Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, my colleague, Mrs. Ellen O. Tauscher, and I rise in honor of Dale D. Peterson who is retiring after more than 40 years of service to his country, our community, and the educational system of Contra Costa County.

After earning a degree from Contra Costa College, Dale Peterson began his long career of public service by enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, serving from 1965 to 1969. Having completed this service to his country, Dale achieved his journeyman status after completing a 4-year electrical apprenticeship.

From 1973 to 1993, Dale worked as general electric contractor, a foreman, and a superintendent. His service during these years involved the responsibilities of managing commercial, residential and industrial electrical construction jobs in Contra Costa County. During this time Dale also served as the Assistant Business Manager of the IBEW Local 302 and on several committees of that same labor union.

For over 20 years, Dale Peterson has continued to share his time and talent with our community by serving on a number of Boards and Councils. His work as a Trustee of the Contra Costa Building Trade Council and as a member of the Contra Costa Central Labor Council reflect Dale Peterson's continued dedication to his fellow tradesmen and the labor movement in this county. Dale's work as a Contra Costa County Library Commissioner and as a member of the Board of Directors for both the East County Business Education Alliance and the Delta Advocacy Foundation demonstrates his enduring commitment to education and educational reform.

In 1991, Dale Peterson became a Parent Education Facilitator at the Family Stress Center where he served for 8 years. In 2000 he

enrolled in a Cornell University Course on Mutual Gains Bargaining. Over a period of 2 years, Dale completed three courses on land use planning, urban redevelopment, and environmental and planning law at a UC Berkeley Extension Campus.

Since 2004 Dale Peterson has mobilized the construction industry to support high quality school reform in Contra Costa County and was instrumental in the creation of two high school career academies.

Throughout his illustrious career, Dale Peterson has been a strong and steady voice for labor and education in Contra Costa County. He has always been a champion of youth and community programs and of preparing our children for higher education and the workforce. This continued commitment to labor and education in Contra Costa County have set Dale Peterson apart as a leader in our community.

Today we recognize Dale Peterson's enduring strength, visionary leadership, and his lasting commitment to the workers, students and families of Contra Costa County and our Nation.

Madam Speaker, please join me and my colleague, Mrs. Ellen O. Tauscher, in recognizing Dale D. Peterson as he retires from a long and honorable career.

Madam Chairman, I rise to speak against the amendment and claim the time in opposition.

I thank the Chair.

Under this amendment, what this amendment says is that the National Labor Relations Board could not enforce the party's obligation to bargain in good faith following a voluntary recognition. So an employer and an employee can get together, they can voluntarily enter into an agreement by which they have their working relationship, and if they're down the road at some point, one of them wants to bring an action, the employer against the employees or the employees against the employer for not bargaining in good faith, the National Labor Relations Board couldn't enforce that, couldn't take any action.

This is a voluntary agreement. It doesn't even have to be through the card check process. Any voluntary agreement, you're suggesting that somehow these people would not be able to enforce that agreement once it was entered into.

This undermines the rights of potentially millions of American workers that have already organized under voluntary recognition agreements and already engaged in a collective bargaining relationship. These workers may have decades long collective bargaining arrangements already that they have worked under, and then if the most recent contract expires, they would have no enforceable right to go back and enforce their rights under the Souder amendment.

This makes no sense. It's rather incredible to me that under the Souder amendment what we would be doing is inserting the government in a private voluntary agreement between an employer and an employer. I understand the gentleman doesn't like card check, but that's not what this is about. This is about any voluntary agreement that they've entered into, and I don't know why we would be inserting the government at this point.

Madam Chairman, at this point, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare).

Madam Chairman, let me just reiterate again, and my two colleagues have said this. Under existing law today, if the employer doesn't like the agreement, the voluntary agreement, or if employees come to them and say, gee, we all want to join a union, here's a majority, whatever it is, the employer says, no, game is over, it's off, it's done. He has a veto, absolute veto, it's over. So the only way you can have this voluntary agreement is if the employer is happy with it.

So, now we have an agreement where the employer's happy, the employees are happy, and they work under it for a number of years, but you cannot ever go and seek enforcement. So apparently what the gentleman is doing, he's just decided he's going to insert the government for only one purpose, and that's the purpose to destroy basic worker rights and the ability to organize the workplace, even if they do it voluntarily and with the consent of the employer.

Now, I know the gentleman's always believed in limited government, and I know the gentleman doesn't think the government should interfere in all these contractual arrangements. Here's a voluntary arrangement and you're going to insert the government for one purpose, to deny the employees their rights under the voluntary agreement which they entered into with an employer who had the veto if he didn't want to enter into it. They can't coerce him into doing it. He has the veto. We should reject this amendment.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding. I want to thank Mr. Kildee for his authorship of this legislation for over, I believe, 12 years now in support of this legislation, and Mr. Duncan, his cosponsor, for the same years, to try and provide for the organization of our public safety officers around the country.

I want to thank Mr. Keller for his work on the subcommittee and Mr. Andrews for shepherding this bill through the committee. With the 280 cosponsors of this legislation, which obviously represents very strong bipartisan support, this legislation clearly demonstrates that this Congress is committed to protecting the rights and the livelihoods of our first responders, and this legislation stands in tribute to these dedicated men and women. I am proud that the Education and Labor Committee was able to pass H.R. 980 out of the committee almost unanimously by a vote of 42-1.

Firefighters, police officers, correction officers and emergency medical technicians risk their lives each and every day to protect our lives and this country. H.R. 980 will ensure that all public safety officers have a right to sit down with their employers and bargain over wages and working conditions.

While States and cities and towns have historically managed their own labor relations, approximately 28 States do not fully protect the collective bargaining rights of public safety employees. That is why this legislation is so necessary. This legislation would respect those States that already provide for collective bargaining rights for public safety employees, but it would extend those rights in all other States.

The bill would provide basic labor protections for State and local public safety workers, including the right to join a union, the right to have their union recognized by their employer, the right to bargain collectively over hours, wages, terms and conditions of employment, a mediation or arbitration process for resolving the impasse in negotiations, and enforcement through the courts.

H.R. 980 will give public safety officers a voice in issues like safety on the job and effective delivery of services. It will improve communications and cooperation between rank-and-file public safety employees and their employers, ensuring a more cohesive and coordinated operation.

That's the crux of this legislation. This gives the rights of these negotiations, the rights of these discussions, the rights to have a union, to the very same people that we trust every day to protect our lives, to protect our communities, to protect our country, both before and after a terrorist attack, before and after a criminal act. These are the people that we trust to do this.

This legislation, under the authorship of Mr. Kildee and Mr. Duncan, also suggests that we trust them to have a responsible say in their workplace conditions, in how they carry out their job, to make suggestions, to negotiate with their employers, to more effectively carry out their duties. I think it is a long time coming. I think this legislation and its very broad cosponsorship indicate this could have been done much sooner, but it is going to be done today. It is going to pass the House today. I believe it will pass with large bipartisan support. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

I also want to say that the fact that this legislation is here today, although 12 years late, is maybe a hallmark of Mr. Kildee's career, and that is persistence. He doesn't give up on an idea because others disagree. He has pushed for this legislation year in and year out. He was not allowed to have it heard for passage, and this year we were able to accommodate him and Mr. Duncan. When we do that, we are also accommodating and supporting our first responders all across the country who need these rights to better do the job that we have handed to them, a very difficult, a very dangerous job. I would hope that the House would pass this legislation overwhelmingly.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Chairman Skelton's bill to bring American forces home from Iraq and to begin to end this tragic war, a war borne of lies, ignorance and arrogance. The cost of this war has been high to our country, to our economy but, most importantly, to our men and women in uniform, for they have taken all of the sacrifice for our President's decision to take this country to war in Iraq.

Our military responded honorably to the President's decision, but he failed to honor their sense of duty and their courage with a plan that was designed to succeed. His failed policy has cost their families, their communities, and most tragically, it has cost them their limbs and their lives.

The war in Iraq cannot be won, and it cannot be lost. It can only be brought to an end. The President continues to display both sheer arrogance and tragic ignorance as he refuses to change policy. Over and over again, it says the same thing, to stay the same course, to give them more time and that success is just around the corner.

The American people realize that staying the course in Iraq was not a plan, and it is not going to work. I have known, as many of my Democratic colleagues have, that staying the course is not acceptable. We honor our troops when we have the courage to bring them home and end this war.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2669.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 531, I call up the bill (H.R. 2669) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 601 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2008, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2669, the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007, which was reported by the Committee on Education and Labor pursuant to the reconciliation instructions of the budget resolution. The committee was tasked to decrease the deficit by $750 million without reducing the assistance that makes college more affordable to students.

In keeping with that policy, this bill will significantly reduce the costs that place college out of reach for far too many students today. This bill represents the largest effort to help students and families pay for college since 1944, when the Congress passed the GI Bill, which helped millions of veterans go to college, the first generation to do so under that legislation.

For years, college costs are rising rapidly and are far outstripping families' ability to pay for them. Students are graduating with more debt than ever before and are working harder to pay back the loans which they borrowed to pay for their college education.

Several hundred thousand students a year now decide to forego a college education, even though they are completely qualified, fully prepared to go to college, because they don't know how they'll pay for it or how they'll manage the debt that they will inherit when they graduate.

Recognizing this need, H.R. 2669 demonstrates our commitment to growing and strengthening America's middle class by making college more affordable and accessible for all qualified students. It also recognizes our commitment to those who are less fortunate, for low- income families, to make sure that we increase the Pell Grants that are available to the students, and also low-cost loans to those same students who need to borrow beyond the Pell Grant.

The College Cost Reduction Act, which passed the Committee on Education and Labor with bipartisan support, boosts the college financial aid by roughly $18 billion over the next 5 years. And this bill does so in a fiscally responsible way. We are committed to the pay-as-you-go budget rules, and we honor that commitment with this legislation.

H.R. 2669 recognizes that we have an obligation to make sure that students have the maximum opportunity to take advantage of a college education and that they need access to that education, they need preparation for that education, they need success while they're there, and they need completion of their education. To do that we've made sure that, regardless of their background, that they will be prepared for college, they will have access to higher education, they will graduate to achieve their goals, and they will not be so burdened with unmanageable debt that that becomes a failure.

The bill does that by, for low-income students, increasing the Pell Grant $500 over the next 4 years. This is a very significant increase in the Pell Grant. As many know, the President promised many years ago that he would have it up to $5,100, and the fact of the matter is it was at $4,050. They failed to increase the Pell Grants.

It cuts in half the interest rates for subsidized loans for hardworking families that are going to borrow money, students that are borrowing money. We will cut their interest rates in half from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. This will save the average student graduating with about $13,000 in debt, $4,400 over the life of that loan. We guarantee that those students who borrow this money, when they begin their time in the work world, they will not have to commit more, if they decide not to, to commit more than 15 percent of their income to pay back the loans so that they can enter those professions that may not have great starting wages, but over time in that career, they will build up income.

We also provide, in keeping with the mandate, to try to provide highly qualified teachers in every classroom for students who are excelling in college and want to teach, if they make a commitment to teach in difficult public schools, we will provide $4,000 a year in tuition assistance while they're in school, not after they graduate, while they're in school, to a maximum of $16,000.

For those students who go to college and they get their degrees and they want to enter professions and serve the public, they want to be first responders, they want to be nurses, they want to be firefighters and public defenders and prosecutors and special education teachers and early childhood teachers, we offer them a $5,000 forgiveness of their loans if they stay in that field for 5 years. We know that in each one of these areas there is a crisis in attracting people to those fields. Many in Congress, hundreds of Members of Congress, have co-authored legislation to provide loan forgiveness for some of these professions. This bill, in fact, funds that loan forgiveness for those individuals.

We also increase the loan limits so that students will have greater access to more money to pay for the increasing cost of college and not have to go to the private market, where they will be able to continue to take advantage of the subsidies provided in the Federal loan program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 additional minutes.

We also make a landmark investment in minority-serving institutions to make sure that those institutions that serve a disproportionate number of minority students are able to provide the services, to make sure that those students who are fully qualified to go to college, who are prepared to go to college, in fact, stay in college, so we don't have a continuation of the situation we had today where, all too often, because services aren't provided in college to help those students stay in college, those students end up out of college, no diploma and a lot of debt. And we want to make sure that that, in fact, doesn't happen.

So today this legislation provides a great deal of promise and a great deal of assistance and a great deal of resources to those students and their families who are sitting down figuring out how they're going to pay for this college education that is so incredibly valuable today if you're going to fully participate in the American economic system, if you're going to participate in our democratic society.

This is a very, very important piece of legislation. This is legislation that is designed to help these students be able to pay for that education.

We do something else in this legislation. We set up a partnership where we go to the private sector, to wealthy individuals, to corporations, to foundations, and we tell them for every dollar that they'll put up to pay for essentially a Pell-eligible student to complete their education without going into debt, we will match them 50 cent on the dollar.

We are told by those individuals who have actively been participating in raising money for these students that this should allow them to raise hundreds of millions of dollars additionally because of that match; to have that public/private partnership pursuing one of the great goals of this great democratic society, which is to make sure that a student from any part of American society who's prepared to go to college can, in fact, go to college.

So we not only have the government helping them out, we also have private citizens, corporations, philanthropic organizations, and in some cases even local governments if they decide this is good for their economy, and we will provide a match to help them do that.

This is a comprehensive bill. It recognizes the complex needs of families and students to gain access to college, to pay for college, and to succeed in their employment afterwards; and I would urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Loebsack).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

I yield myself 15 seconds to say, it's most interesting to sit here and be lectured by people who, when they controlled every department of government, every branch of government, they took a $5 trillion surplus that they inherited from the Clinton administration and immediately turned it into a $3 trillion debt that this Nation now is carrying around as it tries to compete in the world. To be lectured by mindless spenders like that is really a treat on this floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

I yield 1 minute to the Democratic leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds

to say that I find it unbelievable that Republicans would decide that families that are making every sacrifice to borrow money, and students that are making every sacrifice to borrow and pay back money, that somehow they are called welfare recipients. These are hardworking American families who are struggling to educate their children, and I want to disassociate myself from that kind of characterization of these families or these students.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this to our attention, and we look forward to continuing to work with him on this issue.

As he has pointed out to this committee and many Members of Congress, we in fact have a workforce crisis, and that is what we have tried to address in the loan forgiveness program in those professions that are not necessarily the highest paying in our society but are essential to the well-being of our society. We will work with the gentleman as this bill proceeds through the legislative process on this matter.

I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island and look forward to continuing to work with him on this issue in this conference and also on the Higher Education Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), a member of the committee who had a major amendment in this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her amendment, and I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) a member of the committee.

(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), a member of the committee.

(Ms. HIRONO asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), a member of the committee.

(Ms. CLARKE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of the members of the committee for their work on this legislation on both sides of the aisle. I certainly want to thank the staff as we finish general debate.

Mr. Speaker, we said when we gained the majority in this Congress that we wanted to take America in a new direction. This legislation, in fact, does that.

For 6.8 million students who take out need-based loans, this legislation will allow for cutting the interest rate in half over the next 5 years for those students. That will save them almost $4,400 on the average debt that they graduate with. For almost 5.5 million students who rely on a Pell Grant for the basic cost of their education, this means that over the next 4 years that grant will increase by some $500, definitely a new direction.

Because what we saw in the past was the Republicans made it more expensive to pay for your student loans. They provided little or no contribution to the Pell Grant over the last 4 or 5 years. That is a new direction.

What does it mean to America? It means that we are investing in the students and the talent of the future. It means that these are the young people that will take their talents and provide the next generation of discovery, the next generation of innovation, the next generation of jobs in America, the next generation of economic activity here at home. That's the investment that was made by our grandparents back in 1944, in that generation, the first generation to go to college in such great numbers with the GI Bill, and that's the investment that we have the courage and the vision to make in this generation of young people for the future of this country.

That's what this legislation is about. It's about making sure that the doors of a higher education that every employer tells us is now necessary to come to the American workplace if you want a career and you want a decent wage and you want to be able to provide for your family. The doors to those higher education institutions, be they community colleges, State colleges, universities or elite universities, however you want to characterize them, that those doors will not be closed to people who are talented and ready and qualified to go to college.

This legislation provides the means to ensure their access to help them pay for it and to help them make sure that they don't have to make choices against their best interest because of

that debt and later in life that they can choose to go into the professions that serve us as a society. This is a dramatic departure, a dramatic departure from the status quo, a dramatic departure.

What the Republicans did, when they had a chance, they had $20 billion. They decided they would help pay for the tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country. That's what they did with a big chunk of the money that they took from these excess subsidies, the subsidies that we are taking a way from the banks.

The entitlement program that the banks have today as we stand here will be changed. Yes, it will become an entitlement program for America's families, America's students, those most at need in this country. That's what this Congress ought to be doing. That's what this society wants us to do, and we're going to do it today when we pass this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop) for 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am the only remaining speaker.

Mr. Speaker, if I can inquire how much time I have.

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

Mr. Speaker and members of the committee, I think this has been a very good debate because this has been a debate about which direction this country should go in and I believe will go in and the direction that the American people want this country to go in.

Parents all over this Nation hear every day from business leaders, from educational leaders, from the media, they hear that for America to be competitive, we have got to have a smarter workforce, a better skilled workforce, a better equipped workforce so that we can continue America's leadership in the world in the economics of the world and in the national security of this country. The key to that workforce, the key to that competitiveness, again, the very people who are hiring those individuals say that you must have a college education. What used to be good enough, which was graduation from high school, is no longer good enough today. You have to have advanced learning. It may be in a professional school. It may be in a trade school. It may be in a community college. It may be in a 4-year college. You may get some of it now and some of it later. But the fact of the matter is, you need those skills.

But what has happened over this time is that college education has increased as rapidly as anything else in society, in fact, more rapidly than many other indicators in our economy, over 35 to 40 percent over the last 5 years above inflation. What has that meant? That meant that families who thought they could afford that education now find that they have to squeeze harder. That meant that people who thought they weren't going to have to borrow money are now going to have to borrow money. That meant that people who thought they were going to be able to go to college are now deciding that they can no longer go to college. They are going to postpone it or maybe not go at all.

That's not good for America. That's not good for America's economy. That's not good for America's democratic institutions. And it's not good for our society. We need those young people to go to college.

What this legislation does today is it says to those individuals who are fully qualified to go to college, we will not deny you access to the college of your choice, to the education of your choice, to the career of your choice, and to the curriculum of your choice because you can't afford to pay for it. We're going to help you. We're not going to give you everything you need. Your family is still going to have to sacrifice, you're still going to have to pay back loans, but we're going to give you greater access to the ability to do that.

We're going to take this country in a new direction. We're going to take this country in a direction where we place a priority, a focus and a vision for education in America today because we know we must.

We're told again by the leaders of all of the new technologies, the new companies, the people who are investing in the future that we were the beneficiaries of when John Kennedy said that he wanted to send a person to the Moon and bring them back safely. It was more than a Moon shot. John Kennedy captured our imagination; he captured world leadership with that decision. And over the next decade, we did exactly as he directed.

But you know what else they did? They give 28,000 high-performing college students a grant to go to graduate school so they didn't have to borrow money, they didn't have to walk around with a tin cup, they didn't have to put themselves into debt, so they could use their best skills and talents to create the space program. You know what they created after they created the space program? They created Intel, they created Microsoft, they created Hewlett Packard. They created the infrastructure of this Nation. Now, did we whine and moan because they got a grant and the taxpayers used their money? They created millions of jobs in this country over the next four decades. That's what this is about.

Those are the investments that my grandparents made in my education before they ever met me. Those are the investments that my parents made in my education after they met me. They still thought it was worth something. And those are the investments that have made this country the greatest and strongest Nation in the world, have made us an economic leader, and have given us the ability to lead the world. Do we want to turn our back on it now? If you accept this substitute, you're turning our back on that idea.

The Republicans say, well, we're just going to take a little less money, but we're going to put it all in the Pell Grant. The Republicans, after flatlining Pell Grant all of these years when they had the opportunity to do something, did nothing. Now they want to love this bill to death by putting all the money in the Pell Grant.

This is what this legislation will do for Pell recipients; it will take them up to $5,200 in a Pell Grant. That may or may not pay for their education for that year, but it's a big leap forward.

But we also recognize something else, that this isn't the only constituency struggling to pay for education in this country. No, there are millions of students who will take out a subsidized student loan. And for those students, and their parents who will help them pay it back if they're that fortunate, for those students they will be paying for it by themselves, we're saying we will cut the interest rate in half when you graduate and you start to repay your loan. You borrow the money today, you pay your tuition, and when it comes time to pay your loan, your interest rate is half of what it is today.

Because we know that those middle-income families in this country are struggling as hard as anybody. They have the same vision, the same hope and the same aspiration for their children. So that's why we're doing this, because it's the best investment we can make in this country in that talent of our children, in the brilliance and the excitement and the vision of those children. That's what this legislation is about. But that's not what this substitute legislation is about. You cannot walk away from them.

I find it interesting that just 4 months ago, 5 months ago, 124 Republicans voted to cut those interest rates for middle-income families and their children, and now they're going to vote against it today. So they voted for it then, and now they're going to vote against it today. What was going on? Did they believe it then, or they don't believe it now? Which is it? But the fact of the matter is, this is about whether or not those families that struggle, they may be single parents, they may be two in their family, they may be families that find themselves with one, two or three kids in college at the same time. This government should help them because those children will return that gift of this Nation back to this Nation time and time again over the life of their earnings, over their careers. They will give back to this Nation because we made that investment as my parents and grandparents made in us.

If you vote for this substitute, you get rid of the interest rate cuts for those middle-income families. And also, for these very same Pell recipients, over half of these students will have to borrow money because a Pell Grant isn't enough. So they participate also in that interest rate cut.

You fail to participate in the loan forgiveness for the teacher, for the firefighter, for the policeman, for the special education teacher, for first responders. For those people in critical occupations that give so much to this society, but they're not the highest paying jobs, we're telling them if you stay on the job 5 years, we will give you $5,000 in loan forgiveness. For a student that graduates with an average debt of around $13,000, $14,000, that's a significant amount of loan forgiveness. What do we get? We get an educated firefighter, an educated policeman, a school teacher. We get these people.

For high-performing college students who are willing to go into teaching and go into math, science and engineering, and then go to the most difficult schools to teach, we're saying we will give you $4,000 a year in tuition assistance while you're in school, not later,

up to $16,000; again, an investment, because we now know that a highly qualified teacher can dramatically change the educational outcomes and the future for the children in ways that we can only dream about. That's an important investment, because that investment in that teacher will be invested in all of those students that come across his or her line of vision in those classes.

That's why this legislation is about a vision for America. That's why this legislation goes in a different direction. We stop today when we flatline aid to education in this country. We want to invest in young people. We want their families to be able to invest with us. And that's the importance of this legislation.

And, clearly, the commitment that we make to minority-serving institutions so that those students who are fully qualified to go to school go to school, receive the kind of help to keep them in school so they don't end up dropping out with a debt on the loans that they took. We want that success. It's a problem that's recognized across the country; we address it.

We raise the cap on the amount of money that families can borrow. It's not great news to hear we let you borrow more, but it's a lot cheaper than if you have to borrow it in the private loan market. It's 3.8 percent here, and it's 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 percent in the private market. That means a lot to families. That means a lot to students. That's what this legislation is about.

I would ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this substitute, to vote for the passage of the final bill. Let's take America to a new future. Let's take America to new heights. Let's take America to new greatness on the next generation of discoverers, of innovators, and of economic creators.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit says this will not allow a public officeholder or a lobbyist to get loan forgiveness. This has never been raised, and if you don't want them to get it, write me a letter and we will take care of it.

But what this does is this says that you must report this back promptly, so this kills this bill. This kills this bill. The greatest contribution to helping families pay for education since the GI bill, they want to kill it. Cutting interest rates in half for middle-income families, they want to kill it. You could have written the motion another way. You deliberately wrote it this way so you could kill this bill.

What is it you don't like about this bill? You don't like the fact that while you were in power, after years of flatlining the Pell Grant, we finally have given the biggest increase in decades for the poorest kids in the country. You don't like that, so you want to kill the bill. You don't like the fact that we are going to take 5 million middle- class kids and extend to them a loan with an interest rate that is cut in half while their families are struggling to get them through college. They are making sacrifices every year. You are going to do this. You are going to kill this bill? Are you proud of this amendment that you are going to try to kill this bill? Say it louder, that you are proud.

What about loan forgiveness? This amendment supposedly is about loan forgiveness, but in the process, they kill loan forgiveness to firefighters and policemen and nurses and teachers of special education and people who hold our society together and make it work, they kill that. What is it they don't like about having a society that can help its children? What is it they don't like about partnering up with families who want to help pay their kids' education, that borrow money, that are told every day they have to save more for this education, and here we are giving them loan forgiveness. We are giving them loan forgiveness because they have chosen to go into a career that doesn't pay very well. We are giving them an interest rate cut that will save them $4,000. That loan forgiveness will save them $5,000.

We are raising the amount of money that they can borrow, no great gift to their parents, money that they can borrow, but they don't have to go to the private market and pay 15 percent. They can pay 3.8 percent.

That's what this legislation is about. What is it you don't understand about the American people's vision? Mr. Speaker, what is it they don't understand about the American people's vision for this country? What is it you don't understand that America wants to go in a new direction? What is it you don't understand about this vision of the future where we have faith in our children, where they have the confidence of their parents; they have the vision that their kids can succeed, that they can be the next generation of discoverers, of innovators, of those who create economic opportunities and hire other people or get hired?

That's the vision America wants, and it needs help to pay for that education, and this is what this legislation does. That's what this legislation does.

Yes, we help those minority-serving institutions. I guess you don't like that either.

And yes, we thought we would partner up with some of the richest people in the world who said that if you partner up, we think we can raise hundreds of millions of dollars for poor children. So we said, you raise $1, we'll match it with 50 cents. They're now telling us they think they can raise hundreds of millions of dollars of private money. Sounds kind of Republican to me, but what the hell, I don't know.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

We've even got a multiplier in this bill. We tell high-achieving college students who are studying math, science and engineering, if you will commit to going in and teaching in the most difficult schools in this Nation, you will bring those talents to those kids, we'll give you $4,000 tuition relief while you're in school, not later. We know that that is a multiplier because we know the kids that are exposed to highly qualified and effective teachers can learn things that we can't believe of, and that's what gives back to this society.

At the end of the day, maybe Speaker Pelosi said it best: The dollars we invest in this legislation, the dollars we invest in these young people, that we invest in their families, in their futures, in their competencies, comes back to us every year from the same group of people as they graduate. They return the gifts. They return this gift of the Nation.

We're trying to do for this next generation, what my grandparents did for me, what my parents did for me. And those investments that they made in the college systems of this country, in the GI bill in this country, what did they do? They took America to the premier position in the world in economic leadership, in national security, in foreign affairs, took us to the first place in the world and has been there for 50 years based upon that investment.

America knows now that they need a new investment, and that's what this legislation is about. It's about a new investment for the next generation, the next generation of talent and competency and fearless and beautiful young people, beautiful young people who want their future to be as rewarding as all of ours have been. I ask you to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Parliamentary Inquiries

Kills the legislation today.

The Chair responded to the parliamentary inquiry that it is not forthwith, that it precludes action on the bill today. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I inadvertently voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 564, an amendment to the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, H.R. 2643. I intended to vote ``no'' on the amendment, which would have imposed an unacceptable cut to the National Endowment for the Arts. I am pleased that my colleagues did not support this amendment, and I congratulate the gentleman from Washington, Interior Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks, who provided such important support for the arts and humanities in his subcommittee's legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank him and the ranking member for bringing this bill to the floor and certainly thanking the staff that has worked with all of the Members on this legislation. I think this is a very good bill. I think this bill reflects the priorities of America, that we would once again start reinvesting in the Clean Water Revolving Fund so that people and communities can meet their obligations for clean water. And as millions of Americans set out across America with their families to visit the national parks, this bill makes legislation about the importance of those national parks, about the value of those national parks and the importance that we lay out a plan over the next 10 years to restore them and to reinvest in them so that the visitors a decade from now will have the same experience or a better experience when they visit the national parks as people do today.

The national parks have far too much neglect in terms of the backlog of projects that need to be done, to enhance them, to improve them and to protect the national parks. The stateside of the Land and Water Conservation allows the Federal Government to be a partner with local communities on their priorities for the protection of open space and the enhancement of recreational opportunities, to improve the quality of life in our communities. We have seen this very, very successful program to enhance the communities, to enrich the experience for families in those communities.

Finally, I would say in the Indian education programs where again as Indian tribes and others have more and more say in the education of their young people, where they're bringing about very innovative programs, to see us again invest in those programs. What we see now is we have a record number of Indian children who have gone on to college, who are enrolled in college, who are getting advanced degrees. We've got to continue to improve that program and this legislation does it.

I also want to thank the committee for recognizing the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Park. This is a park that's growing in popularity. It tells the incredible and magnificent story of the women who came to the shipyards in California to build the ships to win the war in the Pacific and what that meant to us as country, as a culture, what it meant to the integration of the workforce during World War II, and certainly what it meant in terms of supplying our troops with the materials necessary to win the war in the Pacific.

We have seen women from all across the country come with their daughters, with their granddaughters, with their great granddaughters and explain to them, this is where I worked, this is where we built and launched a ship a week in these shipyards. It's remarkable the ceremonies that are held there, to see these women, to come there and to leave their historical documents, to leave their letters home, to leave their welders' cards and their ironworkers' cards with the museum, and now we will be able to share all of that with the public as part of a greater effort in the National Park Service to develop the home front national park system all across the country where those who were on the home front during the war enabled us to successfully win and prosecute the Second World War.

I want to thank the committee and the members.

Madam Speaker, last Friday was the first anniversary of the MINER Act, which the Congress passed last year in the wake of the tragedies at the Sago, Aracoma Alma and Darby coal mines.

Much progress has been made over the last year. For example, thanks in particular to the efforts of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, critical funding was provided to help develop new technologies for mining which were thought to be out of reach only a year ago. Funds were also provided to hire additional inspectors for underground coal mines. These funds were well spent, and the investment will save miners lives.

Moreover, implementation of the requirements of the MINER Act, while slower than anticipated, has started to gain traction, as questions about its provisions have been addressed and as this Congress has exercised its oversight authority.

But important as these actions are, they were intended as only a down-payment on what is needed to clean up years of neglect and backsliding by this Administration and an industry that had become, by its own admission, overly complacent. The need for supplemental action is more clear than ever, as too are the details of the supplemental action that is required at this time.

Accordingly, I am joining Chairman Rahall and others today in introducing new legislation, the Supplementary Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, or S-MINER Act, to build on our initial accomplishments by taking the next steps.

The S-MINER Act has four basic sections.

The S-MINER Act would supplement emergency response plans. The MINER Act required mine operators to put in place detailed emergency response plans to prevent a recurrence of the tragedies at Sago, Aracoma Alma and Darby. Based on what we have learned over the last year, the S- MINER Act would tighten up some of the requirements to ensure that effective action is taken promptly.

For example, the S-MINER Act would:

In light of technological progress, speed up the dates by which mine operators have to install improved underground communication systems and refuge chambers;

Ensure that requirements on how to seal abandoned areas of a mine, already scheduled to be issued in December of this year, meet recently developed NIOSH recommendations;

Require the 52-year old standard on conveyor belt flammability to be updated consistent with NIOSH recommendations, and ban the practice of ventilating mines with intake air run over these conveyor belts (``belt air''); and

Require the installation of underground gas and smoke monitoring systems, and require miners working alone to carry multi-gas detectors to protect them from otherwise undetectable toxic atmospheres they may encounter.

And the bill would require a study by the National Academy of Sciences of the technology needed to help protect underground miners from the harmful potential consequences of lightning above the mine, the asserted spark that set off the Sago tragedy.

The S-MINER Act would supplement enforcement authority. The MINER Act established some new penalties to encourage mine operators to take mine safety and health requirements seriously and address problems before they become worse. Based on what we have learned over the last year, the S-MINER Act would supplement these actions to enhance their effectiveness.

For example, the S-MINER Act would:

Clarify the authority of inspectors to be free of interference and to issue withdrawal orders in emergencies;

Enhance penalties not adjusted by MINER Act;

Respond to GAG findings of deficiencies in the penalty assessment process; and

Provide MSHA with subpoena power equivalent to that of other agencies.

In addition, the S-MINER Act would establish an independent ombudsman to ensure proper attention to miner complaints of unsafe conditions and to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.

The S-MINER Act would supplement rescue, recovery and incident investigation authority. The MINER Act ensured that prompt notice of serious accidents be provided immediately to the Department of Labor, and that the number of available rescue teams be enhanced. Based on what we have learned over the last year, the S-MINER Act would supplement these actions to enhance their effectiveness.

For example, the S-MINER Act would: enhance mine rescue and recovery operations by providing for a national call center; require timely notice to MSHA of ``near misses''; and require mine operators to provide certain logistical support for rescue teams.

The bill would also require the procedures for accident investigations to be standardized, ensures witness coercion and conflict of interests are avoided, and provides for any investigation by MSHA to be supplemented by an investigation of the independent Chemical Safety Board when requested by authorized representatives of miners or families.

The S-MINER Act would revise the respirable dust standards established 40 years ago. MSHA has struggled in the last decade to update badly needed improvements in critical health standards actually set by the Congress in the 1977 Mine Safety and Health Act, and has not been successful. Miners are once again developing symptoms of black lung and other deadly diseases of the past. For miners, this situation constitutes an emergency. Accordingly, the bill would update the rules the Congress set 40 years ago by adopting long-standing recommendations of NIOSH for these rules.

Specifically, the S-MINER Act would: reduce the amount of coal dust to which miners can be exposed in accordance with NIOSH recommendations; require miners be equipped with the new personal dust monitors (PDMs) developed and certified by NIOSH, and authorize miners to adjust their activities to avoid overexposure; and update the procedures for compliance sampling by the Department of Labor and for operator surveillance sampling utilizing the PDM.

The S-MINER Act would also set an independent standard for silica exposure (the current limit is entwined with the coal dust limit) in accordance with NIOSH recommendations.

In addition, Madam Speaker, I am also joining with Chairman Rahall and others today in introducing the Miner Health Enhancement Act of 2007. As I mentioned, MSHA has struggled in the last decade to update badly needed improvements in critical health standards actually set by the Congress in the 1977 Mine Safety and Health Act, and has not been successful. While the S-MINER Act would deal with the most well- recognized of these issues, there are other 40-year-old health standards established by the Congress that also require attention.

The Miner Health Enhancement Act of 2007 would: require MSHA to use the existing asbestos standard applicable to most American workers under OSHA rather that the weaker standard for asbestos now applicable; require MSHA to utilize the hazard communication standard issued by the last Administration after extensive rulemaking without the amendments adopted early in this Administration that weaken the currency of the scientific information provided to mine workers; and require MSHA to update the list of permissible exposure limits in its air contaminants standard to reflect the recommended exposure limits established by

I thank the gentleman for yielding and I thank all of my colleagues who have spoken on this resolution and certainly to Barbara Lee, my colleague from California, who has been such a not only supporter and the author of this resolution but all of our efforts to change the situation in Darfur.

I had the honor to accompany Congresswoman Lee and our Speaker to Darfur a year ago February and saw the incredible devastation and the brutality and the genocide that is taking place there and vowed to do whatever I can to see if we can change it. I have been wearing this green band to save Darfur for over a year and a half. But this band will not save the people of Darfur, all of my constituents, thousands of my constituents who have marched throughout the Bay area, who have come across the country to march to save Darfur will not save Darfur. What will save Darfur is the nations of the world owing up to their responsibility to reject this genocide, to stop this genocide, to stop this holocaust against these people and get the government of Sudan to do so.

Of course today we are here to call upon the nation of China to owe up to its responsibilities, given its huge influence, its economic influence, its military influence, its resource influence in Sudan, to use that influence to get the government of Sudan to start to sit down and to negotiate with all of the parties to end the arms trade that is taking place, to stop the economic engagement until such time as these people in Darfur are once again made safe, until these people in Darfur are once again allowed to return to their villages, to their families and start to put their lives back together and to end the genocide. That's what is necessary to be done.

My colleague Mr. Goodlatte referred to the Olympics. It's hard to believe that the world is going to look upon the host of the Olympics and see there at the same time a nation that is underwriting a genocide. That is absolutely on a daily basis by its inaction and then by its positive actions underwriting and allowing the genocide to go forward. It's not that China can stop this alone, but in concert with the rest of the nations of the world that have called out for an end to this genocide, to take actions against the economic activity and the military activity in Sudan.

Congresswoman Lee has pushed the effort of divestiture that has been followed up in many States and cities and universities and other entities. This has got to continue to stop the genocide that now so many of my colleagues have witnessed firsthand on those terrible, terrible visits to Darfur where we see the worst of humanity and the violence against these individuals and their families and their children. It has got to stop. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this bipartisan resolution to the floor to help us try and end the genocide in Darfur.

Mr. Speaker, this is a great day for America's workers.

Today the House once again passes the minimum wage increase--and this time we expect this bill to be signed by the President.

America's minimum wage workers have been waiting a long time for a raise. The last time they saw an increase was nearly 10 years ago. Since that last increase, in 1997, the value of the minimum wage has dropped to its lowest level in over half a century.

Last summer, I had the honor to meet a woman named Sheryl Wade in Louisville, Kentucky. Sheryl told me at a forum about life at the minimum wage. She couldn't afford housing for herself and 3 sons. She had to move in and out with relatives and friends. Her boys had to constantly change schools and change friends. She could not afford health care. Sheryl is a hardworking American, sick and tired of barely living paycheck to paycheck, not making enough to get by.

Mr. Speaker, her day has come.

When we increase the minimum wage with this bill, from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over 2 years, the poorest working families in this country will see a $4,400 increase in their annual income--enough to pay for 15 months of groceries for a family of three.

Thanks to this increase, in 2009, a family of four will move from 11 percent below the poverty line to 5 percent above the poverty line.

Thanks to this increase, 13 million workers will see their pay go up, directly or indirectly. That includes 7.7 million women and 3.4 million parents. Over 6.3 million children will see their parents' income rise.

This raise in wages is long overdue. Thanks to the hard work of religious, civil rights, labor, and community organizations--and American voters and working families--it is finally coming to pass.

I'm proud of the work this Democratic Congress has done. This House, under new leadership, is putting working families and America's middle class first. What a change that is--and we've only just begun.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, last night the House adopted the Altmire-Udall amendment to provide military families with very simple but much needed support while loved ones are away on combat duty.

Under the amendment that was agreed to, a worker can take family and medical leave to deal with the issues that arise as a result of a spouse, parent, or child's deployment to a combat zone like Iraq or Afghanistan. Under this amendment family members can use the leave to take care of issues like making legal and financial arrangements and making child care arrangements or other family obligations that arise and double when family members are on active duty deployments.

Supporting the troops is more than a bumper sticker. We must support the troops with all of the support that they need so their families can continue to function during the difficult times of deployment. These deployments and extended tours are not easy on families, and two-parent households can suddenly become a single-parent household and one parent is left alone to deal with paying the bills, going to the bank, picking up the kids from school, watching the kids, providing emotional support to the rest of the family. You have got to deal with these predeployment preparations.

This amendment is a good amendment. I hope that the House will support it with the passage of the legislation. Last year, tragically, it was thrown out in the conference committee and was given no consideration by the majority party of the last Congress.

Mr. Speaker, how remarkable and refreshing this budget is. Finally a budget that ends the Republican commitment to endless seas of red ink and deficit spending. Finally a budget that ends the Republicans' commitment to squandering the $5 trillion that they inherited from the Clinton administration.

But more remarkable about this budget is it takes us in a new direction. It takes us in a direction where once again we see ourselves as a country and a national government investing in young people in this country, investing in their education, investing in the effort to make college more affordable for families and students who have to borrow money. That is what this budget does.

With a $9 billion increase over and above the President's budget, for the first time we are able to change the trendlines from reducing the expenditure on behalf of students with disabilities, on behalf of the elementary and secondary education of America's students, on behalf of job training. That is what this money does. This is an investment in the future of our young people. This is an investment in the elementary-secondary education system of young people in this country. This is an investment in reducing the cost of college.

That is a markedly different direction than we have been going over the last 6 years, where we just headed headlong into seas of red ink, where it overwhelmed everything else the government was about to do, where it started taking its toll on the education budgets of this country, where we denied the opportunities for people to have an affordable student loan, where we now see in excess of a quarter of a million young people deciding they won't be able to borrow the money, they won't be able to pay it back, and so they have decided maybe they will have to postpone or defer a college education permanently.

This budget also gives us the opportunity to address in a comprehensive fashion the reducing of the cost of college, to remake the student loan program, to get rid of these mindless, endless subsidies that the previous budgets have contained for the lenders, subsidies that fueled the corruption that we have seen in the program.

This is a remarkably refreshing, exciting budget for this country, for its young people and for its future.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, last January when the President was suggesting the need for the escalation of the numbers of troops in Iraq, he also told us that while we would provide the troops under his policy, the Iraqis would provide a series of

benchmarks which they would meet to end the insurgency and to bring their country together politically so that the insurgency can be dampened down or ended.

Now we are told by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it would be wrong to hold the Iraqi Government, the Malaki government, to those benchmarks because it would take away their flexibility, while President Bush said that if they did not meet these benchmarks in January, they would lose the confidence of the American people.

President Bush had it right. They haven't met the benchmarks. They are not holding up their end of the bargain. The Parliament is not meeting. A third of them are living in London, not in Iraq, and they have lost the confidence of the American people.

How is it that the Secretary of State and the President of the United States can continue to believe that we should continue to send American soldiers to die in Iraq when the Iraqi Government won't meet the benchmarks which were supposed to be the bedrock of this new policy, this new direction, that has turned out to be the same old stay-the- course policy where American soldiers die and the Iraqi Government dithers away day in and day out and not meeting the new policies to bring a unified Iraq together?

It is unacceptable to the American people. It is unacceptable to our soldiers. It is unacceptable to their families. And we ought to end this policy now.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 890) to establish requirements for lenders and institutions of higher education in order to protect students and other borrowers receiving educational loans, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to insert materials relevant to H.R. 890 into the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, H.R. 890, the Student Loan Sunshine Act of 2007. I offer this legislation along with Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican on the Education and Labor Committee; and Mr. Hinojosa, the subcommittee Chair of the Higher Education Subcommittee on the Education and Labor Committee.

This legislation would protect students and families from the corrupt practices and abuses that for too long have been allowed to run rampant within the student loan industry.

Ensuring that our Nation's student loan programs are working as effectively as possible to help students and parents pay for the cost of a college education, it is paramount to the goals of this Nation recognizing the importance of students' achieving a college education so they can fully participate in American society and the American economy. And working to make that more accessible and affordable has been the long-term goal of both parties of this government.

But now what we see is that this program has been badly corrupted. This program has started to be hollowed out by the activities of lenders, of universities, of individuals within the government, individuals within the university system, individuals within the lending community. For 6 years this administration has been put on notice of these activities taking place in the student lending program with ever-mounting evidence and public statements and concerns echoed by members within the administration from the previous administration calling to the problems that were occurring within the student loan programs. It is becoming increasingly clear that the student loan program has been hijacked by third parties who saw that they could run this program to their financial benefit. Unfortunately, that meant that it was being run to the detriment of the students and the families who are borrowing the money who are struggling to pay this money back so that they could achieve a college education.

We introduced this legislation first in February when it was disclosed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that he was expanding an investigation into the relationships between lenders and colleges and universities across the country.

Throughout the previous years, stories have surfaced about inducements and kickbacks and conflicts of interests, bribes and payoffs ranging from sending college employees on exotic vacations to staffing school financial aid offices during the busiest time of the student aid calendar. These inducements are offered by lenders to secure a spot on the preferred lender list, a list that supposedly presents to the students and to their families that this is a list of trust, that these are the best loans available for a number of reasons to those students. But we now learn that securing a position on a preferred lender list was really, in many instances with many universities and with many lenders, an act of corruption, not an act of transparency, not an act of honesty, not an act in the best interest of the students and/or their parents, and not in the best interest of achieving the lowest possible cost for those students' education.

But entry into the preferred lender meant more than just having this coveted spot. It meant a near guarantee of business. It meant an opportunity for lenders to prey on families and offer them private loans. It also meant that students weren't given the best information, the most accurate information. It also meant increased cost to the students and to their families.

Since we first introduced this bill, ongoing investigations at the Federal and State levels and by news organizations have shed new light on the scope of the corruption and the conflicts of interest surrounding these lists that are undermining the Federal student loan aid program that millions of borrowers have come to depend upon. We have learned more about the astonishing degree to which lenders buy their way into colleges and universities through excessive inducements, which is the polite word, or what might be termed ``bribery,'' which might be a better word, in order to boost their marginal profits.

All of this, all of this was known to the Department of Education. Suggested changes were left behind by the Clinton administration to this program. Department employees raised these concerns and others with the Department of Education, and no action was, in fact, taken. And what we see, of course, is that less protection was provided to students and to their families.

We have learned that these inducements include college officials being paid to serve on lender advisory boards and receiving stock in the companies. We have learned that these conflicts of interest do not end with college financial aid officers. It has been revealed that at least one public official in the Office of Federal Student Aid, the arm of the Department of Education that runs the student aid program, held hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in a major student loan company.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Lenders and schools must be held accountable for any practice that compromises the trust that students and parents deserve to have in our Federal student aid program. Today, by passing the Student Aid Sunshine Act, we are taking clear and important actions to put an end to the corrupt practices and conflicts of interest that for too long have been allowed to dominate this industry.

We call on lenders, institutions and the Department of Education to also take appropriate action to end these practices, and we insist that they recognize their fiduciary responsibility to the students and their parents who are the borrowers of this money, the borrowing of money that they struggle to pay back for many years afterwards.

I am proud to be joined by my colleagues on the Education and Labor Committee, Buck McKeon, the senior Republican, and, again, Ruben Hinojosa of the Subcommittee on Higher Education to bring to the floor a stronger, more comprehensive, bipartisan Student Loan Sunshine Act. This bill will prevent these egregious practices from occurring in the future by reinstating trust in our schools through strict codes of conduct, guaranteeing loan options and ensuring the best loan possible, ensuring equal and timely processing of loans, giving students full and fair information when taking out and repaying loans, protecting students from aggressive marketing practices and inserting the fiduciary responsibility for all parties to these agreements.

Further, this bill bans all gifts, participation on advisory boards and risk-sharing agreements between lenders and schools and ensures greater transparency and accountability when schools recommend lenders for the students.

I urge all of my colleagues to join us in voting for this legislation. Today, I think we can take this critical step toward returning these programs to the very people they were intended to serve, students and parents who are borrowing this money. It's time to protect these students and parents and end the exploitation and the abuses of the student loan program.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for all their assistance in drafting this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I failed to acknowledge and I want to acknowledge Mr. Keller's help in the drafting of this legislation. He is the senior Democrat on the Higher Education Subcommittee.

I would like to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the Chair of that subcommittee, Mr. Hinojosa.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his remarks and for his leadership on this. I thank Mr. McKeon and Mr. Keller for all of their cooperation, for their suggestions and for the introduction of the bill soon after this came to light by Mr. McKeon. I think it was very helpful in our discussions with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. I certainly want to thank him for his diligence and the speed with which he responded to this information.

Tragically, much of this information has been available for a considerable period of time. Tragically, what we now are making against the law, the conduct we are now changing almost became the preferred way of doing business among many of the colleges and universities and the lenders which they utilized on behalf of their students.

It is just inconceivable that when people understand, and it is brought to our attention every day, the decisions that students and their families have to make about whether to pursue a college degree, the costs that are incurred, the sacrifices that are made by working families, by all families, by the students, many of whom then work part time and full time to augment the cost of that college, when that sacrifice and those determinations and decisions are made by those families, to have that process corrupted by some of the largest corporations in America, some of the wealthiest corporations in America, that they would see somehow a way to skim off, to skim off the profits and the costs at the expense of these students and of the taxpayers that put up the money.

The reason we guarantee these loans is to try to drive this money to the students and their families at the lowest possible cost so that they can afford to go to college; they can afford to take a job and pay back the cost of their college. That is the public purpose. Now that public purpose has absolutely been prostituted by the Department of Education, by many of the lending institutions and by many of the colleges and much of the personnel that works for them.

This legislation is a first step, a bipartisan step to stop those practices in their tracks, to get this program right side up for the benefit of the families and the students who are borrowing the money. To serve notice on the institutions, the lenders, the institutions of higher education and the people who work in these programs that this will no longer be tolerated.

Once again, this program has to come to the point where it is again serving the families and the students who are making this sacrifice to achieve a college education at the lowest possible cost. That is the public interest, that is the public purpose, and we will not have that corrupted. We will not have that corrupted, either by the public agencies or the private agencies that are engaged in this program.

The next step is to bar those agencies if they continue in this practice. That would be a horrible thing to do for those institutions, but we will not allow this to continue. And as we consider the Higher Education Act, we are going to continue to pursue ways in which we can reform this program and make it work for those for whom it was designed, the families and the students.

I want to thank the staff on both sides of the committee that were so helpful in understanding the programs and the changes that needed to be made, that went through the evidence and responded in this legislation, so that the House of Representatives could go on record that we will not allow this to happen on our watch.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to pass H.R. 890, as amended, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.