good morning a quorum being present the committee and education labor will come to order today we have one item scheduled for markup h r thirty two twenty one the student aid and fiscal responsibility act of two thousand and nine but before we begin the markup we have one housekeeping matter to address and we we now have a new subcommittee assignments on both sides of the aisle and i ask unanimous consent that our newest member miss to be assigned to the subcommittee on early childhood elementary secondary education and a subcommittee on healthy families and communities and i now recognizes senior republican the committee mr client for a unanimous consent request thank you mr chairman and we have a few changes to our subcommittee assignments to make official today mr price of georgia is taking my place is a senior republican on the health employment labor and pensions subcommittee mrs mcmorris rodgers is taking mr price's place as a senior republican on the workforce protection subcommittee and issue mr mckay and mrs mcmorris rodgers and i each have new sub committee assignments i ask statement followed by the chair and the senior republican of the subcommittee on higher education lifelong learning and competitive in the us and i recognize myself for the purpose of this opening statement the student aid and fiscal responsibility act make historic investment higher education expands a high quality educational opportunities to all americans last week in a washington post op ed president obama urged us to think about the kind of economy we want to rebuild this legislation is at the heart of the answer it will give us the opportunity to create the kind of country in the kind of future that we envision for our children and in this first six months in office i think president obama has been right to challenge us to do more to assist on what is better for our children especially in the area of education now over the past three years this committee has made a lot of progress to expand college opportunities for americans we invested twenty billion dollars in additional college aid for families we raised a pell grant scholarship by fifteen hundred dollars we cut interest rates on federal loans for middle class students and made loans more manageable for all borrowers to repay among other things but as the president made clear we've got a lot of work to do if we're serious about reversing the many trends this deals stand to threaten our competitiveness today i'm very proud to say that we are considering legislation that will help write the next great educational legacy in this country first it will help us reach president obama's goal of once again leading the world in college graduates by making college more affordable and accessible it will invest forty billion dollars to increase the grants scholarships award from fifty five hundred dollars in two thousand and ten to two to sixty nine hundred dollars in twenty nineteen thinking that it to match the cost of living increases it will simplify the fa him to make it easier to apply for federal student aid it will build on our efforts to make interest rates on loans affordable by making these interest rates variable beginning in two thousand and twelve when they are set to jump from three point four to six point eight it will provide more students with access to low cost perkins all by expanding the program to many more campuses it will strengthen minority serving institutions and programs to help retain and graduate students in those institutions next it will make an unprecedented billion dollar investment our community colleges to help them drive our economies recovery for years business leaders have told us they weren't enough workers with knowledge and expertise for the specific industries this bill will hopefully change that it will build on the twenty first century workforce by strengthening partnerships among community colleges businesses and job training programs that will align community college curriculum with the needs of high wage high high demand industries it will also ensure that every student can learn in a safe and efficient modern environment by renovating repairing o many of our nation's schools a measure that the committee house have already supported finally will invest in billion dollars per year to help the next generation of children can it so the next generation of children can enter kindergarten with the skills they need to succeed in school this legislation will help transform early learning programs and improve the school readiness outcomes of children by insisting upon real change in state standards and practices it will support states that are ready to expect more from their early learning programs than just basic health and safety and are looking to undertake major reforms and demand results it will build an effective and well compensated early childhood workforce integrate key quality standards improve instructional practices and better support parents and early education of their children all of these reforms are paid for that's because we will pay for this by making commonsense changes to our student loan programs that will cheat to critical goals at once by converting the new federal loan programs to a direct loan program starting in july two thousand and  we will finally end wasteful taxpayer subsidies that are keeping a broken system afloat and that we will insulate all federal college loans and families from future turmoil in the financial markets students will have access to low cost loans they need and then the economy our bill will also upgrade consumer service borrowers and consumer service borrowers receive when repaying their loans rather than force private industry out of the system will maintain those jobs and a role for lenders and nonprofits by allowing them to compete for contracts t services loans as they are currently doing on an expanded basis this simple change will save eighty seven billion dollars over ten years and as a part of our efforts to secure a stronger future for our children and country they will inherit we will direct ten billion dollars of these savings to pay down our deficit now the end but i'd like to remind everyone the choice before us we can either keep sending these subsidies to the banks in a broken system or we can start saying directly to students and their families the fact that we're finally transforming these programs from one that puts banks before students when that makes paying for college better deal for families and taxpayers is a testament to this president and his vision is proof that we're willing to change the way washington works i hope this committee in the congress will have the courage to stand with him on the on the right side of history this bill could not have been drafted without the leadership of many members of this committee on the higher education provisions bill i'd like to thank mr bishop in this you know host for the hard work and the early learning the school modernization provisions i'd like to think  around almost killed him is to love sack their tireless commitment efforts and i urge all my colleagues to support this legislation at this point i'd like to yield to mr kline for his opening statement thank you mr chairman and good morning to you and everyone in the room packed house again today and i have to confess that i have a certain feeling of deja vu all over again on a number of levels certainly because we're getting ready to vote on yet again another budget reconciliation bill that  expands the reach the federal government last week we approved a plan that sets up the federal government to take over control of our health care system this morning will be voting on a bill that will put the federal government in complete control of student lending we've already seen the federal government step in and take control of banks insurance companies and even iconic american auto companies i have to ask is there any industry not on the verge of federalization we've been told the federal family education loan program is on life support and this move to one hundred percent direct lending is inevitable but mr chairman i see things a little differently i see a system that up until last year's global market crash has provided an uninterrupted source of capital for students and families for more than forty years this push for one hundred percent direct lending is not a response to global market instability it's just the latest salvo i believe in a battle that has raged on for the last decade and a half way between those who see value for the private sector in student lending and those who would prefer to have the federal government take it over i'm not arguing that the top program is perfect i've yet to see a federal program that is but on the whole i believe students and schools benefit from the choice innovation and competition that only the private sector can deliver i also believe taxpayers benefit from the public private partnership that is the hallmark of the film program when the market is functioning properly fellow lenders generate roughly seventy billion dollars per year in private capital that's seventy billion dollars we don't have to borrow from china and other debtors around the world and even when the market is not functioning properly the felt program can still benefit taxpayers last year congress worked in a bipartisan fashion to enact the ensuring continued access to student loans  office of management and budget tells us that castle is actually earning money for the federal treasury to the tune of about six billion dollars a year i certainly don't see it as well as a permanent solution a substantial portion of the lawns are made with federal dollars under this model which is not my ideal funding framework at the same time a castle is proof positive that we can find bipartisan solutions that maintain stable access to loans protect taxpayers and preserve a real role for the private sector unfortunately that's not what we're doing here this morning instead we're voting on yet another government expansion initiative that crowds out the private sector in the name of a bigger more intrusive federal government it's not just good in financial aid either this bill puts the federal government the school construction business it dramatically expands our role  the day care and early childhood education business it puts us in the distance education business and it dramatically reshapes our products job training their new community college initiative every one of these initiatives carries a multibillion dollar price tag and as we all know once created federal programs simply never go away that means we're creating perpetual new entitlement spending at a cost of billions of dollars per year i don't have to remind anyone in this room that the federal deficit is at its highest level after one point eight trillion dollars this year alone but perhaps i do have to offer a minor about the process we're supposed to be following to approve this bill we received instructions from the budget committee to pass legislation that will reduce the deficit and while a majority can show  savings of approximately ten billion dollars over ten years on paper i can't help but feel the american people are getting duped budget reconciliation is supposed to be a tool to get entitle not spending under control instead we are creating vast new entitlement programs  every stage of life from cradle to grave there is a better way to stabilize the loan program chart a path for long term student loan reform invest in financial aid and reduce the deficit republicans will offer such a plan today and we hope our democratic colleagues will join us in supporting this to go to mr guthrie the ranking member of the subcommittee thank you mr chairman i appreciate the opportunity to speak but i regret that my comments will be in opposition to the bill before us i was ranking member i was named ranking member on the on the higher education l learning and competitive subcommittee earlier this year with great excitement after all workforce of element of higher education were key priorities for me as a state senator and i was anxious to get to work on a bipartisan basis to reform initiatives here in congress in the state legislature africa we worked across party lines to accomplish important legislation i'm very disappointed that ranking member klein and i were not given opportunity to have input on this important bill unfortunately this bill out of the gate is one that simply cannot support i think it's the wrong approach to suit a financial aid both because of its insistence on an expanded federal role and because of its unfair cut and spend approach that pits one group of students against another we're told that switching to one hundred percent direct lending will save taxpayers close to ninety billion dollars over ten years where you know a lot about linder subsidies and savings to the federal treasury so i'd like to talk for just a moment about the difference between savings and earnings i think students deserve to know exactly where the so called savings are coming from under the failed program the federal government establishes the interest rate paid by students the government also establishes a market based rate of return for lenders they can never earn more than this amount and when they do they pay the extra back to the federal government in today's low interest rate environment the federal government is actually earning money from phailin there's even under the emergency legislation enacted last year the federal government is making a profit what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle of discovered is that federal government can earn even mo direct loan program where students pay interest and fees to the government directly the federal government has a lower cost of borrowing funds than lenders in the private sector because the treasury bottles with the full faith and credit of the u s government we pay a lower interest rate on our debt of course as taxpayers roll the hook for that debt that means when we borrow from other countries around the world we get lower interest rate by charging students an interest rate higher than what we owe foreign country foreign nations the government makes a profit that means low and middle income students overpaying on their loans or financing the new entitlement spending in this legislation let me give you an example today the federal government's cost of funds is just over five percent some students pay five point six percent on their loans others pay six point eight and some pay seven point nine and believe it or not some are paying eight point five and those interest rates for students will stay the same even if federal cost of funds falls to four three two percent or even less it's true that the majority is moving to a variable interest rate on some loans for some bars and this may help some but the simple fact remains that major savings are generated in this legislation by charging bars more than it cost the federal government to make the loan and offer one another and not comfortable with the idea of the federal government acting as a profit making bank you know loan financing is complicated issue and there is even far more to it than i just explained my point is this there's also more to it than just the quote unquote lender subsidies that the majority talks about there are real questions about the consequences of adding tens of billions of dollars to the national debt each year there are real questions about eliminating a role for private sector originators and guarantors and outrage providers and other participants and yes there are real questions about whether it's fair to pay for school construction in pre k education and even pell grants by over charging students on their loans republicans are not opposed to financial aid reform we've been talking about bringing down college calls for a long are anxious to simplify and streamline our financial aid system will fight as hard as anyone to provide a stable source of capital for students and families as someone who spent the last eighteen years working in my family small business i know firsthand how critical it is for the private sector to continually innovate save costs and make things better these are the things that we need to encourage as a reform the financial aid system career bureaucrats simply cannot and will not think of ways to improve students learning experiences address end of individualize original needs or help prevent the fall i believe we can make college more affordable without a complete federal takeover the private sector adds value and i'm eager to pursue common sense approaches that retain choice competition and proceed with consideration of h r thirty two twenty one the clerk will designate the bill h r three two two one the student aid and fiscal responsibility act of two thousand and nine i ask and ask sent to sense with the reading of the bill and i now california in the substitute i'm offering makes various technical changes my men and they share subs it also includes a number of changes that i believe strengthen the overall goals of the bill and furthers the commitment to students and their families specifically the members strikes language from the introduced a bill that would have eliminated the graduate students eligibility for subsidized loans beginning in two thousand and fifteen the amount provided for the for the k through twelve modernisation is reduced from five billion  four point one in order to account for that change in the community colleges grant program this and then it makes changes to the direct the secretary of education in consultation with the secretary of labor to promote appropriate opportunities for participants in pre apprenticeship programs to gain employment expertise and to define institutions to only include four year public institutions that offer two year degrees funds for for associate degrees and certificate level activities and are not located near a community college as in the introduced bill all public four year institutions may participate in partnerships with a community college funding for the early childhood learning early learning challenge fund is changed from one billion a year for jane years to one billion a year  for eight years and the maids have ever required for states has changed back to two thousand and six the state math related to expand access has changed from fifty percent to twenty percent and the amendment makes a number of changes to improve school readiness outcomes for english language learners finally the amendment adds a privacy provision recommended by mr klein i believe is very constructive the provision limits the use of information on a statewide data systems to use by government agencies and states for those education workforce activities to speak in support of the substitute as you know for over two decades i have championed the direct loan program as the most efficient stable and cost effective federal student loan program it's been a pleasure to work with  this issue over the years and the move to one hundred percent direct lending marks an important step forward for students parents and for taxpayers it's my hope that in the future we can implement the final stage of transforming our federal student loan program by allowing students to repay their loans on an income contingent basis through the income tax withholding system in contrast to what you will hear from many today currently we have two federal student loan programs that provide the exact same student loans to borrowers the federal family education loan program is a federal program which uses private capital to fund student loans but receives a federal subsidy to ensure a guaranteed rate of return the federal government also provides a guarantee on these loans the us of a student defaults taxpayers are on the hook not the private lender by moving to one hundred percent directly lending we are not nationalizing the federal student loan program rather we are limiting the federal loan program that has been fraught with scandal is an unreliable source of funds and costs billions more for taxpayers originat loan program will ensure that students and parents have a stable and reliable source of funding for student loans blowers will continue to benefit from private sector customer service only this will be achieved as it always has been in the direct loan program through a competitive bidding process which would allow the u s department of education to select private servicers based on how well they serve borrowers provide financial education and prevent loan defaults this is an important change from the perverse incentives that currently exist and sell which actually provide a financial incentive to collect on defaulted loans rather than preventing them according to c b s eliminating the sell program and moving to one hundred percent direct lending will result in nearly eighty seven billion dollars in savings for years these savings have lined the pockets of lenders and guarantee agencies at the expense of and taxpayers however now the savings will be redirected to help students graduate with less debt and make college more affordable furthermore taxpayers will benefit because this bill directs ten billion dollars of the savings toward deficit reduction i'm happy the chairman recognizes the importance of directing a portion of the savings to deficit reduction i would have preferred and have long advocated for more savings being directed toward deficit reduction instead of used to create and expand several programs including school construction furthermore mr chairman i hope we can work together before consider for consideration to ensure greater accountability and cost effectiveness in the servicing contracts for the non profits i know some of my colleagues are concerned that the transition to direct lending will be burdensome for schools but the national association of student financial aid administrators just released a survey of institutions that recently moved to direct lending seventy three percent of these institutions reported that the switch to direct lending was easier than they thought when the four percent said it was more difficult sixty one percent said the burden of administering the direct loan program was less than the cell program and twenty four percent said it was the same eighty four percent said neither had to increase nor decrease the number of staff to administer the direct loan program mr chairman although it appears that the schools are reporting a smooth transition to the direct loan program and it's important that we continue to monitor the transition to ensure the department of education is addressing any problems encountered by schools finally today's legislation creates a new community college grant program that aims to strengthen community colleges in order to better prepare our workers for the jobs of the future i believe wisconsin has long served as a model in this area for both our technical school system and the university of wisconsin two year colleges provide valuable direct roles in addressing the workforce and educational needs of the state mr chairman role appear appears that both of these types of institutions would be eligible for funding under this program ask your assistance in clarifying the language before for consideration to ensure their eligibility let me conclude by again noting the great achievement and importance of moving this bill forward today we are not favoring government over the private market eliminating the federal guaranteed loan program which for years has been a gravy train for lenders and guaranty agencies and moving to the direct loan program which is structured in the interest of students and of taxpayers thank you i thank you john mr hare thank you mr chairman in today's current economic crisis our communities are hurting now more than ever america's need americans need access to jobs with family supporting wages and businesses need access to skilled or to preserve the a valuable financial assistance outreach and training services that not for profit in state run student loan agencies such as the only student assistance commission provide to students and families this bill makes a special carve out for these groups to serve student loans therefore the i s a c should be able to continue administering the state of illinois scholarships and grant programs assisting thalamus with filing the faster and offering early awareness of vets to help families prepare academically and financially for post secondary education all of which are vialli important to families in west central illinois just below also addresses the crumbling and outdated infrastructure of our case through twelve schools and community colleges which could not come soon enough for students and in the southern portion of my district this past spring belt elementary school was destroyed after only being built five years ago due to subs substitutes from the longwall mine on top of which school was built we worked diligently to obtain portable classrooms for the students which we secured for the fall however what the students need to secure safe structure that will foster the best learning environment possible this bill will not authorize the construction of new buildings for say provides five billion dollars to elementary and secondary schools for modernization innovation and repair projects to create healthier safer and more energy efficient teaching and learning climates this bill also makes a large investment in early learning programs for our nation's children through the creation of an early learning challenge fund this fund stablish is a one billion dollars per year competitive grant program to states to increase the number of low income children in high quality learning programs i thank the committee for working with me to ensure this district has more community colleges that any other institution as such i'm a proud member of the house community college caucus in fact i represent six community college districts all of which directly respond to the appointment needs of the regents that they and i would like to say chairman miller and his staff are working with me to include several provisions in the miller substitute to help the schools continue to serve west central illinois many of which offer the only opportunity students and workers have to higher education in the rural areas of my district specifically we change the language in the college access and completion competitive grant program to focus funding on skilled jobs with the intention of the early local workforce is that respond to the demands of each particular region of our country second in the application section of the competitive grant program state to have limits says systemic reform of community colleges we answer a new requirement for how states will address the needs of all their community colleges to ensure schools even in the most remote areas of the state have the ability to receive these important funds and finally we asked the institute of education sciences in its rigorous evaluation of all grantees to indicate whether an  entity is located in a rural or urban area this data will be invaluable to discovering the areas that need more attention and how to better structure programs in the future again this bill takes many people steps towards improving the quality and accessibility of the delivery system of higher education our country it is best of the early education of our most valued assets our children and focuses on the important role community colleges play in economic and workforce development i commend the leadership of this committee and president  no obligation to include these institutions and block grant programs that they administer tribal colleges or chartered by their respective indian tribes which hold a special legal relationship with the federal  than four hundred eighty supreme court decisions and the seating of hundreds of millions of acres of land to the federal government because of this unique we sponsor ability and relationship with the tribes primary funding for tribal colleges is a federal access for american indians living in some of our nation's poorest most understeer and most rural communities where no other higher education opportunity just to address the unintended barrier to tribal colleges participation almost amusing grants to state distribution model the legislation should be amended to include a set aside for tribal colleges and universities to ensure their inclusion but i will not be offering a member today would like to work with the chairman before this legislation reaches the floor to address this important issue i thank the gentleman i look forward to working with him on these we were many years on the travel chairman i have a question this as we're looking at obliterating the private option and we battled back and forth about public private option and most colleges chose the private option and we've had that battle and i'm sure we'll continue to argue that today and we're creating a huge national bank arguably one of the biggest banks in the world that will be a government bank but what i'm trying to sort out is a little bit of the pay for in the president's proposal on the  loans and the pell grants it was scored at eighty seven billion my understanding is the you're basically the same bill now forty billion is that the correct number where you scoring your number and what's the gap works we're spending about seventy seven of that eighty seven so you're that basically so you're saying this is it you're using the same as the on the cost yes ok thank you this committee worked very hard to make investments to lessen the burden on students and families we also made targeted investment in institutions that serve large numbers of low income minority and first generation college students i am pleased to see that h r thirty two twenty one the student aid and fiscal responsibility act of two thousand and nine and that many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle of this committee support the direction that president obama and secretary duncan have taken in improving educational opportunities for all students chairman miller thank you for your leadership on this legislation and  i think the gentleman or there's others who seek recognition on the other side is that mr holt thank you mr chairman i really appreciate the effort you've put in to in this legislation and in preceding legislation to make college and education in general more accessible and i want to thank you for listening to the voice of graduate students in recent days to correct  some language in an earlier draft that i think would have closed the door to necessary studies and i think your fix has it will benefit the economy in general and thousands of students who are who are not wealthy and want to pursue not just the american dream but to really contribute to our society in our private sector in the student loan it seems like the fell program was a was a stable source of capital in good economic times and bad for more than forty years  and certainly private capital has dried up and the fell program along with the rest of the financial services industry and the government did step in to stabilize the markets and add liquidity throughout the economy but student l is the only place where where you're seeking a perv permanent government takeover and i and so many people that have been involved in it really does it affect my state and it affects the jobs across the country with the least thirty five thousand jobs in the film industry and in illinois there's one thousand three hundred eighty three jobs and i really have concerns that it was a program that most of the colleges eighty percent i believe were the ones that sought this i just don't see the reason for not having that competition that having the some of the programs that that these the private sector was able to  cynthy reductions and loan forgiveness and other financial benefits so you know i would hope that the direct payment could do that but i think that without the competition we would it has the technology innovation financial aid funding for college access grant programs obviously i think simplifying the fafsa is very important perhaps a lot simpler just legislation like this but important to do i think investing in historically black colleges and universities is also vitally discusses mr p try and and i understand that on the other hand i understand the argument of the number of colleges universities being served by the cell program today and i'm not one hundred percent sure it's going to be an easy transition but my other real concern obligations in the past and the amounts of money are not huge here but the bottom line is that we are opening up a path that is going to expand dramatically year by year you're going to see increases in requests by ten twenty fold in future years and i just don't think we can under take that in our budgetary circumstances that we have at the present time i also think this is a local  state responsibility in both instances and while i believe in the community college concept and i believe maybe they have to expand almost all community colleges were built in the last thirty or forty years and their actual buildings are generally not out of date as some schools may be  a matter fact you could make the argument that our colleges and universities may have even a greater need because of their more antiquated properties than do the community colleges so you're going to have that argument as well and i think you're going to have  a tremendous pressure with respect to that and i think we're entering into something which is potentially dangerous i also have to express my concern mr chairman that we still are not funding ideate to to the fullest title one  vital importance to school districts in our country which need help with the students who are either local income or was special needs and it concerns me that we're jumping a new program ahead of that ahead of the complete funding of that if you chair i don't have a prepared remarks down to the record as want to say a couple things at this point i do support the manager's amendment of course and i just want to echo really what congressman hare had to say especially about the role of community colleges across the country in my district they're very very important played a tremendous role especially in terms of workforce development i was really happy with what the president had to say in michigan when he rolled out his plan for community colleges i'm happy to see that this legislation with much of what he had to say and proposed and i think this is a really wonderful piece of legislation there's so much in here that i think in a general sense will go some distance and making sure that we do provide the opportunity for folks to achieve the american dream myself i'm one who was able to go to college because of financial assistance when i was younger would have been able to do it otherwise somehow got a ph d and got the congress  through all of that we have so many folks out there who really have so many barriers to achieving the american dream and community colleges are just one way i think where it's an opportunity it's kind of a niche for many many of those students who don't want to go to a four year college a private college can't afford it can't go for your state institution they can't afford it for whatever reason can't make it so that institution they go to community colleges they  they they get a an associate's degree sometimes they go on a four year colleges but they can find their place in the world they can find their opportunity and i think this bill will go some distance and hansing those opportunities so i want to voice my support  cost eighty seven billion it was going to be used on telegrams that correct that the student loan he proposed changing the student would be eighty seven billion my understanding is you're saying this total bill will have the same savings of eighty seven billion that's you thing you're only going to use forty billion of that's correct and the president was saying he was going to use eighty seven billion on pell grants i don't know that maybe to i don't i don't know whether this is how are you is your proposed pell grant program different than what he said well if he was going to use the jamming would yield if he was going to use a whole eighty seven this would be small that but the president came to us with that with the initiatives on the pell grant on community colleges and on early childhood education will the gentleman yield mr souter yes the president's original proposal to the congress which is included in his budget submission back in february never contemplated the use of one hundred percent of the savings for pell they originally proposal was as we see it today f f to direct lending saving eighty seven billion and targeting pell increasing the pell grant maximum for next year by two hundred dollars and then in subsequent years increasing by the c p i plus one percent which is which is scored at about forty billion that was the original proposal from the president did the president propose it was mandatory the i think the mission if the gentleman will yield was written but it was entitlement yes and is that did the president proposed i think the language i think you originally proposed it the whole thing would be an entitlement and would that make a difference in the cost estimates well that was about three hundred three hundred billion i think if you chosen in effect through the committee to do some of that early childhood and other expense we're use we're using the forty forty on the annual increases for pill so we're taking what are what i would call alleged savings by where we're getting the funds and taking the profits of the government that were coming in to student lending and using it for other categories of than just student lending this is this is what c v s scores is it is a savings  n between the two between the two programs as you know year after year president bush had in his budget i think they had it and present the difference in the cost between making a direct loan and and a traditional student loan those savings were always set out in those budgets and my understanding is that the savings comes because when doing when the government's lending money to itself in effect doesn't make the profit on the money that would go into a private bank because of the markup that goes through a private bank system that's the premise of the savings and in that in effect i just want to make it clear that we're taking what was a higher ed section of funding and not using it all and hire it in effect that's  i rise in support of the manager's amendment thank you and commend you for your leadership on this issue let me make a couple of points that the central thing that we are doing today the core of this legislation is moving from f s d o lending to one hundred percent direct lending that is in fact the linchpin that frees up the money that allows us to do all of the other things that we hope to accomplish with this bill so let me address the central issue by moving from f s d o lending to direct lending we are complicating at least five things all of which we should all be able to support one we are insuring access to capital something that without the intervention of the federal government at least this year would simply not be possible the federal government at least this year is providing sixty cents of every  dollar that is loan to a student under the stafford loan program secondly we are simplifying the process by which a student accesses a stafford loan to deal with a financial aid office that is dealing with direct lending is much simpler for the student than it is to deal with the financial aid office that's dealing with f f e l m t thirdly we are saving eighty seven billion dollars something that we all should be able to support we are using a portion of that savings fourthly to expand pell again something we should all be able to support and finally we are returning ten billion dollars in the form of deficit reduction again something that we should all be able to support now the principal arguments that are raised against f f t l to direct lending to one that that it would cost us jobs and i think that that argument really requires much further scrutiny there are approximately thirty five thousand jobs in the private lending industry right now a great many of those jobs are going to remain for several reasons one the loans that are currently in the pipeline several hundred billion dollars worth of loans that are currently in the pipeline which have a long tail they can extend out fifteen to twenty years those are going to remain those are going to need to remain to be serviced in the private lenders will service those loans and secondly the government will contract with private lenders to to service the the loans under the new program and there is in fact language in the bill that provides an incentive in effect a job protection incentive for private lenders to go after these servicing jobs so i think that  concern with respect to jobs is overstated i think we have to monitor it very carefully but there is a larger good here and that is that we're going to be able to assist a great many more needy students and would otherwise be the case the second  that argument that is that is put out is that we are taking away student choice and i and again i would suggest that that argument needs to be very carefully assessed and i don't want to pretend that my experience with students is exhaustive or should speak for everyone's experience with students but in dealing with students over the course of my prior career i never once encountered a student who was focused on choice what they were focused on is can i get the money and can you guarantee me that i can get the money can you guarantee me that i will be able to pay my bill so that i can stay in school this semester and in subsequent successors so the argument is is seductive we all think that choice is important but as it relates to students students care about how they're going to get their bill paid and if they are dealing with a financial aid officer that says here's how we're going to be able to help you they are satisfied so i think and again i will say last point the larger good here is that we are going to us be able to assist an enormous number of needy students beyond how we would ordinarily be able to assist them and we're going to be able to do so at no new the gentleman yield for a question i will yield for a question to one of my questions is that in the sense we have lots of government guarantee programs s b a ag housing which the federal government stands behind like this one and if you change the cost of how they get their capital why wouldn't your principle of what you're doing here work and every federal agency that currently work through private lending but the government guarantees i think it's important that we not take a specific and expand that into a general we have an acute need we have tens of thousands of students who rely on access to two loans in order to finance their education we have a segment of the credit market that has collapsed the student loan credit market has collapsed we stepped in with the castle we recognize now that we have an opportunity to really really expand our ability to help needy students by doing what we're doing i think it makes  sense just one last point the other argument that's put out very often is that by becoming i think it was mr guthrie who said perhaps it was you mr souter who said becoming a national bank that we are that we are taking on obligations that would in the long run will serve us i put that very question to chairman bernanke when he appeared before the budget committee i asked him if he saw any short or long term negative implications in terms of the broader financial status of the united states in taking on this obligation he said absolutely not that he thought that this that this move was one that made sense in terms of in terms of recognized for five minutes to explain his amendment thank you mr chairman please offer republican alternative that accomplishes our key goals for student loan stabilization and reform without gutting a successful public private partnership first this a minute we preserve long as we're facing a global credit shortage a chasm that provides a federal backstop to ensure there is no interruption in funding for students as was mentioned by mr bishop as the market recovers a chasm offers the flexibility for private capital to return in fact even in today's weak an economy a substantial portion of loans that originated in failed or may with private capital we know that has a programs are working on campuses all across the country last night we heard from a group of fifteen financial aid administrators who made clear that a castle is working it ought to be extended castlewood it would go out at the end of this year if we don't extend it but we do have to take the word of fifteen financial aid administrators i would submit that forty four hundred colleges and universities still participating in  have voted with their feet because like as a wasn't working in loans or in danger they would move to the direct program that has what does save money for the taxpayer at sais we in fact we expected to generate twenty four billion dollars in savings over the next four years so we're comparing twenty four billion over four and eighty seven is over ten so this bill what this bill does with the twenty four billion it invest in pell grants support for pell grants is not a partisan issue members of both parties have worked to increase funding and will continue to do so in this amendment this amendment will increase pell grants pot twelve billion over four years and if it has a continues to work and we decide to extend it beyond for your alignment to h c a we'll have even more money to invest in pal the twelve million over four year twelve b n over four years is more than in the underlying bill because we target our investment impale and pell only will make a significant increase in a responsible way third we drive down the deficit american people are deeply concerned about the deficit and today we can invest in the pell grants by twelve million and also invest in future generations by putting the remaining twelve million toward deficit reduction this will be over for not ten over ten this is a balanced approach that focuses on college access while prioritizing deficit reduction fourth will chart a path for the future by pursuing a comprehensive renewal of student lending by extending a chasm of the two thousand and fourteen consistent with other financial aid programs we will a vital window of opportunity to pursue real student loan reform armament were created commission to study the student lending system in propose a new framework for stable cost effective financing were removed politics from the discussion and focus on what matters preserving choice and competition for borrowers preventing waste fraud and abuse maintaining value added benefits like financial literacy and counseling ensuring stability even in a weak economy and retaining private capital of owning a massive infliction of debt on future generations and this would report about twenty fourteen and finally one point out that we do not create the same long term entitlement expansion that being called forth in the underlying bill the underlying legislation legislation is a hodgepodge of education in this is mr tibbs from cradle to grave it's not the focus policy we need the issue addressed in the underlying bill are important republicans care about the condition of our schools about pre k about community college rocks they got started serving on a board and a community college in politics but this legislation is the wrong place at the wrong time it moves money from student aid program into pre k into building and construction it does take money from the student aid program to invest in that area we can invest in students without crippling them with runaway entitlement spending this is a straightforward amendment based on extending a bipartisan solution preserving sale extending it has a commission for twenty fourteen investing more over the next four years and pell grants in the underlying bill more towards deficit reduction and not moving student aid money from the student a program into other education parties which are important but we should preserve for a student a college the most things i hear from people is how  opposition to the amendment i think the castle was a necessary short term stopgap response to a difficult situation so as to protect students and hold them harmless  but it continues to in effect prop up a system that i believe reasonable people would say we don't need we do not need a middleman as i said right now we are providing sixty cents of every dollar that students borrow this year we are doing so as a result of but i think it forces us to recognize that if we are providing the capital why do we need to funnel that capital through a profit making intermediary to support student borrowing you just said that we are in and what we are doing we are taking money away from student aid programs and investing it in other areas perhaps in the most technical of senses that is an accurate statement but what there is the money that we are taking away is not being used to benefit students it is money that is flowing to the bottom line of banks and other student believe that our legislation moves us forward in a fashion that is most supportive of student aspiration and i would urge that we support the manager's amendment and i would urge that we reject your amendment mr mr we were going to because of the market crisis we were going to make sure that there was government backing as mr bishop pointed out the government is providing sixty cents on the dollar and then by extension and higher math that means that there's still private capital at forty cents on the dollar and we think that it's important to keep that private capital and to look for ways to keep the private sector in gage's in this business that's why mr guthrie member doesn't extend it cowslip forever it says  this was a temporary measure we need to keep it in place we agreed at the time in a bipartisan way that it was a good idea to do we ought to keep it in place and then look at the whole student lending program in a different with a different market that's out there sort  of i was thinking about what mr souter and said well what about other government programs where the government could step in and i think and take it over and i think mr bishop said well this is a focus need there's a crisis right now students are getting loans in fact they are getting loans and we want to ensure that they continue to get loans we just think this is a more reasoned approach it keeps the focus on student aid and on i think very important deficit reduction and does not as the manage the memos the underlying bill does spread that money into new education programs which once again are going to be chronically underfunded and competing for much needed money as mr castle of suggested for i d e a funds so i strongly support  to the chair would recognize himself clearly there is a philosophical difference about this this legislation i think this is legislation that we can we cannot afford to pass up  this is stuck out in the in the president's budget in both the republican and democratic administrations pointing to the congress year after year the excessive cost of the file program compared to the direct lending the direct lending program now with the disruptions and the lack of security in the credit markets i think the time has come to to to make that to make that choice what we have this with no no increment a value added we simply pay out ninety one billion dollars or eighty seven billion dollars over the coming ten years for the same services that we can do for eighty seven billion dollars less and provide these additional benefits to substitute is not in keeping with with the urgency that i believe  s members on this side of the eye on the committee have about early childhood about the community colleges about worker retraining about the importance of the palace grant the importance of the minority serving the minority serving institutions those things are not possible we can continue to pay out unjustified cost for a program which does not increase the value the fact is that most most of these private providers will be involved they are involved currently as was pointed out by mr bishop earlier on in the servicing of these of these loans they are competing for that they tell us they're looking forward to it it's a long term it's a long term effort and we think we for that and that side of it  inherit their experience so this isn't about throwing them out of that but the question of the origination of the loans it simply is it makes no sense to continue to pay out those dollars for that purpose when we have when we have this opportunity  the excessive nature of this was recognized in the previous administration when it was used to try and balance the budget or pay for the tax cuts and it was recognized by us when we when we when we made money available  to the higher education act of the last session of of the of the congress i would hope that we would reject the amendment however we do have a deep philosophical divide and that is is is prophet in fact in evil work it's a little bit in the debate we're having in health care between the public and private is there could we eliminate the profit and therefore get health care delivered cheaper it's extra complicated in this case because of the guarantee question when in fact when the market fails the question is what's the appropriate government response when we have to prop it up i would argue that for example while we have a student loan crisis in my district we're also having a small business crisis we're having a crisis on how to do retail floorplan financing we're having a crisis even in some agriculture areas we're having a isis in housing and in fact the government has stepped up to supplement the private sector one of the things i know gets far more down in the weeds even then i understand that one of the fundamental questions we're doing is in effect the government is lending itself money in at a cost that's different than what the private sector has access to money from the treasury and the fed and whether that's called the libre rate as it gets trading in the in the open market the fundamental question is do you believe that profit in the private sector banks whether they're dealing agriculture whether they're dealing in housing whether dealing in small business whether dealing in just normal lending for credit cards or whatever that it's as efficient as if the government did it directly with one national bank and and took the profit out because they could get access to that we print the money we have the original source of money is there any value to a private bank is there any value to a private sector system as we see right now in our economy the question is is it is there anything that isn't guaranteed by the government in fact the banks have all banks have received money from there and you could say what you said about the student lending you could say it about the banking system in the united states you could say it about general motors that we have put money because that we had a liquidity crisis we know effective moved in the question is is this a failure of the private sector was this a short arguments different here because some of the fundamental that we've argued about for years is expense structure private lending is in fact cheaper because they manage the funds better as we've argued over the years we don't count the overhead in the buildings because we don't depreciate building we could go through the expense side the reason the private sector has been more efficient is a innovate new methods they come up with creative ways to finance they come up with more efficient ways because they have private capital at stake in addition public capital at stake yes these are somewhat different because they are guaranteed but i repeat my question how is this in fact then different than the public private option in health care because that is stood behind by the federal government how is it different then the what's happening in the banking industry what's happening with g m what's happening with agriculture what's happening with housing that this is a raises a fundamental difference here apparently that one side thinks a profit doesn't lead to innovation a profit doesn't spread risk a profit is somehow a bad word and somehow reduces the available of student amounts to the lending even though the expense side has been game and if it applies here i don't see how it doesn't apply everywhere a debate about how should taxpayer money be spent should taxpayer money be spent to pump up the bottom line of a private corporation or should taxpayer money be spent to provide opportunity for students and for families on this situation here's an opportunity for the government not to guarantee a private sector industry for a change which iron colleagues on the other side seem to be so upset about this is a growing government going to be administered through the same existing direct loan process and colleges now  corporations i don't think i go home and explain once we really tell people was going on here and i think that the public like gets it you know why should there check me right now from the taxes they are paying to some private corporation so they can pump up their profits and then their child not be able to get any assistance to go around on higher education to get a job this could be meaningful to throughout their life is going to support them and support their family and support their community so i think that not not supporting the the amendment by the way of a cheney's remarks and yield my time to mr guthrie to thank you so i'll be real quick trick i want to be real quick on this you know it's the same questions i was because you look at it the philosophical direct or indirect or whatever but you look at from the direct lending to the fail they chose to switch from one to the other nasty and why and he said under the fail program he said if we lose the fell program i'll just reduce it would also mean the loss of financial literacy programs college access programs to fall to version four in benefits and other services for students that are provided by the sale in lenders under k j that's kentucky where the people who administer western kentucky participate in the direct lending program about ten years ago we made the choice to move to fail because of digital services a rotty of options available for students  families so in their experience there was a value it's not that we're subsidizing one for the other with no additional value but there was a value that i just want to point that out thank you thank you gentleman no further discussion the question is on the amendment  the clerk will designate the amendment in a woman is recognized i mean the staff will distribute to the clerk an amendment an amendment offered by miserable c of california and the gentleman is recognize for five minutes to discuss or remember thank you mr chairman the american graduation initial initiative in this bill will provide grants that can encourage and help community colleges find innovative ways to improve the develop  mental education and job skills training that many students particularly nontraditional students need this section builds upon to grant programs that representative meyer and i worked on  inclusion in the higher education act reauthorization last congress these programs were the business workforce partnership and bridges from jobs to careers the students who can most benefit from the american graduation initiative grant programs are nontraditional students now what is that first i'll tell you what we consider to be a traditional student traditional students are high school graduates who attend college almost immediately after high school are full time are financially dependent on their parents while nontraditional students are individuals who don't meet the traditional model may enroll in a degree or credential program later in life they may be independent financially have dependents of their own they may work more than part time nontraditional students are only half as likely to completely agree within five years as traditional students in fact just twenty seven percent earn an associate's degree in that time compared with fifty three percent of traditional undergraduates these nontraditional students were also no more likely than traditional students to be enrolled in school after five years far too many nontraditional students are struggling to attain a certificate or degree and are leaving school before meeting their goals these students oftentimes need improve developmental education better targeted job skills training innovative class schedules that help them work or juggle family this amanda mr chairman would require the secretary of education to give priority to those applications that focus on serving low income nontraditional students that's why we must ensure the state community colleges and other entities that apply for this funding go out of their way to improve the education for non traditional students so that they graduate with a certificate or degree and move into higher wage higher can it looks to me i don't i'm not very supportive of this whole effort to step in with community colleges outside of the side of we're having said that and students those of had the later roman in college those with the pendants and and so forth seems to be a worthwhile worthwhile goal so while i have checked to the an amendment offered by mr price of georgia and the gentleman from georgia is recognized for five minutes today to explain his amendment thank you very much mr chairman i was struck by one of the comments made by one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who said that this bill will continue to change the way that washington works and there's no doubt about it the change that's coming to washington is the further destruction of the private sector and this bill does indeed move further down that road relating to this amendment in one thousand nine hundred five congress created the stafford loan as part of the federal family education loan the failed program and under the program private capital is used in the loans are insured by the federal government against default in short it's a system to help students with no credit history or collateral or income to borrow money cheaply for college with minimal risk to the federal government but in the one nine democrats decided that the system was broken so they argued that real savings could be realized by cutting out the middleman we've heard that today so under the clinton administration the nation got a competing student lending system the government direct loan program a government program or mr chairman a public option arm services sound familiar since then this public option is competed against private lenders yet colleges and universities have overwhelmingly favored the fell program the private system with nearly eighty percent electing it before the recent economic downturn now as we now know the simply competing and holding a share of the market for a government program is not good enough last congress our friends across the out took the steps necessary to get us to this point today they gutted land their subsidies while establishing the federal government as a more prominent backstop and a player in the process they gamed the system in favor of the public option they fixed the result they ensured that the government could ride in on its white horse and quotes a day that's here we are with h r thirty two twenty one the student aid and fiscal responsibility act orwellian title to say the least which marks the culmination of a forty four year journey to finally end the private student lending system and doing so in the midst of the worst economic downturn in generations now on this matter today ending the private student lending system well have real world consequences for the economy specifically in regard to job losses based on employment survey of private lending loan participants conducted jointly by the consumer bankers association the education finance council and the national council of higher education loan programs this plan this bill targets and may eliminate up to thirty thousand private sector jobs the jobs eliminated will either have to be remade in the department of education thereby substituting government jobs instead of private sector jobs where the work done would become an unfunded mandate for the approximately seventy five percent of the nation's schools forced into the direct loan program and nearly every state w see job losses when the democrats quote invest in education unquote and remember again this is in the midst of the worst economic downturn in a generation my amendment is very simple all we're asking for is  says that ending the felt program the private program would not result in more than five thousand five thousand private sector job losses before the act takes place this really shouldn't be an issue if we're all committed to preserving jobs rather than creating more bureaucracy but i fear that it's become abundantly clear that everything with this administration and this congress is about more government and more taxes and more spending and fewer jobs it's reached the point where the question might be asked is there any sector of the economy for which the democrats are not planning to control and dominate taking over the entire student lending system is just the latest example after health care the national energy tax financial institutions auto bailouts you name it adoption of the amendment in order to preserve jobs in the middle of this current economic downturn i asked for a yes vote and yield back the balance my time for those who seek to be heard on the on the moment it's not the chair would just just comment on the me that i would hope that we would reject this amendments and effort to put up a barrier to to the to the legislation going forward if it if it's in fact passed we have made every effort in consultation with you about the  about the preservation of jobs and the conversion of origination jobs to service in jobs and expect the servicing part of this industry to expand in those discussions and i would urge a no vote gentleman gentleman yield yes i thought i heard you say you had consulted with all sectors lenders of the conservative many many of the lenders yes and your players in this field and they all i thought that this was a good thing that you know they have been all thought it's a good thing that they don't have one out of they haven't laid out the doomsday scenario that many other people have re business and they have lost jobs that's why the gentlemen's study would be a good thing to find out especially when the administration is saying how important jobs are to them i think we should make a study to see how many jobs are actually going to be lost but those who went out of business did not go out of business because of this bill or this law they went out of business because of the financial scandals that destroyed the credit markets gentlemen the old yeah are you saying then that all of the financial lending institutions that have pulled you know you don't want any efficiency or any other new idea to come in because you think it costs a job we don't going to start saying that no new technology be introduced by any industry because it might have the effect of displacing a job or transferring it to another industry or no efficiency will be allowed to be utilized by any and any company because it might transfer a job or what i think this just spirals on out it's a nice little message piece on that but this is about opportunity for students this is with knowledge that people will be working in the private industry servicing these loans or doing all the other things it was a guthrie and indicated his kentucky president was afraid wouldn't happen they will happen and they'll happen by people in the not for profit and the private industry on that and that will be taken care of as has been shown over and over again under the direct loan program as it applies service members may receive as little as five days notification before they are activated for duty with such short notice the stress of activation on our service members is already severe enough for those who are activated while they are in the middle of school the transition can be especially difficult these men and women have enough to think about without also worrying about whether they will have to pay additional student loans on the courses they have not completed i've heard from one service member in particular who was forced to live through that experience when he was activated army specialist jason had only completed ten percent of his graduate school semester but he was charged twelve hundred dollars in additional student loans even though he did not get any academic credit for the course and had to retake those same classes at a later i'm add an additional charge this is not an isolated incident the service member opportunities colleges which help servicemembers up to post secondary degrees frequently get calls from members of the armed forces about this problem my memory requires the secretary of education to forgive any federal student loans a member incurred during the academics or remember in which he or she is activated it applies only when the service member is unable to get academic credit for his or her coursework the only loans eligible for forgiveness under my m m are those incurred during the academic term in which a service member is activated no loans incurred in past terms would be eligible to be forgiven this amendment is basically about fairness the service members who are activated while in school should not be charge for coursework that they do not get academic credit for it's based on the language  the veterans education tuitions support act the bipartisan legislation to address the needs of servicemembers attending college iraq and afghanistan veterans of america the military officers association american veterans of foreign wars of all indoors the provisions in this amendment helps relieve the financial burden of activation on our service members and i certainly hope all members will choose to adopt thank you mr gentleman yield yes thank you just one as a gentleman of some of the colleges  have had some concern about this because they they believe that the practices of colleges and universities already have in place to deal with this intent to it which they have no objection to but they think that that is a jail report that concurs on that exact point in the government would assure that the student receives that funding from the course credit that they did not receive so the burden doesn't really lie on the colleges or universities there was a proposal to look at that that's intent of this we've been trying in this this congress and previous congress and previous congress and so forth back to provide protections for men and women when they're deployed we had the heroes act in the hundred eighth congress and i think renewed again in the hundred tenth congress appears to be on those lines with some firm commitment from the government to make sure that our men and women are not having to pay those loans so i would i would support this amendment and you'll back the gentleman the gentleman is recognized for five mr explain his amendment give us sharman over the past three months i've been working to fix and then equity and help post nine eleven g i bill benefits for failing to add many veterans aid many veterans in california in attending private institutions due to a technical oversight that can be easily remedied in order to correct this i entered two states are twenty four seventy four the veterans education equity act on may nineteenth of this year and i'm offering will have similar effect as that legislation the post nine eleven g i bill provides grants to veterans pursuing approach educational programs that institutions of higher education the maximum grant permitted under the bill as defined by the maximum out of two issues and fees charged to in state undergraduate students attending a public institution in implementing this law the better the department of veterans affairs requested from every state the highest amount of tuitions charged to an in state student attending a public institution a veteran can use the grant funds to defray the cost of tuition fees at a public or private institution of higher education allow me to demonstrate how this affects veterans in my home state of california because of a generous california state law to ition for california in state residents is zero dollars a situation unique to california this means that any better and who chooses to attend a private school in california will receive zero dollars intuition the systems let me illustrate further a veteran taking a fifteen year credit our semester at a private school like new york university can receive eighteen thousand dollars in tuition assistance and twelve thousand seven hundred dollars in the assistance under the v a highest instate tuition to wish and the rates but the same veteran attending stanford or s c or other private school and university in university in california would receive zero dollar to defray the cost of tuition and would only be able to receive a few thousand dollars to cover their fees amendment will solve this problem by requiring the secretary of education to work with the secretary of veterans affairs to provide a supplemental grant to certain veterans whose educational costs are not covered under the g i bill up to thirteen thousand two hundred dollars per year this helps veterans in states like california massachusetts nevada and many other states who will see devastating effects of this meant misinterpretation of the current g i bill for example a veteran in massachusetts attending boston college would be charged ninety six hundred dollars per term intuition and approximately five hundred fifty per person per term in fees in massachusetts a veteran is eligible for a post nine eleven g i bill benefit of eight hundred fifty eight dollars per term intuition and fifty nine hundred dollars per term in fees of that total amount the veteran would use all of his tuitions payment eligibility but only a thousand and thirty dollars of the total amount of funds available in fees therefore approximately fifty three hundred eighty five dollars per term would be left and used by this veteran and could be awarded in the form of a supplemental grant under this amendment this amendment does not make any decisions about what constitutes the appropriate amount of to waste and or the payments but rather provides flexibility to the secretaries of education and veterans affairs to make the determination this is an issue of fairness and ensuring that the better and that the benefit of the g i bill are spread equally among all our nation's veterans in testimony in front of this very committee on may twentieth two thousand and nine secretary of education arne duncan called fixing the problem a quote no brainer we have time to name post offices and fund items like the joint ventures for bird habitat conservation but not the time or resources to help veterans across this country george washington once said the willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war no matter how justified shall be directly proportional to how they receive perceive better and soberly wars how early or wars were treated and appreciated by our nation the nation has a chance today to pursue that our veterans can count on us at home to ensure that they will have equal access to the education they desire states such as alaska arkansas california massachusetts nevada oklahoma south dakota wyoming and the territories of guam puerto rico and the virgin islands will be better able to take advantage of the benefits of the g i bill intended to offer to all veterans i asked my colleagues today to support this common sense amendment and commit and commit and and the hold up seems to have been to get try to get our bill passed was i keep hearing that it needs to be offset it it's a small portion of the original bill right which was not offset i think that we should move forward with and i just when i look at this  oregon and the gentleman is recognized for five minutes to explain his amendment thank you chairman miller i thank you for bringing h r thirty two twenty one the student aid in fiscal responsibility act of two thousand and nine to this committee the legislation will ensure that thousands of students particularly low income middle income minority and first generation college students are able to afford the cost of a college at a time when students and families desperately need increased financial aid to access educational programs that allow them to reach their highest potential and contribute to our workforce and economy as you recall in two thousand and seven this committee made investments in historically black colleges and universities as well as in minority serving institutions through the college cost reduction and access act the program was created to train minorities in the critical areas of science technology engineering and mathematics i'm pleased to share that the u s department of education held a competition in two thousand and eight and made grant awards to one hundred and eighty seven minority serving institutions those there were ninety six award study historically black colleges and universities eighty to hispanic serving institutions five to tribal colleges and universities and six to asian american and native pacific islander serving institutions this program is making a difference a great difference in creating a new generation of minority scientists engineers and mathematicians if we are to remain competitive in the world we must continue to make these targeted investments at this time i'm offering an amendment with my colleagues congressman rhodri hog bobby scott macy hiro donald payne david wu yvette clarke and marcia fudge to extend the investment in historically black colleges and universities and minority serving institutions programs for an additional five years to two thousand nineteen to conform with the rest of the legislation mr chairman i respectfully asked that my colleagues on this committee both sides of the aisle support this amendment you know you will but i generally use back about this klein thank you mr chairman i certainly appreciate the gentleman's interest and passion in this it looks to me like this is more more funding more money that's not going to either deficit reduction or t investment of historically black colleges and universities h b c use a minority serving institutions for an additional five years h b c user created as early as the eighteen thirty seven's to provide blacklow in com education disadvantaged americans access to higher education statistically h b c u's graduate a predominant predominant share of all african americans receiving degrees while comprising only three percent of the nation's thirty six hundred and eighty eight institutions of higher learning the one arjan and five h b c u's are responsible for producing approximately one quarter of all the bachelor degrees thirteen percent of all mas reason twenty percent of all professional degrees earned by african americans annually minority serving institutions which is defined as an institution with an enrollment of more than fifty percent minority racial ethnic students african americans hispanics american indians native hawaiians pacific islanders are also critical in ensuring access to higher education i believe that extending funding to these institutions will help create a new generation of minority scientists engineers and other professions as we grow into a world more competition i think it's going to be essential that where i think in many instances if we put the time and energy into growing our own educational experts we wouldn't have to rely so much on  foreign specialists to come in to do the job i think that we need to do a better job and i'm certainly kind of shocked that we have heard so much discussion about some people who are going to lose their job because the federal government is going to have direct student landing and this is a very horrible thing because we should be creating jobs in this way of funding education and then when we talk about that we have a terrible of opposition to increase spending one hand we're being criticized because we're reducing spending and some  collar workers are perhaps going to lose their job and we turn around and we have a problem with trying to expand educational opportunities for non white collar workers that you know back bounce of my time and then you'll be glad you want to say that i agree with everything that you've said and i want to share with the group that in the area that i represent we have one university of texas at penn american which in the last three to four years have put to rest the myth that  minority families cannot learn and cannot graduate we produced one thousand engineers and that eighty percent are hispanic so i think that this kind of an investment when he continued basis is going gentleman is recognized for five minutes to explain the moment i thank the chairman the m m and i have before us is basically to reinstate being convicted of possession while receiving a student loan back in to law it's being struck in the underlying bill in the underlying bill is changed to just dealing this is been a arguably one of the more frustrating thing in my career because as i offered a very clear cut amendment that was supported in the democratic congress controlled congress in the session of ninety two to ninety four early in my career i offer this it became a lot supported by over one percent of american people who feel that if you're going to get a subsidized loan you should not be basically getting convicted of a drug crime we have similar regulations in other categories of federal expenditures that through a misinterpretation this led to many students being deprived because the clinton ministration interpreted this that it applied to everybody even if you weren't receiving a student loan and therefore many people were unfairly deprived of student loans that the original person who wrote it was dismissed they all around with it the bush administration came in promised that they were going to change it to make it what the original tent clearly was because you can't lose alone as the first law said and as we said in our debates if you didn't have a loan it was nonsensical to apply it the way they did that the bush administration i think correctly felt that they were going to get sued if they changed it personally i believe people should sue who were unfairly deprived of student loans because of the misapplication of the executive branch we then fixed it in congress many of the figures that have been and dear colleagues are stated have nothing to do with the original intent or quite frankly my amendment the numbers of students who would lose their loan because  i've been convicted of a drug crime would be very small that in fact it's not easy to get convicted of a possession or dealing drugs and while you're in college in fact there's not a ton of evidence that dealing is there and for example many of the allegations certainly the way it was applied it had a this an unfortunate effect on minority applications but in fact evidence suggests that for example in college there is no  minority students in fact may go to their benefit if we actually had cleared out a as to who would be eligible or not eligible the fundamental question is in front of us it's not about a debate about how it was misapplied earlier the fundamental question is is that if you've been convicted of a drug crime should you be able to hold your loan herman miller worked and we added clear language because the big goal of this was a deterrence so that if if students were at a party if somebody tried to talk to them about using drugs or they felt tempted they would understand that there is a risk if they use illegal drugs whether it be prescription drugs cocaine heroin meth marijuana whatever it is that they could lose the sub in the original we had at such and you could actually have we change it so that and this is what my memory would reinstate that if one time and then you tested clear you'd get it right back if twice if you tested clean twice in fact if you were convicted a second time and tested twice you could get it back it only deals with people who've been convicted three times and can't get clean for a drug test so the question is why would anybody oppose an amendment or a law that have to be convicted three times to not get it and not pass a drug test meaning years you're still a user and still be subsidized by taxpayers who many of whom least half never get to go to college and clean because i believe even if you have in effect abused the law when you're in college and receiving a loan you should have a chance to get clean and that i believe that the original intent the way the law is written the way we work together that this is one of the most important deterrents possibilities that help kids who are struggling now is about impossible to prove that you're a dealer in fact the number one reason people are convicted of first possession is because it's a process of negotiated terms for dealing and in fact what we either do here are allowed dealers on on college campuses to get away with this or in fact added tremendous burden to laws local prosecutors and college campuses because they can't just negotiate possessions and so i would encourage bipartisan support for my memet i think it's eminently reasonable and a retreat on this would send an incredibly incredibly bad message not only in the united states but think this language in the bill is appropriate and i would oppose the amendment of our goal is to help students kicking him out of school is not helpful you will note that if there is any deterrents to this deterrence is in the student if you are not on student you can go to college without a without a pell grant without a student loan and this provision has no effect it's only those who are trying to better themselves but they need  don't have the income to be able to afford to go to college without the help this is especially agree just since everybody knows that minorities are much more likely to get caught up because of law enforcement procedures are more likely to get caught up much more likely to end up with a conviction compared to the chance of their actually using the drugs and i'll acknowledge that the amendment as proposed in the underlying law they were trying to change in as bad as it could be but it's still bad and we also want to point out that there is no sanction if you get busted for armed robbery for rape drug drive and kidnapping but if you get caught with a little pot and you happen to be low income and need financial aid to go to college then you get kicked out of school nobody else gets a sanction for those that are low income if you leave school for a little while the chance that you'll never graduate plummets i would recognized thank you mr chairman so ok so you're convicted of a possession of a drug you serve your sentence you come out and you want to go to school but you're ineligible for a student loan how better to bring a person who's ready to get back into the community and and have served their sentence than to help them get into school so that they can be educated and contribute to society i think this is a very short sighted on the other side of the aisle preventing students who have been convicted victims of drug offenses from receiving financial aid this proportionately penalizes the poor there's no argument over that  you just have to know what upfront hundreds of thousands of law and middle income students depend on federal student aid to even stay in school so these particular students will be kicked out of school before they even tried to get there because they'll have no way to enter so it's i believe it's clear that for students who use drugs our national our nation's judicial system not our education system must decide their fate i oppose this amendment it's time to remove this destructive roadblock in the path of thousands of americans who seek rehabilitation and seek access to higher education  jail tested clean you would it would take three convictions delusional and under the current bill you also would have a separate standard for if there dealer you left that in to and we don't have other crimes and you would be kicked out lose your loan because this is kicking out of school this is just losing the taxpayer alone but i think it's important to point out that you don't lose out on what it takes three convictions and it's fine if it's my time i'd like to respond that people have been out of jail three times as a positive and tried to get financial aid go to college or where do you get this notion and where do you have the my opinion is that it isn't hi gh and in fact the point of the whole amendment came up when i was down in the andean region and they said you were going after cocaine heroin narcotics down here but you don't do anything in your own college campus as i was on college campuses you weren't doing anything i believe this works as a potential deterrent at the margin i believe that it it says unless basically you're a hardcore addicted person or a dealer you are going to have your loan impacted the goal here law school or undergrad without financial assistance in fact paid off my last in loans as a member of congress but i also appreciate the responsibility that i took on when i asked for that assistance i would equate to asking a family member for a loan and family member saying yes glad to help you better yourself or get a loan you money but if the family never finds out that using that money that they lent lent you to buy drugs they're likely  think twice about the appropriateness of lending you money in this case it's the federal taxpayer saying we want to help you better yourself so we're willing to take taxpayer funds and give you direct aid or low interest loans to help you better yourself but no upfront this isn't a surprise to these individuals know upfront that if you take that money and then use it to buy drugs you're telling us that you really didn't need the aid because you spent it on something that had nothing to do with your education you said i have enough money to buy drugs and the message to the american taxpayer is you lent me money i really didn't need because i spent it on illegal drugs this is no surprise that you lose your assistance if you're found guilty as charged and you know i think it's saying these are the rules if you want financial aid we're glad to provide it but if you break the rules you're going to lose that aid in a limited manner and lessers several several convictions so i see it as a reasonable approach of holding people accountable and saying american taxpayers because  to have those drugs they had to buy him that means money they they were given that the generosity of american taxpayers a used by illegal drugs that's not what the american taxpayers of law for that's just as for and i'll yield to the gentleman from require law enforcement to report to colleges colleges didn't want to go through that i agreed with that because my main goal was to durance but in fact the number last year was four thousand seven hundred ninety three jail until this but that's four thousand seven hundred ninety three that were in and out of jail three times as a profitably and then went to get financial aid four thousand seven hundred ninety three people did withdrew their application when because of the clause i think they're talking apples and oranges here but thank you and the gentleman from pennsylvania well you knew that some of them at this point because it one point that number was very high when we in till we fixed it so at this point there are people who clearly know that their record  or at least interpreted that their record would not go through or didn't fully understand the the drug although they were told we had the form in front of them that said if you test for you twice so there was a reason that they fear the testing  testing free clear twice and withdrew their application when confronted with the form with the gentleman he'll be glad to surpass controls thank you i've just been given a copy of section four eighty of the higher education act of one nine hundred sixty five which says if the conviction is of an offense involving possession first offense there's an in you know exhibit a period for one year second offense to years third few test because i i worked through that i had it when your suspension lets you go through treatment and in test once we amended it down to say as long as you tested clean twice you didn't get a year suspension and that time period by the way wasn't specified it didn't say a year if the german new year old the rehabilitation amendment that the gentleman from indiana is talking about is that section two that says a student who's who's eligibility has been suspended under paragraph may resume eligibility before the end of the you know if you've already period if the student satisfactory completes a drug rehab program or the student successfully passes to unannounced drug tests conducted by a drug rehabilitation program that means you have to be in a drug rehabilitation program and you may resume your  but your but for that you are still for first offense is one year suspension unless you get into a drug rehab programs all right the language reads that basically you have to show that you're willing to overcome your drug addiction and if the gentleman is further you know and that only affects people who are who need financial aid it doesn't affect there's no sanction or any of this for those that do not need financial aid you know get already out reclaiming my time if i could john and i see the red lights on but it it's only been a joy because as who's made the agreement with american taxpayers that in return for you one way or the other if you do not need a pell grant or student loan you do not get kicked out of college get put under this for drug convictions it's only if you need financial aid it's only that category of people that i would have you know i think the way to correct it then is to say if you're attending a school that's receiving from a federal financial assistance this same rule would apply to you that would be a better route than to make  student i'm certainly open to indirect aid but that opens a whole other category because in direct aid from the federal government to a college office through grants and so on certainly state legislators could do more direct aid to the university i'm open to suggesting going beyond a direct aid but yes system it only applies to direct aid to the student and therefore general scholarship assistance is you don't consider that direct student deductible yes yes it is there for indirectly a person who is given money and taking a tax deduction is therefore in the same category because they're getting a benefit from the government for giving to that college so you know i think that if you take this thing to it's you could go down down a rocky road that i don't think makes sense you know a lot of second amendment people everybody's got the right to bear arms you go shoot up a person and not have your student assistance taken away because you just shot someone  smoke in some pot therefore it makes no sense i think we're you know we're trying to find a molehill you know it's you know mt kilimanjaro  about and in this drug use business if you take that convictions african americans coordinates to sticks at thirteen percent of drug users however fifty five percent is the commission rate for african americans evidently there's a big disparity in convicting african americans of drug charges then in the broader community which is a fact and so thirteen percent users fifty five percent conviction so i just think that if we can get the language because apparently if you read down further you don't necessarily have to be in a rehab program you just have to be tested twice but we're checking the language but i want to get into the direct indirect  that it would be different if we started treating in government tax deductions the same as when there is a cash transfer but i have been more than willing because i believe one of the most egregious abuses of god in college are higher income kids abusing drug laws and i am totally open to any suggestion of how to reach into that inside the the consistency of law that i also believe that it's very what part of it would be the federal portion now another part of the question here is i have asked for years reporters universities for any of them to come up with a statistic that suggests that minority kids in college u drugs more than non minority kids in college and there has never been a statistic produced in fact the only statistic that i have seen suggests the opposite which is because minority kids often don't have the chance to get there those minority kids who are in college actually get arrested and convicted at less of a rate the majority kids because they are in effect the those who have the opportunity understand their opportunity and use that opportunity now the fundamental question of disproportionate in forstmann is indeed a problem in america and i've supported tumorous efforts congressman cummings and i have worked at this partly it's ability to hire a good attorney and so  that seems to be a bigger challenge for the lowest income group not kids who are in college and i would have have asked again and again is there any evidence of people in college that this disproportiona impacts minorities and have only seen data that suggest the opposite now in the in the fundamental question it doesn't say that you have to be in a drug rehabilitation program it says a test has to be conducted by a drug rehabilitation program in answer to mr scott so doesn't mean you have to be in it just means you have to have a certified so to get false positives because one of the big problems and drug testing of false positives are you know back to germany is back is it's quite troubling when you see such a very regressive policy and i know for the constituents that i represent this is not the type of forward thinking that they're expecting of this legislative ever being able to financially obtain it in a good degree again is something that we need to rethink if we're trying to really get the most in terms of productivity from our civil society you know we're at a stage in our growth and development where people can change but when we put up such high barriers to their ability to do so when to act as the resources that would enable that  d will exist it's quite troubling this provision which would refocus the penalty your students most in need of treatment and i think that you know that's where what we're looking for we're looking for healing in our nation and that that crosses all races and ethnicities but we want to bring our people into productivity we want them to be the most educated and most productive in our civil society certainly those who were involved in drug trafficking or drug distribution should be dealt with in a criminal manner but we're talking about young people who oftentimes go astray that need to be really brought back into the fold need to know that there is a way for them to get beyond that indiscretion and become productive citizens of our civil society so i just want to encourage my colleagues to keep the faith in the fact that people can change that people do have the ability to redeem themselves and that we should not be in the business of standing in the away but we should be in the business of creating a pathway through which they can make that change they can transform their lives and they can lead us in the twenty first century now you back the balance of my time mr chairman comes on the amendment all those in favor of say i i think this is a straightforward amendment simply provide funding in title two of the bill for the loan forgiveness service in areas of national need program i think members of the committee will remember that we authorize that loan forgiveness for service in areas of national  program just last year in higher education opportunity act it provides for meeting the emergent needs of now present twenty first century workforce by giving two thousand dollars worth of loan forgiveness out of birds come first serve basis for up to five years to federal loan borrowers who are employed full time in professions that are recognized as areas of national need the maximum lifetime loan forgiveness is as a people recall a modest ten thousand dollars among the specif needs of areas of national need of course were nurses and child early child educators highly qualified teaches a school counselor is a prosecutor's medical specialist in mental health professionals just to name a few the need for this program is significant as evidenced by the language in the report that accompanied the passing of the higher education opportunity bill it said and i quote our nation's workforce while strong and vibrant suffers shortages in key sectors authorizing loan forgiveness for these areas will demonstrated national need will provide a step in the right direction as the nation works to alleviate shortages in key fields and in fact the recent bureau of labor statistics data demonstrates that the professions the numerator among thirty occupations with the largest and fastest projected employment growth over the next ten years most important is the chairman they are good paying jobs and they cannot be replaced on a machine or shipped overseas these professions are today under served in the loan forgiveness is a proven and effective recruiting tool to give incentives the students to enter in to remain in lloyd in these areas of high need these are challenging economic times everybody knows that and loan forgiveness for middle income americans many of whom were starting out their careers w relatively low wages is equivalent to an additional tax cut for workers more likely than not this extra discretionary income in the pocket of hardworking americans will be spent generating economic output helping to grow our economy with  worth noting that this program had bipartisan support in fact twenty three democrats and nine current republican members of this committee voted for the higher education opportunity act and president bush signed the bill into law in addition president obama to his credit has repeatedly signal support for loan forgiveness programs as someone who attended college and law school with the help of federal student loans the president strongly stated his support for loan forgiveness for teachers as well as the positions of nurses in order to improve access to medical personnel in rural and under served areas finally the program is supported by a broad array of organizations from social workers to allied health professionals to financial aid administrators with that   there is a there is a difference here and i'm reluctant to support this because this is a discretionary funding this is mandatory funding and so while i appreciate the intent and  across the higher education act and outside of the higher education act but i would hope that the gentleman would reconsider his amendment because it is it's a billion five hundred million and i just don't see that fitting in here with with with the priorities that the administration has as put forth in this bill and and the congress i would hope that we would be able to take a bipartisan delegation to the appropriations committee and get them to start to fund that i know the gen tried that and has been as is been rebuffed but i think it clearly either it should be funded or should be taken off the books i would say that i think that the playing field has changed for many of the people that we've provided loan forgiveness for and that is when we did the  the income determinant repayment program individuals now will are not required to pay more than fifteen percent of their income back as their income goes up that that amount goes up so that they can enter into many of these professions that don't have the best starting wages and sort of look inconsistent with with that with the with your loan repayment obligations and going into that profession and i think that we see the enthusiasm over that over that legislation and after twenty five years of those payments your your loans go away if you enter into the into the public sector nonprofit sector if you continue to work in that in that sector for ten years your loans go away so we have dealt with this in a different fashion at the end of the laws but i think coupled with the income determinant repayment system we have to tackle what really was a growing barrier to people making decisions about various occupations occupations  absolutely critical to this to this country so i think the gentleman making a valid point i would hope that i would consider withdrawing his amendment because i just don't think it can be paid for in this in this legislati you the chairman you make a good point is the ranking member and i'm fully aware of that but i think you understand the frustration of i hope a number of people on this committee that when we authorize something we really expect that the appropriations committee will give us the courtesy of considering it  situations is this the work that we did in two thousand and seven after on the loan forgiveness a percentage of the loan that you pay and then have it's a given after twenty five years i work with the chairman on that is that many of the others here and i think that's all very significant and good  is not however in my mind sufficient for these areas for people that are really taking on responsibilities in the public sectors and a huge financial burden because they're overpaid and underpaid and overworked on that and this is a way i would ask  chairman is making the commitment i believe to put together a group of people to have a talk with the people on appropriations to get this funded a discretionary manner at the right level to complement the other legislation that was reference line of duty based on the children of fallen heroes scholarship act that represent patrick murphy introduced in the first house with myself as a lead co sponsor a child of one of these fallen servicemen and women who would become automatically eligible for the maximum this benefit already exist for the children of military service members who are killed in the line of duty this amendment is aimed at ensuring we do right by police officers firefighters and other first responders who put their own lives at risk every day to keep us safe here at home making a college education more accessible to the children of these fallen heroes is an important expression of our nation's gratitude the congressional budget office has scored this amendment as costing a negligible amount through two thousand seventeen and approximately one million dollars per year in two thousand and eighteen and two thousand one hundred this legislation is a justified price for a nation to pay to ensure that those serving on the front lines of our communities know that a higher education will be well within the would just just respond to the gentleman that i agree with it with the general idea of the him and i think it is consistent with the other provisions that we have authored i just would like to review the general details of it but we would accept the chairman i'd like to thank you for your leadership and improving access to higher education and early learning programs i'm proud to be an original co sponsor of this historic legislation i look forward to working with the committee  initiatives to ensure that all children have access to high quality early educational programs and the resources to continue their education as a strong proponent for early childhood education i'm glad to see congress investing in early learning programs i've introduced the universal pre kindergarten act in every congressional session since two thousand and two h r five five five would establish and expand high quality pre kindergarten programs for all children ages two to five the bill under generation today takes important steps in expanding access to high quality early early early learning programs for all children the early learning challenge funded stablished in this legislation will invest eight billion dollars over the next eight years to ensure that all children of diverse economic and social backgrounds have access to high quality early childhood education  research clearly demonstrates the need for early learning programs high quality early early learning programs during the first five years of a child's life have lasting effects on all aspects of their development children from low income families and communities are more likely to incur permanent educational disadvantages early in their education that affect them for the rest of their lives a state's investment in developing expanding access to high quality  early learning programs is critical in addressing the achievement gap for low income children recognizing this the bill requires states to report on their progress on increasing the number of disadvantaged children in early learning programs but it is silent on the reasons for any failure to boost those numbers the consented to amendment which i'm proud to share with mr hare would expand reporting requirements to include the clear identification of a state's barriers to accessing act two expanding access to high quality early learning programs to disadvantaged children the premise is simple we can't know how and to improve access if we don't know what the problem is we must ensure that vulnerable children do not fall through the cracks this amendment will ensure that every child has the same chance and i asked my colleagues to support it and i yield one minute to mr hare thank you gentlemen for from a ho chairman as you know research indicates that children attending high quality earning early learning programs are better prepared to start school ready to succeed however the lack of access to quality programs in rural another under served areas is keeping children from obtaining the benefits of the programs real communities face significant obstacles in providing quality programs which every salted in the lower enrollment numbers in early learning programs in a rural areas compared to suburban and urban areas to consider chairman ensures that states will take steps to break down barriers to increase high quality early learning opportunities for all students as chairman eric my colleagues to support this wonderful amendment but if there's no first question the question comes on this wonderful amendment chairman we do not oppose the amendment in in agree with the content of this amendment but just want to point out that we still feel it's not the right time or manner for this image as a higher education bill and just point out that this is student loan money that's been moved into pre k d the fact that when we passed that last year we put in a requirement for report from the the national research council on online  education that report should have been received by now it has not been and we have been working with the department of education we contacted them got no response we just received need some additional funds to do apply to certain medical students particularly those going into residential residential training and this would be in the intent of this is to return back to the system that we had which is the precise wording is graduate students will be allowed to defer payment on subsidized graduate student loans if their debt burden was greater than twenty percent of their  twenty slash to twenty rule my men would restore that rule so that medical school graduates particularly residents can defer student loan payments for up to three years as i said this is  regularly available to students and other graduate programs it is crucial that congress provide student loan relief for medical residents high medical student debt averaging one hundred fifty five thousand dollars for eighty eight percent of u s medical school graduates is a significant hardship throughout the loan repayment period especially during the three to seven years of training and medical residency programs according to the association of american medical colleges sixty seven percent of entering medical residents were eligible for economic hardship deferment through the twenty to twenty rule and these students are no longer eligible eliminating the rule and complicating the student debt burden for residents is more likely to discourage the best and brightest students from entering the medical profession this is especially problematic since there is a growing consensus that the united states faces a shortage of physicians in its last report in two thousand and five  council in graduate medical education predicted a shortage of eighty five thousand physicians by the year two thousand and twenty my memory is based on a chair sixteen fifteen the medical economic deferment for students act which i introduced earlier this congress is supported by the american academy of neurology american college of physicians american medical association american optimistic association american toady ettrick medical association michigan state university college of human medicine and the society for academic emergency medicine there are some of commented that just benefit specialists with high salaries  however the american medical association highlights where the twenty slash to twenty rule must be reinstated borrowers with high loan debt are often deferred deterred from entering public health service practicing medicine and under served areas starting a career in medical educational research or practicing primary care medicine in addition loan deferment programs like the twenty slash to twenty thousand pounds way are vital for insurance ensuring that health care professionals represent a diverse makeup of the general population and are available to communities across the country particularly those in under served areas my management is an important step in addressing one aspect program combined with the changes that we made for individuals who go into public service or to work for a nonprofit to be a public hospital nonprofit hospital in this in this particular case if they choose to do that they pay more than fifteen percent after twenty five years their loans would go away so i'm reluctant to add to stack this on on top of that to expand that in this in this legislation and i would hope that we would not accept them and i think we've gone but i do want to voice my opposition to the underlying bill today's markup as an exercise in irony and right can have pocker say following last week's health care markup what we're doing today is using our country's financial crisis as an excuse to eliminate an industry that has proved more popular and at least as well run if not more so than its government counterparts all we heard last week was how we need the government and private industry to compete to provide consumers the best choice and therefore astonished that we are considering a bill that eliminates the family the federal family education long program which my son just used this past year to finance his m b a at vanderbilt which consumers are choosing by nearly three to one margin over its government run direct loan program alternative so much for competition while the democrats taking advantage of a financial crisis to eliminate a private industry if you've been following this congress answer shouldn't surprise you to dramatically increase spending every time there's an economic problem the answer is this year has been to spend our way out of it that's how we've ended up with the stimulus bill has done nothing to stimulate our economy a huge percent increase in spending in the face of our worst recession in years and years and two trillion in deficits a few months ago democrats were declaring themselves a party of fiscal responsibility today's action is just another indication they've become the party of financial mismanagement the height of irony in this whole debate is that there was an obvious bipartisan alternative achieve that achieved three hundred  eighty eight votes in the last congress the ensuring continued access to student loan act which insures private lenders can make it to the credit crisis and should should be what we're considering a day instead of this partisan approach since passing in the last congress the program has worked well we should all be commending chairman miller and members of this committee who were here last year for a job well done instead the democrats are once again trying to have the government take over private industry that is providing a service to the american people like here's the bottom line of this debate if you like a multi billion dollar program that has zero oversight from congress and so on autopilot then you'll love this bill if you relish the opportunity to use an economic crisis eliminate an entire industry and increase unemployment you should vote for this bill if you believe washington bureaucrats will improve their performance by eliminating the competition and you should definitely support this bill but i think we've had enough government nationalization of our private industries and work with the chairman in the time before we go to the floor and verify that the new changes in this bill do take care of this particular problem this is an unusual specialized problem that should be dealt with and if colleges in this legislation i've long been a proponent of community colleges and their work to connect students with both the workforce and with further education i also want to thank ms fudge for her partnership in offering this amendment is very simple and straight for proposal it simply encourages better connections among states community colleges and industry or sector partnerships the amendment encourages states when formulating their access and completion plans and establishing long term goals for the state innovation completion grants to work with industry or sector partnerships to identify and address labor markets labor market needs in the state is a member also states that eligible entities receiving funds for community college reform should be given priority if they partner with business or sector partnerships there is also provision requiring that where there are industry or sector partnerships and eligible entities desire to work with them they must indicate how these partnerships will function in their application for grants finally the m m it states that when looking at expanding into hansing or creating academic or training programs under the community college reform grants and eligible entity may work with industry or sector partnerships the goal of this law legislation is in part to help build a highly skilled innovative twenty first century workforce this highly skilled workforce will need to connect with new an emerging industries as well as existing industries that are trying to stay productive industry or sector partnerships organized stakeholders connected to an industry multiple firms unions education and training providers and local workforce and education system administrators among others to develop plans for growing or saving an industry they have a particular focus on building new workforce pipelines skilled workers shortages exist and transforming the ways existing workers are utilized retrained and compensated these partnerships have long been recognized as a key strategic element within some of the most successful state and local workforce development efforts in the country strategy accomplishes several things it helps regions coordinate efforts and strengthening core industries allows education and training at the entities to be increasingly become employer and demand driven and it prepares incumbent new future workers for career career growth industries many states have already begun to look closely at this concept pennsylvania washington michigan illinois california new york colorado are a few examples iowa has been working on this as well according to steve although it's community college in my district iowa's fifteen community colleges worked with employers to adapt at vance manufacturing programs to the needs of the renewable energy industry i was now one of only two states manufacturing all three components of the winter been in january iowa surpass california in wind energy output is now second only to texas iowa's community colleges are in the process of developing an i their training programs as well as the skilled needs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors over the next five years i think it is essential for both businesses and community colleges to work together to identify the needs of local and  amendment will assist every single person in this room and every person in this congress the industry sector focus allows regions in the region to leverage their strengths by focusing workforce training on key existing any mer industries in that particular region this strategy accomplishes several things it helps our regions coordinate efforts and strengthen core industries it allows education and training entities to increasingly become employer and demand driven and with that the section also includes completion of other post secondary education programs and i would hope that we would point out that there are significant models that real programs student support services other graduation programs need to be fully utilized under this section and i would hope that the report language would point out many of those successful programs so that the administrators will not overlook the trio  member the gentleman is recognized for five minutes to explain or remember thank you mr chairman i mean also i'm offering an amendment to title four of this bill to require state applications for quality pathway grants to address quality and effective inclusion of children with disabilities in early learning settings and state program rating systems quality early education is an issue that i have championed for many years both during my time as lieutenant governor in hawaii and here in congress where i introduced a pre k act i'm glad that the early learning challenge fund has been included in this bill that is similar in many ways to the pre k act and will do much to help states improve the quality of their early learning programs early education is foundational for success in school and in life as we've heard from many experts have come to testify before this committee there is substantial evidence that quality early learning truly makes a difference in the educational and social outcomes of our children state quality rating systems already do much to ensure the quality of children's experiences and early learning programs promote positive child outcomes and support continuous program improvement however there is also a need to pay special attention to quality programs standards that address the unique characteristics empire days of children with disabilities and developmental delays most states are already making progress and serving with disabilities in inclusive early education programs by incorporating deafen quality and effective inclusion and state rating systems programs will be able to set measurable improvement goals and common definitions so that best practices can be identified and families are better equipped to identify high quality programs for their children by encouraging all states to define quality and effective inclusion for children with disabilities in early learning programs states will be better able to meet their obligation to serve all children and create high expectations that allow each child to reach his or her full potential thank you back the rest of my time klein thank you mr chairman this is kind of deja vu all over again here i don't have a lot of objection to the content certainly not to the intent of the amendment again i have concerns because this duplicate a lot of work being conducted the head start program there are already some sixty nine federal early childhood programs spread out over nine a federal agencies with no coordinator conferences tragic these efforts again i don't think this is the right time or manner to be debating this a member and putting this amendment in the context of the underlying bill and again i appreciate that we're addressing children with disabilities or developmental delays but we're not do anything about increasing wynn earlier this year i introduced h r twenty five ninety seven the positive behavior for safe and effective school act sation first introduced with then senator obama would provide schools with the resources to adopt early intervention strategies that teach behavior expectations and reward positive behavior such as school wide positive behavior support mr chairman challenging behavior is also an issue for many children in the early childhood years and many states are applying key features of the school wide positive behavior support in early learning studies to address this problem a two thousand and five year old university study found preschool programs are expelling children for bad behavior at an alarming rate three times more than public schools six expelled preschoolers are more likely to arrive at kindergarten with more challenging behaviors and unprepared to succeed in addition early childhood teachers report that disruptive behavior is one of the single greatest challenges that they face in providing a quality program mr chairman our goal to improve quality in early learning programs should also include epis is on developing the social and emotional foundations for early learning early learning programs combined with intervention programs designed to promote social emotional development have been successful in reducing behavior problems decreasing teacher turnover and increasing overall program quality my men would simply allow states to use early learning challenge funds grants to implement a research based prevention and intervention system for promoting social competence or preventing challenging behaviors mr chairman by giving states a set of flexibility my m m it seeks to encourage states to invest thank you mr chairman for putting those words in my mouth that i was just grappling for what i might say i'm a little bit confused about what this amendment does so i'd like to ask the author if i could just a anything is there any scoring any cost associated with this not that i'm aware of all right ok again i think this is the wrong place the wrong time the wrong debate in light of the underlying bill  but i don't i don't see any objection at this point to the language which doesn't cost anything and didn't direct embody do anything so that our you an amendment offered by mr castle of delaware general has recognized for five minutes to explain his amendment thank you mr chairman my memon actually is apollo up to what i spoke about a couple of hours ago on the substitute and that's the whole concept of what we're doing with this money that is going to be saved by some of the changes in the bill for over thirty years now congress has failed to live up to its obligation to provide sufficient support for the education of the child with  disabilities we all notice the idea program when we created that program we promised survived up to forty percent of the cost educating children students with disabilities and we just simply never done that we have done much better in recent years i might add  t the bottom line is that we still fall short by a substantial amount some twenty plus percent so my memory is a simple one and set of creating several new programs i believe we should fund the ones we have already created and promised to support provisions in this bill for the most part are worthy ideas but we just shouldn't short change the six needs to disabilities and families in order to pay for these new programs my amendment would create a supplemental pot of funding for  idea instead of creating the school construction program and i realize that's at the heart of what this legislation does and for that reason it may not garner support but i do believe before we create a new program that i think is going to also be very unsustainable in the future we should be taking care of significant funding for programs which we created years ago we never have funded which by the way helps our local jurisdictions our local school districts and states and may  be able to supplant some of their dollars so they could use it for construction if that's what they wish to do we see from the president's fiscal year two thousand and ten budget that idea just isn't a priority at least in this year  he's asked for a level of funding for the program equal to the fiscal year zero nine level so we believe now with the stimulus is just a one time funding in this particular area our state budgets have taken a  huge hit that's affected our local school districts greatly individually and then in terms of what they might get from the state so that's a problem as well so i urge mr chairman that we not create new mandatory i withdraw before it's all said and done but i i just wanted to make the point that we are in my judgment not putting our highest priority first here and i'll leave it open for discussion if anyone wants to say anything before i withdraw i would just  at these high levels i think we're now at the highest level we've ever been at and that's a goal on both sides of the aisle to to to to continue that trend to get to as you point out the many people believe  s is the federal commitment and i would i would hope that he would withdraw the amendment so that these funds could be used for the purpose of which the administration is designated  s act with respect to this but we had to go through regular order to incorporate all this that the president does not seem to have made much effort to do that and to go in that direction and i'm not suggesting that the president is anti students with disabilities or anything of that nature but i don't think this administration is particularly focused on solving that problem i think frankly congress through other presidents has been more focused on this than anybody else and i think that continues even now and i'll yield back my time  mr klein thank you for five minutes thank you mr chairman i support this amendment i think that i've expressed my frustration on this issue many times times through the years on this committee i was very pleased to see congress over several years increase the funding get instance way up year by year by year by year we got up to almost one thousand percent out of the forty that the federal government supposed to be providing and then it turned down the stimulus money is a spike and until we see until congress steps up and regularly perp rates the money for this until the president puts it in the budget schools across the nation can't count on that they can't count on a spike they can't go out and hire new teachers so i share mr cassels frustration a concern that we're starting new programs which frankly mr chairman are always going to be chronically underfunded and always competing with the idea was special ed we ought to take care of that commitment first year back i think the gentleman i would just share we just say there are thirty five years as one of the original co sponsors and authors of note of i d e a i think i'm one of the there's three of us left in the congress and i've watched each administration drop the ball here and i watched opportunities in congress where we had three hundred seventy people as co sponsor in the bill and when the motion was made to fully fund i d nothing happened when we did no child left behind and the case was closed as one of the greatest educational coalitions and the history of this country supporting that on both sides of the aisle and it was so we can go back and forth and say so is your uncle but the fact of the matter is whether or not we can continue to trend this up so that would be on both sides if we can support increased resources and i d a based upon on a commitment that has not been fulfilled i think that we would all do better i just happen to believe that this this amendment to this bill is not the most helpful way to do that mr chairman yes we do you oprah moment i don't yield to the i don't disagree with what you're saying and i'm not sitting in judgment amendments an amendment opera but mr courtney of connecticut gemma's recognize explains a moment thank you mr chairman it's a simple amendment it adds to section five zero four of the bill which is one of the best parts of this legislation the challenge grants for community colleges that will reward states that recognize the unique value of community colleges particularly in this tough economy to try and integrate their credit system to other schools of higher education to make the credits program though is a competitive grant program which means that there will be some winners and some losers and the purpose of this amendment is just really to encourage the secretary of education to make sure that states have every bit of help that they need in the application process so that we can make the benefit of this program as equitable and as widespread as possible this amendment does not cost any money it's again just to make sure that this good public policy will be spread as wide as three it says the secretary will make available any and all assistance guidance and support to the states that's pretty pretty far reaching i don't know what the balance are there but again this is sense of congress so we're not going to pose your back to me thank you make sure which one we're doing here we're doing currently which one ok first one this event that deals with making our community colleges more responsive to competitive market conditions there are changing needs of the workplace many community colleges and junior colleges have occasional schools that have a critical role in meeting the emerging work needs of the economy and what we add in the use of funds sections specific language that make sure that the programs that are offered can respond to the regional labor market development in trends it's critical to not only should the private sector in the trade schools be responsive but that we can use these funds and give the additional flexibility to allow them to used to redesign and create programs to reflect a real need within the workforce  this provides yet another knot of weapon in the arsenal of good community college presidents because what already exists already exists in some cases by means of inertia and staying power and it's always more difficult to change what you have and offer a new course is just to continue with what you've been doing every year so in some small but important way with this makes it clear within the allowed use of funds is that a community college can use these to redesigning create new programs for emerging needs of the workplace and i believe that that will provide yet another kind of weapon in the arsenal strong community college presidents to be responsive to their changing labor needs of their marketplace and i  so i don't understand why it's inserted into this bill and why we don't get on frankly with the authorizing we i don't again this doesn't appear to cost anything it's doesn't direct any any anything arduous so i have no objection to the m order thank you chairman what this amendment does it it's a it's a critical piece as well as we know women in minorities are severely underrepresented in some of our fastest growing professions in science technology engineering and mathematics for america to be competitive as a country we need to do a job better job making sure that people from all different backgrounds ethnicities and genders have access to some of the fastest growing segments of our economy women compromise only twenty four point eight percent of computer and mathematical professionals and they were not making progress according to bureau of labor statistics it's actually gone down from twenty seven percent two thousand and six there are many solutions that are necessary some are in other bills should be here what we hope to do with this bill specifically is amend the activities to increase certificate completion in the stem fields especially for women and other groups of students who are under represented in these  fields and again to make sure that america can take full advantage of our diversity and for that to be an asset in helping to meet the needs of a global economy i strongly believe that by doing so and by passing this amendment we can make an impact this this amendment which i think is very valuable obviously the bowstring of the numbers and technical and scientific and mathematical professions is critical to the growth of this nation i think any world leader needs to encourage its society to invent and discover and explore in korea and by bolstering these numbers in a way that targets a typical student be they women or minorities who are under excellent parts of this legislation is that we are creating a commission that will look at barriers in disseminate best practices within the field of early childhood education that's a council that will be tasked with identifying opportunities for collaboration child in child care early education programs with the goal of improving communication and there's a number of complicated programs and early childhood education one of the efforts we've had a great effort mr chairman in colorado in terms of trying to build  discussions in a continuum between birth all the way through twelfth grade and i know that similar efforts are involved in other states and even continuing the discussion all the way through higher education what we hope through this amendment to specifically  charge the council to look at is evaluate the what barriers might exist to improving the quality of early learning programs that serve low income kids including the barriers to successful inner age or a little inner agency collaboration and coordination when you are dealing with these issues we always come across jurisdictional issues we come across different agencies not only is it a difference between federal state local but even within the local there are any number of agencies that deal in these programs and i'm hopeful that by  giving this is part of the charge to the council we can come with some concrete recommendations about how we can work across agency lines and better serve the early childhood education needs of children and i yield to mr o'neill thank you very much those of us who have worked in this area and try to for example bill early learning classrooms on elementary school campuses as i did when i was attending governor know what it's like to work with these three or four different state departments together and my office does that it's quite a challenge to do it so i think one of the the biggest barriers to getting all of this done is the jurisdictional issues among departments and that's why i think it is very important for us to focus on this and to ensure that this is happening in our state you back the rest of my time mr klein thank you mr chairman again speed reading and the amendments this amendment takes the national commission which is created page before and has the national commission review reports and report on the read on the review of those reports as i understand it maybe there's some value there but i don't quite understand it and looking at this  the gentleman yield back the chair we just state that i don't have a problem with the language in this legislation little concern how it's explained because and i'm going to reserve the right to review this line because we spent the better part of four years working out a collaborative arrangement for the states as a result of the head start act that was bipartisan bi cameral and hard and hard fought and so i just want to make sure that we're not doing something here that's inconsistent  because it was designed to address either the same or similar problem so i will accept the chair of the except remember this point but i just want to reserve the right to make sure that that is that is consistent the question comes on the chair for yours and the you know there is this one plant i think dave obviously will be favorably impacted if their needs are met favorably the legislation that we're addressing here today provides a groundwork to profoundly improve  edge cation infrastructure in an energy efficient environmentally friendly way many school districts especially where my district is located in upstate new york are struggling with the cost of maintaining and heating old buildings this measure provides for the retrofit  public school buildings for energy efficiency something that i believe will create jobs improve the educational environment for our children and save our school to strix untold millions in energy costs and savings that will be passed on to taxpayers most importantly i would highlight that it will allow us to teach our children by our very actions to promote energy efficiency and to embrace the wise use of our natural resources therefore one thing i believe must be considered in addition to energy efficiency in this legislation and that would be water efficiency and many parts of the country water is becoming a much rarer and more valuable resource increased drought conditions brought on by climate change have exacerbated this i believe that water resource conservation should also be a priority and my amendment would include water efficiencies under the priorities of this bill the second part of my amendment addresses the infrastructure needs of community colleges and the area that is also addressed under this legislation in many regions of our country community colleges colleges have become the campus of choice and especially in these challenging economic times where again the role of a community college can have a great empowerment for our students our community colleges rely on a variety of funding sources but funding mostly comes from a combination of state and local governments this amendment guarantees that any federal funding distributed under the community college modernization and construction portion of this bill goes directly to improving educational facilities at community colleges and does not offset state and local funding i believe this step is necessary to improving our community college facilities and i asked that we cast million american soldiers sailors airmen and marines have served in the wars in iraq and afghanistan many servicemen and women decided to pursue higher education after leaving the service and thanks to the post nine eleven g i bill they are finally receiving the education benefits they deserve however as veterans separate from service and separated from service and pursuing higher education they face many challenges that their non veteran counterparts often do not face the transition from military life to campus life to make for a challenging adjustment for several reasons many veterans have not been in a traditional classroom environment in several years in addition many veterans have needs the sceptically related to their service that are often not addressed by the resources available on college campuses by men would allow for colleges and universities with large populations of student veterans to apply for grants to hire veterans resource officers to better address the needs of our veteran population on campuses these veterans resource officers will serve an important role in the college experience for veterans they will serve as a vital link between ecologists faculty and administration and its veteran population on that campus in addition veteran service officers will be able to connect student veterans with local v a facilities helping our students access critical health and mental health services that are necessary to college success a sense of belonging and community is also important to college success many veterans who pursue higher education by that they are several years older and have had vastly different life experiences than the average student beginning college veteran's resource officers would be able to help organize social and community events aimed at student veterans and under this program preference would be given to hire veterans as veterans reported resource officers to guarantee that our veterans have an understanding partner and team member one of the goals of this legislation that we are marking up today is to increase college access and completion when considering this extremely important goal one aspect we cannot overlook is college completion for veterans our nation's veterans are a tremendous resource having gained discipline leadership team building and many other skills that are vitally important to the american workforce of the future if a veteran in college is having trouble for any reason i hope that he or she can turn to another veteran in an official advisory capacity to do what they can to achieve educational success search area i think that's the goal we can all believe in and i asked the support of this amendment i thank you for the time and yield back the remainder of my time gentleman yield back mr kline thank you amendment the term while we're going to create a new program here would respond and we're not going to do that we're going to review this amendment against the centers for veterans success between now on the floor  unnecessary we're not going to second off so so i hope we'll be very careful about that thank you question comes on the amended by the gentleman from new york all those in favor say aye those opposed no  first like to thank my friend and colleague from indiana mr souter for his help on this amendment and his participation in it one of the problems of people who live in low income areas in urban rural and suburban america are those perhaps who are most in need of job training we have an underlying policy in the law called the ninety chandra which i believe retards the ability of those individuals to get job training the purpose of this amendment is not to repeal that provision or frankly to engage in debate about its merits the purpose of this though is to soften the blow of that provision i believe make quality job training more available to more americans by making three changes first of all this change gives an institution that's having a problem with that rule an extra year to figure out how to solve that problem which is to say to bring their revenue level over ten percent from non title four sources and stay in business the second provision would be one that continues the period of time during which students who receive the emergency loans that we approved last year would not have to count those emergency loans  percent and then finally it exempts federal direct perkins loans made for a two year period from the calculation of the nine hundred ten i know this is not unanimously agreed to but i believe this will make more job training available to more of ran into the proprietary school challenge where they weren't getting any outcomes where it looked like there were more milking the students that i solutions and then we tried to put in some sort of assuming that raising funds from others would help address that literally aren't jobs even trying to determine outcome based things right now are difficult but i have laudable universities that will be forced particularly as we raise pell grants raise different government lending programs will be forced out of seeking the very people we want to draw into the workforce and so i would hope that in addition to this amendment we would look at a longer term solution then short term will be undermining our basic goal of expanding education reclaiming my time i thank my friend for klein thank you mr chairman i want to thank my friend from new jersey for offering this amendment this address is a real problem where it has been identified i think many of us on both sides of the aisle recognize the situation that mr andrews described where which reached an untenable situation and so i'm very supportive of this amendment i think it's the right thing to do we had a we had a provision as he says and current law which is just proving to be unworkable and we are therefore putting ourselves in a position where we're hurting both institutions and students with that with that ninety ten rule on amended so i'm very supportive of this i thank the gentleman for offering this addresses a problem the dimensions of which are on known to us i'm unaware of any information that tells us exactly how many schools in the proprietary sector are bumping up against one hundred ten we don't know what what characteristics those schools share we don't know anything about their finances and so i would hope that as we work through this issue we will try to develop some data that allows us to assess just how severe a problem this is just how severely and adversely impacted students are by the continuation of this policy and i would hope that we would do that the second point that i would make is the bill the underlying bill has several different  sections in it which require that the federal funds supplement and not supplant existing either institutional effort or state effort as i read this there is nothing that would prevent a proprietary school from using a now new federal direct perkins loan money to replace money that they had perhaps raised from from alarms or from people in the community to provide scholarship assistance to students and  so i would i would i guess ask that as we go forward that we at least include a provision that that federal monies not supplement or not supplant existing effort on the part of proprietary schools alternative would be for the school to raise that to wish and which we don't want either and that part of the problem getting scholarship funds once people know that they're eligible for the pell grant or subsidized loans is let's be fewer people going to give the scholarship fund so it becomes additional challenge particular if you're an area of high unemployment and i just want to suggest it's a very complicated and difficult question reclaiming my time i am in full agreement it is very complicated it's very difficult but again i would just emphasize the fact that i believe we need data so that we know the dimensions of the problem we're dealing with and to that we hold school all schools to the same standard if we are suggesting that that supplement and not supplant is a standard that we consider to be reasonable we all support but i would suggest that we apply that somewhat more that we could strike this provision that was adopted and were worked this out so we can get this done within the jurisdiction of this committee or we can sort it out go to the floor where we won't obviously won't get that referral to that committee mr my understanding was want to thank you for your cooperation again we know that underlying this bill are differences of opinion and philosophy but i think what we did see is a number of improvements to the legislation that were either proposed or accepted on  an amendment offered by mr peer in louisiana part of rico and mr subline of the northern mariana islands general as recognized explained is a member thank you so much the amendment i have introduced would accomplish one simple goal to ensure that puerto rico the district of columbia and the other territories are eligible for funding under subtitle of title three that's title is the one that provides funding to community colleges from other  construction it is also the only subtitle in the bill that does not include a definition of the term state all other subtitles of the build bill provide such a definition my amendment w bring subtitle of title three in conformity with the other sections of the bill in fact i just believe this was simply the result of an oversight so you can take my proposal as a technical amendment i will we will go back to the roll call and the first roll call vote to be taken will be on the got three amendment which was a substitute to the legislation and the clerk will call the rol chairman miller no chairman miller votes no mr thompson mr thompson votes i close no mr courtney mr polis mr polis votes no mr taco mr votes no mr no mr wilson recorded mr wilson is not recorded mr wilson votes  votes number one and two it does not change the outcome of the vote there's no objection house mr holt recorded on both number one mr holt is not recorded and mr guthrie is a man i would vote amendment number two mr price's amendment mr holt is not recorded and i would vote no mr holt votes no so everybody's recorded wants to be recorded motion mr chairman i move that the committee on education and labor report the bill h r thirty two twenty one to the house of representatives with an amendment in the nature of a substitute with a recommendation that be passed and i move that the committee authorized the chairman to transmit this bill with an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the committee on budget in compliance with section three ten of the congressional budget act of one hundred seventy four as the second part of this committee's recommendations pursuant to the reconciliation instruction contained in ask con rests thirteen price votes no mr bishop of utah mr bishop of utah votes no sir got three mr guthrie votes no mr cassidy mr cassidy votes no mr mcclintock mr mcclintock votes no mr hunter mr hunter votes no mr row mr rowboats no mr thompson of vote mr chairman thirty members vote aye seventeen members about now the chair knows to for the record the presence of a reporting quorum in the motion is agreed to and the chair would like to thank all the members of the committee for their participation and their contributions to today's markup without objection the staff is directed to make any technical and conforming changes and all members will be given the requisite time provided by the house rules in which to submit additional dissenting supplemental or minority views there be no further business before the