Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are doubling down on a bad idea. These food stamp cuts will not only increase the incidence of hunger but result in a loss of thousands of jobs throughout the food industry alone. Because when poor families, children, the disabled, and the elderly can't afford food, they simply must go without. That's not economic stimulus--it's a national outrage.

It's outrageous that 26 anonymous individuals received over $1 million each in farm subsidies, but $1.40 per meal for a hungry child is considered government waste. It's outrageous that

some Members of Congress are voting to enrich themselves and wealthy special interests with farm subsidies while refusing benefits to millions of the neediest and most vulnerable Americans.

I issued a report earlier this year that detailed 14 Members of Congress who are collectively worth up to $124 million, received at least $7.2 million in farm subsidies, and yet voted to cut the nutrition allowance for 47 million working poor families and children.

Imagine that.

In honor of the Chair, let me just say, ``And that's just the way it is.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding the time, and I want to thank him for devoting his entire political career to the idea of eradicating hunger in American society and around the world, an outstanding record of achievement, an outstanding record of compassion. And then today, it runs into the Republican reality.

I know how you must feel, Mr. McGovern, after all these years of work, to see them cavalierly suggest that they can cut $40 billion in nutrition benefits to families, to children, to working people, to people searching for work, and that somehow nobody will lose their benefits, that somehow they're not throwing anybody off of the program. It's not that we said, you are throwing people off the program. It's that the Congressional Budget Office said that with the $40 billion cut, some 3.8 million people would lose their benefits and an average of nearly 3 million people each year over the coming decade. Over the coming decade, those people will lose their benefits.

What does that mean? I specialize in education. I visit schools almost every week. I talk to teachers every day that tell me about the fact that when children come there that they are nutritionally deprived, that they may not have had dinner, that they may not have had breakfast, that they are not attentive in class, that they fall asleep in class, that they're irritable. And we're going to cut the benefits to these children. And yet we want these children to perform at a high level. And they should be able to perform at a high level. We expect them to achieve in school.

But that's not what this program is about. This program is about cutting those benefits to those children in need. It's about cutting those benefits to those families in need. It's just unconscionable that they would think that somehow this is the road to prosperity, that you get to the road to prosperity by attacking the most vulnerable in our society who are in desperate need of these nutritional benefits for their families. Do they not know that one in five children lives in a home that experiences hunger on a regular basis?

Do they not know this? Are they not aware of it? Or do they not care? Somebody has to answer that question. Because when this Nation was shocked that they were going to cut $20 billion out of these nutritional benefits for these struggling families and individuals, they came back and said, No, we're going to cut $40 billion out of these benefits. What, because they're angry that the last measure didn't succeed? They're angry about what happened to the Agriculture bill? Is it because of anger that they're striking out at these families?

It shouldn't be that way in this country, and it shouldn't be that way in this Congress. These families are entitled to better. They are entitled to jobs. They are entitled to provide for their families, but some can't.

Those wonderful 60 months stripped trillions of dollars away from these families and middle class families in this country.

Mr. Speaker, on September 9th, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Nos. 448 and 449. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on both Roll No. 448 and Roll No. 449.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 256.

This legislation includes provisions adjusting the minimum wage schedule for the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands in a way that I think is appropriate and fair for both workers and businesses there.

Current law requires CNMI to increase its minimum wage 50 cents a year until it reaches the Mainland's federal minimum wage level of $7.25. Current law also requires the GAO to regularly report to Congress on economic conditions in Commonwealth over the course of these minimum wage adjustments.

These GAO reports are intended to give the public information so that, based on sound economic analysis, Congress can adjust the minimum wage schedule for the territories if warranted.

The next GAO report is due in April of 2014.

Since 2007 the Commonwealth's minimum wage has increased from $3.05 an hour to $5.55 an hour, an 82% increase in the past 5 years. This has brought new purchasing power and a higher standard of living for many workers than they could have negotiated on their own.

This bill would skip an increase in the minimum wage in CNMI for 2013 and 2015, while still requiring increases in 2014, 2016 and subsequent years.

This approach was recommended by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber stated in a May 8th letter that given the fragile economy in CNMI ``spreading the wage jumps over a two-year period seems prudent.''

This legislation is also recommended by Congressman Sablan, a tireless advocate for workers and for improving the Commonwealth's economy.

Because CNMI's wages had been depressed for so long, it is a long march of nearly a decade to more than double their minimum wage. In a territory like CNMI, we have recognized that we would need to be flexible with the wage rate schedule over that time frame, as conditions warranted.

Today's bill reflects that need for flexibility. It allows us to review the next GAO economic analysis for CNMI before another wage increase takes effect.

Because of CNMI's unique economic circumstances and relatively undiversified economy, it is appropriate for Congress to adjust the minimum wage schedule in response to changing economic conditions, while keeping our long-term commitment to reaching parity with the federal minimum wage.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 256.

Mr. Speaker, I have voted for many of the Iran sanctions bills that have to come before this body in the past, and I strongly believe that sanctions are a crucial tool in the extremely important effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But I am disappointed that the House took up and passed H.R. 850, the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act, this week. I believe that the timing and substance of this latest sanctions bill are ill-considered and would have the effect of pushing Iran in the opposite direction we seek.

More than 100 Members of Congress from both parties wrote to President Obama just two weeks ago in support of efforts to ``utilize all diplomatic tools to reinvigorate ongoing nuclear talks.'' I signed that letter because I believe that, while we cannot know at this point whether President-elect Rouhani will in fact be willing to negotiate in good faith to end Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, we must do everything in our power to demonstrate to Iran that it will benefit from ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Bringing H.R. 850 for a vote this week, just before President-elect Rouhani's inauguration, I believe, does the opposite, as it indicates an unwillingness to adapt to any adjusting circumstances that may occur. Moreover, it strengthens the hands of extremists in Iran who could use this vote to falsely claim that the American government is not interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution.

Additionally, I am concerned that certain provisions in H.R. 850 would unwisely limit President Obama's authority to negotiate as he sees fit. In particular, the bill would impose a total oil embargo, without providing an appropriate exemption for President Obama to utilize if need be. This creates two problems. First, it diminishes President Obama's ability to offer economic benefits to Iran in exchange for an Iranian halt to enrichment of uranium. Second, it makes it substantially more challenging for President Obama to maintain the strong international coalition that he has developed in support of sanctions. Without international support, our sanctions would be for naught, as Iran would be able to simply continue trading with other countries and would not face the economic harms intended by sanctions.

I support a strong sanctions regime as part of an effort to achieve a diplomatic solution that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I also support some important provisions of H.R. 850, such as those that provide for new sanctions against Iranian officials who are responsible for human rights abuses. Yet, overall, I am concerned that H.R. 850 will not strengthen the effort to utilize sanctions to achieve a diplomatic solution, but will instead be counterproductive to it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act. It has been nearly a month since interest rates on student loans were allowed to double on millions of our neediest students, but thanks to the bipartisan negotiations in the Senate, we now have a solution that provides real relief. And I want to thank Senator Durbin, Senator Harkin, Senator Manchin, and Senator King for all of their work on this effort.

Thanks to this legislation, over the next 5 years, borrowers across the country will save $25 billion in interest payments. In my home State of California, this bill will cut the cost of college for more than 550,000 students this coming academic year. It was worth the wait.

When we started work on this issue, I said that any long-term solution to student loan interest rates must help, not harm the students or their families, must not make college more expensive, and it must protect students in the future from spiking interest rates. I believe that this bipartisan bill accomplishes that goal.

It locks in interest rates for borrowers when they sign on to their loans; it provides a reasonable cap to protect students from rising interest rates; and it rolls back the doubling of interest rates, saving students and families real money right now.

Today's bipartisan student loan deal stands in stark contrast to the partisan bill passed by the House majority in May. The bill would have made college more expensive by nearly $4 billion to students and their families. It would have subjected students to a bait-and-switch scheme. It offered students teaser rates that balloon annually, leaving students deeper in debt and guessing what they will owe.

If you look at this chart, you will see that, under the bipartisan agreement we're voting on today, it will cost students about $11,363. The current law raises the cost to $14,000, and the bill that passed the House, the Republican

bill, was $16,400. So it's been well worth students to have this disagreement, to have this wait so that we could save this kind of money for students and families.

Next year's freshmen who borrow a maximum amount of subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans over 5 years would have paid $5,000 more in interest rates under the House Republican plan than under today's bipartisan compromise, and nearly $2,000 more than if we did nothing.

The House majority's solution wasn't a solution at all. Their approach was best summed up by the chair of the Higher Education Subcommittee who recently said, ``It is not the role of the Congress to make college affordable or accessible.''

I couldn't disagree more. That statement explains why their bill piled debt on the backs of students rather than trying to lighten the load.

The Senate bill before us today takes the opposite approach. It saves students and families money.

I understand the concerns that some have raised by this solution. While it provides real relief for the next few years, it does not solve the long-term student debt crisis. We have much more work to do to address the underlying cost of college, and we must remain on guard against any unacceptable rise in interest rates.

In the meantime, we now have a bill that will make a positive difference to families struggling to pay for college.

Today, I ask the Republican majority to drop their support for the original House bill that was so devastating to students and families and, instead, support this bipartisan bill that delivers real interest rate relief for millions of Americans.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I would not want the Members of this House to believe that somehow this bill that we're going to vote on in a few minutes is the same as the Republican bill. This bill saves $25 billion for those students over the next 5 years. The Republican bill that was voted on in this House costs those students a billion dollars. So there's a big difference. As I say, it was well worth the wait.

So let's understand very clearly. The Members of this House are getting a better deal with this legislation if they vote ``yes'' on this bill, both sides of the aisle.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis).

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

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

I have no further speakers.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to thank the chair of the committee for bringing this bill to the floor as soon as it was possible to do, but certainly before we break for August.

This legislation, as I said earlier, is a vast improvement over what we voted on before and what was presented to this House. I think families all across the country with students heading off to college or returning to college this fall will be happy to know that as they take out a student loan this year, they will save over the next 5 years some $25 billion because those loans that they take out will have that interest rate guaranteed at that rate today and for the life of that loan.

Big distinction between this bill and the bill that was presented for the House to vote on, which many of us rejected but the Republicans supported and was passed to the Senate. Over the next 10 years, it provides about $4 billion in additional relief.

What's important to know is that this will deal with making college more affordable. But, clearly, what is on the agenda of the Education and Workforce Committee is making sure that we're dealing with the cost of college so that we can reduce the student debt in this country, we can reduce the affordability of college in this country.

We expect that as we struggle to try to figure out how to provide this loan money on behalf of the taxpayers to these students who are the future of our economy, the future of our society, that the institutions will struggle with seeing what they can do to lower the cost of these colleges.

This is a very exciting time in postsecondary education because we have opportunities now with technologies and the ability to present classes in new formats, in new forums for students much differently than in the past. We've got to make sure that we're providing that quality education, but perhaps in a way that's more cost efficient. And efficiency isn't the enemy of intellectual curiosity or intellectual achievement or scholastic achievement, but it may be helpful to

those families who are struggling with a debt to provide one, two, or three children a college education, or for those students who graduated who are struggling with that debt as they enter the job market.

So we really want to say that we've done the best we can under these circumstances with this legislation, but we expect the institutions of higher education all across this country to reexamine how they're doing their business and what they can do to reduce the cost of college. And we'll continue to do our part, trying to make it more affordable for the American family.

But in the past, we've seen where we put money in at the top and the States took the money out at the bottom. We're not going to play that game anymore, and we can't play that game anymore. That has ended up with a lot of increased debt on the part of students. Certainly with respect to the public institutions, the States have to step up and share the responsibility for their public institutions. We cannot have this situation where they continue to decline their support and then foster that off on parents and students, and then the parents and students need help from the Federal Government. That chain has got to stop here.

But I think today, this is a big and important step in terms of the affordability of college for students. And all of the indicators are that that college degree is well worth it over the lifetime of work of students, over the types of jobs that they will get, the types of wages that they will receive. It's still a huge benefit. There has been a lot of discussion over the last few months that maybe college isn't worth it anymore. It is, but we have to do it right. And young people have to be able to obtain that college education, and they have to do it with the least amount of debt possible.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I didn't mean to interrupt. I thought you were going to yield back your time. I just wanted to ask you for 30 seconds. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We have these differences at the Member level and the institutional level.

I just forgot, before I sat down, to thank the staffs of both sides of our committee for their professional work. Because whatever's going on on the surface here and surface warfare, we know that, underneath, the staff is trying to make it work out whatever direction we decide to move in. So I just want to thank so much the staff both of the majority and minority side for their help.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not about a good education. This is an amendment suggesting an approach that in fact the amendment doesn't enable to happen, and that is the idea that a student can choose the school under the guise of portability, when in fact it doesn't set up any mechanisms for the students to do that.

The suggestion here somehow is that, in fact, the students will make this choice or the parents will make this choice. We've had the right under No Child Left Behind for students to make the choice to elect to go to any schools in the district in which they sought to do that. Of course, what we found out, in many instances, it's less than 2 to 3 percent of the parents who make that decision. There are many reasons why they don't do that. In fact, it's a decision that it doesn't work for them because of lack of transportation in poor neighbors, lack of issues of personal safety of the students.

The difference in my district, in some parts of my district of going to the school that's next to your home or walking the six or eight or 10 blocks to where the next school is, it's a matter of personal safety for those children. We have children, unfortunately, who are harmed every day on our streets, in

some cases killed on those streets. So for parents, this isn't just a choice; that it's a better school.

Also under the Cantor amendment, you would be requiring school districts to engage in an entirely complex accounting system, and I don't know why we'd burden them with that. We currently have in many, many districts open enrollment. And as I say, parents can choose that if they want, but in many cases they can't because of barriers to that enrollment. So this is a suggestion somehow that you can just pick up and move your child.

What we see in survey after survey after survey is what parents want, and they want their neighborhood school, the school next to them, they want that school to be functioning at a high level so that their child, their children, can get an education at that school.

I know that maybe the author of this amendment isn't familiar with these parents, that these parents are struggling between their jobs, their work, holding their families together. Very often it's individual working women supporting these families. This is a difficult task. And the idea that the burden won't be on the district to improve that local school, but we'll just leave it be under the guise that parents can opt to send their children somewhere else when, in fact, that's not a real option for them.

This amendment doesn't address the concern about open enrollment, it doesn't address the systems that the States have set up, and it clearly doesn't address the needs of the parents. And it fails to recognize that in many school districts, there's only one school, there's only one middle school, there's only two elementary schools. That's not the issue here. This isn't like a panoply of wide choices that are made available. That's why many of us have encouraged charter schools inside these districts so parents will have that choice that is within reach of them.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment just doesn't address the realities of the current law. First of all, the underlying bill takes away the choice that parents have today. This amendment wants to pretend like it's a choice.

When the gentleman from Utah says the money follows the child, no, in Utah they have State equalization. It's the same amount of money wherever you go. No money follows you.

The suggestion in the Cantor amendment is that somehow this money will follow you, except that it requires States and districts to set up an entirely new bookkeeping system. These are people who say they don't want to burden those districts.

The fact of the matter is, under current law, parents can choose to send their children to another school. Whether all of the money will follow them or not, under the Cantor amendment, there's no mechanism and there's no money. There is no full entitlement to the money.

I know the gentleman wanted to have vouchers, and this is an imitation voucher, but it doesn't work. It simply doesn't work for the child, for the parents, or for the school districts.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

The reason some schools don't have a lot of title I money, or some title I money, is they don't have title I students. It follows the students to those schools.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment in the nature of a substitute at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this debate highlights some of the stark choices about the direction of our education system. The Republican bill sends us backwards, letting students down at a critical time. This substitute amendment I'm offering will move the Nation forward.

Every day, schools are making great strides to take our education system into the 21st century. They are raising standards, trying new ways to boost learning, improving the skills of teachers and principals.

Mr. Chairman, we, in Congress, should be a partner in these efforts, providing resources and the support to help them move forward--not gutting funding and walking away from our responsibility to help, as the Republican bill does.

Despite some good things in current law, No Child Left Behind's one- size-fits-all approach has hampered progress. It's time to revise the law, building on what we have learned over the past decade, spreading best practices to all schools, not just to some.

The Democratic approach does this. It maintains our bedrock civil rights responsibility. My amendment would help ensure that all students have access to a world-class education, regardless of their background or ZIP code, and that teachers, principals, and schools have supports and resources to provide that education.

Unlike the Republican bill, the Democratic amendment improves current law in several ways:

We call upon States to set high expectations for students, ensuring every child graduates prepared for college or for a career;

We eliminate the one-size-fits-all approach of accountability called AYP, but we still call on schools to improve the student learning and graduation rates each year;

We give districts and schools the flexibility to determine how to improve learning and graduation rates;

We ensure teachers and principals get timely and useful feedback so that they can improve their skills;

We also ensure educators have good working conditions and positive supports to help them do their jobs even better than they do now;

We provide robust funding for literacy, for STEM, for technology and other subjects like art and music to ensure that all students have a well-rounded education; and

We provide resources and supports to ensure that students are safe, healthy, and free from bullying in schools so that they can focus on learning.

The Republican bill does not come close to meeting any of these goals. In their effort to eliminate Federal involvement in education:

They let students down;

They fail to ensure students improve their learning or graduate from high school;

They fail to ensure that students with disabilities are taught to the same high standards as other students;

They fail to provide adequate funding and resources for students and schools;

They fail to move beyond the narrow focus of reading and math and to ensure that all students get a well-rounded education.

If we can't pass a better bipartisan bill, No Child Left Behind will remain the law of the land, and this is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to the scores of organizations who oppose H.R. 5, from business to labor to civil rights to disability advocates to education organizations, and that's why so many groups support this substitute amendment.

This fight is about equity. It's about every child in our country getting an education they deserve, regardless of poverty, disability, or other challenges.

I urge my Democratic and Republican colleagues to support this Democratic substitute so that the students and their families have the education system they need to prepare for the future.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Can I inquire how much time I have remaining?

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster).

Mr. Chairman, if I might inquire as to the time remaining.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, this substitute that I have introduced on behalf of the Democrats creates a fundamental choice for this body in our vote later today. It creates a fundamental choice of whether or not this Nation is going to go forward and provide a high- quality education to every student or whether this Nation is going to go back to a time when students are left out of this system, when resources weren't provided, when schools weren't keeping up.

It's also a question of whether or not we're going to break a promise and go back on our constitutional responsibility to make sure that all students have access to that education--poor students, minority students, English-learning students, students with disabilities.

Are we going to hold school districts and schools accountable for providing that educational opportunity for those students, and will those students have the same access to a high-quality education that in many instances is available across town, in the next neighborhood, but not in their neighborhood or isn't accessible because it's not friendly or welcoming to students with disabilities or students who are learning the English language? Will they have the same rights to that education?

We know from this economy and this economic downturn that we need every one of those students to be able to be productive, successful, and achieving. But that's not what the Republican bill promises. It grinds down the funding available to these school districts for poor and minority children and for students with disabilities. It grinds it

down because it marks it down to the sequestration label. So quietly and silently, school districts all over the Nation are going to be losing the resources for these poor children.

We're stealing money from the poorest people in this country to achieve deficit reduction, but tax reform maybe next year, the year after, or the year after. Economic justice sometime later down the road.

Today, this is about education justice and whether or not every student and every family is going to have access to a high-quality education that no longer depends on their Zip Code or the neighborhood or the town in which they live.

You know, it's been said very often from the other side that somehow all we want is a Washington-knows-best solution and what they offer is something opposite of that. No, what we've put together in this substitute is different than Washington knows best. This is about parents who know best, parents who demand the accountability that is in the substitute and not in the Republican bill. Because they want to know if their child is learning in that school--their child who may be poor, their child who may have disabilities, their child who may have learning problems. They want to know if their child is learning.

This is parents who want to know best, teachers who want to know best, who want the resources so they can teach those children; the business community that wants a well-trained workforce----

An educated workforce. That's why the Business Roundtable, that's why the Chamber of Commerce opposes their bill.

Educators who want a strong system, that's why they oppose their bill.

Parents who want it, that's why they oppose their bill.

No. Who's running out of time?

Children are running out of time in this Nation.

Children are running out of time in this Nation because they're grinding down and streaming their money.

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5, the Letting Students Down Act.

H.R. 5 is supposed to be the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and a rewrite of No Child Left Behind. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was born out of Brown v. Board of Education. It is our Nation's education law, but it is fundamentally a civil rights law.

H.R. 5 runs our country in the opposite direction from those civil rights promises. This bill guts funding for public education. It abdicates the Federal Government's responsibility to ensure that every child has the right to an equal opportunity and a quality education. And it walks away from our duty to hold school systems accountable to students, parents and taxpayers.

For decades, providing all children with a quality education has been considered such a critical national priority that we have always found a way to come together in a bipartisan fashion to reauthorize and to update the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

We all recognize that a good education is a great equalizer, no matter where you come from, and it is necessary for a strong economy and a vibrant democracy. Each reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in its own way, has moved our national education system forward.

That's why now-Speaker John Boehner and I worked with then-Senator Ted Kennedy and President George W. Bush in crafting the No Child Left Behind Act more than a decade ago. We agreed that there was a soft bigotry of low expectations in our education system. We agreed that schools were hiding low achievement by some students by using the averages of performance in the schools, and it was wrong. Parents wanted to know how their child was doing, not how the average child in the school was doing.

No Child Left Behind turned the lights on inside our Nation's schools. For the first time, parents could see whether or not their schools were actually teaching all students. Were they serving their student?

And in the decade since the law has been in effect, the evidence is irrefutable that all kids can learn, given the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background, just given a chance.

However, as someone who has listened to experts in communities across

the Nation and its pros and cons, I recognize that we now need to modernize the education law, No Child Left Behind, with fundamental changes. No Child Left Behind is very much the education reform of the past. It is inflexible, and encouraged some to lower their standards, to reduce their standards, to dumb down their standards, which this Nation cannot tolerate.

That's why it's time to rewrite this law, to embrace the principle that all students can learn if they're given an opportunity, and to encourage high standards that meet the needs of the 21st century global economy.

Unfortunately, H.R. 5 moves our education system in the wrong direction for students and schools already struggling under a broken system, and lets American kids down at a critical time.

H.R. 5 lets our students down by not guaranteeing all students have access to world-class, well-rounded educational opportunities needed to compete in a global economy.

It lets our students down by locking sequestration cuts into education funding. It allows funds to be moved away from schools with the most poverty, and removes the requirements of States and districts to adequately fund their schools.

It lets down students with disabilities by allowing schools to lower their standards for educating these children. And it lets our students down by not building on a broad consensus that we should continue to demand high standards of all students.

An extraordinary cross section of business, labor, civil rights, disabilities and education groups are opposing this bill because it lets our Nation's children down. It lets our economy down.

The National Center for Learning Disabilities says that this bill would dramatically alter the academic landscape for students with disabilities, jeopardizing their ability to graduate from high school or to go to college or to obtain employment.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights believes that the merit of an education bill is determined by its treatment of the most disadvantaged among us. Yet H.R. 5 permits Federal funds targeted for this vulnerable group of students, such as English language learners and Native American students, to be reallocated for other purposes.

The business community opposes this bill. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is disappointed that the bill ``does not demand targeted support and real improvement for students stuck in low-performing schools or for students whose schools are not teaching them the basics in reading and math.''

I agree with these concerns. This bill is a huge step outside the mainstream consensus and an even bigger step backward for our Nation's students. We should be embracing the drive towards high standards across this country and ensuring that all of our children in all States benefit from this improved education system.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will agree that a bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act authorization is the right process we should move forward. This is about every child in our country getting the education they deserve, regardless of poverty, disability, or other challenges. To walk away from that commitment means letting our students down, letting the parents down, and letting down taxpayers who demand accountability. It means letting down teachers who deserve support. It means letting down businesses who are counting on our school system to produce college- and career-ready graduates. It means letting down our future.

We can do better than this. We can do it way better than this. I urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 5, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

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

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

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

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.

Many of my colleagues have expressed concern over the fact that H.R. 5 takes the level of funding to the sequestration level. I think we ought to understand what this means in terms of ongoing improvement in the education program and the educational opportunity for those young people who are poor minorities and who go to some of the poorest schools in some of the poorest districts in our country. This is going to really grind down their ability to be able to respond, those schools, those districts, those teachers, those administrators, to the needs of those young people.

What it means is they will not have access to the kinds of support services that are necessary so that they will truly have an opportunity, have a full educational opportunity. We know that in many instances, in many of these schools, these students and these teachers require additional resources, require additional support systems for these students.

We know that when they are given those support systems, when they are given those resources, these very same children are able to thrive. We see that demonstrated all across this country all of the time.

I represent some of the most difficult schools in the State of California in the most difficult areas in the State of California, where children navigate very dangerous streets to get to school and to come back, yet we see students who were given that opportunity to have a first-class education are now attending Brown University and the University of Nebraska and UCLA and other such institutions.

The fact is these children can learn. The question is whether we will supply them with the resources so they can have the opportunity to do so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This is a fundamental debate that we will be having now as we enter the amendment process for this legislation. This is really a debate about whether we go backwards or forwards as a Nation. Every Member of this Congress--I believe I would be correct in saying--both in the House and the Senate--has told their constituents how important it is that we have a world-class education system and how we are falling behind other nations. Yet we see here the consideration of legislation by this Chamber that, in fact, moves us to the past.

It restricts the resources that are available. It reduces the accountability in the system. It fails to support teachers and principals--those people who almost every speaker today has said are the most important people in our education system. While it provides for teacher evaluation, which I support, it really only provides it for the purposes of hiring and firing a teacher, not to provide the kind of support and not to provide the kind of collaboration that teachers-- young teachers and new teachers to the system--bring with them in wanting to have that experience so they can improve their profession, the kinds of opportunities that teachers want, and the reason teachers are organizing independently among themselves, both on the Internet and in localities, so that they can share their skills and their talents to improve their abilities to deliver the education. That support is not here.

You can say, Well, it's block-granted, and they can do it if they want.

Not under sequestration.

They'll be lucky if they can provide survival for the students whom this legislation is directed at, which are the poorest children in this country--minority children, English learners, children on Indian reservations, children who need special attention to succeed. If they get it, they can succeed, but this legislation doesn't do that. This legislation doesn't address the priority that, again, every Member in this body has spoken about. As for the priority that needs to be put on STEM, you can do it if you want to do it.

I've listened for so many years--people say, within the Federal Government, it's only 5 percent of the money or it's only 6 percent of the money--and it's always so burdensome. Well then, don't take it. I know the manager's amendment says that, but that's the law today. You sign up for this. And if everything else is going so well, how does this 5 percent of the money have such bad results in the districts? Because the fact of the matter is, we know, for whatever reason, many, many school districts and many schools are failing the students that they're supposed to be teaching.

This is an effort to try to assist them. This is an effort to try to give them the flexibility so that they can make these decisions, but if you send it in the form of H.R. 5, they're not going to have the support to do it; they're not going to have the resources to do it; they're not going to have the trained teachers to do it; they're not going to have the trained principals to do it--and that's what we should not be doing. We should, in fact, be emboldening our schools with those resources, with those talents and with those skills. We should make sure that every teacher has the capability, has the subject matter competency.

In a poor school today, you're learning arithmetic in the fourth grade, you're learning mathematics in the eighth grade, you're learning algebra--your chances of having a teacher who understands those subjects and who has taken courses in those subjects is one in seven. Shouldn't it be, for those children, one in one? Shouldn't it be that every classroom has a teacher who has subject matter competency? But we all know in our districts that that's not what happens in many of these schools. We know that, in fact, an art teacher is asked to go into a mathematics class. We know that a part-time history teacher is asked, Can you help us out in the science class?

That's not how you maintain this country's being number one in the Nation. That's not the education system that will do it. We can poke along, and we can lament, and we can worry about China and India and about countries that are making a commitment to their education systems and to their research facilities, but unless we make that commitment, we won't be running that race in the next generation. We will have settled in to some other place than number one, and I don't think that's acceptable to the people of this country.

We have been told by all business leaders who come here--whether they come from Silicon Valley or they come from the manufacturing areas of the country in the Midwest--that they want a stronger K through 12 system. That's why the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable have serious problems and are in opposition to H.R. 5, because it doesn't meet their needs that they say that they need in terms of a future educated population in order to get those skilled workers, to get that talent base, to get that future innovation. That's their decision,

not my decision. That's also the decision of the civil rights groups. That's also the decision of the parents with children with disabilities and of the disabilities community. That's also the decision of the educators in these systems.

This legislation is not up to the standards of America. It doesn't meet America's future needs. It doesn't meet the standards of excellence, and it doesn't meet the commitment of resources that this Nation should be making on behalf of the schoolchildren in this Nation and of future generations.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

For the most part, this manager's amendment is technical changes to the underlying bill. For the same reasons that I oppose the underlying bill, I oppose the manager's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the House, I oppose this amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan because I think this amendment continues the ideological approach here that we have in taking away Federal dollars under H.R. 5 from the poorest schools in our systems, serving some of the poorest children in our country, at a time when this legislation locks in the post- sequestration funding for the schools now, as H.R. 5 does, and mandates that those scarce dollars go to the private sector. Now we're mandating that those schools now get involved with the private sector.

I don't know, maybe it's different in your States. But in my State, when local school districts put together their budgets, when local school districts consider engaging in developing new programs and new curriculums, they invite the community to come in and participate in those discussions across the board. Nobody has to mandate them to do that. They do that because those are community schools. Those are trying to serve the community.

Whether it's at the elementary level, or at the high school level or at the community college level, this is what they do in developing those curriculums and developing those assessments that are taking place. And so I don't understand.

In a bill that rails against Federal mandates, we're now on to our second mandate under this legislation. Why are we creating these mandates for these local districts that know better, that know how to do it best, according to all of the statements here?

Why are we then mandating from the Federal Government to do it this particular way?

In my community I would say they already do it this way, but I don't think they need to be mandated to do that. And for these reasons, I oppose this amendment because I think it continues the ideological bent that somehow, while mandates are bad for schools when they come from the Federal Government, apparently, when they come from the Congress they're good.

So we'll try to sort this out in the meantime. But in the meantime I'll oppose this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

I thank the gentlewoman for introducing this amendment. I strongly support this amendment for all of the reasons that she laid out in her remarks in support of her amendment.

I believe that, in its current form, H.R. 5 would undo decades of progress and relegate students with disabilities to a second-class education. That's why the disabilities community stands united in firm opposition to this bill. It astounds me that this body is considering enactment of such draconian policies. I thought that by 2013 bipartisan consensus on natural ability and potential of all children would be commonplace, but I was wrong.

One of the biggest victories we had under No Child Left Behind was the attention to students with disabilities, with the assumption that this population of students can and will achieve. Students with disabilities have thrived under these high expectations. H.R. 5 returns us to the era of soft bigotry and of low expectations with respect to students with disabilities, and that is unacceptable.

This Republican bill completely removes students with disabilities from the accountability system, greenlighting States and districts to assess any student with disabilities to a lower standard by allowing States to develop and assess students based upon a lower set of standards regardless of the severity of the disability. This would return us to a time when students with disabilities are hidden and not given access to quality education. That was the situation when I came to this Congress.

I'm no prouder of any act that I've ever authored than the Children With Handicaps Act, now known as IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We cannot undermine that legislation and the progress and achievements that those children and their families have made and to see their successes. And now to suggest they will not be in an accountability system so that we hold schools accountable for the achievement and the successes of those children is just unacceptable.

I strongly support the McMorris Rodgers amendment, and I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chair, I yield the remaining time to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. McMorris Rodgers), and thank her again for this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the Reed amendment because it weakens accountability for ensuring that our Nation's students are achieving at high levels. This amendment seems like a good thing--allowing schools to measure in areas besides reading and math--but the amendment is so vague that it will allow almost any measure to be used, and that's not what we need in the system at this time.

Adding measures to this amendment does not fix any of the problems to help students. Too often, we've seen throughout the course of the last many years that adults try to make themselves look good by hiding and masking how well their students are doing academically by trying to seek other systems of measure that will make a school look better, even though the students inside that school are not performing at top level.

For those reasons, I oppose the amendment, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

I thank the gentleman.

I agree with the gentleman that the testing provisions included in No Child Left Behind as well as the implementation of these provisions is imperfect and outdated. Unfortunately, ESEA authorization is 5 years overdue and the majority appears to have no interest in working with us to develop a bill that can pass both the House and the Senate.

However, I'll gladly work with you to address the issue of testing in America's schools to ensure that while we continue to measure whether or not students are achieving at grade level, we will also ensure such assessments be done in a way to improve both teaching and learning.

I thank the gentleman from California, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment although I will not be in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to express appreciation for Mr. Benishek for this amendment. The gentleman from Michigan has an admirable goal, which is to improve career and technical education.

Members of the Congress are well aware of the needs in all of our local communities. As new systems of manufacturing are brought online and as new innovations take place, we want to know how well our students are doing and how well our schools are doing in helping to prepare those students for job opportunities that are presented in these many craft areas.

I would urge Members to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

I urge support of the Heck amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I rise in opposition to the Schock-Meehan amendment because it really is a political exercise that fails to fix the problems of H.R. 5, the Letting Students Down Act. The amendment is an ideological attempt to give school districts more control, but actually doesn't do that. It just creates more paperwork, more bureaucracy at the Federal level by consultations and chances to dispute regulations, many of which are already allowed in Federal law, but this would be a separate subset to require that.

I have been here a long time, and I can't think of any administration that gave both States and local school districts more options, more flexibility, more ability to design the systems under which they want to work than the Obama administration, which now there are 37 States who have undertaken Race to the Top, which gave them great flexibility, and there are 40 States that have undertaken waivers, which give them even more flexibility. When you talk to the superintendents and you talk to the Governors in those States, they are delighted to have that flexibility to design the systems that they want to be able to design and to improve the systems and to get better achievement by their students.

Now we are coming along with some continuation of some outdated, very conservative argument that all these problems are at the Federal Government. The fact of the matter is no administration has unleashed the skills and the talents and the desires of local school districts and States than this administration.

This is an ideological bent. It is an ideological fix. It is not going to end. What it doesn't do is it doesn't correct

any of the very real and very big problems that underlie this amendment in the underlying bill, because the underlying bill gets education funding and it locks in the sequestration levels that are going to grind down every school district that has poor students and poor schools in that district, and it lets States dramatically reduce the funding for those districts.

The priority of this Federal spending is to try to equalize the opportunity for those poor minority children, and it diverts funds for teachers away from poor schools and districts toward the wealthier ones. It eliminates the block grant funding for vital programs with no accountability--no accountability--how those funds will be spent. We just saw an amendment offered here earlier today because people recognize all that does is just diminish the resources that are available for those populations with special needs.

I oppose this amendment, as I do the underlying legislation, and I would ask my colleagues to vote against it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis).

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I rise in opposition to this amendment to remove the requirement that States and school districts implement teacher evaluation systems.

We put $17 billion into this system every year, and we ought to at least see if we can make sure that those who are responsible for implementing it have the opportunity to improve their skills, to improve their talents, to collaborate with one another so that they can improve the teacher and learning environment. That is the goal of the evaluations: to take the skills that teachers bring to the classrooms and see, in consultation with others, with the principals, with their peers in that school district, whether or not we can improve their skills to deliver the education that we know that our children need.

We know that all teachers are not of the same talent, but by having evaluations, you, in fact, have the ability to then raise the skills of those individuals. If you would travel the country, and if you would talk to younger teachers all across the country, they would tell you how excited they are about evaluation systems, how excited they are about the collaboration--about their working with one another. I have visited teachers in the process of doing that, in developing that information--in developing the skills and in watching one another teach and in presenting the various lesson plans and curriculums, and then weighing back and forth what was more effective and what was less effective, what they would change, and how they would do it differently the next time.

Under this legislation, under our legislation, we encourage local districts to do that. We want them to take control of it. We want teachers to be in the design of those systems. Yet now the idea that you would not require some evaluation of the people who are delivering this education is just to go back to a time when it didn't matter, I guess, who dropped out of school or who didn't thrive or who didn't do well--but that's not this economy; that's not our social structure; and that's not the desire and the hopes and aspirations of the parents and of the students in those schools. So I would hope that we would oppose this amendment and that we would defeat this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment offered by the gentleman from Utah. I just don't quite understand it.

If a State doesn't make application for various funds that are available under title II, I don't know why you would prohibit a district from doing so. I don't know the rationale for the State's decision not to make application, but that may have very little to do with the needs of a particular school district. In my State, it might be a large district like Los Angeles or it might be a small rural district in the northern corner of the State. If they feel that these funds would help them and they have a need for those, I don't know why and I don't know that we're interfering with any great relationship here between States and the Federal Government.

I don't pretend to be familiar with the exact governance in the State of Utah, but in California the districts are pretty darn autonomous and our county offices of education are very autonomous, and very often a county office will apply for these kinds of funds in an area of smaller school districts to bring them together to utilize those funds in the most efficient way to continue.

Most of title II is about the development of teachers and professional development.

I oppose this amendment. I think it just makes it much more difficult and more bureaucratic for local school districts. We've heard time and again here that these are the people who know best, so apparently they know better than the State officials, but we're going to let the State officials block them from doing what they know is best when they decide what is best is to try to access title II.

So I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I didn't say they were autonomous. I said that they operate nearly autonomous. I guess if the State wanted to rein them in in California and Utah, they would rein them in. But they make applications all the time for title II funds, and apparently California and Colorado may want to do something about that. That sounds like a State problem.

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

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my request for a recorded vote on amendment No. 12 be withdrawn to the end that the Chair put the question on the amendment de novo.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman for his amendment and thank him for all of his work and leadership that he has brought to the committee on charter schools.

And I will vote for the amendment if the gentleman can say again five times ``starter charter startup funds.'' If you can say that really quickly five times, then I will vote for the amendment.

I want to commend you so much for offering this amendment. In touring schools my entire time in Congress and talking to parents and talking to school officials where we have these kinds of resources available to engage parents, the outcomes of the students are very often dramatically improved. The participation by the parents is dramatically improved. The participation by the parents at home with the students is changed in a very dramatic fashion.

Just recently, in the North Bay in the San Francisco area up in Napa County, the participation of the parents with English learning students who are in kindergarten with the use of an iPad and getting the parents to come together and understand this technology, how it could help their children learn English, how it could help them learn English, and then imparting with the parents that they could also use it for job search, the engagement was just phenomenal, and these students continue to soar as they now are in the third grade.

So these kinds of possibilities where you bring parents and get that kind of involvement, it changes it so much. Helms Middle School in my district, we not only tore it down and rebuilt it, but we made it a community school with family engagement, and there are parents on that campus all of the time engaged with their kid's education, with their neighbor's kid's education, and their own education.

I really commend you. I think this is a very important amendment as we seek to have parents involved in schools, and thank you so much.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

This is some kind of political exercise. I don't know what the value of this is to the public. It is to take Federal officials in the Department of Education, including the Secretary, and somehow going to create a lot of make-work for them. I think it is unnecessary. I don't quite understand the theory behind it.

There is program consolidation going on, so we are going to learn the average wage of the people whose jobs were unfortunately, I guess because of sequestration at the moment, eliminated, and I don't know how that will help the education of the young children. Then we are going to figure out the average salary.

All this information is available to the Appropriations Committee. It is a matter of public record. It is available to the public. But we will go through some kind of computation then, those who are left making more than $100,000. I really don't know, again, what this has to do with the education of young children across this Nation.

Again, I know we had to pass an amendment to say this, but it's already the law. There is nothing that requires any State, any school district to accept these programs. You have to sign up. You have to make applications for programs. If you don't make applications, you don't get them. This isn't forced down your throat. It's very hard to make sense out of this amendment.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

In reclaiming my time, I understand transparency when it's of value. I understand transparency when it's directed to a specific purpose. This is transparency in the sense that the general knowledge of these wages is a matter of public record, as your salary and my salary are a matter of public record.

When you get it all compiled, then what are you going to do--send out notices to everybody in the United States as to where this resides and how they can get ahold of it? Put it online? That's what you're going to spend your money doing? It's already available. They can look up somebody in the Department of Education at any time.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

In reclaiming my time, why doesn't the Appropriations just tell the Congress the results of sequestration? They're involved in sequestration every day. Why don't they just file a report and tell the Congress and tell the public and put out a press release and tell the people, ``This is what happened''? Why do you have to mandate all of this sort of ``make work''? I thought the purpose was to try to eliminate unnecessary work for people.

The gentleman has time remaining, and I don't have much time.

I would just say that, again, this really doesn't address the major concerns underlying this bill, and that is that this bill continues to let students down and that this amendment does nothing to ensure that students graduate from high school.

If you want to talk about serious transparency in this bill, students with disabilities become invisible in terms of the accountability by school districts as to how they're doing with their education and if education has been offered to them and if they've had a chance at assessment so they can demonstrate what they've learned. This legislation doesn't do that, and this amendment doesn't help that in terms of transparency.

It's some mindless transparency about the wages of government officials that's already transparent and all a matter of public record. It doesn't do anything about what the impact is of sequestration on the poorest schools in some of the poorest districts in the country--in trying to educate some of the poorest kids in this country, kids who need those additional resources. This bill grinds away on those, and this amendment doesn't change it.

This amendment doesn't change the block grants that now allow money to leave the public sector, to leave public schools that are in desperate need of these resources--taking care of the title I students and schools--and then send that off to the private sector.

So the transparency here is all wrong. The real transparency is what this legislation does, and the American people ought to understand how damaging this is to our local schools all across this country and how exceptionally damaging this legislation is to the poorest schools in our country and in our States and to the students who are going to those schools and who are trying to achieve a first-class education. That opportunity is being denied to them under this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this latest Republican attempt to sabotage our Nation's health reform law.

If these bills pass today, fortunately, they will not become law. It is just another waste of this body's time, and Americans are sick of it. The 38th time will not be the charm--the 38th time that we've redundantly voted to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Rather, these votes underscore the lengths the Republicans and other opponents will go to take away the basic health insurance protections of the American people.

For 3 years, many of the opponents of ObamaCare have invested heavily in its failure. They've tried to deny funding to agencies to do their jobs as instructed by Congress. They've spread outright lies and misinformation to purposely confuse the American people. They've obstructed education efforts to make sure that their constituents don't understand the new rights and benefits under the law. But investing in failure is dangerous. It's dangerous for America's families; it's dangerous for the Nation's businesses; it's dangerous for the Nation's economy.

The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and it is here to stay. Early evidence suggests that the health care law is already having a positive impact on the lives of millions of Americans.

Millions of young adults are getting health insurance through their parents' policies when, before, they were kicked off arbitrarily by insurance companies; and now, with the individual mandate, millions of individual Americans will be able to afford the health insurance that they can't afford today without this legislation--without the law of the land, the Affordable Care Act.

Children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied health coverage or lifesaving treatment.

Billions more of taxpayer dollars are being recovered through Medicare fraud.

National health costs have dramatically slowed over the last several years.

Health premiums as part of the State insurance exchanges are coming in lower than anyone predicted--most recently reported in New York State--for individuals, who will get their insurance because of the individual mandate; and for the first time, it will be affordable to those individuals since they've been required to have it.

And, in January, the preexisting conditions that determine health coverage or costs will be banned. No longer will you be able to rule people out because of their preexisting health conditions.

This is all good news, and it stands in stark contrast to the claims that we've been hearing from the other side for 3 years.

Why on Earth would any responsible elected official try to hide the rights and benefits from the American people?

My friends on the other side of the aisle are preoccupied with dismantling government when it protects the vulnerable or the average American, but they will move heaven and Earth to protect the most powerful or to try to score some fleeting political point. It's wrong and it's irresponsible.

Mr. Speaker, playing politics with the Affordable Care Act has become something of an Olympic sport for the majority. These votes are nothing new. They are about sabotaging the law of the land in order to satisfy a narrow, radical element of the majority's party.

Now is not the time to reverse course. Now is not the time to go back to the days when insurance companies were in charge--when people were thrown off their policies, when policies were taken away in the middle of treatment, when their children were not allowed to participate, and when individuals could not afford the policies at that time. Today, they will be able to.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am proud to introduce the Airline Pilot Pension Fairness Act, legislation that would prevent deep, unfair cuts in pilots' retirement benefits.

Nearly forty years ago, Congress established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to insure the pension benefits of American workers. When employers terminate their workers' traditional pension plans, the PBGC takes the plans over and makes monthly payments to plan participants who are retired.

When the PBGC takes over a company's pension plan, the plan participants do not always receive the same benefit they would have received if their plan had not terminated. For example, workers who retire before age 65--which the law considers ``normal'' retirement age--receive reduced benefits to reflect the longer period that these retirees likely will receive benefits.

This is bad news for many pilots. Until 2007, under Federal Aviation Administration rules, airline pilots were required to retire at age 60. As a result, pilots whose pension plans were terminated--like the pilots at United Airlines and US Airways--wound up taking drastic cuts to their pension benefits because the PBGC treated age 60 as an early retirement age and cut pilots' guaranteed benefits as a result.

This problem was caused because the FAA's mandatory pilot retirement age of 60 and ERISA's normal retirement age of 65 were not aligned. ERISA does not provide a special rule for pilots. Pilots earn every dime of their pension benefits and they didn't choose to retire at age 60. The time to fix this problem is today.

The Airline Pilot Pension Fairness Act would put airline pilots subject to the old FAA rule on equal ground with other workers by requiring the PBGC to treat age 60 as the normal retirement age for these pilots--not as an early retirement age. In other words, these pilots

would receive the maximum PBGC benefit for which they would be eligible if they worked until age 65. If they worked until the age of 57, it would be as if they worked until age 62 and the pilot would receive the appropriate PBGC benefit.

Eight years ago, in a 2005 e-hearing Tom Gardiner, of Bainbridge Island, WA, facing the loss of his retirement nest egg at United Airlines, explained the conundrum facing pilots--

``My name is Tom Gardiner and I am a Captain for United Airlines with a total of 27 years of service. . . . If the PBGC takes over the pilots' defined benefit plan, I will lose at least 2/3 of my promised pension. . . . [One factor] contributing to this huge hit is the adjustment for ``early retirement'' mandated by PBGC rules. Of course, I have no choice in the matter; the FAA regulations require me to retire at age 60. The PBGC considers that to be ``early'' and takes away 35% of what I would otherwise receive from them. It is a classic ``Catch 22''. . . .''

Captain Gardiner is not alone. The Airline Pilot Pension Fairness Act would be a first step to restoring some measure of fairness to these hardworking Americans who have seen promised and hard-earned benefits disappear overnight.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained yesterday and missed Roll Nos. 305, 306 and 307. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on Roll Nos. 305 and 306, and I would have voted ``yea'' on Roll No. 307.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As we debate this rule, it has now been a little over a week since interest rates on loans for millions of the neediest college students doubled thanks to Republican obstructionism. With that doubling, those who can afford it least will continue to be burdened under a mountain of debt with no end in sight. Because Congress has not acted in a responsible way, this rate increase will cost borrowers an additional $1,000 per student per loan.

The doubling of interest rates did not have to happen. Rather than making it more affordable for students and families to pay for college, House Republicans decided to pass a bill that would make college more expensive.

The bill was dead on arrival in the Senate. It was dead on arrival in the Senate because it was worse for students than the doubling of the interest rates, and it left the students without an option other than the doubling of the interest rates. That's why we must act today. We must defeat the previous question so that we can deliberate this and get a solution until we can work on a long-term, bipartisan agreement on this one.

The Republican plan that passed the House was totally irresponsible. It was simply not a smart solution. It has been advertised by my friends on the other side as a long-term fix, but we all know the truth. The Republican bill adds more debt onto the students, even more than doubling the interest rates.

The Republican bill also puts students in a yearly-adjustable student loan, which will result in great unpredictability and soaring loan costs to the students and to their families. And the insistence from the GOP that the students pay down the national debt is outrageous and offensive.

The student loan program is a program that the Federal Government makes $50 billion off the back of the students, and the Republicans' response is that the students should pay higher interest rates so they can pay down the national deficit. The student loan program itself is paying down the national deficit because of the profit the Federal Government makes. It's time to stop that and make student loans affordable for students and for their families.

This Congress simply has not done right by students. They are forcing these students to continue to graduate with an increasing mountain of debt while, at the same time, they lament that students are graduating with increased debt.

That's what the Republicans offered. That's why, as my colleague from Colorado said, it was dead on arrival when it went to the Senate. It was dead on a bipartisan basis when it went to the Senate.

The time has come now to defeat the previous question so that we can bring the 1-year fix to make sure that students are protected from the doubling of the interest rate that is now occurring because of the inaction by the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the remarks by the gentleman from Florida that we would have an opportunity to vote on the student loan bill to make sure that we don't do what millions of American students and their families have asked us not to do, and that is, they don't want us to double their debt. But in less than 100 hours if we don't get the vote that Mr. Hastings is talking about, in less than 100 hours, millions of American college students may see their student debt increase because of the Republican obstructionism. It's unfortunate that it's come to this. This issue shouldn't be partisan. It's about doing the right thing on behalf of millions of students and their families all across the country.

It's a simple choice. We can help students achieve an education, one that they can afford, and the skills that they need to be successful, or we can put more hurdles in their way and increase the already skyrocketing debt burden that students absorb as they graduate from college.

It has been more than a year of ignoring this issue. A year ago, we were in this position, and a year ago, we voted to keep the student loan rate at 3.75 percent. Nothing has been done until recently, and then the Republicans came up with an idea that was really bad. It was worse than doubling the interest rates on July 1. It was more expensive to the students than doubling the interest rates. It's not a smart solution. It's a terrible solution--it's terrible for students; it's terrible for their families.

After a year of ignoring this issue, the Republicans foisted this harmful idea onto the House floor, and when the Republican bill hit the floor, they refused to allow a vote on a rational plan, like the Courtney bill, that stops this doubling of the interest rates and allows this Congress to examine and develop a long-term solution as part of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act.

Despite trumpeting that their plan was the same as President Obama's proposal, when the Democrats offered President Obama's actual plan, they blocked that vote, too. So they won't keep the interest rates from doubling,

and they won't do a plan that they said is just like theirs. On July 1, those interest rates are going to double on millions of students as they start this school year in August and September.

The time for obstruction has passed. It's time to keep the rates low and to work on a long-term solution. It's time to stop asking college students and their families to bear an unfair burden of paying down the Bush deficits.

The Democrats have chosen to stand with the students and families who are trying to access the American Dream. We can do this. Millions of families and students have asked us: don't double their debt. Yet, on July 1, because of the Republican obstructionism, that's what's going to happen to these students. It's very unfortunate. It adds an additional $1,000 to the 4 years of college. We should not do that at this time, in this economy, for these students and families.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained on Thursday, June 20th and missed Roll No. 282. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise with my colleagues Congressman Mike Thompson, Congressman Jerry McNerney, Congressman John Garamendi and Congressman Eric Swalwell to recognize the outstanding career of Ms. Linda Best, a dynamic leader in the community, and congratulate her as she retires after more than thirty- two years in service to the people of Contra Costa County.

In 1981, after earning a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University, Linda began her successful career as the Executive Director of the Coalition of Labor and Business. Three years later she became Executive Director for the Contra Costa Council, an organization she would help shape and expand throughout her tenure. From 2004 on, Linda has served as President and CEO of the Council and continued her strong commitment to the organization and the communities which it serves.

In her nine years as President, Linda has been the heartbeat of the organization and shown a remarkable command of the issues most critical to business, education, the environment, transportation, and workforce development. Under her leadership, the Council has been an engine for economic development, public policy formation, and an informed decision-making voice for the region. Linda has

been instrumental in building the Workforce Development Initiative, which brings together business and education in support of high school academics. What was once an organization only affiliated with business has now grown to include labor, education, health care, and nonprofit interests. In fact, the Contra Costa Council's scope has become so widespread, that it recently changed its official name to the East Bay Leadership Council.

Linda's spirit and energy is not only apparent in her work with the Council, but also encompasses her work with the many Boards on which she has served. Included in this long list are; the Board of Directors for John Muir Health, the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, the DVC Foundation, Opportunity Junction, the West Contra Costa Business Development Center, STAND for Families Free of Violence, and the United Way Leadership Council.

Throughout Linda's tenure, she earned many awards and distinctions, including the San Ramon Valley Chamber of Commerce ``Woman of the Year Award,'' the Eugene O'Neill Foundation Open Gate Award, the Contra Costa Child Care Council Kiddie Award, and the Contra Costa Times Woman of Achievement Award for Business and Technology.

We invite our colleagues to join us in commending President & Chief Executive Officer Linda Best for her committed and diligent service to the citizens of Contra Costa County. We are pleased to congratulate Linda on an outstanding career and wish her the very best as she begins a well-deserved retirement.