Keep Student Loans Affordable Act of 2013

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week I led a bicameral delegation that visited the Syrian border with Turkey. What we witnessed on the ground highlighted the critical nature of events and the desperate need for American leadership and eventually a negotiated resolution to the Syrian civil war.

This civil war is now in its 29th month. More than 100,000 people have been killed, including at least 36,000 civilians, and 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes, fleeing for their lives as the chaos escalates. To describe this conflict as anything less than a regional disaster is to ignore the magnitude of its impact.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the violence has pushed over 400,000 refugees to Turkey, almost 500,000 refugees to Jordan, 160,000 to Iraq, 587,000 to Lebanon, and 88,000 refugees to Egypt--a stunning development. The people of Turkey and Jordan, including Prime Minister Erdogan and King Abdallah, should be specifically applauded for their generous support of these refugees.

I also point out there are now secure locations inside Syria where refugees can be housed within their own country.

There is noted international support to prevent the spillover of violence. At the request of the Turkish Government and in fulfillment of our NATO obligations, the U.S. Patriot missile batteries at Gaziantep are one example of efforts to deter the threat of ballistic missiles beyond the Syrian border. Additionally, the Dutch and Germans have deployed batteries to Turkey.

American troops are working diligently to strengthen our regional security and protect innocent lives in harm's way. Our delegation was able to meet and visit with troops in Gaziantep last week. These highly educated and motivated men and women are proudly serving American interests, and I commend them for their dedication to a critical mission.

Turkey must have the support it needs to defend its population and territory from the raging civil war next door. Without robust cooperation among NATO allies, the stability of this entire region is at risk.

During our visit to a refugee camp in the town of Killis near the Syrian-Turkish border, roughly 40 miles from Gaziantep, we saw firsthand the dire situation facing the countries that have accepted Syrian refugees and the challenges these individuals now face. At the refugee camp, our delegation met with a women's group, children in school, and with the elected camp council. Our conversations were insightful--and heartbreaking. Over and over, the same question emerged: Why aren't the Americans helping to bring down Asad? Why are the nations of the world allowing the slaughter of innocent people to continue? Is there no outrage over the displacement of more than 1.5 million people from their homes?

Frankly, these questions are very difficult to answer.

So far, the Obama administration has been reluctant to help in contrast to the aggressive military and humanitarian aid provided by some of our NATO allies such as Britain, France, and Turkey. I wish to emphasize: No one is asking for American boots on the ground. No one is asking President Obama to put troops in Syria. America is understandably war-weary from Iraq and Afghanistan, but our hesitation to provide adequate arms to the anti-Asad rebels is hard to justify, especially when multiple red lines have been crossed.

Those who share President Obama's reluctance to assist opposition forces point to the uncertainty surrounding those who might assume control of Syria if the rebels win. They ask: Which faction will emerge? The more moderate rebels under the Free Syrian Army or a radical Islamist band of opposition rebels?

While caution is definitely called for in this dangerous and volatile situation, our reluctance to act reminds me of Shakespeare's Hamlet who once observed that men ``rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of.''

I would remind Members--and the administration--that Hamlet's hand wringing and indecision ultimately led to his demise. In bowing to a fear of uncertainty and choosing disengagement, the implication is essentially that the world is somehow better off with a known quantity--even a known quantity in the person of Bashar al-Asad. I disagree.

Here are a few facts about the ``ills'' we know regarding the Syrian dictator known as Bashar al-Asad:

No. 1, Asad is supported by the extreme Islamist regime in Iran, with a supply of Iranian Revolutionary Guards to embolden his rampage.

No. 2, his grip on power has been serviced by Syria's client-state relationship with Russia, which continues to defend its military aid to him. President Vladimir Putin refused to join other nations at last month's G8 Summit in explicitly calling for an end to the Asad regime.

No. 3, Asad has tolerated--if not overseen--the killing of at least 36,000 civilians in his own country, and this is according to numbers from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. More than 3,000 of these have been women and more than 5,000 were under the age of 16.

No. 4, under Bashar al-Asad's rule, the number of refugees has topped 1.7 million, with thousands more seeking safety every day.

No. 5, Bashar al-Asad has targeted the villages of his enemies in a merciless attempt to eradicate any who oppose him.

No. 6, following in his father's ruthless footsteps, he has shown that he is willing to use every tool at his disposal to hang on to power, and that includes the use of chemical weapons, a development President Obama once called a red line, as well as rocket attacks on his own people.

No. 7, we have every reason to conclude that Bashar al-Asad is a calculating strategist and student of history who has learned from what he views as the mistakes of Iraq's Saddam Hussein or Libya's Muammar Qadhafi.

With Russian and Iranian assistance and arms, Asad has succeeded in stopping the momentum of the rebels. But with sufficient military support, the pendulum can, in fact, swing back toward the rebels.

I strongly disagree with those who suggest that the opposition rebels could somehow turn out to be worse than the nightmare that has unfolded.

Increasing America's assistance to Syrian rebels, short of boots on the ground, must be decisive and strategic in order to be effective. That does not mean we send arms freely to all rebels. I challenge the notion that in sending military aid, we forfeit the authority to choose which rebel leaders to support. I would also point out to Members that both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that within the administration, they argued in favor of arming the rebels.

General Salim Idris, chief of staff of the U.S.-backed Supreme Military Council, has emerged as anything but a

radical Islamist in presiding over the armed opposition and serving as a conduit for military aid. A New York Times profile described him as ``soft-spoken and humble compared with many military men.'' He defected from the Syrian military after an attack on his village last year--the same village where he and his eight siblings were raised by a grain farmer.

In a recent letter to the United Nations Security Council, General Idris's pleas for the Syrian people were clear and simple: ``Syria should not be allowed to become the Rwanda of the 21st century.''

As I emphasized when speaking with Syrian refugees at the camp in Killis, a negotiated settlement will ultimately require reconciliation by representatives of all factions of the Syrian society--Alawites, Sunni, Shia, and Christians. They must be prepared to negotiate with and eventually forgive their fellow Syrians who have made war against them. But I do not believe that can happen as long as Asad and his Russian and Iranian backers see the momentum going their way. Russia will never agree to back a meaningful peace negotiation if the Russian leadership thinks Asad can win outright. A leading-from-behind strategy will not expedite the overthrow of the Asad regime. There is still an urgent need for American leadership.

There is no peaceful future for the Syrian people if Asad remains in power--only one of more violence, oppression, and regional instability. Should he prevail, the impact could have drastic implications on America's national security interests, including the prospect of increased sectarian violence in the region, the rise of al-Qaida- affiliated groups in Syria, and the expansion of Iran's extremist influence. The United States must not shy away from our potential to make a meaningful difference.

Our Nation led an international coalition to act in Bosnia and Kosovo, and we did so with success. We did not do so, regrettably, in Rwanda--a mistake President Clinton has called his greatest regret.

I do not suggest that one visit to a refugee camp is by any means a comprehensive assessment of U.S. foreign policy in Syria. Military assistance would be fraught with difficulties, and it produces a host of conflicting viewpoints among people for whom I have great respect. But my visit to the refugee camps does have a profound effect, and my observations of what is happening on the ground certainly bring home the enormity of human suffering and devastation this conflict has caused.

Most of those unfairly caught in the crossfire just want to get on with their lives and protect their families. Instead, they have been forced from their homes and from their livelihoods--their entire way of life ripped apart by the bloodshed that no human should endure.

I invite the American press to visit Gaziantep and the refugee camps nearby. The American people are entitled to know what is happening to 1.7 million people. After more than 100,000 deaths, with so many people left without a home, we should not stand by as the horrors continue to mount. The administration's hesitation leaves the fate of Syria's war- torn people to a regime willing to kill and destroy to stay in power.

In summary, we know too much about Bashar al-Asad to maintain the status quo. Backed by Russia and Iran, he has overseen the massacre of innocent lives, boldly crossed red lines, and violently suppressed any who challenged him. To suggest we cannot do any better--that Asad is somehow more acceptable than the opposition forces--falls short of taking an honest, realistic look at what is happening.

The question now is not whether America puts boots on the ground. We should not and will not do that. The question is whether the administration will strengthen the capabilities of Asad's adversaries. The question is whether the administration will trade its reluctance for resolve and--like that of our NATO allies--respond with robust military aid. So far, efforts in Geneva have failed to bring about a consensus among major world powers that outlines a lasting political transition. Without changing the momentum back to the rebels, the current situation will not change, and the threat to regional stability and to American interests will continue.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield?

I thank the good Senator for working in such a bipartisan manner. I think this truly is a bipartisan bill.

This bill has been described as belonging to one party or the other, and that is wrong. Senator Burr, Senator Alexander, Senator Coburn, Senator King, Senator Carper, and I sat down and looked at how we could fix something. We looked at it from the standpoint that this deadline has hit. One year ago we extended it. They said it was the political atmosphere and we had to extend it. We knew that year would come and, similar to everything else that has happened here for the last 2 or 3 years, nothing gets done. We just said: Enough is enough. It has to be fixed, and if we want to fix it, to understand the program, we have to look at the whole program.

I think now they are making accusations that students are paying profits so we can pay down the debt. Whether there is profit built in depends on the accounting procedures used by our Federal Government. It was built in. You can blame whomever you want to blame, but it is built into it. We have to deal with the facts in front of us.

What I would ask the Senator, all of us have agreed in a bipartisan manner that no profit will be made on the backs of students, what we can determine through the bill we are working on, right?

So we have all come to that agreement--Democrats and Republicans--no profit in debt reduction. It should go to lowering the rate.

We agreed on that. We have agreed on a long-term fix, 10 years, rather than kicking it down the road another year, knowing another year will come and go and we are probably going to be standing here debating. That is the conclusion we have come to, which is different than what the House sent us. I applaud the Senator for working with us to put in a fixed rate.

So if it is at 3.66 this year and I am able to qualify and I am subsidized at $3,500 of a subsidized loan the taxpayer will be paying, that 3.66 is fixed for the full life of the loan. We agreed on that, correct?

So when they say it is a Republican bill or a Democratic bill, that is erroneous. That is not fair. This is truly a bipartisan effort, and we are working with all of our colleagues in my caucus--and I know the Senator is in his caucus--to understand that if I have a subsidized Stafford loan, that means the Federal Government--the taxpayers of this country--will pay my interest while I am in school, correct?

At the end of that, then I pick up whatever interest rate has accumulated while I was in school, and I take it from that day forward.

What I think a lot of our colleagues don't understand, I can't make it just on that $3,500. I have to borrow more money. So now, if I go with my colleagues on the Democratic side, if I borrow more money, I have to borrow that at 6.8 percent.

We were able, in a bipartisan way, to bring that to 3.66 percent for all undergraduates, correct?

So the money I would have to borrow, even though I qualify because of my income for a subsidized loan, I don't have to pay the interest on an annual basis. So by bringing it down to one low rate, I am making much lower payments. So that is less obligation and less hardship on me as a college student to make that lower payment than it would be to make that higher payment.

We want to help the subsidized, very poor kids. I might be poor, but I can't make it on just what you give me because I am poor. I have to have a little more help. Then, on top of that, I want to go to graduate school after I get my college degree. So then I am at 6.8 again. Ours brings it down to 5.21, which is more savings, which I know the Senator agrees to.

If I may ask my colleague from Tennessee, right now we know we have a

consolidated cap at 8.25 percent. Let's say I graduate and I went to school during the high recession times. At the end, I have an 8.75- percent accumulative interest I owe. I can cap that and consolidate at 8.25, correct?

I think what they are referring to--and I might have misunderstood, but I think I am accurate on this. Everyone will take the loans for the longest period of time, and I just got out of school so I want the smallest payment. Four or five years out I have a better job. Instead of paying $150 a month, I can afford to pay $300 or $400.

There is no penalty for me to shorten that, as it would be in a conventional market. Is that how the Senator understands it?

To both of my friends, let me say that I graduate from college--no matter what the interest rates are, no matter what they might have been--I graduate and economic times are tough. I find a job that is not what I think my value is, but I find a job at $40,000-- $40,000. I am married now, and I have a child or two. Don't we have in our bill a protection which has been in place for a long time--both Democrats and Republicans have supported this protection--which is called income-based repayment? By law, I can only pay 15 percent of my disposable income. I think that breaks down to my payment can only be $142. Isn't that a subsidy too? Wouldn't we be subsidizing that to an extent? I am also understanding that if my economic condition does not improve and that is all I pay, by the end of 25 years it is exonerated. I pay nothing. I am done.

Let me say very quickly--and I will use $10 million hypothetically that is borrowed every year--$10 billion, $10 million, whatever you want to use--25 percent of that money goes to the subsidized, just 25 percent. I understand that it is close to about 40 percent of the students who participate in borrowing money, but the volume of money is about 25 percent, one-fourth of the money that is loaned out. So if we are keeping the rates low on one-fourth of the money, that means we artificially have much higher rates on three- fourths of the money students need to get an education.

What we are saying is that we are going to bring a larger majority of that down to the lowest rate. We think it is a good policy that we should be discussing and talking about. That is where we are. That is why we came up with the plan we did, but we reduced all the rates. The PLUS loans I think went from 7.9 to 6.21, yes, and then the graduate loans went from 6.8 to 5.21.

But if you do all of the undergraduate, it would go from 3.4 to 3.66, a quarter and a point--.26.

Right. Right.

That was the bipartisan agreement we had. I appreciate that very much. Let me say, here is the last 10 years. If we would use the last 10 years, with the bipartisan bill kicked in, this is what the students who basically are paying the higher rate now--6.8 percent frozen--would have been able to take advantage of, the lower rates. They never got a chance to take advantage of the lower rates. All we are assuming is that if rates go up in 3 or 4 years, they are going to be paying higher rates. We never assume the market--that is the reason why you fluctuate with the market on the 10-year T-bill. This would have happened with the 10-year T-bill. Look how much lower they would have been paying in the last 10 years.

I know we can all use figures any way we want to use them, but the bottom line is that it is either going to be market--it has always been that before. There have been caps that have been much higher, and we are trying to find something that is affordable, but the bottom line is, do we try to protect the lowest rate?

Most undergraduates have the hardest times. Once you get your undergraduate degree, you have a much higher percentage of making it. If you want to get a graduate degree and a higher Ph.D. degree, you have a much better chance.

The bottom line is that we want to keep the rates low so that when students go out they are not burdened with the highest payments. We have a lot of protections built in that a lot of times are misunderstood and are not explained properly, and I am glad we are having this colloquy.

Yes.

I am not sure how the Senator voted on the extension a year ago. I voted for the extension a year ago.

I don't intend to vote on the extension again because we have not fixed it. By voting on this extension, what we are voting on is 3.4 percent just for the subsidized, and everybody will be at 6.8 percent, and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.

When my colleague is talking about that, the difference of savings between our bill--if we got a vote on our bill, which is a compromised, bipartisan bill, we would save close to $9 billion in

interest that students wouldn't have to pay. I believe we agree on that.

I think we are going to have a chance to vote on one bill, and that is about $2 billion. In West Virginia that is a lot of money in savings of $7 billion that students don't have to pay in interest, which is across the board for students who have subsidized and unsubsidized loans. That is the point we are trying to make, and we hope we get that through.

I know the Senator hopes, as I do, that we get a vote on this today.

I believe Senator Burr has the floor.

Was that for every student who was in college at that time no matter what their ranking or what service they had performed in the military or whether they had the GI bill?

Everybody in college during that period of time could borrow at the low rate of 2 percent with no interest at all?

Maybe Congress did a better job of getting its financial house in order than we have.

I have one question that I would like to ask in the spirit of a colloquy to my dear friend from Iowa. They are saying 1 year, and they are looking at the compromised, bipartisan bill we have worked on. In 3 or 4 years the rates may go up because market rates will change. If we are only looking at 1 year, is there anything prohibitive in our bill that we couldn't go back a year from now if we see a better solution? If we get an education bill, we can say: Hey, here is the grand bargain, which is better than what we thought we had.

Still yet, our bill saves $9 billion, and the bill my dear friends in my caucus support only saves $2 billion. If we only do it for 1 year, we help more people save more money, and then we can still rewrite another bill in 1 year. Are we able to do that?

If we look at it from year to year, we have 3.4 percent for the smallest group, 6.8 percent for everybody above that, and 7.9 percent for PLUS.

Under our bill, it is 3.66 percent for all undergraduates, and every rate comes down; correct?

So that is $9 billion versus $2 billion, and that is about as simple as I can make it.

I think what we are talking about also is that they are saying if it consolidates, it strings the payment out for the maximum of 30 years, which means they are paying a lot more back in interest; correct? That is the argument I have heard from different people. So that means, why would you have an automatic consolidation?

With that being said, I understand that with the government-run loan right now, there are no penalties for me. If I string it out to get the lowest payment for 30 years, and then I said I want to have 10 years, I can do that; correct? That is able to be done. So I can reduce that amount of time and amount of interest with my affordability to pay more.

Madam President, I wanted to speak in a little detail on another topic, and that is the direction we are going on the student loan crisis, I guess. It is a shame we have come to this. A year ago, I voted for the extension. We were told at that time that due to the political atmosphere, we had the big election year coming up, that we couldn't get into the details and fix it the way it maybe needed to be fixed and should have been fixed back then. So a lot of us went ahead and voted for the extension, and now we find ourselves in the same position this year as we were last year. There will be another election in 2014. So it seems as though we are always in an election cycle, and if we allow that to continue to direct what we do and how we do it, we would get little done here, which is what the public is getting frustrated with.

A few of us got together, myself, Senators Alexander, Carper, and King, and we decided maybe we could come together and work on something. There is no perfect fix for anything here, I have found, and this is complicated and confusing if you don't delve into it. So I started looking into it more this year than I had before.

I think a lot of our colleagues, and a lot of people in the country, believe the so-called ``doubling of the rates'' from 3.4 to 6.8 meant everybody's rates had doubled. First of all, there was just a small percentage of the loans we loaned out that were getting the advantage of the 3.4 if we extend it. Seventy-five percent of the loans--75 percent of the money out there--is at the higher rate of 6.8 or above.

I have tried to understand, the best I can, all the different aspects of the loans we have out there. We have the subsidized loans. Because of family income and participation someone is able to get a subsidized loan. What that means, if we break it down, is the first year you qualify for a subsidized loan you can borrow up to $3,500, and $3,500 in today's higher education world doesn't go very far. You are also allowed to borrow $2,000 of unsubsidized money, which means you would have been paying 3.4 percent on the $3,500 and 6.8 percent on the unsubsidized.

So as you can see, it is not all clear-cut. Then, in the second year, you can borrow $4,500 subsidized and $2,000 in unsubsidized; and then it goes to $5,500 and stays at $5,500 for the fourth year.

The thing that happens is the unsubsidized loans, if we are looking at the unsubsidized loans at 6.8 percent, they are staying. We have had some say it is better to leave it alone, do nothing. Let it go ahead and double at 6.8 and leave it where it is. We worked out a proposal along the lines of the President's proposal. Also, we had the so-called House Republican proposal.

Our proposal is much different. This is not a Republican or Democratic piece of legislation. It is a bipartisan piece. We looked at all aspects of what we have to deal with in today's market.

On July 1 the rates went up. If we are able to come to agreement this week or maybe the first of next week, we can retroactively bring those back so that when you go to school this fall you will know exactly what your rates will be. We came to a bipartisan agreement that those rates could be 3.66 percent, and that is for all undergraduates.

Now if you are getting a subsidized or unsubsidized loan, a 1-year extension goes from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Under our proposal, everything is at 3.66 percent. That will save about $9 billion this year in interest that students would be responsible for paying--$9 billion for the youth of this country trying to get a higher education. If we just do the 1-year extension, that is only a savings of $2 billion. So there is a $7 billion savings beyond what the 1-year extension would do. We are just dealing with the facts that we have in front of us.

So let's say you are going to a graduate unsubsidized Stafford loan, which many people in graduate school get. Right now, that is at 6.8 percent. Under our proposal, that goes to 5.21 percent.

If you have a PLUS loan--that is parents and graduate students--today you are paying 7.9 percent, and you have been paying 7.9 percent. Our bill takes that to 6.21 percent. You can see the savings.

Some might say, well, the interest rates will go up after 3 or 4 years, and then you will be at a higher rate. We put also, the same as in the law right now, an 8.25 percent cap. So if you borrow money this year at 3.66 percent, that is locked in for the life of the loan. That is what you pay for the money you borrow this year for the life of that loan. Now, next year it could be 4.5 percent. It could go up with inflation.

When I was in school, and later on, inflation kicked up to 16 or 17 percent. That is outrageous.

In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats have come to an agreement that we don't think the policy of this country should be that we should make a profit on the loans that students are receiving to educate themselves to have a better quality of life and opportunity. We have come to that agreement. That is not the bill we got from the House. They want to use profits to pay down debt.

Now, I understand there is a lot more that needs to be done on the profit end of it and how we get to the true cost. The Presiding Officer has been working hard on that, and I am willing to work with her. But the agreement we have in front of us today is that we are not going to make any profit that will go to debt reduction. If there is a so-called profit, it should go to reduce and give the lowest rate we could possibly offer. That is what we have agreed on. We agreed on fixing the rates for the life of the loan. That is not what came from the House.

So when I say it is a bipartisan bill, these are things we are agreeing on that make a better piece of legislation.

People might say: But 4 years from now it might go up higher than 6.9 percent. In the 3 or 4 years that we know we will have tremendous savings, there is a difference of $36 billion versus maybe $8 billion if you just keep extending 1 year at a time. A $2 billion savings here, a $9 billion savings here. It is not hard to do the math.

Then, talk about a comprehensive education bill, I pray to God that we can get a comprehensive education bill, but I am not sure the American public believes we are able to get any type of a consensus on any type of comprehensive bill.

When I first got here, they told me we were trying to get our financial house in order. Then we had the sequester coming at us. The sequester basically was a penalty we voted on, but no one ever thought we would let it get that Draconian, to the point we couldn't come to an agreement and we would have to have this type of a punishment put on ourselves. So we put a supercommittee together for the purpose of getting a superdeal so we could get our financial house in order. It wasn't that super. It didn't work.

So then the sequester kicked in and the Draconian cuts across the board. You don't run your life that way, your business that way, whether it is small or large. You don't cut everything. You have your priorities and necessities you have to maintain in your life on a daily basis. Then you have excesses you can do without. So you make adjustments and you pick and choose.

That is not working right now, and what is happening is people are suffering needlessly because we cannot come to an agreement to get our financial house in order, to find a budget that works for this country, to find a tax system that is fair and equitable that people believe in. We haven't been able to do that.

We are being told: Let's go ahead and extend the 3.4 percent for the smallest portion of the amount of loans that we loan out, and everyone else can pay the higher rate.

I am not willing to do that. I think we can do better. I think we are better than that--on both sides of the aisle. Chastising each other and saying one wants to raise rates and one is insensitive toward students, and it is a Republican or Democrat plan, doesn't fix anything around here. It hasn't since I have been here, and I don't think it is going to. It will if we put our country first. And we know one thing: By putting our country first, we put our students first.

Without educating the populous, we have nothing. We can't compete in the world of economics. We can't compete in the world of science and technology. We just can't.

The best investment we can make is in our youth. The best investment we can make is in education. We might buy a car and think that is a great investment. We might buy a piece of property or a house and think that is a great investment. The best investment we will ever make is in education. We want to make it as affordable and doable as humanly possible, and that is what we have worked on together, on a bipartisan basis. We are hoping we can find common ground.

We have talked about caps. The caps are inherently built in. Let's say you graduate, get a degree, and find a job that pays $40,000--which is not a lot in today's market for the money invested--and get married and have a child or two. With the system we have built in right now, you only pay 15 percent of your disposable income. That breaks down to about $142 a month that you will pay on your student loan to make it affordable. If you are not able to pay that off at the end of 25 years, it is exonerated and wiped out.

Pell grants. If a person is in need because of their income, they can get up to $5,645 a year free. Those are grants we give out, which are excellent, helping students who don't have an opportunity or chance, with any support from their family, to be able to get a higher education. We are doing an awful lot of things to help. The bottom line is that we have come to an agreement that it shouldn't be subsidized, there shouldn't be a profit made, and it should be affordable--and it has to run efficiently.

I think $36 billion in savings over 4 years is pretty substantial compared to us doing nothing. I also think those who say let the rates go up to 6.8 percent are misinformed. I don't think they have been told the facts or the truth.

What we are asking for is basically a level playing field, looking at what we can do that is positive, getting more groups to sit down and sincerely work toward what I think is going to be a good outcome and a good process.

Extending what we have doesn't work. Not being able to come together to make sure our loans are affordable is not acceptable. I think if we continue to strive to work toward finding a reasonable outcome, we will be able to succeed.

Tomorrow we will have a vote, and there will be more discussions about student loans. The bottom line is we want rates to come down for everybody. Every student in every category should have the benefit of the lower rates that are available to the public today.

Madam President, I yield the floor

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask I be permitted to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Madam President, I am here for my 38th weekly ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, and today I want to ask the question: What if?

What if climate change is real? What if the 30-plus gigatons of carbon pollution mankind is dumping into the atmosphere every year makes a difference? What if it is warming the planet and changing the weather? What if it is warming the seas and raising their level and making them more acidic? What then? What if this is serious?

What if this is serious and we are not? What if this is serious and we are sleepwalking when we should be awake? What if this is deadly serious and we are reckless when we should be responsible?

What if we are completely missing this moment in history? Winston Churchill talked about ``sharp agate points upon which . . . destiny turns.'' What if our destiny will turn based upon what we do about carbon? What if we have been warned? What if we have been thoroughly and convincingly and reliably warned? What if we have been warned by virtually every climate scientist--at least 95 percent of them--by the scientists who work for the United States of America at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, by the vast majority of scientific societies, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, among others?

I ask unanimous consent to have a letter from a great number of those organizations printed at the conclusion of my remarks.

What if we have been thoroughly and convincingly and reliably warned by thorough, convincing, and reliable scientists and have chosen instead to listen to the cranks and the polluters?

Let's play this out a bit. Foresight is supposed to be a capability of our species. What if it turns out the world will care about this? We Americans have held ourselves out as a beacon of light to other nations. We have proclaimed we are a shining city on a hill. What if that is true? What if President Clinton was right; that the power of our American example is, indeed, greater than any example of our power? What if Daniel Webster was right; that if the example of our great democratic experiment ever became an argument against that experiment, it would sound the knell of popular liberty throughout the world? What if our political and moral failure to address carbon pollution became, in fact, an argument against our American example, an argument against our American example punctuated by the exclamation points of local climate change happening right there in towns and barrios, hills and hamlets, on coasts and farms all around the world?

What if the world takes notice of that? What if the world takes notice of what is already happening all around them and takes notice of how we blew it at dealing with carbon pollution and, as a result, turns away from our great American experiment because of this conspicuous and consequential failure of American democratic governance and leadership?

Let's really push it here. What if Abraham Lincoln was right, was not just making it up when he said America was ``the last best hope of Earth.'' The last best hope of Earth. He was not alone. Thomas Jefferson too in his first inaugural said this American Government was ``the world's best hope.''

What if we are, indeed, the last best hope of Earth, a hope which it is up to each American generation to, as Lincoln said, ``nobly save or meanly lose''? What if we in this generation of Americans meanly lose such a measure of that American light and hope in the world? What if we, the children of the ``greatest generation,'' were to blunder into history as the ``vilest generation'' because we failed so badly at this plain and present duty?

In sum, what if the deniers, the mockers, and the scoffers are wrong? What if they are wrong? Someone has to be. There are two sides to this. What if it is the deniers and the scoffers and the mockers who are wrong? What if the evidence keeps piling up and the tide of public opinion keeps going out and the deniers are left stranded with their inadequacies plainly visible?

Please, let's look at the two sides. On the side of waking up and doing something about carbon pollution: the President of the United States of America, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and our military leaders, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of the Churches of Christ, and many faith groups and leaders. On the side of waking up: icons of our American corporate community, including GM, Ford, Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Apple, Walmart, and hundreds of others. Also on the side of waking up: the property casualty insurance and reinsurance industry and many in the electric utility industry and the vast majority of national scientific societies. In particular, I wish to mention the scientists at NASA who right now are driving an SUV- sized rover around on the surface of Mars. That might be an organization whose scientists actually know what they are talking about.

What if it turns out that the other side of the argument is actually phony?

What if it turns out that the other side of the argument is a few cranks, a lot of people and organizations on the payroll of the polluters, and a cynical propaganda campaign intended to mislead and deceive?

What if it is the argument that climate change is a hoax--which we hear around here--what if it is that argument that is the real hoax?

What if the so-called climategate scandal was no fraud at all, but the whipped-up allegations were the fraud and the so-called climategate was really climategate-gate?

What if that cynical, polluter-driven propaganda campaign is one of the biggest and most successful frauds ever perpetrated on the public-- a fraud that, when it is ultimately exposed for what it is, will change the way we think about political information and trust in corporations, just as my generation seeing the Cuyahoga River burn changed the way we thought about the environment?

What if the great climate denial fraud will stand in the annals of American scandal beside Watergate and Teapot Dome and the corruption leading up to the great crash of 1929 as a dark smear across the pages of our American history?

There was an iconic recruiting poster for World War I. I wish I had it with me, but I don't. It is a picture of a fellow sitting in his armchair with two little children, and they are asking him: ``Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?'' And he is looking sadly out at the viewer of the poster because clearly he had not done his part in the great war. That was the message of that poster--``Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?'' What if we have to be asked by our children and grandchildren, when they are studying this disgraceful episode in their history classes, ``Mommy, what did you do in the great climate fraud? Grandpa, what did you do in the great climate fraud?''

Why do I come every week to give these speeches? Because these questions stick in my craw. These are the questions that haunt me and that I can't shake. And upon the answer to these questions, to these what-ifs, the future may depend, destiny may turn. I have asked them today as questions, but many of the answers are already clear. Many of the answers are crystal clear. Many of the answers are so likely clear that no rational person would bet against them. And many of the answers carry stakes so high that they cry out for prudent choices to be made.

Many of the answers are crystal clear--as clear as measurement. For at least 800,000 years the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere held between 170 and 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide--for 800,000 years, always in that range. Now it is 400 parts per million and climbing. That is a measurement. Oceans are already 30 percent more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution and getting more so. That is a measurement. The winter water temperature of Narragansett Bay has risen 4 degrees since the 1960s. That is a measurement. Millions of acres of western pine forest, once protected by cold, have been ravaged by the pine beetle. That is a measurement. Thirteen of the past 15 years are among the hottest 15 years on record. That is a measurement. Being against science is one thing. Being against measurement, that takes us to a new extreme.

Many of the answers are so likely clear that no rational, prudent person would bet against them. The principle that carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere create a greenhouse effect that warms the planet goes back to the time of the American Civil War. It is firmly established science.

The head of the World Bank recently said, ``If you disagree with the science of human-caused climate change, you are not disagreeing that there is anthropogenic climate change; what you are disagreeing with is science itself.''

I submit that my denier colleagues in their own personal lives would never take the wild risks, the reckless risks they are asking us to take on carbon. If they went to 100 doctors and 95 or more of the doctors told them that their child or grandchild needed treatment and it was urgent, I doubt very much they would go with the three or four who didn't. In fact, it would probably be a matter for their State child welfare services if they ignored that kind of warning about the health of a child or a grandchild. But that is what they want us to do on carbon pollution.

Many of the answers carry stakes so high that they plead for prudent and rational choices. The downside is so deep that the balance has to be toward precaution if we are indeed a rational species. We are talking about fundamental changes in the habitability of our planet, with considerable human dislocation and disorder a likely result. We are talking about measurements of basic planetary conditions veering outside the entirety of human experience, to measurements whose antecedents are found only in geologic time and which we find there in the geologic record, associated with massive disruptions, upheavals, and die-offs.

The facts are clearly measured, the principles are solid and sound, and the stakes are very high. Yet we sleepwalk on the precipice, refusing to listen, refusing to speak of it, refusing to act when duty calls us to act. It is time to wake up--or perhaps I should say, what if it really is time to wake up and we are just missing it, sleepwalking on the lip of the precipice, listening to the lullabies of the polluters, and ignoring the facts and consequences that are plain to our sight and reason, plain in front of our faces? What then?

Madam President, let me commend Senator Stabenow, Senator Harkin, Senator Warren, Senator Franken, and Senator Hagan, particularly, who is the cosponsor of the legislation I have proposed.

My proposal would keep the student loan interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent while we deal with a very complicated and complex set of issues. It is not just the rate structure; it is the issue of providing appropriate incentives to control the costs of higher education. It is also the issue of refinancing existing debt and prospective debt so that this huge wall of debt, the avalanche of debt affecting college graduates and professional school graduates today, can be addressed. I don't think we can do that--because these are complicated programs--off the cuff, as we are attempting to do today or as we have been over the last several days.

It turns out that if we do not extend this rate for at least a year, but instead take up the so-called bipartisan proposal eventually rates will rise on students across the board. That is because the law now calls for a 6.8-percent rate for the Stafford subsidized and unsubsidized loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans--fixed rates--and in order to score this as a zero in terms of the Congressional Budget Office and deficit effects, we have to over that time make up all of that interest.

The proponents of the alternate approach are suggesting we will go with a lower rate now, but that simply means mathematically we will have to have higher rates in the future. The question of when that future arrives is a function of the way interest rates will be moving in the overall economy, and every indication is those interest rates will start rising, and perhaps quickly. The Federal Reserve has already indicated they are beginning to pull back on their quantitative easing, which means rates are likely to go up. We have seen a significant rise in the 10-year T-bill rate. Since May, it has gone up almost a full percentage point. So we are in a rising rate environment, and the other side proposes moving from a fixed rate to a floating rate, without an effective cap.

What we know is that--it might not be next year or the following year but relatively quickly--we could likely see and will likely see students paying higher than the 6.8-percent rate and, without a cap, it could be significantly higher.

If we adopt the proposal suggested by my colleagues--and they have been working with great energy and great sincerity to try to come to a solution--I am afraid we are going to ultimately end up seeing students paying much more, and that is not what we should be about.

We have a situation right now, even with the 3.4-percent rate that doubled to 6.8 percent on July 1, where the Federal Government is making about $50 billion this year, between the cost of funds and the repayments being made by students, so students have become profit centers for the Federal Government rather than, as I think the intention of the program was, that the Federal program was going to help students get through college so they can help us as productive workers in our economy.

It is projected that these Federal student loan programs between now and 2023, over a 10-year period, will make $184 billion for the Federal Government, in terms of the difference between what students are paying back

and the cost of borrowing from the government. So there is a lot we could do--but not in 24 hours--to redesign our program so students are not essentially being hammered with huge debts as we are benefiting profitably from those students.

The CBO estimates that under this Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act, between 2017 and 2023, students would pay an additional $37.8 billion more on their loans than they would under the current rate of 6.8 percent. This goes to my initial point. The first few years have been designed so interest rates will be lower than 6.8 percent. However, according to the CBO, between 2017 and 2023 they will be much higher--so if a person is a high school student right now, they are looking at paying a lot of money if they intend to go to college--about $37.8 billion more--because it all has to balance out to effectively generate as much revenue as a 6.8-percent interest rate, which is the current rate.

Students know that. That is why they have come to us and said, Listen, thanks, but no thanks. This short-run discount of a few years in terms of the interest rate, we know we might get the benefit if we have already started or are just finishing college. We definitely know that our younger brothers and sisters in high school and another generation of Americans will be paying for it.

So I don't think we should take that approach. I think what we have said is let's wait. We have a lot of work to do. We want to look at proposals that might actually align the real cost of Federal lending for a college education and the real charges we impose on students. Right now, my sense is what our colleagues have done in their bipartisan approach has been essentially to make sure the first few years look good--they are certainly less than 6.8 percent, close to 3.4 percent--but then they have to put in a rather arbitrary delta--an increase in costs--because at the end of the 10-year period they are going to have to make up all of the interest that would have been charged at 6.8 percent. I don't think that is the way to approach fundamental reform of college loans in this country.

There is another point I think is important to make as well, which is we have always either had a fixed rate or an adjustable rate with a cap on each loan program--a cap on subsidized Stafford loans, unsubsidized Stafford loans, and on PLUS loans for families. Now, in the bipartisan proposal, they don't have a cap. There is some discussion that if students consolidate loans, they will get an 8.25-percent cap. But consolidation can only take place after a student is in repayment. And before a student is in repayment, all of that interest on the unsubsidized Stafford loans and the PLUS loans is accumulating and being capitalized into what the student owes. So when the student consolidates, they have a much bigger principal to pay off. There might be a cap of 8.25 percent, but it is a much bigger principal. By the way, the loan is extended over a longer period of time, so they also have to pay for that longer extension of time.

That is not the cap we have had before in the context of these programs. It has been a cap on the individual loan, a cap on the subsidized loan and unsubsidized loan, and a cap on the PLUS loans. I think that is a major fault within the proposal we are seeing today.

The other issue, which goes to the index, is that a 10-year T-bill interest rate has been chosen. Typically, we have chosen a 91-day T- bill, and the 91-day T-bill is cheaper, frankly. We start off with a much lower index, which lowers what the student has to pay, and then we add other costs to it, including the discount estimate of default, and all of those things come up with the final rate. But we are going to a 10-year T-bill rate, which means students will be paying more relative to a 91-day T-bill rate. Again, I don't think that is what we want to do.

We want to take the time to try to address this whole set of issues, to do it in a thoughtful way, to understand that one of the big challenges we have is not just the issue of what rate but also how do we keep college costs in check. How do we provide the kind of education students need to be competitive in the workplace? How do we deal with the interaction between all of these different types of loans? How do we go ahead and--again, this might be one of the biggest challenges we face going forward--how do we somehow allow these students who are drowning in debt to effectively refinance these loans so they can buy homes, they can buy cars, they can participate in the economy? That is not included in this proposal.

Indeed, one of my concerns is with these rates locked in--and this is long-term legislation--we won't have the proper incentive to effectively deal with these issues; we will just let them slide along. I think that would be to our great detriment and, more importantly, to the detriment of families throughout the country.

There have been--and appropriately so--comments and criticism of this short-term approach. We should have fixed it last year. Well, we haven't fixed it, and I think we have to give ourselves the time to fix it.

There is the suggestion that we are dealing with a portion of the loans--the subsidized Stafford loans--and everybody else won't get a benefit. From the numbers we have seen from CBO, one thing is certain: In the last years of the other side's proposal, from at least 2017 to 2023, everyone--subsidized, unsubsidized, and PLUS loans--will be paying more. So the one conclusion we can draw, if we go to the alternative approach, is that eventually every borrower will be paying more.

Therefore, I very strongly urge that we move forward with this cloture vote to get on to the legislation. As Senator Harkin rightly pointed out, once we are on the legislation, it is open to amendment. At least we can debate the proposals from all of my colleagues that could improve or change or modify the underlying bill. But if we don't get to cloture, then we are not moving forward, and I think we should at least move forward.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, we are about to take this vote. It is vitally important. The proposal is very straightforward, to extend the interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent. It is fully paid for. It will allow us to work through a very complicated set of issues. It will allow us to avoid raising rates this year and work toward a proposal we hope will avoid rising rates in the future.

The alternative proposal eventually raises rates on every student, not immediately, but CBO indicates by at least 2017 the rates will be up.

This is on top of a huge cascade of student debt we have to deal with. In fact, one of the major issues we should deal with is how do we refinance the existing loans that are at high rates. Refinancing will be even more important if we were to enact the rising rates coming from the proposals on the other side.

I urge all of my colleagues to support cloture and move forward to debate this bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I understand it, the majority leader has just filed cloture on a bill that would keep us at a 3.4-percent student loan rate for Stafford loans, which impact about 7 million Americans, for a year. Am I correct on that?

That is a very important cloture motion. I hope we will move forward on this bill in a bipartisan way. As of now, student loan rates have doubled on Stafford loans. In my State of California, 550,000 Californians are facing a doubling of their student loans, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. I have asked my students to contact me and talk to me about their real-world stories and what it means to them to see a doubling of their student loan interest rate.

I will tell you they are more eloquent than I could ever be. They talk about how they look at their dreams and maybe they will become fantasy dreams. They talk about what it would be to believe you are in a ball and chain of student loan debt that is so large it overwhelms you.

In the name of those students and all the students across the country, I hope the majority leader's move to resolve this for at least a year and keep those loans at 3.4 percent--I hope that motion to proceed will go forward and that the bill itself will pass.

What are the alternatives? Every alternative I have heard from the Republicans leads to higher interest rates with no cap. I don't know if you remember the years that interest rates rose after a period of low rates, and they went up to 7, 8, 9, 10, double digits--12 percent. I remember those days. It is hard for our people to remember that, but those were crushing interest rates.

If we do not have a cap on student loan interest rates, we are facing a real problem in the future, a problem that is going to impact the quality of life of our families. We are already seeing the Fed put out statements saying the crush of the burden of student loans without these high interest rates is having an impact on our economic recovery. I have read stories of young people who were putting off marriage and having families because of the crush of student loan debt.

I am very pleased we are moving forward on this commonsense proposal to keep these rates at 3.4 percent. We offset the costs by closing tax loopholes that hardly affect anybody at all. It has to do with inheritance on a 401(k), and it will pay for this proposal.

I am very supportive of the immigration bill, but at the last minute my Republican friends came forward with an enormous proposal to build an even bigger fence and wider fence and stronger fence. I guess the song ``Don't Fence Me In''--it is an old song--doesn't apply anymore. We are going to be fenced in. The cost of that is $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. Surely we can find $4 billion for a year to make sure our students do not have to face a doubling of these rates.

McCarthy Nomination

I also come to the floor to speak about Gina McCarthy. For those people who have not followed this debate, Gina McCarthy has been nominated by President Obama to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. To me she is the poster child of bipartisanship and one of the best qualified candidates I have ever seen for this position.

She is experienced; she is smart; she understands the law; she understands energy; she understands everything she has to understand to undertake this job; she understands court decisions; she understands the health impacts of dirty air; she also understands that without a clean environment and a healthy environment we cannot have economic growth.

I often retell the story that when the walls came down in Eastern Europe, the air was so thick you could not even see the people. One of the first things they did is ask us how to clean up their air. We have made great strides, and we will continue to do that.

Yes, we have to face carbon pollution and the President is taking a stand to say he wants to preserve this planet and he is going to follow the signs. Some people have said: We do not like that. Therefore, maybe we should not vote for Gina McCarthy.

Can I just say this? The President has his policies, and you do not have to agree with them--or you can. I do. If you do not, that is fair. That is fine. But somebody has to run the Environmental Protection Agency. If you have a problem with those policies, you are going to have to go to someone who is intelligent and wise and bipartisan in nature to talk to, and Gina McCarthy is one of those people.

This is the second time Gina McCarthy has been nominated for a top position at the EPA. She was confirmed by the Senate for her current position, which is the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, without one ``no'' vote. Let me reiterate that. No one stood up and said no. Everyone supported her.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported out her nomination on May 16. It is July. This is the longest period that EPA has ever gone without an Administrator, and the full Senate should confirm this nominee as soon as possible.

When I say Gina McCarthy is the poster child for bipartisanship, I mean what I say. She has over three decades of public service at the local, State, and Federal levels. She has demonstrated a record of working with Republicans and Democrats. Let me just run through the Republicans: The Republican Governor of Connecticut Jodi Rell, four Republican Governors of Massachusetts, William Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, and Mitt Romney; and then a Democratic President, Barack Obama.

Let's look at what former Republican Governor Jane Swift said about Gina McCarthy in an opinion piece that ran in the Boston Globe. Remember, this is a former Republican Governor. She said:

Gina McCarthy . . . would bring competence, fairness and

bipartisanship to Washington. . . .

And:

McCarthy's track record of accomplishment and her

collaborative, pragmatic approach to policymaking are the

reason she enjoys such [strong] support.

This former Republican Governor goes on to say:

[T]he Senate has an immediate opportunity to strike a blow

for good government and bureaucratic competence by swiftly

approving McCarthy's nomination.

The title of Governor Swift's article in support of Gina reads, ``A qualified nominee for the EPA.'' This was written on May 23, 2013.

Christine Todd Whitman--we all know her, she was the former EPA Administrator, a Republican--called for a fair confirmation process.

You can look at 59 businesses, health officials, environmental organizations, scientists--they all support Gina McCarthy. For example, Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, said:

Ms. McCarthy has been a true champion for public health and

has consistently demonstrated her leadership in developing

sensible safeguards to protect the public's health from

pollution. . . . [She] is well respected by both the public

health community and industry and has a solid record of

working across the aisle with Democrats and Republicans. . .

.

That is a very strong statement. Then there is Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Here is an EPA Administrator nominee getting the support of the vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. That is a rarity. This is what she said:

She's a pragmatic policymaker. She has aspirational

environmental goals, but she accepts real-world economics.

That is why this nominee should be embraced by everyone. Yes, she has aspirational environmental goals for her grandchildren--someday when she has them--she wants them to breathe clean air and so on, drink clean water, but she understands the pragmatics that go into making policy. I believe Gina will lead the EPA to transparency, she will follow the science and the law, and, yes, she will be straight from the shoulder and she will tell Republicans and Democrats alike how she sees the issue; when we do not agree, how we can reach agreement. By the way, Gina has answered more than 1,000 questions from Republicans on the EPW employment.

The EPA has provided extensive information to Members of the Senate in connection with this nomination. This

is the longest the EPA has gone without an Administrator. How is this the right thing to do? This is the United States of America. This President deserves to have his people in place the same as a Republican President.

Gina McCarthy has a deep understanding that the health and safety of the American people and a growing economy go hand in hand. She will lead the EPA in a manner consistent with her past track record of success.

From my perspective, approving Gina McCarthy to head the EPA is a very important step toward helping the health of our children as well as future generations, and that is our most sacred obligation. We need her strong bipartisan approach to lead the EPA.

It is no great secret that in this last election both parties were fighting for the votes of women. It was a knockdown, drag-out battle. The Democrats won the women's vote, which helped to elect President Obama--by a lot. The Republicans said: You know what, we have to change, we have to reach out. This is their chance.

This woman deserves a promotion. There is nothing in her record that should make anyone fear her. She is a good woman and a hard-working person. She has won unanimous support from this body before, and there is no reason why we should not confirm her.

I am going to continue to speak out for Gina. I really do believe my colleagues are hearing the truth about Gina. I think they are getting the message that she is quite bipartisan. She has strong support in the business community as well as among scientists and others in the health community.

I am very hopeful, first of all, that there will not be a filibuster. This woman deserves an up-or-down vote. Secondly, my colleagues will think long and hard, and they will agree with so many Republican lawmakers and former Governors who served with Gina and will stand up and say: She is a good woman and deserves this promotion.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, I would like to talk about the Affordable Care Act. I have long been concerned that this is an act that simply won't work. I think the premise the bill was built around is a premise that won't work.

I know things like guaranteed insurance sound very popular--that you can get health insurance no matter what your health condition is--but the problem with getting insurance after the fact as one of the potentials is that it discourages getting insurance before the fact. Getting insurance after you are sick is like getting fire insurance after your house is on fire. You could probably get fire insurance after your house is on fire, but it would sure cost a lot more than it would have cost under what we would see as traditional insurance. So I have always thought that premise was a problem.

I have always thought the requirements in the bill that depend heavily on young people who are healthy buying insurance at higher rates than young people have ever looked at before--and remember, that is probably the biggest uninsured component in this society because young and healthy people think they are young and healthy, and the truth is that they normally are young and healthy, and they don't need insurance like many members of this body might need insurance because they just simply don't and they know it.

Frankly, now that the least likely to be healthy among us can't pay more than three times the most healthy--we have never had that requirement before--doesn't mean the cost of insurance goes down for unhealthy people as much as it means it goes up in cost for people who are healthy. And I think those young healthy people will be smart enough to figure out that it is probably not in their best interests, either their health or their finances, to buy the insurance they don't need rather than to have the ability later to buy insurance if it turns out they need it. It just never made much sense to me.

Meanwhile, as we see that happening, from insurers to doctors to employers, people are looking at this law and figuring out if this is a place where they still want to focus their energies. I met with a number of doctors this morning who talked about how doctors are selling their private practices to hospitals and how specialty doctors are not going into specialty medicine because the cost is too high for the reward they might get.

I have talked to employer after employer who said: We have done all we could to provide the insurance we have provided, but we can't meet these new benefits and still stay in business. And even more employers have said: We may not let anybody go who is a full-time employee, but in the future we are going to hire more part-time employees because we don't have to cover those part-time employees under the law.

Then, as people are leaving health care behind and they are leaving their obligation to help provide health care behind, they keep getting different messages from the Federal Government itself. Not too long ago the supporters of this act--and I have never been one of them, I will admit that right upfront--but the supporters of this act are saying we are going to stick with this, we are going to implement it, we are going to stay fully committed to it. But while we were gone last week, the administration announced that in fact--they did it on a blog post, which I suppose is a way to announce something that is as consequential as this. It certainly got a lot of attention. But the blog posting said the insurance reporting rules and penalties for employers would be delayed for another year.

Suddenly, one of the wheels on this bicycle is gone. The employer who was going to have to provide insurance or pay a penalty now does not have to do it. But apparently the individuals who are going to have to buy insurance for themselves, if it is not provided at work, have to.

At the same time the administration announced the income verification to have taxpayers help pay for a person's insurance would be waived. Remember, the income verification for any person or family at less than 400 percent of poverty--which is a pretty big number; it is around $90,000 for a family of 4--you get some taxpayer assistance to pay for your insurance. But now you do not even have to verify your income to get that. You can just say here is my income and whatever it is I want to have the taxpayer insurance based on what I believe my level of income would be that I am willing to tell you about.

Suddenly the money the Government is spending is going to people who are getting taxpayer-paid insurance. There is no penalty for people who do not provide insurance at work as the law requires. So, for a law I have had problems with all along, I have even more problems with it now. It is like: Never mind the employer mandate. Never mind the individual income verification to get taxpayer assistance. How could you take those two principles out of that law and expect it to be implemented in a fair way?

The new plan apparently is let the Government sign up as many new people as they can for government-assisted insurance. I understand why that might be the most popular aspect of this bill. One of the great principles of society and people is when somebody is giving you something you are usually more glad to get it than you are when somebody is taking something away from you. But in this case you are taking money away from taxpayers to give to individuals to pay for their insurance and not fulfilling the rest of the commitments of the bill.

The administration obviously believes that paying the bill will make an unpopular piece of legislation more popular. In fact, many of the administration's advocates are talking about how politically smart it is to put off the implementation of this bill for employer-based insurance until after the next election. You can hardly find a story about this without it talking about how shrewd it is, putting this off until people have voted one more time before they find out what is in it.

There were no real rules that came out until after the 2012 election, and then suddenly after the 2012 election, between then and the end of the year, there are 20,000 pages of rules, rules that nobody saw before election day, but suddenly the 20,000 pages of rules, 7\1/2\ feet high--7\1/2\ feet of rules that will be challenging to comply with but, more importantly, nobody saw them before the 2012 election--now nobody has to have a penalty as an employer until after the 2014 election.

I think I am getting to see a pattern develop here and the pattern is when people find out what is in this law they are not going to like it. If it was believed they were going to like it, I think we would be rushing to implement the law before the 2014 election, not after. I think we would be rushing to have the 20,000 pages of regulations out before the 2012 election, not after it. They had 3 years to get the regulations out before the 2012 election, 3 years, but they all come out after November. Now we are told we do not have time to implement this. It has been 3\1/2\ years since the bill was signed into law. If this is ever going to work, how much time is it going to take to implement it?

This is a determined effort to get further and further down what I think may be the wrong road before people find out what has happened to their insurance, before people know what has happened to their doctor, before people know what has happened to their health care. And when they find out, I think they are not going to like it.

Since the passage of the bill, the law has had 8 interim final rules, 3 final rules, 20 requests for comment, 21 proposed rules--according to the Wall Street Journal, 1 information collection request, 2 amendments to the interim final rules, 6 requests for information, and 1 frequently-asked-questions document.

The administration announced about a year ago that the long-term care provisions of the bill, the so-called CLASS Act, simply wouldn't work. I remember when this was before the committee in the House of Representatives, when it was said: Look, there is no way this can possibly work. The advocates said no, this is actually going to make money. But once the bill was signed into law and was out there for about a year, the Department of Health and Human Services said this long-term care thing was not going to work; even though it is in the law, we are not going to implement it.

Then they announced we are not going to have the small business exchange available in January 2015; it

will be at least another year for that. The very same week they said we are not going to have income verification, we are not going to have the employer mandate, there is another 606 or so pages of new rules and regulations. The rules and regulations seem to come out, but nobody seems to want to implement the law. There were 3\1/2\ years to get ready. Now they can't get ready until after the next election.

If employers should have a delay, so should individuals and so should families. In fact, I think what we should have is a permanent delay while we look for a plan that works, that can be implemented, that makes sense, that is based on good health care and good health care decisionmaking. I hope this Senate and this Congress and this administration will try to find a plan that works instead of constantly saying: You know, we are not ready to make this plan--which has been out there for 3\1/2\ years now--work and work to meet the needs of the American people.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last week our Nation celebrated America's Independence Day, and the Obama administration took advantage of the holiday to slip out a couple of announcements about its health care law. The first one came late one day as the media and most of the Nation were distracted by their plans for the Fourth of July. The administration finally had to admit to all of America that their health care law is unraveling before their eyes. Several months ago Senator Baucus predicted that the law was headed for what he called a train wreck, and last week we saw the train go off the rails. What happened was the Treasury Department put out a blog post, written by an assistant secretary late in the day on July 2, that said it would postpone the implementation of the employer mandate part of the health care law until 2015.

This was one of the signature parts of the President's health care law. Under the law, every employer with more than 50 people working 30 hours or more a week was going to have to offer expensive government- mandated health insurance. Now we have a 1-year delay of this extremely unpopular and damaging Washington mandate. Anytime you see the Obama administration leak news like that late in the day right before a holiday with the President out of the country, you can bet it is bad news for him and for them. Presidents do not delay things that are popular and that actually people want and like. When you see them try to hide it in a blog post, that is another sign. Here is what the New York Times said, front page:

Crucial mandate delayed a year for health law.

Large companies won't need to offer plans until 2015. GOP

seizes on shift.

The Washington Post ran a headline, page 1:

Health-care rule is delayed a year. A setback for Obama

law.

The Wall Street Journal said:

Health law penalties delayed.

The Obama administration has tried to hide its bad news, but it failed. It also tried to spin the collapse of one of the law's most important features as good news. But as we see it here, Washington Post, ``A setback for Obama law.''

The Treasury Department's blog post claimed it was implementing the law ``in a careful, thoughtful manner.'' If they were interested in careful and thoughtful, Washington Democrats never would have pushed through this reckless law in the first place, a law that many of them admit they never even read. Using that much Washington spin when it tries to sneak out bad news is another sure-fire sign that

the White House is trying to hide the train wreck. The President and his supporters have been bragging about this part of the law for years. Now here they are quietly dropping it for a year and pretending things are going well for the law.

What does this announcement mean? First of all, this is a clear admission that the President's health care law is unaffordable, unworkable, and unpopular. Second, it may be too late. Here is a headline from CNN Money yesterday. They wrote:

For Fatburger and others, Obamacare delay came too late.

The article says for many small businesses such as fast-foot franchises, they have already begun adjusting to the law's burdensome requirements. One business owner said the delay won't help his employees. He said:

All it's doing is causing confusion, anxiety, and the

workers are paying the price.

The workers are paying the price. Now the mandate's a

moving target. It's very, very challenging.

For a lot of businesses, the adjustments they had to make included cutting back workers' hours. Let's look at the latest employment numbers released last Friday. In June, the number of people working part time--these are people who actually want to work more--soared by over 322,000. There are now 8.2 million Americans working part-time jobs because their hours were cut back or because they could not find full-time work. Republicans have been warning this would happen because of the Democrats' health care law and that is exactly what has been happening for months now. The White House admitted as much when it said employers needed relief from the logistical mess the law created.

If the law makes it so bad for businesses that they can't handle it in 2014, I will tell you it is still going to be bad for them in 2015. If it is bad for employers, it is going to be bad for men and women on the street, the hard workers of America. When do they get relief? Will the administration now postpone the requirements that every man, woman, and child in America has to buy expensive government-mandated insurance? I hope they do. You can bet labor unions and other special interest groups are going to step up their lobbying to postpone the parts of the law that hurt them. Even the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is asking for a waiver from portions of the law.

Let me be clear. I think it is a good thing for employers that they will not have to face this job-killing mandate next year, but why should they have to face it at all? Is the Obama administration finally seeing the light on what a disaster it will be to implement or is it another gimmick? Well, as Ronald Reagan once said:

They only come around on your side when they want to get

their hands on your wallet.

This 1-year postponement is not a real solution. It is not designed to help job creators or taxpayers. It is designed to delay the train wreck until after the 2014 elections. This 1-year postponement, in my opinion, is a cynical political ploy to try to fool the voters one more time.

Don't just take my word for it, because CNBC asked Peter Orszag about it the other day. People know he headed President Obama's Office of Management and Budget in the President's first term. He was a big proponent and supporter of the law. He told CNBC that White House officials ``by definition,'' he said, thought that delaying the employer mandate would help them politically ``or they wouldn't have done it.''

``By definition,'' therefore, they thought it would help them ``or they wouldn't have done it.''

If they didn't expect it to help them politically, ``they wouldn't have done it.'' That is an incredible admission by a member of the Obama administration, his inside team. Just because the President thinks this is good for him politically doesn't mean it is good for the country.

On Friday, the Obama administration also tried to sneak out another admission that its health care law is not working. Remember, even though employers have another year before their mandate kicks in, all the people still have to buy expensive Washington-approved, Washington- mandated insurance and they have to do that by this upcoming January 1. To try to hide some of the costs, taxpayers are going to subsidize the higher premiums some people have to pay.

The Wall Street Journal just last Monday:

Insurance Costs Set For A Jolt. For the healthy, rates

could soar under new law.

Insurance Costs Set For A Jolt.

To try to hide some of the cost, taxpayers are going to subsidize the higher premiums some people would have to pay, but the prices are going to go up so high subsidies may cover some but not all. If someone wanted the subsidy, the government, of course, will have to verify those people deserve the subsidy.

Not anymore, because now, under the administration's new policy, buried away in 606 pages of regulations, on Friday, they said nobody is going to check those answers.

In an editorial yesterday, the Wall Street Journal called

these ``ObamaCare's liar subsidies.'' The paper agreed that

managing the law's rules and regulations was complicated:

``Yet,'' the editors of the Wall Street Journal wrote, ``this is the system Democrats installed when they passed the law, which is not supposed to be optional due to administrative incompetence.''

Administrative incompetence is exactly what this is. It is also a recipe for rampant waste, fraud, and abuse. And it is an abuse in the taxpayer subsidies.

I have criticized the complicated process the administration was setting up to verify people's subsidy applications. That is because I think it is a tremendous example of government overreach and because Washington bureaucrats at the IRS and other agencies have shown they can't be trusted with that kind of information. The solution now, apparently, is to scrap the verification system. We should be cutting the cost of insurance. That is what people wanted. That is why we had health care reform, to get down the cost of care, not driving up the costs, giving subsidies to a select few people and giving Washington more power to watch over the whole system. The American people do not need to put off the wreck until the train goes around one more bend. They want to stop the train wreck from happening at all.

The American people want more than a temporary delay of one part of this terrible health care law. They want a permanent repeal of the whole thing. Now that the Obama administration has admitted its law is too complicated and would have too many negative side effects, it is time for it to set aside the political games and do what is best for the country. It is time to repeal this bad law and replace it with health care reform that will work.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I move to proceed to Calendar No. 124, S. 1238, Senator Reed's student loan bill.

Madam President, following my remarks and those of my Republican counterpart, the time until 11 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half.

At 11 a.m. the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Jennifer Dorsey to be U.S. district judge for the District of Nevada. At noon there will be a rollcall vote on confirmation of the Dorsey nomination. I would add that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee has asked that we hold that vote open until 12:30 p.m. today because they are having a confirmation hearing on the new Director of the FBI, Mr. Comey. We will do that, and the vote will end at 12:30 p.m. rather than 12:15 p.m. or 12:20 p.m.

Following that vote, the Senate will recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for our weekly caucus meetings.

In America, this great country of ours, a quality education is the surest path to the American dream. When I was a boy, we always looked at that American dream as getting a college education, which, from where I came from, wasn't going to happen very often. Now the American dream is more than just getting an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree. It involves many other occupations, all of the things available in health care now, such as nursing, nursing assistants, all of the technicians, the people who do physical therapy--not physical therapists but people who help doctors do what they need to do. We have programs to become a physician's assistant. There are many programs that are important to be able to fulfill that American dream. There are all different kinds of programs for computer training separate and apart from getting a bachelor's degree. Those programs are extremely important. The reason they are important is we as Americans have decided that with the cost of education skyrocketing as it is, students should get some help, whether they are seeking a degree in engineering or getting into a program to begin some computer training to have jobs they want for the rest of their lives.

College has never been more expensive and further out of reach for American families. That is why it is critical that we keep interest rates low on Federal student loans so more promising students can realize their dream of an education.

Last month Republicans rejected the Democrats' plan to freeze student loan interest rates at current levels for 2 years without adding a penny to the deficit. Because of this obstruction, loan rates doubled on July 1, piling thousands of dollars more on debt that more than 7 million students owe. Republicans are instead pushing a plan to balance the budget on the backs of struggling students. But if either the legislation passed by House Republicans or the plan proposed by Senate Republicans becomes law, student loan rates will more than double over the

next few years as interest rates increase.

Speaker Boehner says that the House has acted and now the ball is in the Senate's court. We talked about that yesterday. What is he talking about--they have acted and now we should act? I guess we could talk about what they didn't do last year on the farm bill. I guess we could talk about what they didn't do last year on post offices. I guess we could talk about what they haven't done this year on the farm bill. We could talk about what they haven't done that is so devastating to small businesses around America, and that is having people who are online and don't build a single building, rent a single building--they get a different rate of return than do those in brick-and-mortar buildings. They do that because they don't have to pay sales tax. We could talk about why the Speaker is refusing to take up something that is meaningful.

As I say about this student loan issue--and I just had a meeting that ended a few minutes ago--if you can explain to me why these proposals the Republicans have are better than just having the rates double, please do that. But they go into all these gyrations about whether it is a T-bill, overnight T-bill, or 30 days or 6 months or--all this complicated stuff, and it is factual. I met with someone from the White House. I said, OK, tell me what happens in 3 years. The response was, oh, well, the rates will be above 6.8 percent. That is appalling. If someone can show me how all these programs they are coming up with are better than just letting things double, tell me.

We have a better proposal. Instead of pushing a plan to balance the budget on the backs of struggling students, I think we should support a plan that would be better for students, not worse for students. I repeat, we can't support a plan that would be worse for students than doing nothing at all.

They have to take action. The rising price of higher education means too many young people are deferring higher education. I hear all the stories. College education used to be cheaper. Well, because of what has happened here in Washington with the obstruction, we have to help people. There has been less support of higher education from the States. Tuition costs have risen significantly because of this. Students need help. We have to take action. The rising price of higher education means too many young people are deferring higher education, and it has saddled many who do get a degree with unsustainable debt-- debt that causes them to delay buying their first home, having children, or starting a business. Americans have more than $1 trillion in student loan debt. The average graduate owes more than $25,000. In fact, Americans have more student loan debt than credit card debt. They simply can't afford to pile on even more.

We are going to continue to fight to keep the student loan rates low and hold back the rising price of education. Tomorrow the Senate will vote on whether to even begin debate on our plan to keep loan rates low for an additional year.

I very much admire the work done by Senator Stabenow, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. She is someone who is very effective in conveying a message. She has led the message for Democrats as to why we shouldn't let these rates double, and she will continue to do that.

As I indicated earlier, we made a proposal to keep rates where they are for 2 years. We have made changes to our proposal in an effort to meet Republicans in the middle while protecting students. Our plan shortens the extension from 2 years to 1 year, and it doesn't add a penny to the debt.

I spoke with the chairman of the Finance Committee today. I said: Max, explain how we are paying for this. It is so simple. It is inherited IRAs, that people would pay after 5 years--they wouldn't get the tax deduction after 5 years. What our program does is it closes this obscure tax loophole that allows a few very wealthy individuals to avoid paying taxes on inherited retirement accounts. This is why Senator Baucus came up with this as a pay-for.

So I hope Senate Republicans won't block a second commonsense plan in investing in our economy by keeping college affordable. We have reduced it to 1 year from 2 years. It would be great if we had a long-term solution to this, but we can't do something that hurts students very quickly. Some have said: Well, it is going to be for a year or two, and there will be lower interest rates. Yes, but after that it will be ``Katy, bar the door.'' We all know interest rates are going to go up.

Dorsey Nomination

Before the lunch, as I have indicated, we will consider the nomination of Jennifer Dorsey to be U.S. district judge for the District of Nevada. She will be a valuable addition to the Federal court system. She is a Las Vegas native. Her father was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and after Vietnam decided that was where he wanted to make his home. He started his family there.

Ms. Dorsey graduated from Chaparral High School and graduated cum laude from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was also the first member of her family to graduate from college. She served as a congressional intern for my friend and former colleague Senator Richard Bryan. She attended Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was a member of the Pepperdine Law Review.

After graduation she returned to Las Vegas and excelled, first as an associate and now as a partner, at the firm Kemp, Jones & Coulthard, a longtime brave, proud Nevada law firm. She is the first and only female partner in that firm. She specialized in civil litigation, complex commercial disputes, appeals, and class actions.

I am very impressed with her dedication to the State of Nevada, her community, and the legal profession. She will make an outstanding Federal judge for Nevada. I look forward to her confirmation.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

I move to proceed to Calendar No. 124, S. 1238, the student loan bill offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island.

Mr. President, at 5 p.m. the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Gregory Phillips of Wyoming to be U.S. circuit judge for the Tenth Circuit. At 5:30 p.m. this evening there will be a rollcall vote on confirmation of the Phillips nomination.

Passing Bipartisan Legislation

I welcome back the Presiding Officer, the President pro tempore of the Senate. I hope he and all of my colleagues had a restful and productive week with the instate work that was done during the 10 days we were gone.

It was a pleasure to meet and spend time with my constituents in Nevada over the break and with my family. I had a wonderful time with my family. Four of my children were there--actually, five were there for a short period of time, all five of them. We had a wonderful Fourth of July at my son's home. Everyone was there--neighbors. There was a great party. My grandson set off the fireworks. I am not going to ask where he got them, but there were a lot of fireworks and there was a lot of fun. It was a real celebration.

Everywhere I went I saw immense enthusiasm for this historic bipartisan immigration reform bill we passed before the Fourth of July. Often I heard how pleased Nevadans were to finally see bipartisanship in the Senate. They saw bipartisanship blossom. This has happened far too rarely in recent years. Americans of all political stripes are united behind the need for commonsense reform. Even a large majority of Republicans believes immigration reform will be good for the economy and good for national security.

As everyone here knows, I don't often tout the accomplishments of President Bush--Bush No. 2--but I really appreciate what he did at the first public event at his new library in Texas. It was an event honoring into our country new immigrants to become citizens. After the event, the President spoke about the need for passing the Senate bill. When he was President, to his credit, he did everything he could to try to get it done, but Republicans would not follow the direction he felt we should go. Senate Republicans did follow that in the last vote. We had 68 votes, and 14 of my Republican colleagues voted with us. I appreciate that, and I appreciate what President Bush did to focus his attention on this again.

I appreciate all the groups around the country, from the chamber of commerce to other conservative groups, who are running paid advertisements on television saying they--the Republicans here in the House--should pass the legislation we passed here. The only Republicans who aren't yet convinced are in Washington in the House of Representatives. Republicans around the country believe it is important that we do this immigration reform legislation. As I indicated, 68 Senators voted for this historic reform, but our responsibility didn't end with that vote. It is our duty to convince our colleagues in the House that, yes, they should vote with us.

Bipartisan immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship makes economic sense as well as political sense. Unfortunately, over the last few weeks Speaker Boehner has taken a different route that is one of ignoring the needs of the American people. Rather than moving to the center and advancing a bill that would appeal to moderates on both sides of the Capitol, Speaker Boehner has repeatedly tried to pass legislation with only Republican votes.

The Hastert rule, named after a recent Republican Speaker--passing only

bills that have the support of the majority of the majority, the only thing they are going to let happen--doesn't work, and it is bad for the country. Any major legislation passed by the House of Representatives with only Republican votes has no hope of advancing here or being signed into law by the President.

I hope the Speaker has learned his lesson from recent high-profile failures of his shortsighted Hastert rule--post office, farm bill, online sales tax, immigration. Eventually he will be forced to take up the bill we passed here or the country will be left with no immigration reform at all, which will be a bad outcome.

The Speaker should dispense with the posturing and delay and do the right thing, and he should do it now. He should take up the Senate farm bill on which Chairman Stabenow worked so hard. They should pass that bill. They should take it up over there and pass it. Farmers are waiting, and all the nutrition groups around the country are waiting. He should do that right now.

He should take up the Senate immigration bill. I say that for the second or third time today. This measure--a farm bill that passed overwhelmingly on bipartisan votes in this Chamber--the passing of the farm bill would create jobs and reduce the debt by some $23 billion. And it is important to note that there are reforms both in the farm and food stamp programs without balancing the budget on the backs of hungry Americans. In fact, it goes a long way toward reducing our debt.

Passing the immigration bill would help 11 million people who are already contributing to our economy and our society to get right with the law. It would boost our economy and make our country safer, all the while reducing the deficit by about $1 trillion over the next two decades.

I remind the Speaker that there is no shame in passing bills that moderates from both parties can support. Americans want their elected officials to work together to fix the Nation's problems. This is what we did in the Senate. I promise the formula will work in the House of Representatives as well. The Speaker should try that.

Sticking to the Hastert rule has prevented the House from passing legislation to reform the ailing Postal Service. Postal reform passed over here on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. The Speaker refused to even consider it last Congress, didn't even take it up.

Sticking to the Hastert rule prevented the House from passing a measure that would give brick-and-mortar stores parity with online competitors. We passed that on a bipartisan vote. It is heartbreaking all over America. I see it in Nevada when I go by these strip malls and see places that, if they had the advantage of not having to pay sales tax--which is what happens online--they would be in business. They would go back into business if the sales tax would have to be paid by the people who sell their goods over the Internet. It is unfair. Why the Speaker doesn't take that up I don't know.

We already know that sticking to the Hastert rule prevented the House from passing a farm bill last month and last year.

This month sticking to the Hastert rule prevented the House from passing immigration reform that would become law.

Insisting on the Hastert rule also prevented Speaker Boehner from reaching across the aisle to find a sensible solution to our rising student loan interest rates. Right now, what they have done on the other side is worse for students than doing nothing at all. The legislation passed by the House would balance the budget on the backs of struggling students--would attempt to balance it, at least. The House legislation is worse for students than doing nothing at all. Under the House plan, as interest rates start to rise, student loan rates will rise with them. Soon loan rates will be more than double. I met with the White House, one of the President's assistants. I said: Tell me what happens in 3 years. He had to acknowledge that the rates would be well over 6.8 percent.

To find a responsible solution to the student loan issue and every other major issue facing this Congress, the Speaker should work with us and his Democratic colleagues in the House instead of against them. He should remember that the only way to pass meaningful legislation in either Chamber is to do so with votes from both reasonable Democrats and reasonable Republicans.

I am told the Speaker is going to come out with a statement today saying: We passed our student loan legislation. Now why can't the Senate pass it?

I repeat, the Speaker's student loan legislation that passed the House is worse than doing nothing. The Hastert rule has been bad for this country, and Speaker Boehner should get away from it.

Mr. President, on July 1, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans rose from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. This means for students across the country, the annual cost of their student loans will go up by as much as $1,000 a year. This makes no sense. The cost to the government is not 6.8 percent. In other words, the government will be making money on the student loans. That was never our intent, and that makes absolutely no sense.

I hear many of my colleagues talk about how we do not want to increase tax burdens on American families. Now we are taking our most vulnerable--students who need affordable higher education--and telling them they are going to have to pay more money for their student loans. And, by the way, the government is going to make money off of that? We have to do something about that.

Let me talk a little bit about the size of student loans today. Total student debt passed the $1 trillion mark last year. There is more debt in student loans than there is in credit cards in America. Sixty percent of the students must borrow money in order to afford a college education. Thirty-five percent of America's 35 million students are behind on their loan payments. This is an enormous problem, and on July 1 it became a more difficult burden for American families because of the higher interest rates.

Senator Harkin, the chairman of the education committee, is absolutely correct that we should take up a revision of how we charge students for loans and the availability of loans and the cost of education when we take up the Higher Education Act reauthorization. That committee will be taking it up shortly. But in the meantime, we should take action to prevent the increase in these student loans from going forward. That is why I am a cosponsor and urge my colleagues to support S. 1238, the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act of 2013. That act is pretty simple. It just says we are going to extend the 3.4 percent for another year. In other words, the government will not make that money off the backs of our students. I hope all of us would agree that we need to get that done now so the increased burden, the increased costs, and the unnecessary costs to students are avoided.

Now, because of our budget scoring rules, S. 1238 needed to be paid for. It is fully paid for. In other words, because current law would allow interest rates on subsidized loans to go up to 6.8 percent, to take it back to 3.4 percent, the budget scorekeepers say we have to pay the cost of that difference, even though the government would be making money at the 6.8 percent. So S. 1238 is fully paid for. We take a provision that the Senate Finance Committee has been looking at, known as the stretch IRAs that basically deal with inherited individual retirement accounts, and we require that those funds be taxed in a more timely way than they are today--a noncontroversial provision. It provides the money.

I must tell you that I do not necessarily agree that the 3.4-percent continuation should not be baselined. Why do I say that? I hear so many of my colleagues say, when we have a tax bill and we extend tax relief, that if we do not extend that tax relief, that is raising taxes on individuals. In other words, what they are saying is that the temporary tax relief is really baselined and that if we do not extend that, we are increasing taxes. Well, here, for students, the 3.4 percent was the law. Why now, just extending that, do we all of a sudden have to come up with a different standard on how we pay for it? That being said, S. 1238 is fully paid for.

What I think is wrong is for us to allow interest rates to go up where the government is making money off the backs of our students. We should not be doing that. Higher education is already too expensive. We should be looking at ways to make college education more affordable for American families. For generation after generation, we have been telling our children that the American dream is achievable to those individuals willing to pursue an education and work hard. Are we now prepared to tell millions of students that

we are pushing the American dream beyond their grasp?

Let me give one example. Amanda McIntosh wrote me a letter. She is a first-generation college student who holds a college degree from Christopher Newport University, a master's degree from Columbia University, and a graduate certificate from Johns Hopkins University. Amanda is not from a wealthy family, so she has over $100,000 in student loan debt. Amanda would like to earn her doctoral degree so that she can conduct research that influences policy regarding access to higher education for historically underrepresented populations, but she is buried under student loans and unable to continue her education, unable to afford a car or make a downpayment on a home or otherwise invest in the economy. She simply cannot afford to take on more loans.

What is the message here? What are we telling the future generations of Americans? We are saying: You need education in order to succeed. You need education so we can have a competitive workforce. And then we tell them that the cost of education is out of their reach. And then we are going to tell them that the loans are going to be more expensive.

In Amanda's case, she would like to do something with her future that could be extremely helpful to our country and to herself. She may not be able to do that because of the cost of higher education. And then so many students graduate with such large debt today that they have to look at paying off their debt and it affects their career choice. These might be gifted scientists who could really do something to help discover the answer to dread diseases, how we could cure them, but instead they have to opt out for a short-term career decision to pay off their student loans.

We need to have a policy that makes higher education more affordable, not more costly. Yet increasing the cost of the Stafford loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent will make it more expensive for families to be able to afford a college education.

Obtaining a college degree is not a luxury; it is an economic imperative. Affordable access to higher education means more scientists, doctors, nurses, engineers, computer programmers, and other highly skilled workers our economy will need to fill the high-tech jobs of the future. A well-educated, highly skilled workforce is vital to sustain our national security and prosperity in a globalized 21st- century job market.

So I urge my colleagues to support S. 1238, the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act of 2013, as a commonsense approach to protecting students at no additional cost to the taxpayer. As I said earlier, this bill would simply allow the 3.4 percent to remain in effect until our committee has the time to pass reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and they could then take into consideration not just the availability and the cost of student loans but the cost of higher education, the transparency in the cost of higher education, the concerns we have about different types of schools and whether we are getting value for the dollar. All that can be done as we reauthorize the Higher Education Act. But in the meantime we should keep the loan cost to students at 3.4 percent and not allow it to increase as it did on July 1. We will have the opportunity to do that, I understand, tomorrow on the bill on the floor. I would urge my colleagues to support that effort.

Tribute to Jodi Schwartz

On a personal note, let me point out that a very valuable member of my staff, Jodi Schwartz, will be leaving us at the end of this week. She is our education person in my office who has been so helpful to me not just on the student loan issue but on all educational issues-- affordability of education, the quality of education, the opportunity for everyone to have the great dream of America. She has been a very valuable asset to our staff. I will certainly miss her in my Senate office, and I wish her only the best.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.