circuited credit market but, rather, of the inevitable product of shortsighted policy. Two-and-half years ago, the majority wrung billions from the Federal student loan program in order to make good on a campaign promise of higher Pell Grant funding and of lower student loan interest rates. These were laudable goals, to be sure, but those of us who have been here for a long time

know that a good sound bite does not always make for good policy. Such is the case here.

In order to pay for these particular campaign promises, at least temporarily, for parents of college students, the majority replaced a functioning lending system with an untested, highly controversial auction scheme. At the time, we warned that an auction would undercut loan accessibility for parents. We warned that the U.S. Department of Education was ill-equipped to implement such a complex and convoluted system. We warned that lenders were unlikely to participate in such a system and that, if they did, only a few were likely to bid, giving them near-monopoly control of the market. I wish it were not the case, but unfortunately, our worst predictions are coming true.

Several large lenders are choosing not to participate in this troubled initiative. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators has weighed in with serious concerns. Financial aid administrators will soon be assembling financial aid packages for the coming academic year, and NASFAA warns that current economic conditions could cause the pilot program to harm parent borrowers.

If the Department were to move forward, the few willing participants would be a virtual monopoly, and with so few participants, they may not be able to handle all of the loan volume necessary to ensure that all parents who are eligible for loans actually receive them. We cannot allow this to happen, so we are postponing the auction for 1 year in order to ensure that parents will not fall victim to the shortsighted policy that was enacted just 2\1/2\ years ago.

I support this legislation because the changes are necessary, but I hope this will serve as a lesson in going forward. Undercutting a successful, longstanding student loan program in order to achieve political goals was not a good idea in 2006, and it is not a good idea today.

I rise in support of this legislation, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The House easily passed this bill under suspension at the end of March and, as often happens with the legislative process, when it went to the Senate, a few changes were made. Therefore, we are here again today simply to give final approval to a bill we have already supported, and rightfully so.

The primary purpose of this legislation is to make technical changes to ensure smooth implementation of the bipartisan higher education reforms enacted last year. Second, it addresses a pressing issue facing the Federal student loan programs. And third, the legislation includes a provision to assist students who have lost a parent to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The technical corrections are just that, clarifications needed to ensure that the first comprehensive renewal of higher education programs in a decade can be put into place as Congress intended. The legislation will also help student loan borrowers who have fallen behind to rebuild their damaged credit by making these loans eligible for emergency liquidity measures enacted last fall. It's a simple change that will make a real difference for borrowers who are just trying to do the right thing by restarting regular payments on their Federal student loans.

The other change we are making in this bill is also important for a different set of students, students who have suffered a terrible loss but who have continued to move forward to achieve a postsecondary education. And I'm talking about the students who have lost a parent due to the military action taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Higher Education Act reauthorization bill that was passed by this body last Congress included a provision that would allow Pell-eligible students to automatically receive the maximum Pell Grant if one of their parents died as a result of their military service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The legislation before us today extends a similar benefit to students who may fall outside of the income limits placed on the Pell Grant program but who have also suffered the same type of loss.

Under this legislation, all students who have lost a soldier-parent as a direct result of fighting in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will be eligible for a grant. The parents of these students have given their lives in service to our country.

A college student who loses a parent in the war loses so much more than we can fathom. These students will not have their parent around to move into their first dorm room or hear complaints about cafeteria food. They will not have their parent's consolation and encouragement to continue even after a poor test grade or a difficult professor. Of course, these students who lose a parent in Iraq or Afghanistan will not have the financial support of their parent in this time of rising college costs and economic uncertainty.

While this legislation does not provide students with the same type of support a parent could provide, I hope it will ease the financial burden of paying for college just a little bit.

The legislation before us easily passed the House once. I hope for a similar result again, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the

Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 1777) to make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which Members may revise and extend and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1777 into the Record.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1777, a bill to make technical corrections to H.R. 4137, which is the Higher Education Act.

Mr. Speaker, the House originally passed this legislation on March 30, 2009. This is a revised version from the Senate. The Senate made additional conforming and technical changes, including a scholarship program for students whose parent or guardian was a member of the Armed Forces of the United States and died as a result of performing military service in Iraq or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, clarifying the ``experimental site'' authority at the Department of Education. Let me explain some of these changes.

Currently, borrowers may rehabilitate their defaulted Federal student loans by making nine on-time payments. Once they meet this threshold, the guaranty agency may sell the loan to a lender, which results in the default being removed from the borrowers' credit reports.

Mr. Speaker, because of the current credit crunch, guaranty agencies have been unable to find lenders for these loans. The bill amends the loan to allow those loans qualified for rehabilitation to be assigned to the Department of Education for this purpose.

The bill makes three changes to the exemption of veterans' assistance in the calculation of the Federal financial aid. The first is to clarify that assistance under the Montgomery GI Bill is included in exempted veterans' benefits, and the second is to move the date of the exemption of veterans' benefits from the calculation of the estimated financial assistance from July 1, 2010, to July 1, 2009.

The third change is to provide scholarships in the amount of the maximum Pell Grant award to students whose parent or guardian was a member of the Armed Forces of the United States and died as a result of performing military service in Iraq or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.

The bill ensures the continuation of the Department of Education's ``experimental site'' program on existing campuses for another year and defines a successful program as one that reduces administrative cost and increases student services, without additional cost to the government.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our committee chairman, Representative George Miller from California, and our ranking member, John Kline, along with our ranking

member on the subcommittee, Representative Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, for expediting this legislation and helping us make these needed corrections in a bipartisan manner.

I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 1777.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I rise to submit to the Senate the first budget scorekeeping reports for the 2010 budget resolution. The reports, which cover fiscal years 2009 and 2010, were prepared by the Congressional Budget Office pursuant to section 308(b) and in aid of section 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended.

The reports show the effects of congressional action through June 23, 2009, and include the effects of P.L. 111-22, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009; P.L. 111-31, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act; H.R. 1777, an act to make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes, pending Presidential action; and H.R. 2346, the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009, pending Presidential action. The estimates of budget authority, outlays, and revenues are consistent with the technical and economic assumptions of S. Con. Res. 13, the 2010 budget resolution.

For 2009, the estimates show that current level spending is $942 million below the level provided for in the budget resolution for budget authority and $3.9 billion above it for outlays while current level revenues match the budget resolution level. For 2010, the estimates show that current level spending is $1,205.9 billion below the level provided for in the budget resolution for budget authority and $715.9 billion below it for outlays while current level revenues are $12.3 billion above the budget resolution level.

I ask unanimous consent to have the letters and accompanying tables from CBO printed in the Record.