Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act of 2017

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Today I am reintroducing the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. This bill takes an important step toward addressing the student debt crisis in America. It would once again treat private student loans like nearly all other forms of private unsecured debt and permit these loans to be discharged in bankruptcy.

Student loan debt has reached an astronomical $1.4 trillion--more than double what it was in 2008. Student loan debt is now the second largest form of consumer debt in America, after only mortgage debt. The balance of student loan debt is larger than credit card and auto loan debt. Currently, around 44 million borrowers hold student loan debt, with an average balance of roughly $30,000.

This past weekend, the New York Times published an editorial that clearly and concisely describes the student debt crisis that we face. The editorial is titled ``Student Debt's Grip on the Economy,'' and I ask consent to place it into the Record. As the editorial points out, ``student debt has become a drag on graduates' hopes and a threat to economic growth.''

This editorial reports that as college costs have continued to increase, wages have not kept pace. Students continue to take out larger amounts in loans to afford the rising costs of college. This crushing student loan debt has forced young people to delay making important life decisions like getting married and economic investments such as home ownership. We are also seeing an increase in the wealth gap between college graduates with student debt and those without student debt. The burdens of student debt are threatening the notion that being college-educated is enough to get ahead. As the editorial notes, ``the fallout from these burdens, afflicting those who are supposedly best prepared to face and shape the future, is not only a personal financial issue but also a social and economic one.''

These burdens are even more significant for students who have taken out private student loans. Federal student loans have fixed, affordable interest rates, and a variety of consumer protections including forbearance in times of economic hardship and manageable repayment options. Private loans, on the other hand, frequently have high, variable interest rates, and they lack the repayment options and protections that federal loans offer. In 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported that the outstanding private student loan debt in America was $165 billion, at least $8 billion of which was then in default. As it turns out, many students were steered into costly private student loans by for-profit colleges, often when the students still had eligibility for lower-cost federal loans.

One of those students is a woman named Marta, from Chicago, who wrote to me about her story and asked me to only use her first name. Marta came to the United States from Poland in 1994 with her family, hoping for a better life. She is a U.S. citizen now, and has a family of her own. As an aspiring designer, Marta wanted to enroll in a college that would help launch her career. So after meeting a recruiter at a college fair from the now-closing, for-profit Harrington College of Art and Design, she enrolled in the fall of 2004. At the urging of the recruiter, she signed the enrollment paperwork and began courses. Being the first in her family to attend college, she did not know the difference between private and federal student loans. The recruiter assured her that the paperwork was just part of the normal college enrollment process.

It was only after she graduated that Marta learned that in signing the paperwork the recruiter gave her, she had taken out a combination of federal student loans and much riskier and more expensive private student loans. She now has over $120,000 in student debt, the majority of which is in private student loans. The monthly payments are overwhelming and Marta worries about what this crushing debt means for her family's future. Thanks to high-interest rates, her private loans continue to grow despite doing her best to make her payments.

Marta enrolled in college to get a good career and widen her future opportunities. But she has been left with enormous debt from a failed for-profit college. And now she is struggling and needs a fair chance to get back on her feet. There are stories like Marta's in every corner of America. And it's time to do something about it.

Today I am reintroducing the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. This bill would restore the bankruptcy code's pre-2005 treatment of private student loans.

Since 2005, private student loans have enjoyed a privileged status under the bankruptcy code: they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy except in extremely limited circumstances. Only a few other types of private unsecured debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy--criminal fines, child support, back taxes and alimony. In contrast, nearly all types of private unsecured debt, including credit card and medical debt, are dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Congress had no good reason to make private student loans non- dischargeable in 2005. It was a provision that was quietly slipped into a broader bankruptcy reform bill with little debate and no justification. There was no evidence that private student loan borrowers had abused the bankruptcy system to avoid repayment before 2005. But, since the law changed in 2005, lenders have been incentivized to extend expensive private student loans to students that the students cannot repay and that they can never escape. This is overwhelming for students and an impairment on our overall economy.

The Fairness for Struggling Students Act will make important relief available to students being crushed by private student loan debt, and will discourage private lenders from extending risky loans.

This bill is supported by a large coalition of educational, student, civil rights and consumer organizations including the American Association of Community Colleges, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, American Association of University Women, American Council on Education, American Federation of Teachers, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Demos, Empire Justice Center, NAACP, National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low income clients), National Association of College Admission Counseling, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, National Consumers League, Public Citizen, The Institute for College Access and Success, UNCF, and Young Invincibles.

I want to thank the cosponsors of this bill, Senators Whitehouse, Franken, Blumenthal, Hirono, Warren, Reed, Wyden, Baldwin, Hassan, Kaine, and Murphy for their support, and I hope more of my colleagues will join us.

This is just one step of what we need to do to get control of the student debt crisis in our country. But it is a critical step, and it is long overdue. Let's give struggling students a fair chance,

Mr. President, I rise to introduce two bills that will benefit the brave women and men who volunteer at our local firehouses: the Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act and the Volunteer Firefighters' Length of Service Award Program Cap Adjustment Priority Act. I am pleased to be joined by my friend and colleague from Maryland, Senator Cardin, in reintroducing this bipartisan legislation.

Across our nation, volunteer firefighters play a critical role in helping to ensure the safety of our communities and the well-being of our neighbors. The State of Maine, for example, has approximately 11,000 firefighters in more than 400 departments. Because Maine is a largely rural state, more than 90 percent of those firefighters are volunteers.

Without these public-spirited citizens, many communities would be unable to provide emergency services protection at all, while others would be forced to raise local taxes to pay salaries and benefits for full- or part-time

staff. Often, communities seek to recruit and retain volunteers by offering modest benefits. The bills we are introducing today would support these efforts by helping to ensure that nominal benefits to volunteers are not treated as regular employee compensation.

The Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act would allow communities to provide volunteer firefighters and EMS workers with up to $600 per year of property tax reductions or other incentives, without those benefits being subject to federal income tax and withholding. This would ease the administrative burden that local departments sometimes face when they reward their volunteers. We also want to help first responders save for retirement. For years, local and state governments have provided their volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel with different forms of benefits, including Length of Service Award Programs, commonly known as LOSAPs. These are pension-like benefits for volunteer emergency responders.

Our second bill, the LOSAP Cap Act, would help communities recruit and retain volunteer firefighters by increasing the annual cap on contributions to their retirement accounts to $6,000, and allowing for adjustments for inflation.

As we begin the complicated process of reforming our nation's tax code, I believe we should take care to protect those who serve this country with such bravery. That is why Senator Cardin and I have introduced these bills today, and I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting them.

Mr. President, I wish to introduce the Community Bank Sensible Regulation Act of 2017, a bill that would allow financial regulators to exempt community banks from unnecessary and unduly burdensome requirements, if doing so is in the public interest. My bill would provide this authority to the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve and would apply to financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets.

The aim of my legislation is to allow the financial regulators to exempt community banks from highly complex regulations designed to protect our financial system from systemic risks that would arise from the failure of larger banks. All banks, large and small, should be well-capitalized and properly regulated, but that does not mean that our financial regulators must impose a ``one size fits all'' regulatory regime across the board without regard to the risks posed to the financial system by banks with fundamentally different business models and of vastly different sizes.

Some regulations that are appropriate or essential for larger banks may make no sense when applied to community banks. For example, current law requires community banks to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the Volcker Rule--which restricts proprietary trading and hedge fund investments by banks--even though community banks rarely engage in such trading. Even so, community banks must shoulder the burden of complying with this complex regulation. My bill would allow the regulators to exempt community banks from the Volcker Rule.

As the GAO has noted, smaller banks are ``disproportionately affected by increased regulation, because they are less able to absorb additional costs.'' These costs are significant. According to industry representatives, the cost of complying with regulations absorbs 12 percent of total bank operating expenses, and is two-and-a-half times greater for small banks than for large banks.

The cost of regulation puts community banks at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis larger banks. Over the past two decades, the share of the U.S. banking industry represented by community banks has declined from 40 percent to just 18 percent. Over the same period, the share of the market represented by the five largest banks has grown from roughly 18 percent to 46 percent. I am concerned that unnecessary regulation will accelerate these trends, and ironically, contribute to the further consolidation of the banking industry into a handful of ``too big to fail'' banks.

Community banks play an essential role in meeting the credit needs of their customers, particularly small businesses, homeowners, and farmers. Although community banks represent just 18 percent of total banking assets, they are responsible for half of our nation's small business loans. With small business formation at generational lows, it is essential that we preserve and protect their access to credit, as they are the major driver of job creation in our country. In addition, community banks provide three-fourths of our nation's agricultural loans, a line of finance that requires highly specialized knowledge of farming and a long-term perspective suited to agricultural cycles.

Regulators should be able to tailor their regulations to take the distinctive nature of community banks into account. My bill would allow regulators to exempt community banks from unnecessary and burdensome regulations where it is in the public interest to do so. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senator Franken, the Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act of 2017. I thank Senator Franken for supporting and working with me, since the 112th Congress, on this important bill to help our Nation's family farmers.

This bipartisan bill addresses the 2012 United States Supreme Court case Hall v. United States. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled a provision that I authored in the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act did not accomplish what we in Congress intended. The Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act of 2017 corrects this unfortunate result and restores Congress's original intent. The bill clarifies that bankrupt family farmers reorganizing their debts, under chapter 12 of the bankruptcy code, may treat capital gains taxes owed to the government, arising from the sale of farm assets during the bankruptcy, as general unsecured claims. This bill will give family farmers a chance to reorganize successfully and remove the Internal Revenue Service's veto power over a plan's confirmation.

Congress created chapter 12 in 1986 as a temporary measure to provide a specialized bankruptcy process for family farmers. In 2005, Congress made chapter 12 a permanent part of the bankruptcy code. Between 1986 and 2005, we learned what worked and did not work for family farmers reorganizing under chapter 12. In particular, family farmers faced serious problems when they needed to sell land to fund their reorganization plan. For example, a family farmer might sell portions of the farm in order to generate cash and pay creditors. Unfortunately, in most of these cases, the family farmer is selling land with a low cost basis, because it has likely been held in the family for a very long time. As a result, the family farmer gets hit with a substantial capital gains tax, which is owed to the Internal Revenue Service.

Under the bankruptcy code's priorities structure for claims, taxes owed to the IRS must be paid in full, unless the IRS agrees otherwise. This creates problems for the family farmer who needs cash to pay creditors and reorganize. Since the IRS has the ability to require full payment, it essentially holds veto power over the confirmation of a family farmer's chapter 12 plan. In many instances, the effect is that a family farmer will not be able to have a plan confirmed. This is a harsh result and does not make sense if the goal is to give family farmers a fresh start. Recognizing this problem, Congress amended the bankruptcy code in 2005 to provide that in these limited and particular situations, the taxes owed to the IRS would be stripped of their priority and treated as general unsecured debt. This removed the government's veto power over plan confirmation and paved the way for family farmers to reorganize under chapter 12.

Unfortunately, in Hall v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that despite Congress's express goal of helping family farmers, the language we used failed to accomplish the intended result. To be clear, the Hall case was about statutory interpretation. There is no question about what Congress was trying to do; rather, the question is, ``Did Congress use the correct language?'' My goal, along with others at the time, was to relieve family farmers from having their reorganization plans fail because of certain tax liabilities owed to the government. Justice Breyer noted this point in his dissent: ``Congress was concerned about the effect on the farmer of collecting capital gains tax debts that arose during (and were connected with) the Chapter 12 proceedings themselves. . . . The majority does not deny the importance of Congress' objective. Rather, it feels compelled to hold that Congress put the Amendment in the wrong place.'' Hall v. United States, 132 S.Ct. 1882, 1897 (2012) (Breyer, J., dissenting) (internal citations and quotations omitted).

As a result of the Hall case, family farmers facing bankruptcy now find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. The rules have changed and must be corrected in order to provide certainty and clarity in the law. The Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act of 2017 does this and provides the help needed for family farmers.

This bill adds a new section 1232 to the bankruptcy code. This new section, along with other conforming changes, gives guidance and certainty to debtors, practitioners, and courts as to how these claims are to be treated during bankruptcy. I'm pleased that the bill we're introducing today will help family farmers who are facing hard times.

In the wake of the Hall decision, this bill ensures that what Congress sought to do in 2005 actually occurs. The Family Farmer Bankruptcy Clarification Act of 2017 provides the help that may one day be needed for the hard working family farmers across our great Nation.

Mr. President, today I am very pleased to join my friend, the junior Senator from Arizona, in introducing the Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act of 2017.

I will have more to say about this bill, and United States policy toward Cuba, in the weeks and months ahead. My purpose in speaking today is simply to point out that 55 Democratic and Republican members of the Senate have cosponsored this bill to allow Americans to travel to Cuba in the same way that they can travel to any other country in the world. And based on my conversations with other Senators, especially Republicans, I have little doubt that if we voted on this bill today more than 60 Senators would support it.

It is indefensible that the Federal government currently restricts American citizens and legal resident from traveling to a country 90 miles away that poses no threat to us, unless they engage in certain activities and not others. For example, an American biologist can go to Cuba to study threatened species of migratory birds. That same American cannot take his family on a trip to visit Cuba's national parks. Why? Because one is defined as scientific research and the other is defined as tourism.

At a time when U.S. airlines and cruise ships are flying and sailing to Cuba, does anyone here honestly think that preventing Americans from traveling is an appropriate role of the Federal government? Why only Cuba? Why not Venezuela? Or Russia? Or Iran, or anywhere else? It is a vindictive, discriminatory, self-defeating vestige of a time long passed. This bill would end these Cold War restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel. It would not do away with the embargo.

We are told that the Trump Administration is conducting a review of U.S. policy toward Cuba. That is to be expected of a new administration. We have also heard a rumor, and I hope it is only a rumor, that in return for the votes of certain Senators or representative on health care legislation, promises may have been made by the White House to impose further restrictions on the normalization of relations with Cuba. I hope that is not the case. I hope the review produces a policy based on what is in the U.S. national security interest and on what is in the interests of the American and Cuban people, an overwhelming majority of whom want closer relations. And I hope the policy reflects the bipartisan majority in Congress that supports expanding our engagement with Cuba, as evidenced by the bill we are introducing today.

I and others who have traveled to Cuba many times over the past 20 years, who have met with Cuban officials, with Cubans who have been persecuted for opposing the Castro government, and with many others, have requested meetings with top White House officials before the review is completed and any final decisions are made.

Every one of us wants to see an end to political repression in Cuba. The arrests and physical mistreatment of dissidents by the Cuban government are deplorable, just as they are by other governments including some, like Egypt's and Turkey's, whose leaders have been feted at the White House, or, in the case of Saudi Arabia, have feted President Trump and his family. Americans can travel freely to Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and every other country, except Cuba.

The issue is how best to support the people of Cuba who struggle to make ends meet, and who want to live in a country where freedom of expression and association are protected, and where they can choose their own leaders in a democratic manner.

Anyone who thinks that more economic pressure, or ultimatums, will force the Cuban authorities to stop arresting political dissidents and embrace democracy have learned nothing from history. For more than half a century we have tried a policy of unilateral sanctions and isolation, and it has achieved neither of those goals. Instead, it has been used by the Cuban government as an excuse for repression to protect Cuba's sovereignty. It has hurt the Cuban people, not the Cuban government. And it has provided an opening for our adversaries and competitors, like Russia and China, in this hemisphere.

Change is coming to Cuba, and we can help support that process. There is already visible, tangible evidence that the changes in U.S. policy initiated by President Obama are having positive effects for the Cuban people and for our security and economic relations with Cuba, even though critics, particularly those who have never been to Cuba, prefer to deny it.

But most importantly, the bipartisan bill we are introducing today is about the right of Americans, not Cubans, to travel. Any member of Congress, especially those who have been to Cuba, should support the right of their constituents to do so. American citizens are our best Ambassadors to Cuba, and it is wrong for the United States government to be imposing restrictions

that have no place in the law books of a free society.

Mr. President, today I am very pleased to join my friend, the junior Senator from Arizona, in introducing the Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act of 2017.

I will have more to say about this bill, and United States policy toward Cuba, in the weeks and months ahead. My purpose in speaking today is simply to point out that 55 Democratic and Republican members of the Senate have cosponsored this bill to allow Americans to travel to Cuba in the same way that they can travel to any other country in the world. And based on my conversations with other Senators, especially Republicans, I have little doubt that if we voted on this bill today more than 60 Senators would support it.

It is indefensible that the Federal government currently restricts American citizens and legal resident from traveling to a country 90 miles away that poses no threat to us, unless they engage in certain activities and not others. For example, an American biologist can go to Cuba to study threatened species of migratory birds. That same American cannot take his family on a trip to visit Cuba's national parks. Why? Because one is defined as scientific research and the other is defined as tourism.

At a time when U.S. airlines and cruise ships are flying and sailing to Cuba, does anyone here honestly think that preventing Americans from traveling is an appropriate role of the Federal government? Why only Cuba? Why not Venezuela? Or Russia? Or Iran, or anywhere else? It is a vindictive, discriminatory, self-defeating vestige of a time long passed. This bill would end these Cold War restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel. It would not do away with the embargo.

We are told that the Trump Administration is conducting a review of U.S. policy toward Cuba. That is to be expected of a new administration. We have also heard a rumor, and I hope it is only a rumor, that in return for the votes of certain Senators or representative on health care legislation, promises may have been made by the White House to impose further restrictions on the normalization of relations with Cuba. I hope that is not the case. I hope the review produces a policy based on what is in the U.S. national security interest and on what is in the interests of the American and Cuban people, an overwhelming majority of whom want closer relations. And I hope the policy reflects the bipartisan majority in Congress that supports expanding our engagement with Cuba, as evidenced by the bill we are introducing today.

I and others who have traveled to Cuba many times over the past 20 years, who have met with Cuban officials, with Cubans who have been persecuted for opposing the Castro government, and with many others, have requested meetings with top White House officials before the review is completed and any final decisions are made.

Every one of us wants to see an end to political repression in Cuba. The arrests and physical mistreatment of dissidents by the Cuban government are deplorable, just as they are by other governments including some, like Egypt's and Turkey's, whose leaders have been feted at the White House, or, in the case of Saudi Arabia, have feted President Trump and his family. Americans can travel freely to Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and every other country, except Cuba.

The issue is how best to support the people of Cuba who struggle to make ends meet, and who want to live in a country where freedom of expression and association are protected, and where they can choose their own leaders in a democratic manner.

Anyone who thinks that more economic pressure, or ultimatums, will force the Cuban authorities to stop arresting political dissidents and embrace democracy have learned nothing from history. For more than half a century we have tried a policy of unilateral sanctions and isolation, and it has achieved neither of those goals. Instead, it has been used by the Cuban government as an excuse for repression to protect Cuba's sovereignty. It has hurt the Cuban people, not the Cuban government. And it has provided an opening for our adversaries and competitors, like Russia and China, in this hemisphere.

Change is coming to Cuba, and we can help support that process. There is already visible, tangible evidence that the changes in U.S. policy initiated by President Obama are having positive effects for the Cuban people and for our security and economic relations with Cuba, even though critics, particularly those who have never been to Cuba, prefer to deny it.

But most importantly, the bipartisan bill we are introducing today is about the right of Americans, not Cubans, to travel. Any member of Congress, especially those who have been to Cuba, should support the right of their constituents to do so. American citizens are our best Ambassadors to Cuba, and it is wrong for the United States government to be imposing restrictions

that have no place in the law books of a free society.