Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself whatever time I take, and I do rise to speak in support of the conference report under consideration today. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts and his staff for their participation and the way they kept us informed during the conference. I have to say ``kept informed'' because we were not at the conference, except for the one kind of superficial meeting we had where we got to make speeches, but they did a good job of keeping us informed. This seems to be the way that reconciliation happens. I know when the Republicans were in the majority that is the way it happened, so I am not surprised that when the Democrats are in the majority that is the way it happened. But it was very helpful to be kept informed on what was happening. There are quite a few things that the reconciliation bill does, but I have to mention that without the reauthorization package it is very incomplete. We are urging the House to hurry and do the reauthorization part so that we truly have a higher education package. Without that, there are a lot of things that are left out, and I will go into that a little bit this morning in more detail following the vote. This isn't the first time we have reduced the subsidies to lenders and provided greater benefits to students. Two years ago, in the conference that I was referring to, we produced a report that found billions in savings by further reducing subsidies to lenders and applied those savings to increased grants for low-income students, expanded loan forgiveness, and reduced interest rates on undergraduate subsidized loans. We all agree if there is an excess subsidy in the student loan program, it should be eliminated. The key question is how much excess there is and how to eliminate it. There are no clear-cut answers to these questions. One approach included in this conference report is the reduction of the special allowance payments to the lenders. I am pleased that we retained the provisions that recognize the unique role that our not-for-profit lenders have in providing information and services to students and their families. Not-for-profit lenders focus on communities and they serve students locally. For this reason, we maintained the 15-basis-point differential cut in the special allowance payments between for-profit and not-for-profit lenders. The cut in the special allowance payments to for-profit lenders is 55 basis points, and for not-for-profit lenders it is 40 basis points. Now, we took a first step in this conference report toward refining the way those levels are determined by including an auction pilot that lets the marketplace determine the appropriate level for the Parent PLUS Program, which is about 10 percent of the loans. This conference report provides additional need-based grant aid which is a critical component of increasing access to and the affordability of college. Over 55 percent of the savings are dedicated to increasing the Pell grant award. In the next 5 years, low-income undergraduate students will see the maximum Pell grant award increased by more than $1,000. Additionally, we increase the income protection allowance so that students are not penalized for working and saving for college, and we raise the income threshold for automatic eligibility for a maximum Pell grant. I am also pleased we were able to retain the guarantee rate on student loans at 97 percent for all lenders through fiscal year 2012. In this way we avoid the disruption in the student loan market and ensure that students have access to Federal student loans. However, I wonder if we may be going too far in cutting the support for the largest Federal financial aid program, the Federal Family Education Loan Program. The challenge we face is that we will not know until it is too late whether cuts we have made have undermined the stability of the program and created hardships for the students it serves. Despite the emphasis on increased grant aid, the claim of increased savings for borrowers has a hollow ring. Reducing student loan interest rates is a good sound bite. It doesn't do anything to help students pay tuition bills. Further, in reality, cutting the interest rate in half, to 3.4 percent, will help only a small group of borrowers for the loans they take out for 1 year of their education, 4 years from now. Then the benefit disappears. That is going to be a surprise to a lot of people, and it has already happened once. We were chastised when we were doing the last reconciliation for a raise in the interest rates. That is because the interest rate that had been lowered expired and there was not the money to do the further cut. This may well happen again. A quick calculation of the real benefit borrowers will receive shows that at a cost of $6 billion to taxpayers, individuals, will see a savings of only $6 a month. That may be one latte; it may be two lattes. It is kind of hard to tell in today's market in coffee. I am astounded. I remember the days when it was a nickel a cup. I would much rather see the $6 billion go to help real low-income students through a Pell grant increase than just for a hollow sound bite. Finally, as an accountant and member of the Budget Committee, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we are debating a conference report on reconciliation, and that is a process designed to reduce the Federal deficit, not to create new mandatory programs and increase entitlement spending. I am disappointed to say that the net savings for deficit reduction in this conference report is only $750 million. I wish to remind my colleagues that a few weeks ago, we considered reconciliation and higher education reauthorization together. The Senate did it right. We voted on reconciliation one day, and the next voting day we had, we covered reauthorization. Both bills passed with strong bipartisan support because we not only achieved savings but we ensured the quality and effectiveness of our Federal student aid programs. Therefore, my support for this conference report is limited by the fact that we are not also considering the larger higher education reauthorization package. We have used this chart before when we were debating the reauthorization. This chart shows the pieces that are left out when we do not do the reauthorization. I urge the House to finish up this part of the package so that it can accompany the reconciliation package. It is not complete without both. I do have some comments by House Ranking Member McKeon, which is an excerpt from the conference committee when it was held. I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the conference report that we will be voting on tomorrow morning. I will also have more comments tomorrow morning. I wished to give a little bit of an explanation of where we are. There is a limited time of debate in the morning prior to the vote. I am sure Senator Kennedy and I will give a little fuller explanation of the vote and the reconciliation package, even following that discussion, so anyone who is interested can have as much knowledge about what is in the conference report as they could get, except by reading it. So most of the comments will be tomorrow morning, but I wanted to make a few preliminary comments tonight since the time is limited before the vote in the morning. As I mentioned, I do rise to speak in support of the conference report. Two years ago, Republicans took the lead in reducing subsidies to lenders and providing greater benefits to students through more grant assistance and reduced loan costs. In this conference report, we produce an additional $22 billion in savings by further reducing subsidies to lenders and applying those savings to increased grants for low-income students, for expanded loan forgiveness, and for reduced interest rates on undergraduate subsidized loans. We all agreed that if there is an excess subsidy in the student loans programs, it should be eliminated. The key questions are how much excess there is and how to eliminate it. There are not any clear-cut answers to those questions. One approach included in this conference report is the reduction of the special allowance payments, the SAP, to lenders. I am pleased we retained provisions that recognize the unique role that our not-for-profit lenders have in providing information and services to students and their families. Not-for-profit lenders focus on communities and serve students locally. For this reason, we maintained the 15 basis points differential cut in special allowance payments between for-profit and not-for-profit lenders. The cut in the SAP to for-profit lenders is 55 basis points and for not-for-profit lenders is 40 basis points. We took a first step in this conference report toward refining the way these levels are determined, by including an auction pilot that lets the marketplace determine the appropriate SAP level for the Parent PLUS Program, which is a small part that allows us to have a little preview of how an auction process would work, and also help to work out any bugs if it works out to be a good demonstration project. This conference report provides additional need-based grant aid which is a critical component of increasing access to and affordability of college. Over 55 percent of the savings are dedicated to increasing the Pell grant award. In the next 5 years, low-income undergraduate students will see the maximum Pell grant award increase by more than $1,000. Additionally, we increase the income protection allowance so students are not penalized for working and for saving for college. It has been a problem in the past. If you work and save for college, you would have been better off to have bought a car because it would count against you. We raise the income threshold for automatic eligibility for a maximum Pell grant. I am also pleased we were able to retain the guarantee rate on student loans at 97 percent for all lenders through fiscal year 2012. In this way, we avoid disruption in the student loan market and ensure that students have access to Federal student loans. However, I wonder if we are going too far in cutting the support for the largest Federal financial aid program, the Federal Family Education Loan Program--that is the private loan program, the FFELP program. The challenge we face is we will not know until it is too late if the cuts we have made have undermined the stability of the program and created hardship for the students it serves. Despite the emphasis on increased grant aid, the claim of increased savings for borrowers has a hollow ring. Reducing student loan interest rates is a good sound bite. It does nothing to help students pay tuition bills. Further, in reality, cutting the interest rate in half, to 3.4 percent, will help only a small group of borrowers for the loans they take out for 1 year of their education, 4 years from now. Then the benefit disappears. A quick calculation of the real benefit borrowers will receive shows that for a cost of $6 billion to taxpayers, individual borrowers will see savings of only $6 a month. I would much rather see the $6 billion go to help low-income students through a Pell grant increase than to a hollow sound bite, and that is the approach the Senate took, to increase the Pell grant rather than the reduction in the distant future of a small percentage in the interest rate. Finally, as an accountant and a member of the Budget Committee, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we are debating a conference report on reconciliation which is a process designed to reduce the Federal deficit, not to create new mandatory programs and increase entitlement spending. I am disappointed to say the net savings for deficit reduction in this conference report is only $750 million. I would admit that is the requirement we were given by the budget to produce--$750 million. The last time we did a budget reconciliation we put half the money that was saved by canceling some of the subsidies to the corporations to budget deficit reduction. I do wish to remind my colleagues that a few weeks ago we considered reconciliation and higher education reauthorization together. This is a key point. The Senate did it consecutively. On a Thursday, we did the reconciliation bill. The next voting day we had was a Monday, and on Monday we passed the higher education reauthorization. This is a bill that is long overdue. We have done short extensions eight times, and we recognize that we passed them together in the Senate with strong bipartisan support. In fact, the reauthorization bill vote was 95 to 0. So we not only achieved savings, but we ensured the quality and effectiveness of our Federal Student Aid Programs. Therefore, support for this conference report is limited by the fact that we are not also considering the larger higher education reauthorization package, although I am expecting that we will get some very solid agreement from the House folks to begin consideration of that, I hope yet this month, so it can be completed early and we can have both parts of the package. Tomorrow I will go into a little bit more on what is in that other package that completes what we are doing in reconciliation. In the reconciliation we are eliminating some of the subsidies, and then we are reallocating that money. That money will go to help students. But the bulk of the help actually comes in the reauthorization package. It is ever so essential that we do that. I think the Senate would have been agreeable to put the two bills together and get them both finished at the same time, but it is not possible because the House has not finished action on the Higher Ed reauthorization. Tomorrow I will go into some more detail on what it is that is missing from the package by just doing the reconciliation part of the package. I will be encouraging people to vote for the reconciliation package and then the reauthorization package when we are able to get that together. I will be encouraging the House, in every way possible, to make sure they get that reauthorization part of the package done, and I have some relative assurance that they are going to do it soon. I would like some more solid assurance they are going to do it soon. With that, I will conclude my remarks for tonight and look forward to the bipartisan discussion we will have tomorrow. I want to thank the Senator from Massachusetts for the great work he and his staff did on this package. It is not often in this body that people listen and then try and find the solution. I would say they and my staff have worked together well and got us here. You never get a perfect package around here. This is one that will help a lot of people. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or what folks on Capitol Hill are calling S-CHIP. SCHIP was created by a Republican Congress in 1997 to help low income kids get health insurance. The goal of the program is to help kids that don't qualify for Medicaid, but also can't afford to get health insurance on their own, receive the care they need. This program expires on September 30, 2007, and I am here today to speak about how important it is to reauthorize this critical program in a way that protects private health insurance and keeps kids healthy. I would like to speak for a few minutes about the how the program works today and how the proposals the Senate is discussing will change what currently happens. Currently States have three options: they can enroll kids in Medicaid, create a new separate program, or devise a combination of both approaches. SCHIP is financed jointly by the Federal Government and the States, and States receive a higher percentage of Federal money for their SCHIP beneficiaries than they do for their Medicaid beneficiaries. This was originally designed to encourage States to create SCHIP programs. States have 3 years to spend their SCHIP allotments. Funds that aren't spent within 3 years are usually redistributed to States that have spent their allotment and need additional money. When the Republican-led Congress enacted SCHIP in 1997, the program authorized $40 billion for 10 years. I will come back to this point in a bit, but the underlying bill before us today authorizes $60 billion over 5 years--the baseline spending is $25 billion over 5 years and this bill authorizes an additional $35 billion over 5 years. The budget resolution contained a deficit neutral reserve fund to spend $50 billion over 5 years in addition to the $25 billion in the baseline, so a total in the budget resolution is $75 billion over 5 years. This is a lot of money and Congress needs to ensure the money is being used to pay for health insurance for kids that don't currently have health insurance. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Senator Baucus' bill will reduce private coverage--that is kids will move from private health insurance to taxpayer-funded public health insurance. This is a highly inefficient policy--especially given how bureaucratic some State programs are structured. This is not an efficient use of the taxpayer's money. Part of the reason why the crowd out effect is so great under the Finance bill is because the bill allows States to expand coverage to kids up to 400 percent of the Federal poverty level--which by the way translates to an annual income of $82,000 for a family of four. The higher the income expansion, the greater the crowd out effect. This is simple economics. Now I would be remiss if I didn't mention what a great job my home state of Wyoming is doing in administering SCHIP. Wyoming first implemented its SCHIP program, Kid Care CHIP, in 1999 and in 2003, Wyoming formed a public-private partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming and Delta Dental of Wyoming to provide the health, vision, and dental benefits to nearly 6,000 kids in Wyoming. These partnerships have made Kid Care CHIP a very successful program in Wyoming. All children enrolled in the program receive a wide range of benefits including inpatient and outpatient hospital services, lab and x-ray services, prescription drugs, mental health and substance abuse services, durable medical equipment, physical therapy, and dental and vision services. Families share in the cost of their children's health care by paying copayments for a portion of the care provided. These copays are capped at $200 a year per family. Wyoming is also engaged in an outreach campaign targeted at finding and enrolling the additional 6,000 kids that are eligible for Kid Care CHIP but aren't enrolled. As Congress works to finalize a bill to reauthorize this program, it is essential that we focus on the kids first. Some states SCHIP programs cover parents of kids that are on SCHIP and some States even cover childless adults. Adults without health insurance are a problem in this country, but not a problem this program was originally intended to address. I think there are responsible, market-based things Congress can do to help more American adults get health insurance, but this bill, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, should focus on the C for Children. Not only does this bill need to focus on kids, we need to focus on low income kids. In July 2005, Wyoming's Kid Care CHIP began covering kids up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level--those with family incomes below $42,000. The median family income in the United States is about $46,000, so the Wyoming benefit is very generous. Some of my colleagues are advocating for expanding SCHIP to cover kids and adults at 400 percent of the Federal poverty level. That means families making as much as $82,000 a year would have their kid's health insurance paid for by the government. Again, this is an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. Why should the government provide health care for kids that come from families making $82,000 a year? I'll tell you why my colleagues are advocating for it--they see this as the first step toward government-run health care. They want the U.S. to be more like Canada and Great Britain. They want to take the private sector out of health care. They want to put the government in the exam room and tell you what doctors you can see and when you can see them and what drugs they can prescribe for you. I don't believe in this. Not only do I not believe in this, I think this goes against all the principles upon which this country was founded. Now I do agree that our health care system is breaking down, and in fact I don't think we have a health care system, I think we have a sick care system. That is why, earlier this month, I introduced ``Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America,'' a bold and comprehensive solution that addresses our health care crisis by building on market based ideas to expand access to health insurance for all Americans. I would like to take just a little bit of time to discuss each of Ten Steps. The first of the Ten Steps is eliminating unfair tax treatment of health insurance, expanding choices and coverage and giving all Americans more control over their own health care. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that removing this tax bias and a few related health care tax policies will save the Federal Government $3.6 trillion over the next ten years. That is a lot of money that can and should be used to expand choices and access and give individuals more control over their health care. Ten Steps ensures every American can benefit from this savings--whether they get their health care from their employer, from the individual insurance market, or they decide they want to get off Medicaid and switch to private insurance. Everyone should be treated equally. The second step of Ten Steps would increase affordable options for working families to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction. The national, above-the-line standard deduction for health insurance will equal $15,000 for a family and $7,500 for an individual. The third step of Ten Steps is what makes this a hybrid approach--I couple the standard deduction with a refundable, advanceable, assignable tax-based subsidy. The tax subsidy is equal to $5,000 for a family, $2,500 for an individual. The full subsidy amount is available to individuals at or below 100 percent of the Federal poverty level, FPL, which is $20,650 for a family of four. The subsidy is phased out as an individual's salary increases, with individuals at 200 percent receiving half of the subsidy and individuals at 301 percent receiving the standard deduction instead of the subsidy. The fourth key step for health care reform is to provide market-based pooling to reduce growing health care costs and increase access for small businesses, unions, other kinds of organizations, and their workers, members, and families. Those of you who know me well recognize how central this would be to any health care reform proposal of mine. The fifth step blends the individual and group market to extend important HIPAA portability protections to the individual market so that insurance security can better move with you from job to job. The sixth step emphasizes preventive benefits and helps individuals with chronic diseases better manage their health. America should have health care, not sick care. Prevention. Prevention. Prevention. This step is modeled after a very successful program in Wyoming. In 2005, Wyoming EqualityCare, our Medicaid Program, began providing one-on-one case management for Medicaid participants with a chronic illness, such as diabetes, asthma, depression, and heart disease, to encourage better self-management of these conditions. The program provides educational information on self-management as well as a nurse health coach that follows up with each patient to ensure they have what they need to take care of themselves. The seventh step gives individuals the choice to convert the value of their Medicaid and SCHIP program benefits into private health insurance, putting them in control of their health care, not the Federal Government. This is very pertinent to the underlying bill we are discussing today. The rationale for this step is simple. If the market can provide better coverage at a lower price, then why not allow Americans to access that care? This gives low-income individuals more options about where they receive their care and what care is available to them. It is time for people to start making decisions about their care--let's get the government out of the doctor's office. The eighth step in Ten Steps is a bipartisan proposal which the HELP Committee approved last month--the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. This bill will encourage the adoption of cutting-edge-information technologies in health care to improve patient care, reduce medical errors and cut health care costs. Some of the most serious challenges facing healthcare today--medical errors, inconsistent quality, and rising costs--can be addressed through the effective application of available health information technology linking all elements of the health care system. The ninth step of Ten Steps helps future providers and nurses pay for their education while encouraging them to serve in areas with great need. The ninth step also ensures appropriate development of rural health systems and access to care for residents of rural areas and gives seniors more options to receive care in their homes and communities. The final step decreases the sky-rocketing costs of health care by restoring reliability in our medical justice system through State-based solutions. I realize that I have talked for quite a bit about Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America and that, the underlying legislation is the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. I believe it is important to think bigger than just one program and think about the health care system as a whole. I have spoken a few times on the Senate floor about what I call the 80/20 rule. I always believe that we can agree on 80 percent of the issues and on 80 percent of each issue, and that if we focus on that 80 percent we can do great things for the American people. I believe that if we work together on these proposals we can find that 80 percent. I would like to work with my colleagues on that 80 percent. I want action--real action to provide real coverage for Americans. I support reauthorizing this program in a way that protects private health insurance and keeps kids healthy. I also support looking beyond this single program at reforming the entire health care system.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the importance of supporting the conference report on the America COMPETES Act. This report represents a unique bipartisan, bicameral collaboration among three committees on the Senate side and our House counterparts to enhance American competitiveness in the 21st century global economy. This conference report demonstrates that when we set partisan politics aside and work together, we can do great things for the American people. The core of this conference agreement is the Senate's America COMPETES Act, which was the product of bipartisan negotiations and input from the Members of the Senate Commerce, Energy, and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees. Work on this legislation began last year in response to the National Academy of Sciences report ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' which was chaired by Norman Augustine, the ``Innovate America'' report, and the President's American Competitiveness Initiative. I want to thank all those who worked on this legislation for their hard work and dedication and commend them for the collegial manner in which this bill was crafted. The focus of the programs in this bill is where it should be: on the knowledge and skills the American people need to have to be successful in the 21st century global economy. I am pleased we were able to keep education as one of the key priorities in this legislation. However, I have said consistently from the beginning that I wanted to hold programs to reasonable funding levels and to avoid duplication of programs. I think we could have gone further toward reducing duplication and overlap of programs, but this bill represents a strong bipartisan, bicameral effort and moves us in the right direction. Why is this important? This year marks 50 years since Sputnik was launched. That launch sparked huge turmoil in this country and worry about the knowledge and skills necessary to keep our country safe and our economy growing and competitive. I was in junior high at the time. It was a shock to our Nation. Every one of us could recognize it-- teachers, parents, and, probably as important, students, recognized it. Russia was beating us. They had put a satellite into orbit. It was hard to accept that we were behind. But it also brought out that American competitive spirit. We said they were not going to beat us. It launched a change in education such as we had not seen in the United States in decades, maybe centuries. We were ultimately the winners of the space race, but it wasn't just a space race; it was an education race. It was the broad range of education that the United States delved into and the innovation that was brought about at the time that put us ahead of Russia. Sputnik had a dramatic effect on our education system and made us recognize that a high school diploma was no longer just a nice thing to have. We could no longer rest on our past successes as a nation. We met the challenge of Sputnik through the National Defense Education Act. We looked to education as a path to continued success, and we supported an increase in the number of people who would continue their education beyond high school, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Today, we are again being challenged. In the 1950s, skilled jobs comprised 20 percent of the U.S. job market. In 2000, 85 percent of all U.S. jobs were categorized as skilled. For millions of Americans, access to an affordable college education is the key to their success in the 21st century global economy. The United States has one of the highest college enrollment rates but college completion rate is average to below average among developed countries in the world. Four out of every five jobs will require postsecondary education or the equivalent, yet only 52 percent of Americans over the age of 25 have achieved this level of education. We have a huge challenge, not just in K-12 and higher education but in continuing education. It is estimated the average person leaving college will change careers 14 times. I didn't say ``change jobs'' 14 times, I said ``change careers'' 14 times. Of those 14 career changes, 10 of them don't even exist now. That is the pace at which things are accelerating. So we are educating people for a level of jobs that do not exist at the present time. That is quite a challenge. Technology is demanding that everybody continue to learn and gain skills to remain competitive in the workplace. Learning is never over; school is never out. Those who do not get the knowledge and the capability to make the transfer to new careers will be left behind. We do not want that to happen. Education at all levels, including lifelong learning opportunities, is vital to ensuring that America retains its competitive edge in the global economy. Every American can and should be part of our Nation's success. Because higher education is the on-ramp to success in the global economy, it is our responsibility to make sure everyone can access that on-ramp and reach their goals. This bill includes provisions that improve science, mathematics, and critical foreign language education in our Nation from elementary school through graduate school. It supports improvements to teacher preparation, establishes stronger links between graduate schools and employers, provides funding to support students trained at the doctoral level in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and enhances Federal programs that support students in graduate school. The American system of higher education is renowned throughout the world. I can attest to that after having gone to India. I saw how their educational system works and how it is becoming very competitive with the United States. In India, only 7 percent of their children go on to higher education. That creates a very high level of competition among students to get into higher education. Despite the rigorous emphasis on science, mathematics, engineering and technology, however, India continues to send its graduate students to the United States because it is here that they learn creativity and innovation. In most of the other countries around the world they learn the basics, can do excellent calculations and have a vast amount of rote knowledge. But what our colleges specialize in is teaching people to think, to come up with new ideas. To date, that is what has kept America ahead. However, the success story of American higher education is at risk of losing the qualities that made it great, which are competition, innovation, and access for all, if we do not invest in those core principles. It is important to ensure that more students enroll in college prepared to learn and that more students have the support they need to complete college with the knowledge and skills to be successful. Slightly less than one-third--31 percent--of all public high school students are prepared for postsecondary education, as demonstrated by the academic courses they pursue. Well-prepared and well-supported students are more likely to persist to a degree completion and obtain the knowledge and skills they need. If our students and workers are to have the best chance to succeed in life and employers to remain competitive, we must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to achieve academically and obtain the skills they need to succeed, regardless of their background. To accomplish this, we need to build, strengthen and maintain our educational pipeline, beginning in elementary school. We must also strengthen programs that encourage and enable citizens of all ages to enroll in postsecondary education institutions and obtain or improve their knowledge and skills. The decisions we make about education and workforce development will have a dramatic impact on the economy and our society for generations to come. The America COMPETES Act is a good starting point, but we need to do more. Maintaining America's competitiveness requires that all students have the opportunity to continue to build their knowledge and skills. We need to find ways to encourage high school students to stay in school and prepare for and enter high-skill fields such as math, science, engineering, health, technology and critical foreign languages. For many, including those at the cutting-edge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, acquiring a postsecondary education or training will be the key to their success. Our Nation needs to make sure that every person has the opportunity to access quality education and training throughout their lives, which is why the America COMPETES bill is only the beginning. I remain committed to reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, the Head Start Act, and the Workforce Investment Act. In addition, we need to focus our efforts on taking what we have learned from 5 years of experience to improve the No Child Left Behind Act. Together these laws form the path for success, so that every American can have the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful in the 21st century global economy, which is only going to become more competitive. The call for education and skills training is loud and clear. Ingenuity, knowledge, and skills are a beacon for jobs; therefore, we must keep the beacon of innovation shining brightly on our shores. I ask my colleagues to support passage of the conference report on the America COMPETES Act and to work with me to move the companion education and workforce bills through Congress this year.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and before I object, I need to understand the rationale of the majority leader to propound the request at this time. I sent a letter last week. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this letter is asking for a conference to be appointed. But it is my understanding the House never intended to appoint one this week. Had I known that, I would not have delivered the letter. We were working in a very bicameral, bipartisan manner on getting this done. At that time, the key players for this legislation--Representatives, Senators, Republicans, and Democrats--were engaged in a very productive bicameral, and bipartisan preconference negotiation. We had all rolled up our sleeves and decided that we were going to complete the legislation before the August recess. We had a good core agreement, focused on good policy. That is not to say that there weren't a few sticking points. There always are a few of those, but we were making significant progress and coming to a better understanding of each other's legislation. Thus, the appointment of conferees would have been a simple step in the process. However, a week later, we are not in the same place. As the majority leader knows, this body can seemingly operate in Senate dog years. One week can be a lifetime. In that short week, there were a series of unfortunate events. These events made it impossible for us to meet the goal of completing this key legislation before August recess. I don't want these unfortunate events to derail this process. The first unfortunate event was a discussion on the House floor last Friday afternoon between Representative Cantor and Representative Wasserman-Schultz. In that discussion, the House leadership indicated that they did not intend to have the FDA bill on the House suspension calendar this week. Given that I am not one to watch the House floor, I did not realize that this decision had been made by House leadership last Friday. On Monday, that information was conveyed to my staff by the staff of key Democrats engaged in discussion. The House Democrats did not see how this FDA bill was to get done before recess. Had I known that this was what the House Democrats wanted a few days before, I would not have hand-delivered that letter to the majority leader and the minority leader. Partially, I believe the decision by House Democrats was related to other items, other priorities facing the House. Like us, the House has been discussing the SCHIP legislation this week. Unlike the Senate, the House committees overlap such that the same committee that works on FDA issues also works on SCHIP issues. While we pride our staff in being able to do the impossible, forcing both FDA and SCHIP at the same time would be well past impossible. Thus, the House Democrats made a choice--SCHIP over FDA. Partially, I also believe that the House leadership felt as if they could get a ``better deal'' if they were to wait until September and build up additional pressure related to reduction in force directly related to the reauthorization of the core of the FDA drug safety bill. I hope to disabuse them of that reality. If we are to answer to the American people, to give FDA the necessary new authorities, we must do this in a bipartisan manner. We should not politicize this. We should not hold out for ``better deals'' but work together to forge a strong agreement that every American can support. Therefore, I urge my colleagues not to politicize this issue. Too much is at stake for us to begin the blame game. Instead of blaming each other for potential failure, we should be working to ensure our success. We should be developing a process agreement for how we are to complete this key legislation. We should begin defining the scope of the conference to ensure that extraneous proposals do not weigh down our ability to quickly respond when we return in September. As part of that first step, I would like everyone to know what I believe is the appropriate scope of the conference. First, we must include the reauthorizations of user fee programs at the FDA to ensure that nearly 2,000 employees at that agency are not laid off. These staff not only ensure that drugs and devices are appropriately and efficiently reviewed before they are allowed to go to market, but they also are in charge of key postmarket safety monitoring of those products. We must reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act and the Medical Devices User Fee Modernization Act. Beyond these items, during our Senate debate on FDA, we discussed key provisions that provided FDA with new authorities to assist the agency in quickly and effectively responding to potential safety issues. These new authorities include requiring labeling changes, requiring postmarket studies to more fully examine potential risks, and to have access to clinical trials information for patients and providers. In addition, we discussed how to address potential conflicts of interest of advisory committee members to ensure greater transparency and preserve scientific integrity. I commend Senator Mikulski and Senator Grassley for their work in this area. In addition, we must include three key provisions that focus on children. The first two--the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act and the Pediatric Research Equity Act--ensure that drugs used in children are tested on children. The third proposal would increase our ability to have devices geared toward children. Beyond those, there were a series of other provisions which were key to our bipartisan agreement. There is the Reagan-Udall Foundation provisions to ensure that FDA has additional tools to advance the science behind its regulations. The Senate also debated and then accepted a variety of important provisions related to citizens petitions, direct-to-consumer advertising, counterfeit drugs, and antibiotics and enantiomers. Senator Stabenow, Senator Brown, Senator Lott, Senator Thune, Senator Hatch and Senator Coburn developed a proposal on citizens petitions that will end the abuse of the system while preserving FDA's ability to review those petitions that have public health merit. Senator Roberts and Senator Harkin worked together successfully to solve the difficult issue of how to see that direct to consumer advertisements provide effective safety information to patients while meeting the stringent test of constitutionality. Senator Dorgan and Senator Snowe contributed a proposal on counterfeit drugs that will be included here as well. Senator Hatch, Senator Brown, and Senator Burr developed key public health provisions to ensure access to new antibiotics and drug enantiomers. Senator Brown and Senator Brownback offered an important incentive to encourage the development of drugs for tropical diseases. All of these items are important components to this legislation and speak to the larger bipartisan nature of our agreement. Let me say that again. We worked deliberately to ensure that our bill was bipartisan. Finally, there were a variety of provisions included within the Senate bill to address key food safety provisions. Senator Sessions, Senator Stevens, and Senator Durbin and I worked on amendments that addressed issues with food and pet food safety. While I have discussed several key provisions that have been within the scope of our discussions, we must also discuss what should not be within the scope of this legislation. While a sense of the Senate indicated our desire to make generic biologics--or what I like to call biosimilars--available to American consumers to reduce the costs of some medications while preserving quality, the House has so far made it clear that such legislation would not be welcome on this legislation. They prefer to move through regular order. I understand that desire. I prefer regular order, too. During our discussion on the Senate floor, there was one provision that I believe put the bill in jeopardy--an importation amendment. The House opted not to include this provision so that they could deal with it at a later date. This bill is not the time for this debate, given that we are focusing on key bipartisan proposals. So, I turn to the majority leader, and I ask him to refrain from politicizing this issue. I ask him to work with me to define the scope of the conference, to develop a plan for getting this legislation done. Until the House leadership is in agreement with our plan, we should not force the issue today by appointing conferees too early. If we do this too early, we set ourselves up for the blame game, not for getting this key legislation done. This place should not be about ``gotcha'' politics when lives are at stake. Mr. President, I don't know what the logjam is at the moment. I understand there is some concern on the biologics. There isn't any reason this cannot be completed, but I am afraid the motion, if we are doing this, would appear to put the blame on the House, or on the Republicans--I am not sure which--and I don't think we can do that at this point in time. Maybe later in the day.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to remember my dear friend and colleague, Senator Craig Thomas. Craig was a champion for Wyoming, the West, and its values. Every year, for the last several years, Craig championed a resolution honoring the American cowboy. A true cowboy in his own right, Craig sought to honor those who serve as stewards of the land, embody the courageous and daring spirit of the West, and uphold the values of freedom and responsibility that we all cherish. I was proud to support my friend in this endeavor over the years to honor these great individuals, and today, I am pleased the President has also stated his support for the National Day of the American Cowboy. As cowboys, cowgirls, family, and friends gather on July 28, 2007, to celebrate at Cheyenne Frontier Days and nationwide, I extend my best wishes to all.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, it is always exciting when we get down to the end of a bill, particularly a bill where there has been good bipartisan participation and achievement, and this is one of those. This reauthorization bill we have been considering was reported out of the HELP Committee by a vote of 20 to nothing. It is the result of 3 years of bipartisan negotiations, and we can point to ideas in the bill in which both the Republican and Democratic members of the committee and people outside the committee have participated, proposed, and have wound up in the bill. In the end, it is a product with strong bipartisan support. I would mention it is not going to be a perfect bill. I would be willing to say that about any bill we pass out of here, it is always a work in progress until it finally gets signed by the President. Quite often when they get signed by the President, they are not perfect bills either, but they are a perfect compromise when they get signed. That means both sides give a little bit, and we concentrate on those areas where there can be agreement. There are a lot of things both sides would like to have in this bill, but they are divisive rather than inclusive, and we have left out those divisive things, for the most part. In conference committee, we will take care of some of the other things that are slightly divisive to make them more inclusive so the final bill will help as many students as possible. When I say ``students,'' I am not just talking about college students. One of the things I hear back in Wyoming is: What about the kids who want to go to tech school? We include that sort of thing in here too. That is a program where they can get a certification that is recognized throughout the United States. My wife was at the National Apprenticeship conference. It was the 75th anniversary of certification for apprenticeships and the theme song there was done by a friend of mine from Alaska who is the balladeer of Alaska. I am sure many of you have heard this song. It is: ``I am an Educated Man.'' It talks about a person who has a little bit of trouble with the book-learning stuff, but if you give him a problem he can solve with his hands, he is an educated man. There are still a lot of jobs out there--and there always will be a lot of jobs out there--for which you have to have hands-on work. We cannot exclude those people from the education system. They are absolutely essential to our lives. This bill does some things for the ones who want to go to tech school too. Senator Warner, in a speech the other day mentioned, when he first went into the military, about a third of the people whom he went through basic training with couldn't read or write. When they were assigned to a ship, there were jobs on those ships those people could do without being able to read or write. Today, the battleships are bigger and they are much more technical. It is a whole different level of education that has to be done for the people who run those battleships and do the jobs that are needed on the battleships. That is what has happened with jobs throughout this country. Jobs change. It is very important that people who are in high school now realize that when they enter the job market, they are probably going to have 14 different careers--not 14 different jobs, not 14 different employers--14 different careers. Of those 14, 10 have not even been invented yet. It is very important to get a good education so people throughout their lives can transition to the new jobs that are happening--because that will be happening. Those who do not get the knowledge and the capability to make the transfer to new careers will be left behind. We do not want that to happen. This committee is in charge of education from birth to death. We have Head Start--we have already passed that through the Senate and it is in conference now. That takes care of preschool. Of course, we have 64 other programs besides that that deal with preschool, and we probably need to do something about the proliferation of programs that have a lot of overlap in that area, but we have the Head Start one already going through the process. The next bill we have been told we will work on in the committee is No Child Left Behind. That takes care of kindergarten through 12th grade. There has been a commission that has been formed that has presented us with a lot of ideas about what needs to be done. It is a bipartisan commission. I am sure a lot of that will be incorporated in the bill. There has been good bipartisan work in the committee on the ideas that have to be incorporated, some of the tweaks that have to be in No Child Left Behind to make it work even better. There is quite a bit of agreement. It has worked, but it can work better. We will be working on that next. Of course, this is the Higher Education Act. We did it in two pieces. I will have some more comments about that in a moment. But there is another piece missing, and I am hoping our committee will work on that soon, and that is the Workforce Investment Act. We passed that through the Senate twice, unanimously, in each of the previous two Congresses, but it has never been conferenced. We need to get that done; we could train 900,000 people a year to do higher skilled jobs. We don't need to keep exporting those jobs because we lack people with the skills. We need to train people with the skills. That is a bill that will do it. I think we have a good basis to work from on that and, again, a way to find bipartisan agreement. Some of the fear in the past is what might happen in conference. The ones who had the fear of what might happen in conference will now be in charge of the conference, so that is not an excuse. We have to get that one done. Education in America is both a right and privilege, and we have to get people to recognize the value of that privilege as we make sure all of them can have the education we promised--and we have made some very significant promises in those areas and have fulfilled many of them. This bill we are working on today is one of those. I am pleased we have been able to have both the reconciliation bill and the reauthorization bill considered within 5 days of one another. By considering the entirety of the Higher Education Act, we are ensuring continued quality in the Federal student loan programs, while providing disclosure of information that students and their families need to make informed financial decisions. Those informed financial decisions--or uninformed ones--will have a significant impact on their future. This is the second time in as many Congresses we have been on the brink of systemic reform of the Federal higher education programs. However, this time we will cross the brink and make these programs more efficient, as well as more effective. We will be allowed to meet the challenge of making higher education more accessible, more affordable, and particularly more accountable. The American system of higher education is renowned throughout the world. American students will now be provided with the tools and assistance contained in both of these bills to complete their higher education and training and to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to be successful in the 21st century economy. I supported reporting both bills out of committee. I did so with the expectation that they would be considered together as a whole by the Senate. I am very pleased that the Senate Democratic leadership worked with me and my colleagues to provide this opportunity to have an open and full debate on all aspects of the Higher Education Act. I look forward to moving both these bills together and ensuring a comprehensive reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. There is no reason they cannot be combined at this point in time. As debate on this legislation comes to a close, it is necessary to thank those who have worked long and hard on this bill. First and foremost, I would like to thank Chairman Kennedy. I would like to thank him for his commitment to keeping this process bipartisan and working with me and my Republican colleagues on the HELP Committee throughout this entire process, for maintaining an open position on ideas, and following through with those with focus so we could actually wind up with a bill. And I thank him for his approach to the committee process so we use the markup to see what the intensity is and the number of improvements that are being suggested and not make it a straight up-or-down approach so we can modify them so they fit and we get the kind of bipartisanship that we have at this point in time. That is a tremendous task. I think our committee must handle about 40 percent of the things that come before the Senate, so it is a wide-ranging task and he does a marvelous job with it and he has been very inclusive and I thank him and congratulate him for that. I thank those on my staff who have worked tirelessly--when I say ``tirelessly,'' I mean both sides have worked through evenings, weekends, and reached compromises--and later I will mention more specifically some of those people. I think I have used my time.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I would like about 2 minutes to finish up the thank-yous on this bill.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ran out of time before I could thank members of my staff and others' staff who have participated in this bipartisan effort to get the Higher Education Act reauthorized. I would like to do that at this time because this bill is proof that a bipartisan effort can get a bill done. In particular, I would like to thank Katherine McGuire, who is my committee staff director. She does an excellent job of keeping the trains running on time on a multitude of issues all at once. Her first higher education reauthorization was back in the early 1990s. She also provides an attitude and a focus that says: Let's get things done. And she is able to work with the other side, and has proven that she is trustworthy and knowledgeable on the issues. That goes a long way in making sure there can be a bipartisan effort, that willingness to work within common parameters and principles which helps us to get all of those things done. I especially wish to thank Beth Buehlmann, who is my education policy director. Beth has devoted her career to improving educational opportunities for all Americans. From her work as a math teacher to her devotion to workforce training, Beth really knows what she is doing and brings extraordinary energy to the issue every day. Her knowledge and leadership have shaped education policy in our country over the last 30 years. She provides the same kind of focus and direction on education issues that Katherine does for the entire committee. I also wish to thank the rest of the education team who greatly contributed to the bill: Ann Clough, Adam Briddell, Lindsay Hunsicker, and Kelly Hastings. They have worked diligently and, as I have mentioned, through weekends and evenings. I also wish to thank Ilyse Schuman and her fantastic knowledge of working a bill through the Senate floor. She is one of the few lawyers I have on my staff. She gives that group of people a good name with her, again, work ethic, knowledge of the law, and wordsmithing. I wish to thank Amy Shank, who is my budget expert, and has been doing that for several years. She knows the rules and the requirements and the capabilities of the budget process and keeps us all on our toes and ensures our work meets the budget requirements. Finally, Greg Dean, who did a great job of organizing the amendment process. He is so attentive and he scurried to make sure that every little detail is plugged and that we are all up to speed on every one of those little details. I would also like to thank members of Senator Kennedy's staff for their hard work: Michael Myers does a great job of coordinating with us and providing leadership on the issues, since they are in the leadership now. Senator Kennedy's staff director does that kind of work and is very cooperative with our side and sensitive to the priorities we bring up. I thank Carmel Martin, J.D. LaRock, Missy Rohrbach, Emma Vadehra, and Erin Renner for their expertise on the issues. You should see the talent of these people and their knowledge of education, which you do not get to see, but you get to see the result of their work as we present it. Sometimes we do not do justice to all of the effort that they have put in. Finally, I would like to thank all of the members of the HELP Committee and their staffs for their hard work throughout the process. This is one of the most demanding committees. We cover, as I mentioned, 40 percent of the issues that come before the Senate. That requires a lot of time, a lot of knowledge, and such a wide variety of issues that I think the members get a college education about every month, a college course of education about every month as we cover these different issues. I appreciate their help especially working on this college education bill. It has been an interesting road and about 3 years' worth of work and all of it on a bipartisan basis. I thank all of those who have participated. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be a cosponsor on the Kennedy-Coburn amendment.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, doesn't that run us into the policy meetings? We have some really important things to cover.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Consumer Bankers Association be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. ENZI. I will mention, again, a couple of highlights. They, of course, express their opposition and point out that it would ``create a new federal-run student loan program, in addition to current programs that would offer loans currently be made by private student lenders. This new government system with the ability to borrow money at government rates would essentially supplant lenders offering private student loans. The policy implications of such a program are broad and the unintended consequences are numerous.'' Once again, I reiterate that this hasn't been tested. It hasn't been vetted through the committees. Of course, when it goes through committee, that is an opportunity for a diverse group of people to put their opinions behind it, as well as to meet with stakeholders and get an outside opinion. I would ask that Members oppose the amendment. Does the Senator from New Hampshire wish to speak on this amendment.

Mr. ENZI. I will use some more of my time. I haven't used all of it yet today, and I probably will not on this one either. I do have a letter I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record. It is from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the United States Student Association.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment. There are some statements that I would like to clear up a little bit. I would not want anybody to think that this is increasing competition. This is increasing Government price fixing. It is requiring the Secretary of Education to do the price fixing. She is the one who sets the interest rate, or he, as the case might be at the time it was put into effect. That is not the person with the expertise to know what kind of interest rate ought to be charged on anything. I also have objection because this amendment has neither been through the Education Committee nor the Banking Committee. This is something the Banking Committee would strongly believe should be in their jurisdiction. I am glad we are having the discussion because it is very important for people to hear that you can borrow money at 18 percent, $21,000, defer all payments for 2 years, and pay off the loan in equal installments after that and wind up paying $100,000. If you are buying a car at $21,000 and you have to pay 18 percent interest and you don't have to pay anything for the first 2 years, that car is going to cost $100,000. That comes under the subject of financial literacy. It is important for us to impress on young people today what the cost of interest means, what the cost of deferring interest means. There are people buying houses under that kind of a proposal right now. They are very surprised at how much they owe on their house. We are trying to do as much as we can in the bill on financial literacy. Part of that financial literacy would be to encourage the parents to have a home equity loan to provide for the student, and that way it is deductible on their income tax. There are a number of different ways of doing this, but I don't think having the Secretary of Education determine an interest rate would intentionally bring down the cost of interest. Hopefully, we can get banks to be responsible on the interest rates they charge. But when there is no Federal backing, no Federal guarantee on the loan, they are actually providing the loan at very high risk to a student with no collateral, which is why the interest rates come in at 18 percent. There are other ways to correct the problem other than putting this in the hands of the Secretary. We had some experience with this before. There was a tuition credit that was initiated in 1978 to solve a huge problem at that time. It was supposed to apply to both elementary and secondary education and higher education, but it was focused on tuition tax credits for parochial schools. Almost all of the public attention was on the higher education part of it. The Carter administration very quickly came up with a two- part plan, automatic Pell eligibility for every family if their income was below $25,000, and automatic eligibility for a student loan to any student who wanted one regardless of family income. Of course, one of the things that Money magazine pointed out was that even a Rockefeller could get a loan at 9 percent. That is what the Government set the loan rate at, 9 percent. What is the problem with that? If we had a Secretary of Education right now, and they happened to set the loan rate at 9 percent, I am sure the press would say that was absolutely terrible. On the other hand, if it was a Democrat who set it at 9 percent, they would probably say it was great. But this was the case where the Government set the rate at 9 percent. What is the problem? It was a time when interest rates were climbing through the roof and were on their way to 21 percent prime. So there was an incentive to borrow money at a fixed 9 percent rate, which is what the student loan interest rate was, and that didn't have to be repaid until after college when interest rates were going through the roof. So students borrowed the money, put the funds in a money market, and paid it back as soon as the repayment began, having made a tidy profit on the float. Other students borrowed money and used it to finance cars and other things unrelated to college. In fact, parents were encouraged to borrow and do home improvements and other things because they could get this 9 percent money from the Federal Government. The amount of money being borrowed jumped from $1.7 billion in 1977 and 1978 to $67.2 billion in 1980-1981, an increase of 265 percent in 4 years. Federal costs associated with student loans grew from $480 million to $2.5 billion which was also growth of 420 percent. Under the Brown-Sanders amendment, a student attending an expensive private college could borrow the entire cost of attendance, as much as $45,000 a year, on highly favorable terms. Repayment would, indeed, start right away, but if families have college money in the bank, they can pay off the loan gradually and earn on the interest, as they do, the same as we had a problem with before. The amendment also will encourage students to have their children borrow money for college rather than finance it through the PLUS loans or other mechanisms that would put the burden on the adults. In some cases, of course, parents will have the student take out the loans and would repay it for them. I am suggesting this is something we haven't reviewed enough to do yet; that it would put some of the present loans in jeopardy. We have been very careful in both last week's bill and this week's to be sure that there was some competition between direct loans and the private loans. But those were reviewed over a period of time, looked at with some history, and this one doesn't have the history. I hope we will vote against it. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENZI. Rather than half to the presenter.

Mr. ENZI. Parliamentary inquiry: It is my understanding of the time that it was equally divided by the pro and the con on the amendment rather than----

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Burr.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I think we are prepared to move on with the Burr amendment as well. That is next.

Mr. ENZI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. ENZI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.