Floor Statements

At this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).

I yield myself 3 minutes.

Madam Chairman, Members of the House, my colleague from the other side said that every American is guaranteed the right to organize, and that is what this legislation is about. You have a guaranteed right to organize, but when you do, very often what you find out is you do not get the right to organize on behalf of better wages or a pension plan, or holding onto your health care benefits, or the hours that you get paid at work, or the tension between your family life and work, the kinds of things that people organize for.

In many workplaces, when you exercise your right to organize, you get fired, you get intimidated, you get harassed, you get followed home, your kids get followed to school, people park their cars outside your house. Your work shift has changed, you are on the graveyard shift instead of the daytime shift. That is what you get.

What we are here about today is to redeem what has been in the law for almost 70 years, and that is the law that gives you the right to organize. It says you can either choose to go through an NLRB election or you can choose to have a majority sign-up. But then they inserted in the law many years later the right of the employer to veto that right to majority sign-up.

So what the Republicans are suggesting in their opposition to this bill is that we should take away the choice from those workers that has been in the law for 70 years. So that those people, when a majority of people in a workplace decide that they need to organize their workplace to protect their jobs, to protect their salaries, to protect their pensions, to protect their health care, that they will be able to have that organization come into being.

Today, you get harassed, you get intimidated, you get an election, and after the election, you get appeals. And you get endless bargaining that in our

own State of California, people have been waiting 7, 8, 9 years for a union that they won in an election. Apparently the secret ballot isn't enough to win your full share of democracy, and has not been enough for millions of workers across this country.

So this legislation is very simple, it is only eight pages long. It says the worker gets to choose. That is the basis of American labor law. It is up to the employees to choose their organization and to choose how they want to arrive at that organization. They can choose an NLRB election or they can choose a card check majority sign-up. And we are simply saying, let the law work. Let the employees have the choice. And stop the illegal intimidation of workers.

This last year, 30,000 workers had their pay restored to them because illegal actions were taken against them by employers because those workers did nothing else than exercise what the gentleman on the other side of the aisle spoke to, the right in America to organize. But 30,000 workers lost pay, lost hours at work, got fired. All of those things happened to them. And the year before it was 20,000, 20,000 and 20,000.

This has gone on far too long. It is time to empower the employees to make this choice about their workplace.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank all of my colleagues who participated in this debate.

At a time when the middle class standard of living in America for millions of Americans is at greater risk than at any time in recent history, at a time when people see employers arbitrarily terminating their pensions, freezing their pensions, shifting the cost of their health insurance, cutting the benefits under health insurance; at a time when they see that they have no new money to take home in their wages, that their wages have been flat;

at a time when CEOs are awarding themselves golden handshakes, golden parachutes, and golden hellos, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, at that time at that moment we have an opportunity here to redeem a provision of the law which has been in the law for 70 years to simply give the workers a choice. They can choose an NLRB election, or they can choose a majority signoff.

That is a simple choice that these adults in the workplace can make. It is a choice that was given to them 70 years ago, and it was a choice that later was taken away by a veto of the employer.

Imagine, a majority of the Americans get together and they do something and one person gets to veto it. One person gets to veto it in the workplace. Think of what the relationship is between that employer and those employees. Think about how those employees must have felt that they needed to organize in the workplace, because employees know that they do if they are going to stop the trend and the bleeding that they see today, against the benefits that they have at their workplace, against their salaries, against their hours at work, against their right to a retirement nest egg that means something.

Every day you pick up the business journals of this country and you read where again another employer has terminated a pension, has restricted the pension, won't pay into the pension, puts the pensions into bankruptcy. You want to know why people need card checks? People need card checks so they can have the freedom of choice to choose do they want an election, do they want a card check. It is in the National Labor Relations Act today, it is the law, but for the veto, the veto of the employer.

How more arbitrary can you possibly get that a single employer could override the desires of a majority of the employees in its workplace? How more arbitrary can you get? It is the same arbitrariness those employers show when they cut your health care benefits and your pensions and your retirements without any say by the employees, without any negotiations. That is why millions of Americans want representation at work, so that they can have a voice in that workplace, they can have a voice in their future, they can have a voice in whether or not they are going to be able to buy a home, buy a car, educate their children, have a health care policy that they can afford that will be there when they need it.

That is what this is really about. This is about whether or not we are going to strengthen and help maintain and grow the middle class in this country. Because it is not happening under the arbitrary policies that are imposed on workers today by their employers. This Employee Free Choice Act gives the workers that choice, the choice that is currently in the law.

I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this legislation when it comes time for passage. Again, I thank all my colleagues for participating in this debate, I thank the Chair for the courtesy they have shown both sides.

Madam Chairman, We all know that workers in the U.S. are among the most productive workers in the world. Yet for far too long, they have not been reaping the benefits of their hard work.

For years and years now, many workers have found themselves working harder and harder just to stay in place. And many more have been losing ground financially despite their work.

This is troubling enough on its own. But what makes it even more troubling is that, over the last several years, our economy has been growing. The stock market is doing well. Corporate profits are high.

Consider the facts.

Since 2001, median household income has fallen by $1,300. Wages and salaries now make up their lowest share of the economy in nearly six decades.

The number of Americans who lack health insurance has grown by 6.8 million since 2001, to 46.6 million, a shocking record high.

The number of Fortune 1000 companies that have frozen or terminated their pension plans has more than tripled since 2001.

Indeed, the middle class itself has shrunk. Over 4 million more Americans have joined the ranks of the poor since 2001.

And meanwhile, corporate profits make up their largest share of the economy since the 1960s.

Madam Chairman, there are a lot of explanations for the growing inequality in our economy. Congress' failure to raise the minimum wage for 10 long years is an obvious example. But perhaps the most significant explanation is that workers' rights to join together and bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions have been severely undermined.

Today, when workers want to form a union, their employers can force them to undergo a National Labor Relations Board election process. That process is broken, because it allows irresponsible employers to harass, coerce, intimidate, reassign, and even fire workers who support a union.

Take the example of Ivo Camilo. Mr. Camilo is from Sacramento, not far from my district. For 35 years, he worked at a Blue Diamond Growers plant in Sacramento. In 2004, he and several dozen coworkers sought to form a union. For that, Mr. Camilo was fired. After 35 years of service, Blue Diamond tossed Mr. Camilo out on the street, just because he wanted a union.

The same thing happened to Keith Ludlum when he supported union representation for him and his coworkers at a Smithfield foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Mr. Ludlum, a veteran of the first Gulf War, was fired in 1994 because he wanted a union. It took him 12 years of litigation to get his job back.

What happened to Mr. Camilo and Mr. Ludlum happens with distressing frequency in this country. In 2005 alone, over 30,000 workers were receiving back pay from employers that had committed unfair labor violations.

Earlier this year, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that employers fire one in five workers who actively advocate for a union. A December 2005 study by American Rights at Work found that 49 percent of employers studied had threatened to close or relocate all or part of the business if workers elected to form a union.

And Human Rights Watch has said, ``[F]reedom of association is a right under severe, often buckling pressure when workers in the United States try to exercise it.''

Corporate executives routinely negotiate lavish compensation packages on their own behalfs, but then they deny their own employees the ability to bargain for a better life.

This debate is about restoring workers' ability to choose for themselves whether or not they want a union. To make that happen, the Employee Free Choice Act does three things.

First, it says that when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing a union, they get a union. The legislation requires the National Labor Relations Board to develop model authorization language and procedures for establishing the validity of signed authorizations.

The legislation does not take away workers' ability to have a National Labor Relations Board election instead of majority sign-up if that's what they want. It gives them the choice. If 30 percent sign cards saying they want a union and petition the Board for an election, they get an election. But, if a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union and they want recognition now, they get a union.

This majority sign-up is not a new idea. Under current law, when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing a union, then they can have a union if their employer consents to it. But instead of consenting, employers often reject the employees' choice and force them through an NLRB election process that is dramatically tilted in the employer's favor. The Employee Free Choice Act would simply take this veto power away from employers. Under current law, it's the employer's choice that matters. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, it's the employees' choice that matters.

Majority sign-up has a proven track record for reducing coercion and intimidation. In cases where responsible employers, like Cingular Wireless, have permitted their employees to form a union through majority sign-up, both sides have praised the process for increasing cooperation and decreasing tension.

Second, the legislation increases penalties against employers who fire or discriminate against workers for their efforts to form a union or obtain a first contract.

Under current law the National Labor Relations Board is required to seek a federal court injunction against a union whenever there is reasonable cause to believe that the union has violated the secondary boycott prohibitions in the National Labor Relations Act.

Under this legislation, the Board must seek a federal court injunction against an employer whenever there is reasonable cause to believe that the employer has discharged or discriminated against employees, threatened to discharge or discriminate against employees, or engaged in conduct that significantly interferes with employee rights during an organizing or first contract drive. The legislation authorizes the courts to grant temporary restraining orders or other appropriate injunctive relief.

Employers found to have discharged or discriminated against employees during an organizing campaign or first contract drive must pay those workers three times back pay, instead of the simple back pay required under current law. Employers found to have willfully or repeatedly violated employees' rights during

an organizing campaign or first contract drive would receive civil fines of up to $20,000 per violation.

Under current law, remedies are limited solely to make whole remedies: back pay (minus any additional interim wages the employee did or should have earned), reinstatement, and notice that the employer will not engage in violations of the National Labor Relations Act. Many employers conclude that, even if caught, it is financially advantageous to violate the law and pay the penalties rather than to comply.

And third, the legislation provides for mediation if an employer and a union are engaged in bargaining for their first contract and are unable to reach agreement within 90 days. After 30 days of mediation the dispute would be referred to binding arbitration. Under current law, employers have a duty to bargain in good faith, but are under no obligation to reach agreement. As a result, a recent study found that 34 percent of union election victories had not resulted in a first contract.

Madam Chairman, we have heard a lot of shamefully misleading claims from the critics of this bill. Those critics claim that they have workers' best interests at heart, and that they are trying to protect democracy.

Yet their claims are belied by the fact that some of the nation's leading workers' rights and prodemocracy organizations support this bill, including Human Rights Watch, Interfaith Worker Justice, and the Drum Major Institute--among many, many others.

These are organizations that are dedicated to the mission of improving the lives of American workers. I can tell you that if this bill would do the kind of harm that its critics claim it would, then these respected organizations would not be supporting it today.

I want to close by just reminding people how much is at stake here.

We can continue on our nation's current path, where our society grows more and more unequal and polarized. If we stay on the same path, then our middle class will keep getting squeezed, and will struggle to pay for just the basic necessities of life, like housing, healthcare, education, and transportation.

We can stay on that path, or we can go in a new direction. We can ensure that every American worker gets his or her fair share of the benefits of a growing economy.

To strengthen America's middle class, we have got to restore workers' rights to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.

After all, union workers earn 30 percent more, on average, than non- union workers. They are much more likely to have retirement and health benefits and paid time off.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 800 so that we can finally start to reverse the middle class squeeze and create an economy that benefits all Americans.

Madam Chairwoman, I think the gentleman from New Jersey has explained this quite correctly. This allows you, because of your membership in a union, to be discriminated against in the employment.

The actions that the gentleman says that he wouldn't like to have take place are actions that are already illegal under the law. You don't get to disrupt the workplace. You don't get to engage in those kinds of activities, and that's the way the law is written.

This is just simply a broad discriminatory practice against the employment, or it allows the nonemployment of individuals who are members of the union. At very best, under the best interpretation, what this employee would buy themselves if they go to seek a job is they would get themselves a lawsuit. They would have to sue for the right to be employed in a workplace.

You know, a job today in America is not a luxury; it is a necessity. This is just part of the harassment of individuals who believe in the organization of the workplace. This is just one more of the harassment, and now they want to put this one into the statutes of the United States.

We should vote against this amendment.

Madam Chairman, you look at this amendment and you realize this is just another piece of the continued effort by which the party on the other side is fully prepared to diminish the rights of workers to have access to information about an organization that may help them in the workplace. But, you know what?

If the employer wants to bring that worker in and sit him down on a one-to-one meeting with the supervisor, with the owner of the company or the Board of Directors, if he wants to take them off of their job where they may be getting paid for productivity and explain to them why they shouldn't join the union and all that, there is nothing to protect that employee there. There he is sitting with the person who can fire them. There he is sitting with the person who fired over 35,000 people or docked their pay or did some other illegal action against them because they said, well, I think I might still want a union.

But if the union wants to go out, if other employees want to talk to their fellow workers about this, you have no opportunity to communicate. And then you are supposed to go into an election. But one side doesn't get any opportunity to communicate.

That is an interesting theory, that those with all of the power in this arrangement, those with the authority to hire and fire, they get unlimited access. But here, you may get, on break time in the break room you may still have a little tiny bit of access for the union, but they can't talk to a person out there because they could take them off the list.

What do you think the first thing is the employer might suggest to the employees when they hear that there is a union effort in the company? Put yourself on the Do Not Call List. Joe, did you put yourself on the Do Not Call List yesterday? Because then the employer knows immediately that the union no longer has access. Just another form of intimidation, just another form of a kind of arbitrary power over the employees, just one of those little things that the anti-union consultants will tell the employer to check off.

Make sure you told your employees to sign up for the Do Not Call List. Make sure you run down that list, find out who signed up and who didn't, get that list clean, because if we ever get that list, if we can get 100 percent, then the union has no access to them. It is a wonderful tool in the name of democracy you want to put into the hands of the anti-union campaigns.

No, it is very unfortunate that they simply won't allow workers to make this decision, the decision that is accommodated and allowed and provided for in the law of whether or not they want an NLRB election, or they want a majority sign up. They are not going to do that. And so fearful of the decision that the employee might make, they have decided to insulate the employee from the campaign and put them off limits to anybody except the employer.

No, this amendment should not be supported at all, and I urge its defeat.

Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him so much for his role in bringing this bill to the floor and the subcommittee where he chairs the subcommittee and in the full committee during the debate and here on the floor today, and I thank all of my colleagues who voted for this bill.

I don't know, maybe you have been doing business so long where you have been paying back your supporters, you think that is the way everybody does business. And that is why you have people heading down toward the courthouse and that is why you lost your leadership, because they were paying back their supporters.

Now, I know it is hard for you to change your stripes, and some of you will be wearing stripes, but the fact of the matter is, that is not the way we are doing business. But that is your language and that is your habit and the way you ran the Congress. It is pay to play. Pay to play.

Well, a new day is in town, and we are here today about whether or not workers will simply have the choice to exercise a right that has been in the law for 70 years, a right that can be taken away from them like that from an employer who simply says no to a majority of people who want representation in a workplace, a right that is part of the National Labor Relations Act. But it is revoked by employers, arbitrarily, without reason, without purpose. Then they can insert those employees into a process that is well documented now of hundreds of thousands of employees over the last decade that have been punished and had retribution, been harassed, lost pay, lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their good shift, lost their premium time. That is the record. That is the record.

So the question is simply this: Will we give these employees the choice to decide, do I get to have an NLRB election, or do I want to choose this. Thirty percent can have an election. It takes 50 percent to have a card check.

And your secret ballot, Mr. McKeon, you forgot to have the secret ballot for the decertification election. Apparently you don't need a secret ballot for that. You just have a card check. Okay. Now we understand what is going on here.

Let's remember today that families find themselves in the most difficult of economic situations. Today, your employer, who has reduced your pension, they have terminated your pension, they have reduced the payments into your pension, they extend the time in years that you have to participate in the pension before you can vest. Your health care, they ask you to pay more for it and reduce the benefits that you are paying more for. They change your hours. They change your pay. They change your premium pay. They change your shift.

So finally people say, I have got to have some say. I want the right to organize at work. I need representation. As the new Senator from Virginia said, everybody needs an agent. ``I need somebody to negotiate with this employer because I am not able to support my family. My wages aren't going up.''

The productivity is going up, the highest productivity in the history of the country, and employees are taking home the smallest share. Who is taking the most home? The CEO's, with their arbitrary golden parachutes and golden handshakes. What about the person trying to support a middle-class family? What about the person trying to decide whether they can hold on to their house or if they can buy their first house? Where do they get to negotiate?

The law says go to the National Labor Relations Act, and there you find a provision that says an employee has the choice of how to do this. But if they choose a card check, the employer can take it away from them. That is not democracy. That is arbitrary. That is capricious. That is an outrage. These are real people. These are real people that have been hurt this way.

I conducted a hearing. Ivo Camilo worked for Blue Diamond Growers for 35 years. He was awarded all kinds of awards for being an outstanding employee. Thirty-five years he gave them his life. And then Ivo said he wanted a union and they fired him. And when he said that to our hearing, he started to cry. Thirty-five years he had worked, and he started to cry.

My granddaughter was sitting next to me in the hearing. She had to leave early, but she had her father call me from the car. She got on the phone and she said, ``Papa,'' she said, ``Papa, why did that man have to cry in front of all those people?''

I said, ``Montana, he cried because he was embarrassed to admit to other people that he couldn't provide for his family; that he had lost a job that he was proud of. He lost a job because he simply spoke up.''

Another constitutional right you forget sometimes, he simply spoke up and said, ``I would like to have representation at work.'' And so Ivo Camilo was fired, along with tens of thousands of

other workers who simply made that statement to their employer.

You believe that is a fair system? That is a fair system that people can be fired? And when he gets his job back, he gets his back pay, no penalty for doing this, and that is why 30,000 people have taken action against them, because there is no penalty for the employer to fire these people, because what do they want, they are trying to increase the security in the workplace, they are trying to increase the financial security of their families.

You can pick up the paper every day and understand what is happening to people with health care, with their pensions. You can see what happens every day. The wages of working people are flat. They have been decreasing over the years, even as they have been the best workforce in America, and now they understand the risks that they run.

They want more say. They want their employers to stop fooling around with pension plans and dipping into their retirement funds and putting those things at risk. That is what the Employee Free Choice Act does: it gives these employees a chance to have representation and protect the health and welfare and support of their families. I urge a vote against the McKeon amendment and in support of the legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker and Members of the House, this is one of the more cynical amendments that could be offered at this time. You are going out to organize a workplace, and the people you are going out to organize are the employees of a company.

Now, either that company has a large number or maybe a total workforce that is illegal, and they don't want you near them; or they are legal because they are employed there, because that employer is supposed to check to see whether or not they are legal and to certify that they are. That is the pool of people that you are seeking to employ.

Now, this administration, you know, I think in 2004, maybe fined five companies, or you can put them on one hand. They now want to shift their failure to enforce in the workplace to the union organizers that they somehow have to do immigration checks because neither the employer apparently did them, nor the administration did them.

This is simply outrageous that we would ask people to do this. The people who are working in the facility, whether it is a plant or a job site, the employer has certified that they are legal, and they are legal workers. Why is it we would shift this to the unions?

If this company is not properly certified, that is why the Federal Government is supposed to be inspecting them. But they don't inspect them, because you haven't done this in the past, because you haven't taken this problem as seriously as you should. But all of a sudden you decided on this bill you are going to take it seriously, and you are going to shift it on to the union organizing effort to check this. It is an outrageous and cynical approach.

If you take it seriously, if you take it seriously, then enforce the law. Enforce the law. You have been in power for 12 years. And apparently this is a problem that is so important that it only comes to light this evening. Enforce the law, 2004, three companies.

Madam Speaker, I yield time to Mr. Andrews from New Jersey.

You will have your opportunity to address immigration law. You will have that opportunity. You have tried to deny it over the last several years, but you're going to have it.

All this amendment says is you really dislike the unions even more than you dislike the illegal workers. That is what this says.

Point of Order

Madam Speaker, all I can tell you is these people over here, when it was a question of the company, illegal immigration didn't bother them. All of a sudden, nonunion, these folks over here want to put it on the back of the unions in a most unfair fashion.

Madam Speaker, I just want to say to the House, let's not vote for this cynical amendment. Let's vote ``no'' against this and not punish people who are out trying to organize for the benefits of their families and their communities and for their health care and for their wages and put this burden on them that this administration hasn't accepted and the employers haven't accepted or the employers are doing it illegally. Let's enforce this law and not make this a substitute for that.

I ask you to vote against this.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, finally, but 4 years too late, the Bush administration, with Vice President Cheney's trip to Afghanistan, has recognized that the real war on terror is not Iraq; that Iraq has been a diversion against that war on terror; that, in fact, the real war on terror is in Pakistan and Afghanistan and in the border area. They are starting to discover that the Government of Pakistan has not been our friend as we have tried to stabilize Afghanistan and the Karzai government, as we have tried to build democracy in Afghanistan, as we have tried to root out the Taliban and al Qaeda; that, in fact, because of the diversion and our early leaving of Afghanistan for Iraq, that we have now allowed the al Qaeda to come back in command and control and to build their membership, to recruit around the world.

We have seen the Taliban come back into Afghanistan and start to threaten and overturn village leaders and democratically elected leaders in villages in various parts of Afghanistan. Only now, 4 years too late, does the Bush administration recognize that this is the real war on terror, and they have failed to fight it, failed to deal with it and failed to prepare for it. -

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 990) to provide all low-income students with the same opportunity to receive a Pell Grant by eliminating the tuition sensitivity provision in the Pell Grant program, as amended.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 990, the Pell Grant Equity Act of 2007.

This is a bill that is designed to adjust an inequity in the current law that works against the interest of many college students in those States that have low tuition.

At a time when we have seen tuition and fees of public colleges and universities increase significantly, there is a notable exception to that trend, and that is that California community colleges recently decreased their tuition and fees from $26 a credit to $20 a credit. For a student taking 13 credits for two semesters, they save $520 in tuition for the year. This is almost unheard of in a day of skyrocketing college costs. Unfortunately, a provision in the Higher Education Act penalizes students attending low-cost institutions, such as California's community colleges.

The provision known as ``tuition sensitivity'' reduces the Pell Grant for the neediest of students attending higher education institutions with the lowest tuition. The result is that thousands of low-income students receive a lesser Pell Grant.

The Pell Grant Equity Act eliminates this discriminating provision in the law, ensuring that students receive the full amount of the Pell Grants they are entitled to receive. This is a very important bill for these students and for their families.

This is legislation that my colleague, Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican on the committee, worked very hard last year to get into the Higher Education Act. It was passed on the floor of the Congress. He worked very hard to bring this matter to the attention of all of the Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, but as you know, that legislation was not passed in the end, and that is why we are here today because this has an immediate impact on those students who find themselves in this situation. And I want to thank him for all of the effort that he made to adjust this inequity in the law over the last couple of years as we have tried to deal with this within the Higher Education Act.

This bill is a 1-year fix, and we do so because we anticipate that this would cover the upcoming academic year. And we would hope to be able to make the permanent changes when we reauthorize the Higher Education Act in this Congress.

According to the Congressional Research Service, our bill will help approximately 96,000 students receive an average of $100 more in a Pell Grant aid. Sometimes that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but in grant aid to these students and these families, this is an important amount of money because it is not just the tuition that is going down, it is other costs continue to go up.

This increase will help make a real difference for these students in meeting not just their tuition costs, but the costs of their books, their supplies, transportation, room and board, and expenses that quickly add up.

We know this is an issue because we have received letters and heard stories from the community colleges, from the students and from their families. It is a situation where you can find two siblings, one at Cal State school and another at a nearby community college. Both students take similar courses, enrolled full-time, live at home, commute to colleges, both have filed Federal financial aid forms and have an expected family contribution of zero. So both qualify for the maximum Pell Grant. Due to the current rules, the sibling attending the community college will receive $402 less, even though the educational costs overall are the same for those two individuals.

That is why we need to pass this legislation today. It has strong bipartisan support. And it will keep the Pell Grant as a strong part of our Federal student aid program targeted to those in the most need.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, earlier in the first few hours of this session, this Congress took a bipartisan vote to cut interest rates for the neediest students who are borrowing money. Those same group of students, many of them are still eligible for the Pell Grant. This action we take today, again on a bipartisan basis, I think will be very helpful to these students and to their families as, again, they try to put together the resources necessary so that they can begin their advanced education in the higher education system in this case. Hopefully in community colleges, they will continue to try to figure out, along with the State legislatures, how to lower the cost of that college. And this would provide an additional incentive, since they know now that those students will not be punished in a sense because they are going to a lower cost college at that time.

I would like to thank the staff of both committees for all of the work they did on this, for the senior Republican, Mr. Keller, on the subcommittee, and Mr. McKeon on the full committee, and to Mr. Hinojosa, the chairman of the subcommittee, for all of their work. We look forward to a quick passage here and hopefully a speedy passage in the Senate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H. Con. Res. 74 sponsored by Congressman Mike Thompson. Passage of this bill will express federal support for Hydrocephalus research.

Hydrocephalus, a chronic neurological condition that causes cerebrospinal fluid to build up in the brain cavity instead of being reabsorbed into the body, is a disease that affects over one million Americans. This disease can cause head enlargement and blurred vision, learning disabilities and impaired physical development and is fatal if untreated.

Like many other diseases that affect a relatively small portion of our population, Hydrocephalus research lacks proper funding. It is deplorable that the current standard treatment, which requires the insertion of a shunt into the brain to drain out the fluid, was designed in 1952. Shunts are extremely prone to infections and frequently require repair through major surgery.

Modem medicine can do better. I am certain that with federal support for additional research we can develop a better treatment, if not a cure, for those suffering from Hydrocephalus and help them live healthier, fuller lives.

I applaud my colleague, Mr. Thompson, for his efforts in this area and I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for all of his hard work in struggling on this issue and our troops and force strength, Mr. Speaker.

But I rise in strong support of this bipartisan resolution regarding the Iraq war. I rise in strong support to this resolution to say to the President, no more. I rise in strong support of this resolution to say to the President, your policy is wrong. Yes, you have tried the surge before, and the surge has not brought peace to Iraq. It has not brought an end to the insurgency. It has not brought an end to the sectarian war that is going on in that country every day.

Yes, this is the fourth time that the President tried this policy, and it has not worked in any of those times. When we pass this bipartisan resolution, the President should pause. Because, at that moment, the President will not have the support of the United States House of Representatives; and, at that moment, the President will not have the superintendent of the people of the United States.

The President better think long and hard about he really believes that he should commit these troops, and continue to commit these troops, without the authority of the people, without the authority of this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, American men and women have been fighting in Iraq, and they will soon begin their fifth year. In 5 years, they have done all that we have asked them. But what we have asked them to do cannot be accomplished by the military.

We have known for some time that Iraq now requires a political solution, and it requires the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi society and the communities to take hold of their country and to decide whether they want a future of continued sectarian violence or whether they want an orderly society. They must make that decision.

The President has had it wrong for many, many months, for many years. He has continued to say that, as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. Mr. President, you have it wrong. As we begin to stand down, they will begin to stand up.

The fact that our military troops are on the streets of Baghdad and Anwar Province and elsewhere enables people to continue a level of violence that randomly and wantonly takes the lives of men, women and children, innocent bystanders, for almost no good reason at all, no good reason at all. It allows that to continue because each knows, if it gets out of control, the American troops will ride to the rescue, the helicopters will come, and the missiles will fly. We are the enablers of the continuation of this violence.

Once they have to take responsibility for their actions, once we leave, this is no longer an insurgency. This is crime on crime, Iraqi against Iraqi. Somebody has got to take the responsibility for that, and that will not be us. We will not be able to bring it to an end. The Iraqi government will be.

The time has come for our troops to leave. The time has come for us to understand that we cannot cure what is wrong in Iraq.

But for these troops that are there and for the troops that are being sent in spite of the will of the American people and the will of the Congress, we ought to understand that they should be fully equipped. We should not repeat the history of this administration in this deployment where men and women were sent into the theater without proper vehicle armor, without proper body armor, without proper interpreters and without proper training.

Many Members have come to this floor for many hours now and said, what is the message you are sending to your troops?

What was the message the Congress is sending?

What was the message this Congress sent to the troops when the President allowed them to go to war without enough troops to secure the peace?

What was the message this Congress sent when it allowed the troops to go to combat without proper vehicle armor?

What was the message that the Congress sent when it allowed our troops to go into combat without proper protective armor?

What was the message this Congress sent to the troops when it allowed this President to continue this failed course with no adjustment over the past 4 years?

And what was the message that we sent to the troops when it allowed the President to effectively draft American volunteers by continuing their tours, shortening their time at home, shortening their time with their families and sending them back without proper training, shortened training and without proper equipment?

We cannot do that to the troops. The message of this resolution is we are not going to do that. We are not going to do that. We will make a pledge to you that we will not let you fight and die forever with no plan to get you out, with no exit plan for you, with no change in the policy that has led tragically to so many deaths and so many wounded.

That is what this resolution is about. That is the message we must send to the troops, and that is the message we must send to the Iraqi people, that they must take responsibility.

This surge is not an election-day surge. This isn't a constitutional- day surge. This is a surge for the purpose, this is an escalation for the purposes of door-to-door combat, street by street, block by block, house by house.

Yet today we see General Schoomaker saying in the paper that these troops that are getting engaged in this up-close battle in the midst of the Iraqi people will not have enough interpreters. They will not have civil affairs soldiers. They will not have enough translators. So now we are putting them again where they are at greatest risk, and this Congress is agreeing to go forward and repeat history and put them at risk when it is not necessary.

Madam Speaker, I rise today along with Representative Thomas Petri to introduce the Student Aid Reward Act of 2007, the STAR Act, a bill that is a vital part of strengthening America's middle class.

Since 2001, tuition and fees at public colleges and universities have exploded, increasing by 41 percent--after inflation. Students are graduating with greater amounts of debt than ever before, and unfortunately as many as 200,000 prospective students each year decide not to go to college because they can't afford it.

Already in this Congress we have taken great strides toward making a college education affordable for all qualified students through increased grant aid and more affordable student loans.

The Student Aid Reward Act continues the mission of putting students and families first by providing additional need-based grant aid to students without any cost to the taxpayer.

This legislation is simple: It encourages colleges to use the less expensive of the federal government's two student loan programs, and puts the savings back into the hands of students through need-based grant aid.

In order to do this, the Student Aid Reward Act calls on the Secretary of Education to determine which of the two Federally backed student loan programs is more efficient. Schools that elect to use the more efficient program would then be rewarded with additional scholarship funds for and graduate fellowship money for low- and middle-income students--all paid for by the savings generated by the bill.

According to the President's recently released 2008 education budget, student loans made through the more expensive program in 2007 cost $3 more for every $100 lent than the same loans made with U.S. Treasury funds.

At a time when our Federal Government is facing an extreme deficit, this is a win-win bill

for students, families, and taxpayers. This bill will not only increase efficiency in the loan programs, but will also generate increased competition, resulting in increased benefits for students and families.

The Student Aid Reward Act has also been introduced in the Senate by Senators Edward Kennedy and Gordon Smith.

No qualified person should ever be prevented from going to college because of the cost. We must ensure that every student in this country has the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

Madam Speaker, I rise today along with my colleagues Rep. Buck McKeon, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa and Rep. Ric Keller to introduce the Pell Grant Equity Act of 2007.

As we all know, Pell Grants are the cornerstone of our federal student aid system providing approximately $13 billion for more than 5 million undergraduate students, mostly from low-income households.

Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of low-income students, who would otherwise qualify for a full Pell Grant, have been unable to do so because of the current ``tuition sensitivity'' rule.

``Tuition sensitivity'' is intended to reduce the Pell Grant for students attending higher education institutions that charge very low tuition.

Current law punishes very low cost schools and the students who attend those schools by reducing the Pell Grant aid they can receive.

The Pell Grant Equity Act addresses this imbalance by eliminating the discriminating ``tuition sensitivity'' provision in the law and ensuring students continued eligibility for the full amount of aid they would have otherwise received.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the students most negatively affected by this policy are ``the poorest students attending institutions with very low tuition charges.''

Since 2001, tuition and fees at public colleges and universities have exploded, increasing by 41 percent after inflation.

The exception to the rule of rising tuition and fees, are California's community colleges. This year, instead of seeing an increase in tuition and fees, California community college students' enrollment fees witnessed a decrease from $26 to $20 per unit.

The California community college system, and any other college system that experience cost reductions, is unfairly penalized by the ``tuition sensitivity'' provision.

Based on estimates from the Chancellor's office of the California community college system, more than 260,000 California community college students are expected to receive reduced Pell Grants because of the tuition sensitivity provision.

Rather than limit the Pell Grant--our goal is to expand it, which is what we accomplish through the Pell Grant Equity Act.

We must ensure that every student in this country has the opportunity to pursue their educational dreams, particularly those from low- and middle-income families.

There is no goal more important for our nation's students and families, for our economy and our future.

Mr. Speaker, as already has been noted this evening, tomorrow the House will begin a 3-day debate on the question of whether or not we support the escalation of the war in Iraq by supporting the President's policy to send over 21,000 additional troops to Baghdad, what is called the surge, but is in fact an escalation of the war and of the exposure of our American troops in Iraq.

It is an important debate, and it will be an important vote. It will be a very simple proposition: Either you support the escalation or you do not. This is the vote that the American people have been asking for now for many, many months. They certainly expressed it in the election. They have expressed it since the election where we see time and again they are telling the country, they are telling those of us who are in the Congress of the United States that they do not support this policy; they want an exit plan; they want our young men and women brought home from Iraq; and they want the Iraqis to take responsibility for the political decisions that must be made if Iraq is in fact going to be a unified country, if Iraq in fact can proceed along a road to building democratic institutions and hopefully finally building a democracy.

But none of that, none of that will be done by the troops from America. None of that can be done by the troops from America. The fact of the matter is that that must be done by the Iraqi people.

But there will be those in this debate who will be defending the President's failed strategy in Iraq by attacking the President's critics. They ask, what message would America send to its troops in combat if Congress votes to repudiate the President's plan? What message, indeed?

Mr. Speaker, the question really is, what message did Congress send to our troops from the very beginning of this miserable war?

What message did Congress send to the troops in the beginning of this miserable war when they voted to go to war based upon the lack of proper evidence, false evidence, manipulated evidence and, in fact, outright lies to the American people and to the world about the situation in Iraq, and certainly a war that was not vital to the interest of the United States?

What message did Congress send when it allowed the President to go to war without enough troops to secure the peace?

What message did the Congress send when it allowed our troops to go into combat without proper armored vehicles?

What message did Congress send when it allowed our troops to go into combat without proper protective body armor?

And what message did the Congress send when it allowed the President to continue a failed course in Iraq with no adjustments in strategy?

What message did Congress send when it allowed the President to effectively draft American volunteers by continuing their tours of duty over and over again?

And what message did the Congress send to our troops, indeed?

But there is a new Congress now and there is a new message for our troops. By raising objections to the President's failed strategy, and by demanding a new course in Iraq and the immediate and responsible redeployment of our forces, we will send a new and clear message to our troops. Our message to the American forces in combat is that we will not let you fight and die forever in Iraq with no plan to get you out, with no exit plan. Our message is that we will insist that the Iraqis take responsibility for their country and the building of a democracy, and that soon American forces will be brought home or redeployed to fight the real war on terror.

Our message is that the American forces will not be used to fight Iraq's civil war. Our message to the President's few remaining supporters in the House and Senate is, do not exploit our brave troops in combat in a desperate and vain effort to bolster a weak President. Do not use our brave men and women serving in Iraq to cling to a misguided policy that is dangerous for America's interests and for its troops as well.

Join us in opposing the escalation of the war in Iraq, and when we see that history is now repeating itself, where once again the administration is prepared to send our soldiers into Iraq without proper equipment and without proper training, demand, instead, a new strategy to get America out of Iraq's civil war, to get Iraq to take responsibility for its own future, and to use our troops for the proper mission, to defend America.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Rule XI, Clause 2(a)(2) of Rules of the House of Representatives, I respectfully submit the rules for the 110th Congress for the Committee on Education and Labor for publication in the Congressional Record. The Committee adopted these rules by voice vote, with a quorum being present, at our organizational meeting on January 24, 2007.

The Rules of the Committee on Education and Labor for the 110th

Congress

rule 1. regular, additional, and special meetings: vice chairman

(a) Regular meetings of the Committee shall be held on the

second Wednesday of each month at 9:30 a.m., while the House

is in session. When the Chairman believes that the Committee

will not be considering any bill or resolution before the

Committee and that there is no other business to be

transacted at a regular meeting, he will give each member of

the Committee, as far in advance of the day of the regular

meeting as the circumstances make practicable, a written

notice to that effect; and no regular Committee meeting shall

be held on that day.

(b) The Chairman may call and convene, as he considers

necessary, additional meetings of the Committee for the

consideration of any bill or resolution pending before the

Committee or for the conduct of other Committee business. The

Committee shall meet for such purposes pursuant to that call

of the Chairman.

(c) If at least three members of the Committee desire that

a special meeting of the Committee be called by the Chairman,

those members may file in the offices of the Committee their

written request to the Chairman for that special meeting.

Immediately upon the filing of the request, the staff

director of the Committee shall notify the Chairman of the

filing of the request. If, within three calendar days after

the filing of the request, the Chairman does not call the

requested special meeting to be held within seven calendar

days after the filing of the request, a majority of the

members of the Committee may file in the offices of the

Committee their written notice that a special meeting of the

Committee will be held, specifying the date and hour thereof,

and the measure or matter to be considered at that special

meeting. The Committee shall meet on that date and hour.

Immediately upon the filing of the notice, the staff director

of the

Committee shall notify all members of the Committee that such

meeting will be held and inform them of its date and hour and

the measure or matter to be considered; and only the measure

or matter specified in that notice may be considered at that

special meeting.

(d) Legislative meetings of the Committee and its

subcommittees shall be open to the public, including radio,

television and still photography coverage, unless such

meetings are closed pursuant to the requirements of House

Rules. No business meeting of the Committee, other than

regularly scheduled meetings, may be held without each member

being given reasonable notice.

(e) The Chairman of the Committee or of a subcommittee, as

appropriate, shall preside at meetings or hearings, or, in

the absence of the Chairman, the vice chairman, or the

Chairman's designee shall preside.

rule 2. questioning of witnesses

(a) Subject to clauses (b) and (c), Committee members may

question witnesses only when they have been recognized by the

Chairman for that purpose, and only for a 5-minute period

until all members present have had an opportunity to question

a witness. The questioning of witnesses in both Committee and

subcommittee hearings shall be initiated by the Chairman,

followed by the ranking minority party member and all other

members alternating between the majority and minority party.

The Chairman shall exercise discretion in determining the

order in which members will be recognized. In recognizing

members to question witnesses in this fashion, the Chairman

shall take into consideration the ratio of the majority to

minority party members present and shall establish the order

of recognition for questioning in such a manner as not to

place the members of the majority party in a disadvantageous

position.

(b) The Chairman may permit a specified number of members

to question a witness for longer than five minutes. The time

for extended questioning of a witness under this clause shall

be equal for the majority party and the minority party and

may not exceed one hour in the aggregate.

(c) The Chairman may permit Committee staff for the

majority and the minority party members to question a witness

for equal specified periods. The time for extended

questioning of a witness under this clause shall be equal for

the majority party and the minority party and may not exceed

one hour in the aggregate.

rule 3. records and rollcalls

(a) Written records shall be kept of the proceedings of the

Committee and of each subcommittee, including a record of the

votes on any question on which a roll call is demanded. The

result of each such roll call vote shall be made available by

the Committee or subcommittee for inspection by the public at

reasonable times in the offices of the Committee or

subcommittee. Information so available for public inspection

shall include a description of the amendment, motion, order,

or other proposition and the name of each member voting for

and each member voting against such amendment, motion, order,

or proposition, and the names of those members present but

not voting. A record vote may be demanded by one-fifth of the

members present or, in the apparent absence of a quorum, by

any one member.

(b) In accordance with Rule VII of the Rules of the House

of Representatives, any official permanent record of the

Committee (including any record of a legislative, oversight,

or other activity of the Committee or any subcommittee) shall

be made available for public use if such record has been in

existence for 30 years, except that--

(1) any record that the Committee (or a subcommittee) makes

available for public use before such record is delivered to

the Archivist under clause 2 of Rule VII of the Rules of the

House of Representatives shall be made available immediately,

including any record described in subsection (a) of this

Rule;

(2) any investigative record that contains personal data

relating to a specific living individual (the disclosure of

which would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy),

any administrative record with respect to personnel, and any

record with respect to a hearing closed pursuant to clause

2(g)(2) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House of

Representatives shall be available if such record has been in

existence for 50 years; or

(3) except as otherwise provided by order of the House, any

record of the Committee for which a time, schedule, or

condition for availability is specified by order of the

Committee (entered during the Congress in which the record is

made or acquired by the Committee) shall be made available in

accordance with the order of the Committee.

(c) The official permanent records of the Committee include

noncurrent records of the Committee (including subcommittees)

delivered by the Clerk of the House of Representatives to the

Archivist of the United States for preservation at the

National Archives and Records Administration, which are the

property of and remain subject to the rules and orders of the

House of Representatives.

(d)(l) Any order of the Committee with respect to any

matter described in paragraph (2) of this subsection shall be

adopted only if the notice requirements of Committee Rule

17(c) have been met, a quorum consisting of a majority of the

members of the Committee is present at the time of the vote,

and a majority of those present and voting approve the

adoption of the order, which shall be submitted to the Clerk

of the House of Representatives, together with any

accompanying report.

(2) This subsection applies to any order of the Committee

which--

(A) provides for the non-availability of any record subject

to subsection (b) of this rule for a period longer than the

period otherwise applicable; or

(B) is subsequent to, and constitutes a later order under

clause 4(b) of Rule VII of the Rules of the House of

Representatives, regarding a determination of the Clerk of

the House of Representatives with respect to authorizing the

Archivist of the United States to make available for public

use the records delivered to the Archivist under clause 2 of

Rule VII of the Rules of the House of Representatives; or

(C) specifies a time, schedule, or condition for availability

pursuant to subsection (b) (3) of this Rule.

rule 4. standing subcommittees and jurisdiction

(a) There shall be five standing subcommittees. In addition

to the conducting oversight in the area of their respective

jurisdictions as required in clause 2 of House Rule X, each

subcommittee shall have the following jurisdictions:

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary

Education.--Including education from early learning through

the high school level including, but not limited to,

elementary and secondary education, education of the

disabled, the homeless and migrant and agricultural labor.

Also including school construction, overseas dependent

schools, career and technical training, school safety and

alcohol and drug abuse prevention, educational research and

improvement, including the Institute of Education Sciences;

and early care and education programs and early learning

programs, including the Head Start Act and the Child Care and

Development Block Grant Act.

Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and

Competitiveness.--Education and training beyond the high

school level including, but not limited to higher education

generally, postsecondary student assistance and employment

services, the Higher Education Act; postsecondary career and

technical education, training and apprenticeship including

the Workforce Investment Act, displaced homemakers, adult

basic education (family literacy), rehabilitation,

professional development, and training programs from

immigration funding; pre-service and in-service teacher

training, including Title II of the Elementary and Secondary

Education Act and Title II of the Higher Education Act;

science and technology programs; affirmative action in higher

education; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972; all

welfare reform programs including, work incentive programs,

welfare-to-work requirements; the Native American Programs

Act, the Robert A. Taft Institute, and Institute for Peace.

Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities.--

Adolescent development and training programs, including but

not limited to those providing for the care and treatment of

certain at risk youth, including the Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention Act and the Runaway and Homeless Youth

Act; all matters dealing with child abuse and domestic

violence, including the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment

Act, and child adoption; school lunch and child nutrition,

poverty programs including the Community Services Block Grant

Act, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

(LIHEAP); all matters dealing with programs and services for

the elderly, including nutrition programs and the Older

Americans Act; environmental education; all domestic

volunteer programs; library services and construction, and

programs related to the arts and humanities, museum services,

and arts and artifacts indemnity.

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.--Wages and hours of

labor including, but not limited to, Davis-Bacon Act, Walsh-

Healey Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, workers' compensation

including, Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act,

Federal Employees' Compensation Act, Migrant and Seasonal

Agricultural Worker Protection Act, Service Contract Act,

Family and Medical Leave Act, Worker Adjustment and

Retraining Notification Act, including training for

dislocated workers, Employee Polygraph Protection Act of

1988, trade and immigration issues as they impact employers

and workers, and workers' health and safety including, but

not limited to, occupational safety and health, mine health

and safety, youth camp safety, and migrant and agricultural

labor health and safety.

Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.--

All matters dealing with relationships between employers and

workers generally including, but not limited to, the National

Labor Relations Act, Labor Management Relations Act, Labor-

Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, Bureau of Labor

Statistics, employment-related retirement security, including

pension, health and other employee benefits, the Employee

Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); all matters related

to equal employment opportunity and civil rights in

employment, including affirmative action.

(b) The majority party members of the Committee may provide

for such temporary, ad hoc subcommittees as determined to be

appropriate.

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Student Loan Sunshine Act of 2007, a bill that aims to protect students and families from the predatory practices of unethical student loan lenders.

This comes on the heels of an announcement made last week by the Attorney General of New York, expanding an ongoing investigation into the activities of lenders and their relationships with colleges and universities across the country.

The allegations are quite troubling and are worthy of the attention of every state as well

as the Federal government in the interest of protecting students and limited taxpayer funds.

At issue here, Mr. Speaker, is the practice of lenders buying their way into colleges and universities through excessive ``inducements,'' or what some might term bribery.

Over the last year stories have surfaced with lenders offering exotic vacations to employees of colleges as well as offering to run student aid offices during high volume times.

These activities often result in lenders securing a coveted place on a college's ``preferred lender list.''

While some may see this as not so troubling or not the business of government, I beg to differ. When these activities directly result in limited options for students and families in deciding how to pay for college, I believe it is not only our business but our responsibility to do something.

Preferred lender lists are, for the most part, a non-issue with some colleges and universities. These institutions have indeed done the work of looking for the best deal in the interest of students and families and can justify why lenders have a place on their preferred lender list.

But this is the exception rather than the rule.

Entry into a school's preferred lender list means more than just having a coveted spot and a near guarantee of business, it means there are opportunities for lenders to prey on students and families and offer them private loans.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that students are taking out loans in record number and doing so before having exhausted all of their options with federal student loans.

Why is this a problem? Private loans carry interest rates as high as 19 percent--compared to federal loans that are offered at 6.8 percent.

Something must be done about the practices by lenders to limit choice for students as well as encourage students to take out high-interest and risky private loans before exhausting all of their borrowing options through the federal programs.

To begin the process of addressing this, I join my colleagues from the Education and Labor Committee, Ruben Hinojosa, Tim Bishop, Joe Courtney and John Yarmuth in introducing the Student Loan Sunshine Act. The legislation: Requires full disclosure of special arrangements that lenders and institutions of higher education have to offer loan products at the institution; Bans lenders from offering gifts worth more than $10 to college employees, including travel, lodging, entertainment, and in-kind services that lenders provide to college financial aid offices; Requires full disclosure of the reasons why an institution of higher education has selected a lender for its ``preferred lender'' list, including any special arrangements the lender has with the school; Encourages borrowers to maximize their borrowing through the government's loan programs before taking out alternative loans and direct-to-consumer loans with higher interest rates.

The legislation has also been introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy and Richard Durbin in the Senate.

It is clear that we need to take steps to address the complex activities of lenders and their relationships with institutions. The Student Loan Sunshine Act is a necessary first step in starting the dialogue at the national level.

Madam Speaker, today, I am pleased to be joining 230 of my colleagues in introducing H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act is a bipartisan bill designed to provide workers with a fair opportunity to bargain with employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

In recent years, despite a growing economy, the middle class has been squeezed. Corporate profits and executive compensation have skyrocketed, but the middle class has seen their wages stagnate, while the costs for basic needs like healthcare, education, food, energy and housing continue to increase. Globalization and misguided government policies have contributed to a growing income disparity and less economic security for middle class families.

One way to help the middle class is to provide them with a fair opportunity to organize and join unions, so they can have a say in what goes on in the workplace. Workers who belong to unions earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers. In addition, they are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and four times more likely to have pensions.

The current process for forming unions is badly broken and so skewed in favor of those who oppose unions, that workers must literally risk their jobs in order form a union. Although it is illegal, one quarter of employers facing an organizing drive have been found to fire at least one worker who supports a union. In fact, employees who are active union supporters have a one-in-five chance of being fired for legal union activities. Sadly, many employers resort to spying, threats, intimidation, harassment and other illegal activity in their campaigns to oppose unions. The penalty for illegal activity, including firing workers for engaging in protected activity, is so weak that it does little to deter law breakers.

Even when employers don't break the law, the process itself stacks the deck against union supporters. The employer has all the power; they control the information workers can receive, can force workers to attend anti-union meetings during work hours, can force workers to meet with supervisors who deliver anti-union messages, and can even imply that the business will close if the union wins. Union supporters' access to employees, on the other hand, is heavily restricted.

The Employee Free Choice Act would add some fairness to the system by: (1) allowing a majority of employees the opportunity to select to be represented by a union by expressing their decision through the signing of authorization cards; (2) provide for mediation and arbitration when workers and employers cannot agree on a first contract; and (3) increase penalties against employers who threaten, intimidate or fire workers for engaging in protected activity.

I urge all my colleagues to join in this effort to provide working people with a real opportunity to bargain for better wages and benefits.

Madam Speaker, no one who knew them both could ever deny the power of the relationship and marriage between Phil and Sala Burton. It brought together two people who cared deeply about America and believed strongly in progressive values and actions. As the enclosed article notes, Sala Burton saw these same values and talent in our new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, many years ago. When Sala, seriously ill, asked Nancy Pelosi to run for her congressional seat, she was acting on the same values and trust that she and Phil brought to public life. Sala made a decision that changed the history of the House of Representatives and our country forever.

I would like to share the article with our colleagues:

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 3, 2007]

Sala's Choice

Nancy Pelosi Carries On a Powerful Legacy

(By Harold Meyerson)

Sala Galant Lipschultz Burton made two critical decisions

during her lifetime, the full meaning of which could not have

been apparent to her at the time she made them. The first, in

the early 1950s, was to marry a young lawyer and Democratic

activist named Phil Burton, who was to become the single most

important member of the House of Representatives in the '60s

and '70s.

As a leader of the California Young Democrats and a rising

force in San Francisco politics, the young Phil Burton had

already won a reputation for his political brilliance--and

for his explosive temper. Nobody worked harder for liberal

causes. Nobody demanded more of his associates and staffers:

If they

didn't match his crazy hours, his ability to count votes or

his understanding of the art of the deal, they'd be subjected

to eruptions from the Burton volcano.

Throughout his career, in fact, the biggest obstacle to

Burton's success was his rage. That he accomplished as much

as he did was due in part to Sala. The late John Jacobs,

whose 1995 biography of Burton, ``A Rage for Justice,'' is

one of the great political biographies of the past quarter-

century, reported that Sala was Phil's confidante, co-

strategist and champion, but that was only the beginning.

``She cleaned up his messes,'' Jacobs wrote, ``soothing and

placating those he insulted or abused. She alone could

intervene in a conversation to shut him up.''

Phil Burton was first elected to the House in 1964. In his

19 years as a congressman--he died of a ruptured aorta in

1983--he was responsible for the legislation that established

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the aged, blind and

disabled; created black-lung compensation for coal miners;

increased the minimum wage; made strikers eligible for food

stamps; greatly expanded the size and number of national

parks; and abolished the House Un-American Activities

Committee. More broadly, he broke the power of the old

Dixiecrat barons in the House by subjecting committee

chairmanships to secret ballot elections within the

Democratic caucus. He engineered reapportionments of

California that were greatly to his party's benefit, and he

steered contributions to the Democratic candidates who needed

them most.

When he died, Sala succeeded him in a special election.

Just four years later, in January 1987, Sala herself lay

dying of cancer. She asked Phil's brother, John Burton, who

had represented an adjoining congressional district in San

Francisco, to come to the hospital and told him that she

wanted ``Nancy'' to succeed her. For a moment, John Burton

was unsure which Nancy she was referring to, but as she

explained to family and friends at her bedside, the woman in

question was the former California Democratic Party chair

Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi had been associated with the Burtons since shortly

after she and her husband had moved to San Francisco in the

years when Phil's star was rising. The Pelosis had a large,

attractive house, and the first thing she recalls Phil saying

to her was, ``We'll use this for fundraisers.'' But Phil's

appreciation of Pelosi wasn't confined to her abilities as a

hostess. He saw in her a commitment to progressive values

and a clear political sense of how to turn those values

into laws. When John stepped down from Congress in 1982,

Phil asked Pelosi to stand for election to replace him,

but she declined, saying her children were too young. Five

years later, Sala, on her deathbed, evidently saw in

Pelosi the same qualities that Phil had seen.

This time, her children older, Pelosi said yes, and in

April she won a squeaker of a special election.

In the House, Pelosi has continually sought the counsel of

another Burton protege, George Miller, whose district is

right across the Bay from hers. Appointed early on to a seat

on the Appropriations Committee, she demonstrated, says the

committee's new chairman, Wisconsin's David Obey, that she

was ``operational''--a Burton word meaning able to steer

difficult measures to enactment.

When the Newt Gingrich Republicans swept to power in 1994,

political almanac authors Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa

termed it ``the collapse of the House that Phil Burton

built'' Nancy Pelosi, as smooth as Phil Burton was rough, is

far more open to openness in the legislative process than her

sometimes secretive mentor was. Politically, she understands

the limits of the possible and that she can expand them only

as far as the American people are willing to go. But she also

knows that the American people want Congress to do any number

of things that were stubbornly, and, in the end, suicidally

resisted by the now-collapsed house that Newt Gingrich built.

The Burtonistas--with different causes and methods for a

new era, to be sure--are back. Score two for you, Sala.

Madam Speaker, with a heavy heart, I rise to pay tribute to the life of former General Manager and founder of the Public Employees Union, Local No. 1, Henry LeRoy Clarke who died on January 4, 2007. For more than 38 years, Henry Clarke dedicated his life to improving working conditions for thousands of public employees in the Contra Costa County community. As General Manager, Mr. Clarke was a strong advocate on behalf of union members, transforming the political landscape from one that was highly adverse to organized labor to one that promotes mutual respect between administration and employees.

Henry Clark was born on March 10, 1923, in Denver, Colorado, to a family of seven children. During the depression, Henry moved with his family to Chico, California, to prosper in farming. He graduated from Chico High as Student Body President, and soon after entered WWII to serve in General George Patton's army in Europe. After the war, Henry returned to Chico, where he was named All Western Conference Tackle while playing for Chico State. He transferred to the University of California, Berkeley in 1948 to play football under legendary coach Lynn ``Pappy'' Waldorf and study labor, economics, and politics. Although Henry was only a young student, he helped organize the food service workers at Cal into one of the first unions in the U.C. system.

Upon graduating with honors from the University of California, Henry became a history teacher in the Napa public schools where he met his lovely wife Maureen. He only taught for 2 years before the school district fired him for none other than trying to form a teachers' union. From that moment on, Henry dedicated himself to the causes of organizing labor. He became the first full-time executive secretary of the California Federation of Teachers, and soon after the western representative of the American Federation of Teachers. In this position, Henry helped direct the largest collective bargaining election of teachers in the United States during the New York City teacher strikes of 1961 and 1962.

In 1962, Henry took on the job of General Manager for the Contra Costa County Employees Association, a title he would hold for the next 38 years. In 1968, he founded the independent Public Employees Union, Local No. 1, which many county employees joined in order to avoid a passive international union. Henry formed the union based upon fierce democratic principles, providing each member access and a voice in the governance of the union. Under Henry's visionary leadership, Local No. 1 grew from 632 members into a model for controlled unions everywhere achieving a current membership of over 15,000, which includes public employees from Northern California's counties, cities, school districts, and special districts. Henry represented these employees with vigor until his retirement in 2000.

Henry Clarke spent over four decades standing up for the rights of workers in Contra Costa County. He was a true public servant who understood the process of social justice.

To Henry's son and daughter-in-law, Cameron and Ellen Clark, and his grandson, Henry Wallace, I extend my heartfelt condolences. Your loss is shared not only by those who knew Henry personally but also by all those who have been touched by the work he has done. We will be forever grateful for the integrity, passion and determination with which he sought to make our country's work environment fair and safe for all.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I think it is just incredible that the other side of the aisle would argue, at a time when the most competitive and the most stressed oil market in the world, that what you need to develop oil leases offshore is to have government subsidies. At a time when you have national governments and international oil companies scouring the world to lock up resources, almost willing to do business with anybody in the world, doesn't matter if they are a dictator from the right or the left, at a time when countries are out trying to get their hands on these resources, we suggest the only way you can get people to drill in the most secure area of the entire world is to give them a subsidy.

The national security of the United States is the subsidy they get when they drill here. They do not need additional subsidies.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 65, I call up the bill (H.R. 5) to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to reduce interest rates for student borrowers, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, today we have an opportunity to provide a great deal of assistance to those students who borrow from the subsidized student loan program. I want to thank the Rules Committee for providing for the passage of the rule for the consideration of H.R. 5, the College Student Relief Act.

Today, millions of students and their families all across America are struggling to figure out how to pay for college. They are making critical decisions about whether college is in their future, based on what they can afford and how much debt they will be able to reasonably take on.

We know that a college education is as important today as a high school diploma was a generation ago. Yet, since the 2000-2001 academic years, tuition and fees at public colleges and universities have soared by 41 percent, while those at the private universities have increased by 17 percent. This is not a problem that we can ignore.

The College Student Relief Act helps students and their families by cutting interest rates for undergraduate subsidized student loans in half, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, phased in over 5 years. Once this interest rate is fully phased in, a student with an average loan debt of $13,800 will save approximately $4,400 over the life of their loan.

I am pleased to report that the College Student Relief Act is fully paid for, and complies with the House's new, strict PAYGO rules. Additionally, all changes to both students and lenders only apply to future loans.

This legislation will give much-needed relief to some 5.5 million students who borrow subsidized loans each year. The majority of students helped by College Student Relief Act are low- and middle- income students with family incomes between $26,000 to $68,000. Half of these students are eligible to receive Pell Grants, but many such students find that Pell Grants alone are insufficient. Because of the failure to increase the value of the Pell Grants over

the last decade, the Pell Grant does not cover the cost of education, and so those students who are eligible for Pell Grants because of family income and resources also find out they have to borrow. They borrow from this program, so this program is an additional savings, when we pass this legislation, to those who are eligible for the Pell Grants.

Providing debt relief to our students is the right thing to do. Current studies indicate that more students are borrowing more than ever. The debt level of graduates from public universities has skyrocketed by 58 percent in the past decade. The Pell Grant recipients and students with modest incomes are likely to borrow more often and in greater amount than other students.

This is just the first step in helping students and their families with college education. We plan to increase Pell Grants later in the appropriation process in the amount which has seriously fallen behind the cost of college, and we need to again take a look at making college tax credits and deductions simpler to use and more robust. That is what this Congress is committed to doing in the future when we are done with these six bills in the first 100 hours.

I also believe that colleges and universities should play their part in addressing affordability by becoming more diligent about cutting expenses and more transparent about college costs. We hope to address this in the 110th Congress when we reauthorize the Higher Education Act.

We cannot ignore the fact that students and families are drowning in debt in such a way that many of them have been forced to make difficult choices. Some choose just not to go to school, they stop going to school or they defer going to school, or they choose professions that will be more lucrative, instead of public service professions such as teaching, social work, law enforcement and other such professions because they know the debt that they will have to repay.

The debt issue and the agony families feel when they think about being able to afford college for their children is all too familiar a story to many of us who have been involved in this issue for some time.

I am pleased this bill has earned wide support in the education community among students, with such groups as U.S. PIRG and the United States Students Association, with colleges and universities across the country, including the National Association for Independent Colleges and Universities and the American Council on Education, and with labor unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5, the College Student Relief Act of 2007, so we can tell middle- and low-income families that we want to invest in a college education, we want to help these families find a way to pay for that, and we want to do whatever we can to reduce the burden of debt that these students are taking on today in unprecedented levels, the first generation to be put in that situation.

I think this is a good beginning in the first 100 hours to put this Congress on record not just as hoping to do something for students, but in fact doing something for 5.5 million students who will be eligible for the benefits under this interest rate cut.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate the presentation of my colleagues on the other side; their sort of would have, could have, should have.

But the fact of the matter is, last year, when they had the Higher Education Act in front of them, the only thing they did was take $16 billion out of the student aid accounts and give it to pay for tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country. They didn't think about the Pell grantees at that time. They talked about them, but they didn't do anything for the Pell grantees. They didn't do anything to lower the student loans here.

They took $16 billion, and we begged them, we went to the Rules Committee and we begged them to let us recycle that money on behalf of the students on loans or Pell Grants or whatever. They said, no, this is going to the richest people in the country. And the fact of the matter is, the Rules Committee was so generous that in the entire higher education bill of last year, we got one amendment. We got one amendment.

So I think the point is that on this day, here in the first 100 hours, we are going to take care of middle-and lower-income students, 5 million of them who need these resources; then we will move on to tax deductions for families. And then we are going to move on and deal with increasing the Pell, something the President promised to do 6 years ago and has never been done.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

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

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

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

Madam Speaker, I ask if I might be apprised how much time each side has.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I just say it is an interesting discussion, but people who are betting with real money have a different discussion of this legislation. What they have said, the investment houses that are advising their people whether or not to buy stock in student loan lenders and others, have said that what we have done is absolutely manageable by these lenders. And, in fact, they were quite surprised that the committee had as light a touch on these lenders as we did. And that is interesting, because those are people who are advising mutual funds and others whether or not to buy the various lenders, and theirs was that this is essentially a neutral act and very manageable by those companies.

And so I think we ought to have it not what the political politicians are saying but what people who are betting with their money are saying.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

I yield myself 1 minute.

I find it very interesting that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle keep coming to the floor and saying this won't help a single student. You know who thinks this will help a single student, and in fact this will help 5 million students, are the students, the students who are getting ready to take out the loans to borrow money to pay the tuition, to pay their college costs. They overwhelmingly support this legislation because it will help them and their families finance their education.

So apparently it won't help Republican Members of Congress, but it will help students and that is why the students support it. That is why we call them ``student loans'' because they go to students and then the students have to pay them back. You say they don't have to pay it back until after they graduate. Yes, but they borrowed the money their freshman year, their sophomore year, their junior year, and their senior year. They got the benefit. They were the students. So the students have decided that this bill is good, and it is really good for them, and it will make college more affordable for them and it will allow more of their colleagues to participate in going to college because the overall cost of that college education will be reduced through this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

So under the gentleman's theory, apparently the Republican repeal of the estate tax is only good for one day because you have a sunset on it.

And when the gentleman says one of the pundits, as opposed to a student who is going to get value for this, one of the pundits says this isn't good because it is on existing loans, no, it is on new loans.

So the pundits don't like it, the Republican Members of Congress don't like it, but the students like this. Hey, a novel idea. Let's do something the students like that they think will help to make college education affordable. There is an idea. Let's vote for that.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Moran of Virginia.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to correct the record.

You took $20 billion out of the lenders and put some back. And the rest of it you just took off with, and that could have been used.

No, no, no, to pay for your tax cuts, which was driving the deficit.

That was your priority. You are welcome to do it.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Arcuri).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, for purposes of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

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

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I now yield to Mr. Etheridge from North Carolina for the purposes of engaging in a colloquy.

I thank the gentleman for his inquiry, and I would say to the gentleman that I appreciate you sharing your concerns with me. Nonprofit lenders, certainly, our guaranty agents all play a necessary role in the Federal student loan program. Our goal is to ensure in the end that our policy benefits all students, and I pledge to work with you to ensure that we meet this goal and maximize the benefits of the most number of students.

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the staff of the majority side of the committee, Gabby Gomez, Julie Radocchia, Lisette Partelow, Stephanie Moore, Brian Kennedy from my staff for their great efforts in helping to prepare this legislation for the 100 hours, legislation that will have a dramatic and important impact on the cost of student loans for students borrowing from the subsidized loan program.

Madam Speaker and Members of the House, we come to the end of this debate on the question of whether or not we ought to make an effort to reduce the cost of college for millions of college students who will be taking out loans in the future to try to pay for that cost of college, and I think the resounding answer of this Congress in a few minutes will be: Yes, we should. Because we understand from discussions with our families, with our neighbors, with people in our communities that families are struggling with their children to try and figure out how they can afford them the opportunity that has become so terribly important in the economic future of these young people, and that is a college education. No longer today can you get by with a high school education. In fact, for most jobs now and most jobs certainly in the future we know that employers are telling us that at a minimum 2 years of college education is required. So this bill is about the opportunity to provide those students the means by which they go to college.

I have listened to all of this discussion on the other side of the aisle. The fact of the matter is they simply don't understand the bill. When a person is deciding whether or not they are going to pay the tuition this year, some of these students are eligible for a Pell Grant, they will get their $4,100; they still won't be able to meet the cost of the college, and they will borrow money. And under this legislation, after July, they will start to get a reduced interest rate, and next year they will get a further reduction in the rate and it will continue on. Unless the Republicans are going to repeal this legislation, maybe you are going to repeal it and take away this benefit for the students, it will continue on, as the gentleman knows. Just as we have a sunset in the Higher Education Act, a reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, we continue to reauthorize them time and time again because that is the commitment of this Congress, and I don't think the gentleman is suggesting that.

So what we have today is the opportunity for this Congress in the first 100 hours, in the first 100 hours of legislative business to reduce the student loans for those people on a subsidized loan from 6.8 percent down to 3.4 percent over the next 5 years and then thereafter. That is a magnificent opportunity.

When it is fully implemented this legislation will provide $4,400 in interest rate relief. $4,400 is a very substantial relief to low income and middle income families when they look at the life cycle cost of what it is going to cost to acquire 4 years of education to get that basic B.A. degree. When they look at that, they will see that this legislation will substantially reduce their costs.

But as Speaker Pelosi made very clear about this 100 hours, this is only the beginning. This is a down payment on our efforts to reduce the cost of college.

Yes, we want to follow along with Mr. McKeon's suggestions and his work in talking to the universities about whether or not they are doing all they can to keep the cost of college down and to make it affordable. We want to increase the Pell Grant, and we will be doing that in this committee and in the Appropriations Committee. And we hope to be able to enlarge the tax deduction for parents who are paying for the tuition and the cost of college beyond that.

So, yes, in this 100 hours, this is what we can do. This is what is affordable. Yes, my colleagues talk about all that they wanted to do. They paid for none of it. They sent the bill to these very same college students in terms of deficit, in terms of debt, in terms of interest on the debt, trillions of dollars of debt. This they may think is too small now, but the fact of the matter is, it is very important to these families that it is paid for so we don't continue to add to the debt because we have said we were also going to be fiscally responsible and have pay-as-you-go.

Finally, there has been a lot of discussion today about who doesn't like this bill. Maybe some of the lenders don't like this bill, some of the pundits don't like this bill. Maybe some of the people who work with the lenders don't like this bill. The people who like this bill and the people who matter are the students. And that is why U.S. PIRG and the U.S. Student Association and so many students support this legislation, because they know what this means to them with the passage of this bill, that their interest rates will be lower. They know this will lower the cost of college.

That is what we said we would do. That is what we are going to do. That is what the 100 hours have been about. That is what is going to happen with the passage of this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation. Help these students and help families with the cost of college.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Madam Speaker, I would hope that the House would turn down this motion to recommit because if you don't, there is going to be an awful lot of people who are going to be terribly disappointed.

This motion as presented today would knock almost a million students out of the benefits of this legislation, the benefits of a reduced interest rate on their college loans.

This motion if it is accepted would mean that families that might have one, two or maybe three kids in college, if they earn more than $68,000, they wouldn't get the benefits of this program.

This amendment, as offered and if it is accepted, means that perhaps a firefighter who is married to a teacher or teachers who are married to one another would not be able to get the benefits of this program for their families.

Is that what we want to do? Is that what we really want to do? We knock a million of the 5.5 million beneficiaries off eligibility for this interest rate reduction? Do we want to knock off families that may have more than one child in college off of this ability to benefit from the interest reduction? Do we want to take middle-class families, where a teacher might be married to a firefighter or teacher married to a nurse, and say to them, you are not eligible for this? I don't think you want to do, and I certainly know that the Congress doesn't want to do that.

This is aimed, based upon income, the cost of the institution you go to, the number of children in your family, income determinate, you get a subsidy. What they want to do now is put a cap on the income of about $65,000, which means if you have more than one child or two children in college, you still have the income cap and you can't get help.

So we are sending a message that you can help make your first child, but not the second child? That is what we are going to tell families? Their income didn't go up, but their cost just went up because another child is eligible for college? Another child said, I want to go to college. The family has to say, We can't help you because there is a cap.

That is why this is called the subsidized loan program, because we recognize there are people within the middle class, at the lower end of the middle class who need this help. Two and a half million of the recipients are eligible for Pell. They are going to get this help. That is what this is designed for.

This is designed for those families in the middle class that need this kind of interest rate help and is designed for those in Pell who still need additional

money to go to school. That is why we picked this category of people.

But to now tell hardworking Americans because of a cap you pulled out of the sky in the last 5 minutes that they can't help their children with the cost of education, that they are not eligible for this subsidy of cutting the interest rate from 6.8 to 3.4 percent, I don't get it. I don't understand it, and I don't think the Congress should support it.

I don't think that is the message that we want to send to those working families. I don't think that is what we want to do.

You think of your districts and you think of somebody with a family income of $65,000, and you start thinking who you are telling, you are not prepared to help with reducing the cost of college for those families. Start thinking now because you are going to vote in a few minutes. Think about that family, two parents working their tails off to make ends meet. They are firefighters, construction workers. They don't work all year round. They get laid off. They are married to a nurse or a teacher or a policeman. All of a sudden they find out that they are not eligible for this.

I ask this House to give this a resounding ``no.'' This isn't fair, it isn't just, and it is wrong. It is going to drive up the cost of college for the very families and students who need it the most.

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

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