Date: 2007-09-04
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me first speak to the motion to instruct. I have no problems with the motion to instruct. I dont quite know why it is on this bill. but the Senate chose to put this language into the legislation. The motion to instruct would ask the conferees to maintain that Ianguagein this legislation so those who are currently at Guantanamo Bay who are among some very dangerous people in the world not be brought to this country in the event that Guantanamo Bay should be closed. As we know. that is a matter of active debate here in the United States and certainly around the world and within the Congress of the Uriited States of exactly how we extricate ourselves from the situation we have at Guantanamo Bay. Early on after 9/11. the use of Guantanamo Bay became a rallying point against the abuse of human rights. Earlier practices there violated the protection of human rights. As the gentleman from Michigan has pointed out. much has changed there. but all is not well there yet. and there have been calls to close that facility. In the event they would be successful. as I understand this language. this would prevent the prisoners from being transferred tQ facilities in the United States. and I concur in that language. If I might return back tb the legislation at hand or the motion at hand. which is to go to conference with the Senate and work out the differences in this legislation. and there are significant differences between the House and the Senate legislation-. the staffs of the committee have been meeting on those differences. and we would hope to be able to report back to the House and to the Senate in the near future. It is important that we do that. We stand here at the beginning of yet another school year. another college year. if you will. and we see that families are struggling harder than ever to meet the cost of college. The gentleman from New York who has been so active in this field pointed out this fact to the House. We must do what we can to address and help families meet this cost. This legislation does it in a number of ways. both by providing increased grants to the lowest income families of students who seek to attend college who are fully qualified to go to college. but too often economic barriers keep them from doing so. This legislation makes a substantial increase in the Pell Grants. some $500 over the coming years in that grant. It was the goal of this President to do that. Previous Congresses never did that. and we do thit in this legislation. and that is going to be a great benefit to those students and to their families who are struggling with the cost of college. We also make a reduction in the interest rates. We cut the interest rates in half on money borrowed from the subsidized loan program which includes those very same Pell Grant recipients. I think 25 or 30 percent of them go on to borrow money from this program. and also middle income families who are feeling the financial strain of having one kid or two or three kids in college at the same time. We estimate that the savings over the life of that loan will be above $4.000. almost $4.500 for those individuals. That is a very substantial savings. and it is what we know that the young people calculate what is going to be the cost of college. and that includes the interest rates that they are going to have to pay back. As we know. there is forbearance against the payment of interest rates while the students are in college. but upon graduation they start paying that money back. and that interest rate is a significant cost for those students. We also *try to make sure that those individuals who have chosen to go into public service can understand that there will be some relief for their efforts through a loan forgiveness program for policemen. firemen. teachers. teachers of special ed. prosecutors. public defenders. all of whom enter professions that dont have the highest economic rewards at the outset. but we want them to go into those professions as services to our communities. And we want to make sure that they do so so we can continue to hold civil society together in this country and receive the benefits of their work and they will not be so burdened by the loans that they will choose to go elsewhere and leave society without the use of their talents. as I say. in health care. law enforcement. education. and so many other fields that are important to this. And following on the passage of the COMPETES Act. we provide for highly qualified teachers in every classroom. In the TEACH Act. we recognize the importance of highly skilled math and science teachers. and we identify those people who are performing in an exemplary fashion in college and offer them tuition assistance if they go into teaching math and science and go into those schools in high need. That would provide $4.000 in upfront tuition assistance for those individuals. We also make landmark investments of $500 million in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Hispanicserving institutions. tribal colleges. and Alaska/Hawaiian Native colleges. We have a problem of fully qualified minority students going to some of these colleges and really not being able to stay for a host of reasons. We have had discussions with the heads of State college systems and university systems and others about this problem. and the fact of the matter is we have to do more to support those students so they can successfully negotiate the college education that they seek to pursue. So this legislation is comprehensive. It is important. We did it by taking away the excessive subsidies to the student lending agencies. subsidies that were identified as excessive a number of years ago in the Presidents budget and by the OMB. and we recycled those successive savings to the benefit of the students and their families who once again are going into great financial stress to make sure that their children will have an opportunity at a college education that we recognize is so important in terms of their future ability to fully participate -in the American economy. the American society. and to provide for their families. As we pointed out. this legislation is the largest commitment of Federal resources since the GI Bill of 1944. We think its important. We would hope to have an affirmative vote to go to conference on the motion to instruct. and then we could proceed with the conference in the coming days. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.