Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, last night the President stood before this Nation and said that it was important that we educate new math and science teachers and that we bring new people to the math and science fields and that America's students start to study math and science and engineering so that America can remain competitive in the world.

Today, we vote to make student loans far more expensive for those students who take up the President's challenge. We make it more expensive for those students, and we make it more expensive for their parents. Of the $12 billion, the $12 billion, the largest cuts in the history of the student loan program that this legislation takes out of the budget, almost 70 percent of those savings are generated by increasing, by continuing the practice of forcing students and parent borrowers to pay excessive interest rates, and in many cases by raising the interest rates on the parents who then borrow additional money to finance their children's higher education.

Many Members are standing up on the Republican side of the aisle and talking about the courage that they have to make these cuts. What is the courage, what is the judgment, what is the morality of making it more difficult for young people to achieve a higher education, to achieve an advanced degree, to participate to the fullest extent of their talents in the American economy, and to participate in the quest that the President had asked for, to make our economy more innovative, more competitive in a globalized world?

I do not understand it. I do not understand the message of the President saying we want more of your children to get more higher education, and then the budget cuts today that say we are going to make it $12 billion more expensive for these children to do this.

We are going to increase the fees on parents that go into debt, on students who go into debt. Most of those students are working at jobs while they are trying to get that education. But that is what happens in this legislation today.

Either the President has it right and you have it wrong, or the President was not telling us the truth about what he truly wanted to do on behalf of increasing math and science education, and advanced degrees in math, science and engineering. And yet we understand the imperative of this being done, because of the competition that we face from China, India, North Korea, Japan, and other nations of the world who now are graduating 300,000 engineers in China and the same in India, and we are graduating 70,000.

Do we understand the imperative nature of getting these degrees done? Apparently not. Because we are going to make it more expensive with this legislation. Actually, you are going to make it more expensive, because I am not voting for this bill, because I understand what parents and students go through to try to figure out how to finance that education, and how they sit around the kitchen table and figure out the sacrifices that they can make.

The better idea that the Republicans have is that they are going to make it more expensive for students to go to college, an idea that we ought to reject; and I would hope that others on the Republican side of the aisle would reject this very bad idea.

It is an idea that we ought to reject, and I would hope that others on the Republican side of the aisle would reject this very bad idea.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule because of the inclusion of the drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of euphemisms on the other side, such as the cuts in the rates of growth, suggesting that that is just a neutral act when it takes place. They have cut about $40 billion out of this budget in this package that we are going to vote on in a little while. Twelve billion of that comes from student loan accounts, and about $7 billion, 70 percent, almost $8 billion of that, 70 percent of those cuts come off the backs of students and their parents.

They increase the cost of college education over the next few years by almost $8 billion. That means that students that are struggling to finish their college education, to acquire a college education so they can participate in this economic system, will have thousands of dollars added on to the cost of the borrowing that they must engage in. They must engage in that because the cost of education is outstripping the ability of middle income families to supply that money for that education for those children. So the Republicans' idea is to make college more expensive. At a time when we worry whether we will have enough students graduating from college to meet the needs of the economy, their idea is make it more expensive.

Yes, the Democrats do have a better idea, and that is to try to open up the access to college and lessen the cost of college.

Then, if that is not enough, if that is not enough, if you get to the other part of the program like Medicaid, they say they are going to reduce the cost of increase. Well, that cost of increase is done by increasing the premiums and the copayments to the poorest people in this country. Those premiums and copayments is about $19 billion over 5 years, $100 billion over 10 years. And if it is not enough that they increase your copayments and their premiums, then they take away the benefits. They are going to take away eyeglasses from elderly people, hearing aids from elderly people, and if Tiny Tim was here today they plan to take away his crutches. That is the Republicans at Christmastime: Take away the crutches of old people, the hearing aids of old people and eyeglasses, because those are the benefits that are listed and the benefits that they plan to cut to the poorest people who need health care.

They are going to add on billions of dollars to the States because of the changes in the work requirements, unfunded mandates. So you can talk about slowing the growth, but the growth and the costs to parents of students going to college, the growth in the costs of people who need health care who are poor, the growth in the cost of people who need those services under health care, all of those increases. Now, maybe that does not sound like a tax increase to you, but if you are poor and you are trying to pay for your health care and it costs you more, that kind of looks like a tax increase. If you are going to add on thousands of dollars to student loans, that is a tax increase.

What we have here is one cruel, one inhumane, one insensitive budget by the Republican Party.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his statement but, more importantly, his incredible advocacy on behalf of those suffering from mental health diseases.

He is quite right: we can do better than simply renewing this law that is now 10 years old. The Senate did pass a meaningful update in this law in 2001 that would have prohibited all forms of discriminatory coverage of mental health services, including day and visit limitations and co-pays and deductibles, and would not allow a plan to opt out by citing increased costs. This bill simply does not do that.

It is as the gentleman from Rhode Island has pointed out, it is absolutely insufficient in terms of treating the needs of millions and millions of Americans and their families who need parity in terms of the kinds of treatment and the coverages of the cost that are associated with this.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Second Higher Education Extension Act of 2005. The bill before us today, as the chairman has noted, temporarily extends the laws that govern higher education and student aid while the Congress continues to work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. I would also like to note for the record that the Department of Education has informed us that they have no objections to the manager's amendment offered by Mr. Boehner to this effort.

I rise in support of the second Higher Education Extension Act of 2005.

The bill before us today temporary extends laws that govern higher education and student aid while Congress continues to work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act.

It also extends the partial closure of the 9.5 percent loan loophole and teacher loan forgiveness provisions.

There has never been a more important time than right now to help students and their families afford a higher education.

Despite the tremendous personal and economic benefits of a college education, however, millions of American students and families struggle to pay for college.

Last year the maximum Pell grant scholarship was worth $900 less than the maximum grant 30 years ago.

The typical student borrower now graduates with $17,500 in debt, while more and more students are working long hours to pay for college.

Even with increased borrowing and longer work hours, millions of students and families continue to fall short when paying for college.

But rather than help to make college more affordable and accessible, this weekend the Republican leadership plans to raid the student aid programs by nearly $13 billion--the largest cut in the history of the programs.

As a result, students and families will be forced to pay even more for college.

Rather than work to build a better, stronger America for future generations, they chose to cut our national commitment to a college education for every qualified student.

The Republican leadership plans to use the nearly $13 billion in cuts to deal with Congress' budget mess.

It is wrong to force America's students and families to pay for the irresponsible management of the Nation's budget.

We should be doing more, not less, to significantly increase affordable college opportunities.

For years, Democrats and others have been demanding that the majority join us in stopping excess lender subsidies--such as the 9.5 percent loans--and re-deploy those billions of dollars in savings to students and their families struggling to pay for college.

Billions in taxpayer funds were squandered on super-sized lender subsidies that the majority party is only now, under great pressure, conceding should be constrained.

Unfortunately, the raid on student aid misses a golden opportunity to re-direct billions of dollars in savings by recycling the excessive subsidies paid to student lenders into additional grant aid for students--without any additional costs to taxpayers.

I support this temporary extension today because it ensures that the nearly 11 million students who rely on student grants, loans and work- study to finance their college education will continue to receive this much needed aid in a timely fashion.

However, I urge the Republican leadership and my colleagues to recognize that this is only the first step towards boosting affordable college opportunities and ensuring the Nation's global competitiveness.

The next step is to stop the raid on student aid and to reinvest all of the savings found from eliminating excessive student lender subsidies towards boosting grant aid, lowering interest rates and fees for student borrowers.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to note for the record that the Department of Education has informed us that they have no objection to the manager's amendment offered by Representative Boehner to reinstate St. Vincent's Nursing Schools of Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

The St. Vincent nursing schools lost eligibility for Federal student aid in November of this year due to the fact that their parent company, Saint Vincents Catholic Medical Centers of New York, filed for bankruptcy.

Under the Higher Education Act, once a school, or parent company of a school, files for bankruptcy they automatically become ineligible for Federal student aid such as student loans and Pell grants.

It is our understanding that the representatives for the parent company did not understand that filing for bankruptcy would result in students attending the two nursing schools losing their Federal student aid.

The Department of Education has informed us that both schools are in good fiscal standing and that a statutory fix by Congress is necessary to ensure that the students at these two nursing schools can receive federal student aid again.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Maybe the gentleman who was just in the well preceding me is proud of this budget. I noticed he talked about student loans and how the students will get the same loan they got this year. They may get that loan, but it is going to cost them more. In fact, what we see in the estimates are that this budget bill will raise the average cost to those students or those families who are paying off those loans. The average student who borrows $17,500, and that is what, unfortunately, the average student borrows today, this will raise

their cost by $5,800, almost $6,000 in additional costs. That is what comes with this bill.

The $13 billion is the largest cut in the student loans accounts in this history of this Congress. That $13 billion rebounds back onto these parents and to these students to the tune of $6,000 over the life of their loans. If that is your idea of a Christmas gift, have at it, but I do not think America's families are going to understand.

At a time when we understand how important it is for young people to be able to get an AA degree, to be able to get a B.A. degree, to get a Masters Degree or to get a Ph.D. so that they can fully participate in the American economy of the future, a globalized world economy, what is it the Republican budget is doing? It is raising the barriers. It is raising the barriers for millions of young students, for millions of families as to whether or not they will be able to afford this college education.

Students are going deeper into debt today than at any time in history. The cost of a college education is rising faster than the average working family's ability to pay for it. And what is the answer to that crunch that these families and these students are finding themselves in? The answer in this budget is to increase their costs by $6,000.

For 50 years, the idea was to try to make college more accessible, less expensive, so that the vast majority of people who were qualified to go to college would have the opportunity to do so. This year, they changed the course of this Nation. This year, they changed the course of this House. This year, they changed the course of the Congress. Because on a partisan basis, on a partisan basis, they decided that what they would do to the crunch and the cost of college for American families is they would increase the cost of college to America's families by charging parents more to borrow money, by putting origination fees on the direct student loan, which is the least expensive way people can borrow money.

You are raising the cost of the direct student loans by mandating insurance on all of the borrowers, whether it is necessary or not. You are very fond of telling us when you put these taxes and these costs on the business communities they are passed on. Well, that is exactly what is going to happen to the tune of about $6,000. These costs are going to be passed on.

We should vote to support the motion to instruct so we can prevent these costs from falling on these families and these students not only at Christmas time but for the next 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for all his hard work on the Rules Committee.

It is rather interesting, and Mr. McGovern has alluded to this a number of times, but it is interesting today as we watch with great anxiety and anticipation and a sense of celebration as Iraqis run the gauntlet of violence to go out and vote for democracy, at the same time the Republicans in the House of Representatives close down democracy in the people's House.

Republicans, a number of them stood up here today and said this is a very complex bill. This is the most important bill that may come before this Congress because it affects millions of Americans' livelihoods and retirements, but it has to come under a closed rule. It cannot withstand debate, it cannot withstand amendments, and it cannot withstand changes. That is the death of democracy in the people's House.

So let us applaud it in Iraq today, but let us understand what is happening here, the gradual glacial process of destroying debate on the floor of the House of Representatives and the right of Members. Mr. Visclosky wanted to talk about people who were being impacted by these policies who were losing their jobs and losing their workplace and losing their retirement benefits, but he was not going to be allowed to offer those amendments to have that amendment because of the autocratic nature of the Republican leadership in this House. They cannot stand democracy, they cannot stand open rules, and they cannot stand open debate. Because it is their way, as Mr. McGovern says, or the highway.

This Republican pension bill is the greatest assault on the middle class standard of living in the history of Congress because this bill accelerates the process by which millions of American workers will lose the retirement nest eggs that they were counting on. They will lose the security of their golden years, if you will, because of the accounts that they were counting on.

And it need not happen. It is not just about the organized plans, UAW or the Teamsters or the building trades. This is about millions of Americans who do not have the benefit of a union, who do not have the benefit of collective bargaining, because in a survey of the major employers by the Benefits Association, 60 percent of those people say that this bill will cause them to freeze their plans, freeze their retirement benefits. You can continue to work, but you will not continue to get any retirement, additional retirement benefits.

What does the CBO say about this bill? It says it makes this problem $9 billion worse for the Pension Guaranty Corporation. What does the Pension Guaranty Corporation say about this bill? That it will make it billions of dollars worse over the next few years. So we have made the problem worse, which is the solvency of the Pension Guaranty Corporation, and that is a corporation that protects pensions that now is anticipating hundreds of billions of dollars of potential liabilities in the future.

So we accelerate the problem and we diminish the capacities of the government to deal with this and the ability of the private sector to deal with it. And interestingly enough, we make it easier for corporations to simply get rid of these pension benefits without negotiations just as United Airlines did. We were told that a couple of those plans possibly could have been saved, according to the Pension Guaranty Corporation. Two days later they were put into bankruptcy.

This pension plan was designed when corporations went out of business. The

gentleman from Indiana is here. When Studebaker went out of business we created this because there was no more company. Yesterday in USA Today United Airlines announced it is coming out of bankruptcy and a couple of hundred executives are going to take 15 percent ownership in the company and they are going to leave bankruptcy with $285 million in their pocket, in their pocket. And those workers who gave back their pensions, gave back their wages year after year after year to help this airline which was mismanaged and run into the ground, they leave with nothing. You say, oh, they have a job. Well, the people who are responsible, the executives for running this company, they leave with stock bonuses.

That is what this bill does. It continues this problem, this absolute problem of corruption of the rights of people to protect their retirements.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Madam Speaker, when we are starting to deal with the pension plans that protect America's retirements, one of the things we should do is to make a decision not to do any harm. But the fact of the matter is that this bill makes things worse in many ways for many pensioners in this country and many future pensioners.

First and foremost, we created the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to be there to protect some of the retiree benefits of people if pension plans went bust or the corporations went bust. We are now told that this legislation makes that problem worse.

The speaker who was just in the well said there was some $23 billion in deficit in that plan. And what we now see is a Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the Congressional Budget Office tells us that this makes it at least $9 billion worse over the next decade. So while we narrow the deficit, in fact we see that we increase this agency's deficit problems.

This is an agency that can look out into the future and can see up to $100 billion of liabilities possibly coming their way. Maybe some of them will not come because of this bill, but many of them will come because of this bill, because this bill, in fact, makes it easier, makes it easier to terminate plans. It makes it easier to put plans into bankruptcy. It certainly does not make it any more difficult to put into bankruptcy as we saw with United Airlines.

So what does that mean? That means that a plan that was designed, an insurance policy that was designed for when companies went out of business, now companies can take their pension plans, the retirement nest eggs of their workers, and put them into bankruptcy, and the company can go merrily on its way. I do not choose that term lightly, ``merrily on its way,'' because after what we saw after years and decades of manipulating the pension plans of United Airlines, about not being truthful with the employees, not being truthful with the public, not being truthful with the shareholders about their liabilities, they put them into bankruptcy. Those workers had given back billions of dollars in wage concessions, retirement concessions to try to keep that airline afloat. They were not able to because they went into bankruptcy.

Yesterday, we learned that the top executives of that corporation have now petitioned the court to distribute $235 million in stock to those very same executives that ran this corporation into the ground, that they are going to get $235 million in stock. The employees who had all of the concessions, all of the cutbacks, the employees are going to be required to service, maintain, run and staff those airlines, start all over, having fallen and been cast to the floor.

That is what is wrong with this legislation. It treats those in the corporate suites entirely differently than it takes care of the workers on the shop floor or on the airlines or in the repair facilities. That is the problem with it is that we see that this plan simply does not provide the kinds of protections necessary, the kinds of protections that are necessary for those employees who have worked so terribly long for those corporations, who invested their entire lives in these corporations.

Plus the fact that it also makes it, and we are told by a number of the employer groups, this is what makes it more likely that the companies will terminate their plans, that they will freeze their plans. What does that mean? That means a lots of people who may be 50, 55 years old today, just as we found out with the cash balance plans, this makes it easier to do a cash balance, a lot of people who are working today are going to find out that they will not have a retirement nest egg that they have been planning on. They will not be able to carry out the standard of living that they were anticipating to provide for their families.

That is what this legislation does. It makes those kinds of decisions much easier, much easier for the companies to do that.

What does that mean? That means that America is going to end up with a poorer retired population than they had before. That means that these people are going to have less of the kind of retirement that they had anticipated because of the acceleration of the terminations, because of the acceleration of the freezing of the plans and because of the ease which you can now go and apparently the acceptability in the business community of entering bankruptcy.

We changed the personal bankruptcy laws in this Congress because we said people were using it as a convenience. It is interesting now that the corporations have decided they will use it as a convenience to redesign themselves, to reconfigure themselves, to reinvent themselves. If United Airlines is the model, the only losers will be the workers and the retirees in those corporations.

That is what this legislation does not do. It does not really speak to trying to make sure that we could do all that we can to secure the retirement of current workers and of future retirees.

I would urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation when we get to that vote and understand that we should not be making the problems of America's pensioners even worse than they are today.

Madam Speaker, we are facing a serious pension crisis that has already cost employees across the Nation billions of dollars in lost benefits--benefits they were told were ironclad. If you calculate just the losses employees suffered in the Nation's four largest pension terminations it exceeds $6 billion in earned defined benefit promises.

Let's be clear what is happening to our retirement system--this Enron the sequel. This

is Enron 2 with a vengeance. This is a national disgrace.

This bill does absolutely nothing about companies who decide to use the Federal Government to dump and run on their promises to employees. Exploiting loopholes in our pension and bankruptcy laws, clever lawyers have turned a Federal agency that was supposed to be a last resort for companies that were closing shop, into a dumping ground for companies to ditch unwanted promises to reward investors at the expense of employees and taxpayers. So powerful is this gaping hole in our pension protections, companies can now exact major wage and benefit concession by merely threatening to terminate their pension plan.

Folks, if you want help fast forward to the new Wal-Mart economy-- this is your bill. If you want to further weaken employees' hand in the battle for fair wages and benefits, this is your bill. If you want to stand by and watch as companies freeze, downgrade or drop their pension plans, this is your bill.

Last summer thousands of United Airline employees--mechanics, flight attendants, and pilots--lost billions in irreplaceable pension savings that changed their lives forever. These families--denied the courtesy of even a single hearing before the Education and Workforce Committee-- participated in an online hearing Democrats sponsored. Over 1,000 participated in this unique online hearing and their powerful voices were heard.

They wrote to us about the personal and financial devastation resulting from the loss of promised benefits, and the lost opportunity to earn future benefits. Listen to Kenneth Schmidt, a long-time employee of United from Goodyear, AZ, who wrote:

Dear Congressmen,

I had worked for United for 38 years when I retired in

February of 2003. My job as a mechanic was always a source of

pride to me. I worked midnights for many years, with doing so

I missed out on many family gatherings, holidays, etc. This

was what I chose to do in life, and I did it with no

complaints. But, now I am faced with large cuts to my

retirement benefits. My retirement should be a time of taking

it easy, traveling, and enjoying my ``Golden Years''. If this

cut happens both my wife and I will be forced to reenter the

work world, probably full time, if our medical insurance is

also affected. This is a sad time in this country for all the

workers who are relying on a pension to ease their lives, and

make this time relaxing, and enjoyable. The stress that is

being created by this turn in events is not healthy for

anyone. Please try and help all retirees, and future retirees

out of this most unfortunate set of troubles.

Guess what this bill says to Kenneth Schmidt and the millions of future Ken Schmidt's who have suffered from broken pension promises: Too bad, tough luck. You're on your own.

How can it be that tens of thousand of United Airlines employees like Ken Schmidt lose billions of dollars in promise benefits, and we do nothing? For example, we all know that United Airlines was permitted to terminate its flight attendants plans without ever having to show it was necessary to continue operating the company. The plan was terminated despite the testimony of a government hired economist who concluded the United plan was affordable and should be continued. This bill does nothing for them. The Democratic substitute--denied by the Republican leadership--would have restored the United plan until the company showed it couldn't afford it.

This bill does nothing for thousands of pilots whose benefits are cut by half or more by the Federal Government when a plan is terminated. When a plan is taken over by the PBGC after termination by its sponsor, the PBGC is required by law to impose a heavy penalty of those who retire at age 60--even airline pilots who are forced to retire at age 60 under Federal law. Our substitute fixes this injustice and allows pilots to get the same maximum PBGC benefit other workers receive.

H.R. 2830 rejects the Senate bill provisions that provide urgent relief to companies like Delta and Northwest airlines so these companies don't terminate their plans. Our Democratic substitute includes this urgently needed relief.

If you want to let the hard-earned pensions of airline employees across the Nation crumble into a heap of broken promises like United and USAirways, this is your bill.

Mr. Chairman, the sponsors of H.R. 2830 have referred to it as a ``pension reform bill.'' They say it will reform the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation that's already $23 billion in the red and going up. And they say it will turn around $450 billion in underfunding reported by the Nation's pension plans. In truth, this bill not only fails to tackle pension reform, it actually hastens the unraveling of the PBGC and defined benefit plans. Here is what the Congressional Budget Office says about this bill: ``H.R. 2830 would actually increase the PBGC's 10 year net costs by $9 billion, or by about 14 percent compared to with what it would be under current policy.'' The PBGC found the same--that H.R. 2830 would mean billions more red ink to its agency over current law.

How can a bill be reforming a system if it is increasing the PBGC's red ink over current law? It can't, and that's why this bill is a sham.

This bill also repeals two long-standing, bedrock protections for employees that, if permitted to pass, will haunt employees for years to come.

First, this bill overrides discrimination laws against older, existing workers for cash balance plans without any transition protections. It means that older workers will face up to what the GAO calculated would be up to a 50 percent cut in their benefits. These angry constituents will be calling the offices of Members of Congress in droves--just like thousands of IBM employees who spent years seeking to rectify deep cuts in pension benefits from a cash balance conversion. They will ask why Congress permitted companies to slash their benefits with no transition protections, no option to stay in the traditional plans, with no legal recourse. Tough luck to them, according to H.R. 2830. By contrast, the bipartisan Senate bill has significant protections for older workers, but this bill rejects them all.

This bill is also larded up with lots of special interest perks, but none as pernicious as the repeal of the longstanding prohibition on conflicted investment advice. Federal pension law has always required investment advice to employees to be on the level--free from self- interested, tainted financial advice. No more. This bill gives a sweetheart deal to investment houses by allowing them to offer conflicted investment advice to employees so long as they disclose to them that fix is in. And of course, it ignores years of mutual fund financial scandals involving padded fees and commissions, secret market timing, late trading, and more uncovered by the SEC, Elliot Spitzer, and other State attorneys general.

Here is what Arthur Levitt, former SEC chairman, says about the Boehner/Thomas investment advice provision.

. . . I have reservations when . . . advice comes from the

very same mutual fund company whose products are for sale to

a plans participants. One of my bedrock principles of

investing is that advice should come from mutual parties

with no axe to grind.

Financial journalist Jane Bryant Quinn and NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer have also expressed strong opposition to this change.

It's amazing that we don't lift a finger for the Ken Schmidts of the world, but we pull out all the stops to reverse a 30-year bedrock protection for employees for mutual funds and investment firms' lobbyists.

By contrast, the Senate bill does not include this repeal and goes further to actually strengthen the independent advice employees receive.

This bill does nothing to ensure fair treatment between workers and executives. Under this bill, if an employer does not fund its pension plan above 80 percent, then the workers get punished by benefit limits. What's the penalty for the executives who ran the plan down between 60 percent and 80 percent? Zero? If an employer does not fund above 60 percent, the bill requires more benefits limits for workers. For executives, only a weak provision for new executive compensation, with loopholes that allow the companies to promise future golden parachutes.

This bill doesn't reform our pensions; it actually hastens the pension crisis according to two independent Federal agencies. Rather than encouraging companies to keep their defined benefit plan in place, it encourages companies to freeze, downgrade or drop their pension plans altogether. It gives the green light to companies who want to dump and run, and opens new loopholes for mutual funds to steer employees into investments that feather their own nests at the expense of employees. It overrules age discrimination laws to slash the pensions of older workers and other existing employees. And it launches new, punishing benefit cuts for employees of underfunded pension plans, while letting the very executives who ran the company and the pension plan into the ground off the hook. And it does nothing to address the urgent crisis of our airline companies and employees--where jobs and the hard-earned retirement benefits of hundreds of thousands of Americans hang in the balance.

I urge you to oppose this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, when United Airlines announced it was going to go into bankruptcy, the Democratic members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce planned an e-hearing so those people who were most affected by the termination of that plan and the bankruptcy of that company would have an opportunity to talk to their representatives in Congress. We were not going to have a hearing on this problem, and these people could not come to Washington and testify. So we opened up the Internet to them, and we received thousands of replies from people telling us their life stories. The amazing thing about it was how many of these people were using their retirement to care for another member of their family. It could be a spouse with an illness, it could be a child, a grandchild, and all of a sudden, half of their pensions were evaporated into the bankruptcy of United Airlines.

Mr. Kenneth Schmidt, a long-time employee of United from Goodyear, Arizona, wrote, ``Dear Congressman, I had worked at United for 38 years when I retired in February of 2003. My job as a mechanic was always a source of pride to me. I worked midnights for many years, and in doing so, I missed many of my family gatherings and holidays. This was what I chose to do in life, and I did it with no complaints. But now I am faced with large cuts in my retirement benefits. My retirement should be a time for taking it easy, traveling and enjoying my `golden years.' If this cut happens, both my wife and I will be forced to reenter the work world, probably full time if our medical insurance is also affected. This is a sad time in this country for all the workers who are relying on a pension to ease their lives and make this time relaxing and enjoyable. The stress that is being created by the turn of events is not healthy for anyone. Please try and help all retirees and future retirees out of this most unfortunate set of troubles.''

What the problem is is that this legislation does nothing for the Kenneth Schmidts of the world, he and his family. It does nothing to keep companies from simply making a business decision that they can throw the company into bankruptcy, get rid of the retirement and health care obligations to retirees and move along. This is not some unusual practice to bring shame upon a company. The steel companies did it. The airlines have done it. There is a question of whether the automobile industry will go this way.

It is really not completely about their pensions. It is about a decision of a business plan. It is about competition and a change in the marketplace. But the fact of the matter is that, at the end of the day, there is no showing. United did not have to show that for these pension plans they would be a solvent company. In fact, the people from the PBGC wrote and said that they thought the flight attendant plan could be salvaged, and in fact, maybe the others could. But the decision was made and they went into bankruptcy without a hearing on that issue.

Companies should have to exhaust all of their attempts to try to save the retirement plans of these Americans, these people who have worked hard. Remember, these pension plans, they traded pay. They traded health care benefits. They traded vacation days for this pension plan. That was the agreement and the guarantee. Now, unilaterally, the company gets up and walks away from it.

And to rub salt into their wounds, there were pilots required by the laws of this Nation to retire earlier. They take an additional hit on their pension because they are early retirees, not because they wanted to stop flying but because the law says they have to retire.

So we have pension plans that could have been salvaged and people who are being punished because of the Federal law in terms of their early retirements, and this bill does nothing to fix that.

We do that in our motion to recommit. We address the concerns of the flight attendants. We address the concerns of the early retirees, and we address the concerns of the airlines, but it does not do that in the majority bill because they want to go off and use those people as trading chips, the retirement nest eggs of these hardworking Americans, in the conference committee. I urge Members to vote against this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) for his control in this debate.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit on behalf of myself and Congressman Cardin.

Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, we offer this motion to recommit to address a number of issues that are not addressed in the legislation before us and to hopefully not do some of the things that the legislation before us does. We believe that we can do these things without driving employers out of the defined benefit system.

The current bill before us provides a compilation of interest rates and premium fees and costs that we believe will drive employers to accelerate the termination and freezing of these plans. That is not because we say it; that is what the employers have told one another in their associations, the expectation that some 60 percent of the employers will freeze or terminate their plans.

We believe that our motion to recommit does not impose arbitrary benefit cuts and freezes on workers who do not control whether or not the employers fund the pension plans or not.

The motion to recommit would require companies to seek alternatives to the termination and prove that a plan is in fact unaffordable before they can cast it away in bankruptcy, as we saw United Airlines do, that cost the employees billions of dollars in pension benefits.

Importantly, the motion to recommit would actually help the employees of American, Continental, Delta and Northwest Airlines, whose pension plans are in danger of being terminated. The bill before us does not do that. It talks about doing that in the future.

The motion to recommit would also protect 9 million workers who are covered by multi-employer pension plans in the construction, food service and transportation industries. We would ensure that workers and executives would be affected equally in pension plans. Again, the horrible demonstration out of United Airlines, as the executives walked away with $235 million in a new, debt-free company and the employees walked away with wage cuts and benefits cuts and the loss of retirement benefits.

Finally, the motion to recommit would help workers who do not have access to defined benefit plans through the automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans and the expanded savers credit.

This legislation, if it is not corrected, is the greatest assault on the pension benefits and the retirement nest eggs of hardworking, middle class Americans in the history of this Congress. I say that because it is quite clear that this will expedite and will accelerate the freezing and the termination of these plans that so many millions of Americans are relying on.

One thing this legislation will do, if you want to continue to debate Social Security, you will now prove with the passage of this legislation that Social Security is the most secure retirement system in this country, that it is the only one that people can count on, because these other plans are in jeopardy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, Mr. Cardin from Maryland.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution for many of the reasons that my colleagues have cited.

The fact of the matter is, we have the blueprint for what needs to be done on the oceans. $10 million was spent developing it. We have another one from the private sector, from the Pew Foundation, led by our former colleague Leon Panetta. I think they spent over $4 million. The Resources Committee has a budget of $14 million. If there are five other committees, most of their budgets are larger than ours, so you are approaching almost $100 million in public moneys that are available to deal with this issue. And yet we are going to create a task force to study a study and spend another $400,000. Either the place is so terribly bureaucratized that it cannot respond or it does not want to respond.

The fact of the matter is, we can do this through a select committee and end up with a legislative product, or we can do this through a task force and end up with a study of a study recommending to the committees, that have not shown any interest to date, that they should do something about the oceans.

You are right, the oceans are far too important to be left to that mechanism. But the fact of the matter is, this task force does not take this any further down the road.

This is about action. As Mr. Farr said, it is about leadership. We have the expertise in the committees. When we did the energy bill, the Speaker told us that the energy bill would be on the floor by a certain date. The Commerce Committee did their part, the Ways and Means Committee did their part. Transportation did their part. Resources did their part. We saw the bill on Monday. We talked about it on Wednesday, voted on it on Friday. It was on the floor the following week. Not a great process, but they obviously wanted to do something to have an energy bill on the floor.

We have done that in other cases. Here they simply do not want to do it. They really just do not want to do this to protect the oceans, because it requires a commitment of resources. It requires a national commitment to protect the oceans, and the Republican Congress is not interested in doing that. If they wanted to do it, they would do it. They simply do not want to do it.

But what they want to do now is just throw some additional money at it to kind of kick the can down the road. The emotions are too important to be kicked down the road. This should be addressed by this Congress. We have had a year, and nothing has happened. So now we are going to spend another 6 months and the ball is not going to get advanced very far, other than politically, and then we are going to be back telling the committees they should do something about the oceans. We just spent $15 million telling the committees they should do something about the oceans.

So this is about whether you have the will to do something about the oceans, whether you have the political ability to do something about the oceans and the leadership to do something about the oceans, or you do not. It just does not make any sense.

This system, I guess, should become more flexible to deal with, because almost all of the tasks now that the Congress deals with cut across committee jurisdiction lines. So we ought to become more flexible to deal with it. We should not just be throwing more money at it to pretend like we are doing something to advance this incredibly important, incredibly urgent oceans agenda. This task force does not deal with that. I urge my colleagues to vote against this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special tribute to the Richmond Steelers Football Team as they return from the National Youth Football Pigskin League Tournament in Las Vegas. About 128 teams from around the country compete in the Tournament. I am proud to represent them in Congress.

The Richmond Steelers, 200 boys and one girl, under the direction of Head Coach Fred Harris, have long been a story of success in the history of national youth football. The Steelers have won five consecutive California state youth football titles and have compiled a 59-3 record over that span. The team reached their highest mark last year as they took first place in the Midget Division of the Pigskin Tournament.

More than the trophies, the Steelers represent salvation for children who otherwise face numerous hardships. In August 2004, players were devastated by the murder of Terrance Kelley, a former Steelers player and De La Salle High School football star who was on his way to the University of Oregon on a football scholarship. In August of this year, the day before the team's first practice game, beloved Midget coach Waleed Elahi was shot and killed. Waleed and his brother Khalid started an early morning breakfast program to ensure that players had a nutritious meal each morning before going to school.

This year, the opportunity to defend their title was nearly stripped from the Steelers, as they lacked the funds to travel to Las Vegas for the championship games. The team receives no outside funding and relies on membership fees and donations to survive. Steelers President Adrian Muhammad, when asked about the team's situation, said that unless there was a miracle, the team would not be able to afford the trip.

However, miracles still do happen. Once word got out, the community responded, and donations came pouring in. Residents and businesses from Contra Costa County banded together to help the team raise $30,000 in just a few weeks. With such an overwhelming response, the Steelers were able to make the trip.

The Steelers returned to Richmond with four honors, a first place trophy won by the Pee Wees, two second place trophies won by the Midgets and the Mighty Mites, and the Junior Midget's third place bronze medals. However, for these children and the community at large, the fact that the trip was even made possible is every bit as important as the outcome of the games. The individuals, businesses and community organizations of Richmond pooled their resources and together provided the necessary funding. This effort in support of our children represents the very best in community spirit and is an example of hope that we can all celebrate.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to recognize the journey that the coaches and players of the Richmond Steelers, and the community in which they live, have traveled this year. Please join me in celebrating their success.

Mr. Speaker, a little over 24 hours ago, an American military hero suggested to this country that this Congress should debate the policy, the current policy in Iraq. He had some suggestions on how that policy should be changed. He believed, as we believe him, that he was doing this for the sake of our troops, for the sake of our country, for security in the Middle East, and the security of this country.

In those 24 hours, he has come under unrelenting attack, characterizing him as an individual, as a Member of Congress, as to his motives, as to what he proposed, as opposed to what he said he proposed. Those attacks came from the President of the United States, from the Vice President of the United States, from the Speaker of the House, and from so many Members of this body who challenged his patriotism, challenged his character and challenged his integrity because he simply dared to kick open the doors of Congress and suggest that we debate the pressing question of this Nation that the people of this Nation want us to debate. Not that he would win that debate, but that he wanted that debate to take place, and that for that, all of his years of service to this country were openly challenged and mis-char- acter-ized and slandered.

I do not know where we went wrong. I do not know where we went wrong because I went through the debates in this Congress in Vietnam and Central America, and Mr. Murtha and I could not be on more opposite sides of those issues. And many people I served with in the history of this Congress, but never in those debates did people assassinate the character of one another. We challenged the evidence, we challenged the assumptions. We challenged what was said, but we never ever, ever, did this to one another because we respected one another, having differing views coming from different parts of the country with different backgrounds.

Where did we go wrong? Maybe tonight Mr. Murtha gave us another gift. Sometimes when you hit bottom, you change the ways you do business. Maybe Mr. Murtha gave us this. After all that he suffered over this last 48 hours, maybe this Congress will be a better place, because everyone sitting in this Congress knows who knows Jack Murtha what has been said about him in the last 24 hours could not be further from the truth. That man is a hero. That man is a hero to this Nation. You know it and the whole Nation knows it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for all of his work on the legislation, and I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for all of his work. Like so many others who have already spoken, it is clear they were not dealt a very fair hand, or the hand that they needed, to take care of needs of this country.

I am most disappointed in the funding of No Child Left Behind. At a time when school districts are entering into the most expensive part of No Child Left Behind, when they are being required to restructure entire school districts, entire schools, when they are

trying to meet the demand and the requirement of a law that we have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom, which requires substantial retraining of teachers, the attracting of new teachers, the paying of incentives for teachers to go to the most difficult schools, at that very time the Federal Government walks away from the commitment under No Child Left Behind. The Federal Government starts to decrease its participation when the States and the school districts and our schools need it more than ever.

It really shows such little confidence in the future of our young children. It shows such little confidence in the ability of our school districts to restructure themselves to meet the demands being placed upon them. We see cuts here in technology grants that are absolutely essential for the future education of our children. We see teacher quality grants cut. Those are absolutely essential to improve the quality of our teachers in our classroom so they can engage in that kind of professionalism.

What is most startling is that these cuts in education come at a time when, I am not saying put more money in education, Mr. Obey is not telling you that, but the American business community is telling you this is the most crucial thing you can do. The American Electronics Association, made up of some of the most successful companies in the history of this country, their number one priority was to fully fund No Child Left Behind. The Semiconductor Association: fully fund No Child Left Behind, put money into graduate school education, put money into highly qualified teachers. And this budget goes in exactly the other direction.

We do not have the confidence that is necessary and demanded of this country in the future and the confidence in these young people and the necessary investments to be made in them. It is so discouraging to see the lack of confidence in our young people that this budget demonstrates.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, last week the Republicans were unable to pass this bill because of the severity of the cuts. They have since then done a lot of horse trading about those cuts and apparently, now tonight, they have the votes. But the one thing that remained consistent throughout all of that horse trading was they never lost their appetite to raise the cost of student loans. According to the CBO, this budget will add almost $8 billion in new cost onto the backs of students and onto their parents as they borrow money to pay for higher education, a higher education that is absolutely essential today to fully participate in the American economy.

They will add almost $5 billion in new consolidation loan fees and higher interest rates that go directly to those students borrowing money. They mandated a 1 percent insurance fee, $1.47 billion, on the backs of these students. Repealing the lower interest rate caps, $505 million to these students. A 1.5 percent origination fee, $350 million to these students. So that the average student today who borrows $17,500, you will increase their cost of that loan, and that education $5,800. Not according to me, but according to the Congressional Budget Office.

You can say all you want, but none of you apparently raised your hand and said, How about helping the students? How about reducing the taxes on the students? How about reducing the $8 billion in new taxes on these students? Students who are going to Kansas, they are going to UT, 30 students here are going to Georgetown. Nobody raised their hand on behalf of these students or their families who are going deeper and deeper in debt.

Just 2 weeks ago, we got a report that the cost of a college education is outstripping the ability of middle-class families to pay for it, and certainly lower income families to pay for it.

Earlier this day, you took away the promise of this President to increase

the Pell grant by $50. He originally promised to raise it to $5,100. But, no, you couldn't keep that promise, the President couldn't keep his, you didn't keep his promise, nobody kept the promise to the students. Somehow you are just not able to keep your promises. What happens is that these students here are punished because of your inability to keep your promises.

No, the House is not out of order, you are out of order because you are hurting the students of this Nation, you are hurting their families, you are piling on the debt, you are piling on the interest rates, you are increasing the cost to the students and to their families. You ought to be ashamed of it. Because the taxes that these kids are going to have to pay and their families pay are way beyond what is fair to do to them. It is a tragedy, an absolute tragedy that you would do this to young people.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

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

Mr. Speaker, the managers of the bill jointly submit this statement to explain and clarify the intent of certain provisions contained within the legislation.

With respect to amendments made to the Occupational Safety and Health, OSH, Act in section 311 of the legislation, the managers recognize the historic and unique nature of this disaster inflicted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and is taking the extraordinary step of authorizing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, to use volunteers in light of the historic scope of that devastation.

Section 311 of the bill is intended to allow OSHA to utilize qualified safety professionals as volunteers to assist in a variety of projects targeting health and safety identified by OSHA. It is the managers' expectation and intent that these volunteers would be qualified by virtue of experience, and would need little additional training based on their professional work experience or other recognized safety training prior to being deployed in needed areas.

With respect to section 312's providing authority to the Secretary to purchase and distribute equipment and supplies to public or private entities engaged in projects related to worker safety, it is the intent of the managers that these funds be used to assist in relief and recovery efforts, and not be used to pay private entities to comply with preexisting requirements or obligations under the OSH Act.

Finally, with respect to title III, subtitle A, the Pension Flexibility for Displaced Workers Act of 2005, it is the managers' expectation and intention that the Secretary will exercise the authority provided under that section judiciously and upon careful consideration of the appropriateness of any waiver, suspension, or exemption authorized thereunder.

Mr. Speaker, last week, President Bush said it was irresponsible for people to rewrite the way the war began, and the White House communications director said the American people expect an honest debate. I could not agree with both statements more.

Then, yesterday, the President donned his flight jacket and suggested that he was going to attack his critics and, in fact, attacked his critics rather than contribute to the honest debate.

The American people need to know, after the dramatic failure of intelligence, just how that intelligence was

used, how it was emphasized, how it was manipulated, and who was the source of much of the intelligence that this administration used to hook people into the war in Iraq.

Did they use the intelligence provided by Mr. Chalabi, who was on our payroll, and by Mr. Chalabi's defectors, who paid and bribed to provide that intelligence to the administration? Did the administration, and this goes to the crux of the question: Did the administration do the due diligence that was necessary before they made the decision to put American men and women in harm's way into Iraq? Did they look at the case and make the case that this was an imminent threat to the security of the United States?

So far, we do not have the answers to those questions. We know that there was a concerted effort within the Department of Defense, within the administration to push us into the war in Iraq. We now need to know how that was done. We need that honest debate. We do not need the President to continue to attack his critics.

The American people are entitled to that debate. They are entitled to the results of the investigations that were promised 17 months ago, and nothing has happened from those investigations.