Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. The amendment is cleared on both sides. Would it be appropriate to finish it now?

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

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

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, Federal student aid is a tangled web of tax, grant, loan, and savings programs with rules and regulations that are so complicated, many prospective students don't know that they really can afford to go to college. Families have to fight their way through a maze of paperwork. We have talked about this several times, the difficulty of the present financial aid form. Nearly 10 million prospective aid recipients must file that form each year, and submitting the form is the only way for families to determine their eligibility for Federal grants and loans. The free application for federal financial aid is longer and more complicated than a Federal tax form. It has 5 pages and 127 questions, so it is longer than the form 1040EZ, which is 1 page and 37 questions for filing your taxes, or the form 1040A, which is 2 pages and 83 questions. It is comparable to the form 1040, with 2 pages and 118 questions. The contrast between the tax forms and the financial aid forms is especially informative. With a third of the financial aid form questions and a fifth of its pages, the IRS captures the information needed to determine tax liability for the very population targeted by the Pell grant. Financial aid officers and education specialists typically explain that the complexity of the form is a necessary evil, without which we could not target aid to students with the greatest need. The FAFSA, financial aid form, is long, it is argued, so that it can precisely measure who most needs aid. However, a few economists have recently completed research that measured empirically how much complexity in the current aid system contributes to its targeting. They found this complexity adds very little to the targeting of aid to those who most need it. Only a handful of questions on the FAFSA determine eligibility for Federal aid, and most of these questions are currently found even in the 1040EZ, the tax form. In response, a small but growing number of researchers, economists, and leaders in higher education have offered proposals to reduce the FAFSA to one page and to prepopulate a student's FAFSA with the data their families have already submitted to the IRS. Such an approach would reduce the time-consuming and confusing FAFSA paperwork which requires parents and students to report to one Federal agency--the Department of Education--data they have already submitted to another Federal agency--the IRS. Two North Carolinians--Senator Burr, on whose behalf I have submitted this amendment, and Erskine Bowles, who is the President of the University of North Carolina System, teamed up in the belief they could make applying for financial aid simpler and easier. President Bowles knows simplification of Federal applications is possible. As Administrator of the Small Business Administration in the 1990s, Erskine Bowles reduced the inch-thick SBA loan application to one page. After a conversation between the two this spring, President Bowles put together a task force across the State of North Carolina and gave them 90 days to come up with a one-page form which made better use of data parents had already reported to the IRS. This June, President Bowles delivered the mockup of this one page to Senator Burr. So North Carolina showed we can and should work more rapidly to simplify the process of financial aid, both by reducing the length of the application and making better and more efficient use of data parents have already submitted to the Federal Government through their IRS forms. I would mention we have had a task force, largely my staff, who has been working on reducing it. We have it down to a one-page form. But Senator Burr's amendment speeds up the time we study included in the higher education bill, so the relevant offices: Education, Comptroller General, Treasury, Office of Management and the Congressional Budget Office and representatives of higher education and State higher education executive officers who have a demonstrated commitment to simplifying the application for financial aid, report back to Congress in 1 year, how we could simplify the application and make even better use of data parents have already submitted to the Federal Government. America's students and parents should not have to wait any longer than necessary for simplification. One stage of simplification should not preclude another stage of simplification. We do want to see that those who need the money the most have the highest priority. We want that to be done as simply as possible, so it doesn't discourage people from applying. I appreciate this amendment to try to speed up the time to do a further simplification of FAFSA. I am pretty sure there are no objections on the other side of the aisle. We will leave the time open for further debate on that as well. I suggest the absence of a quorum and allocate the time to the amendment.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his good work on this amendment. The GAO study of the feasibility of collecting employment information on college graduates can help us find out how effective the program is before we have another reauthorization. Reliable information on student success, particularly employment success--that is our best measure--is very important to the future of higher education. The postsecondary education system needs facts at the State and institutional levels to identify successes and challenges, and consumers need the information to make informed decisions about education and training programs. Some States have pretty strong relationships between higher education and State agencies to get those employment statistics, but it is not done nationally. I think this would be a great step to providing that information and helping us to see how well we are doing, as well as the students. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his comments. It is something he and I have talked about extensively. We do know teachers are the key to education. I am not aware of any disagreement on either side. I am ready to wrap up the debate on it.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask for a voice vote on the amendment.

Mr. ENZI. Senator Kennedy and I need one more voice vote in order to clarify a definition. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2338.

Mr. ENZI. On behalf of Senator Coleman, I send an amendment to the desk. Mr. COLEMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI. Is the Senator going to be yielding back and then propounding a request for 1 minute on each side on each amendment and 10 minutes after the first vote?

Mr. ENZI. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this ad calls for the recruitment of scientists to work at this facility, studying how to ``develop relevant exposure models'' for smoking related diseases. Or to do large scale epidemiology studies on ``the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases.'' Here I thought the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases was smoking. Silly me. Clearly, Philip Morris believes it will still be able to operate under the Kennedy bill. It will be business as usual for the Marlboro Man, and more Americans will die needlessly. Trying to make cigarettes safer through a billion-dollar bureaucracy is a waste of time and money. The right approach is to get people to stop smoking, or better yet, to never start. The key failing of the Kennedy dinosaur legislation is that it will not reduce smoking. In 2004, this bill did pass the Senate, as part of FSC-ETI. The Congressional Budget Office, in scoring the Senate-passed bill, examined the tobacco provisions. I suggest my colleagues study that score carefully. CBO suggested there would be essentially no reduction in adult smoking, and only a 12.5 percent reduction in youth smoking. The bill assesses user fees in excess of $450 million a year. There are currently 2.7 million youth smokers. When you do the math, it comes out to nearly $1,500 per year per youth smoker to achieve these reductions. I don't know if you've talked to any teenagers recently, but they are pretty entrepreneurial. I bet a lot of them would quit smoking if you just paid them to give it up, or even to stay off the stuff in the first place. In another example of very little bang for very big bucks, a recent Institute of Medicine report from May says that if we keep doing what we are doing, we will reduce smoking from the current 20 percent of the population to about 15 percent over the next 20 years. If we do everything in the report, which is basically the Kennedy bill plus a number of other steps, some of which maybe unconstitutional, we might reduce it to 10 percent. At an unknown, but likely very high, cost. This bill can't be fixed. I know we can do better. We just have to think bigger. We must win the war on tobacco, not sign a peace treaty with Phillip Morris. I have developed my own tobacco legislation that would truly have an impact on the number of smokers in this country, and I am pleased to introduce today the Help End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits or HEALTH Act. My bill contains a novel cap-and-trade program--guaranteeing that fewer people suffer the deadly consequences of smoking, while providing flexibility in how those reductions are achieved. Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena. In the 1980s, lakes and forests were dying from acid rain. The acid rain was caused by emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from power generation at electrical plants. The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 instituted a system of allowances for emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides that could be used, banked, traded or sold freely on the open market. The number of allowances decreased each year. This system achieved the desired results faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated. The cap-and-trade program for sulfur and nitrogen oxides has made dramatic differences in our air quality over the past 15 years, and is a resounding success. I propose to carry this market-oriented system over to the tobacco control arena. Although this has never been tried for a health issue, I think it will work. My legislation will contain a cap-and-trade system for shrinking the size of the tobacco market over the next 20 years. Smoking reductions are guaranteed, and companies are given time and flexibility to make the reductions or divest. In addition, small tobacco companies would have a valuable asset in their allocations, leveling the playing field a bit between the smaller and larger industry members. Finally, and I think very importantly, public health groups could buy and retire allowances to achieve the reductions in tobacco use even faster than specified in my bill. I would like to issue a challenge today to those groups, use your clout to help me make this work. Stand with me to fight tobacco and protect the health of all Americans. I want to remind my colleagues that the FDA approves cures, not poisons. Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco but not letting them ban it, as my colleague Senator Kennedy proposes, would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health. In closing, every day, we hear about some new problem the FDA faces in protecting our health. From contaminated seafood to tainted toothpaste, this agency is in dire need of congressional support to carry out its mission. We should be focusing our efforts on increasing the number of inspectors, and on renewing the expiring drug and device user fee laws. I ask my colleagues to think hard about what they are proposing when they suggest FDA regulation is the way to defeat tobacco. My record is clear when it comes to tobacco. I am no friend of big tobacco and I have never taken a dime of tobacco company money for my campaigns. I don't intend to start now. But I absolutely reject the notion that the way to show you're ``for kids'' and ``against Big Tobacco'' is by sending the Nation's premier public health watchdog out to fight for safety with one hand tied behind its back. We must not mandate the FDA seal of approval on a deadly product that has no health benefit whatsoever. We can do better. Will you join me? Health Science Research for Harm Reduction--New Positions at Philip Morris USA The Health Sciences Research Division of PM USA is seeking Leading Scientists in several biomedical-related research areas. The primary goal of the Health Sciences Research Division (HSR) is to conduct health science research to facilitate the development of new methods and technologies with the potential to reduce harm associated with our products. In June 2007, PM USA research scientists will begin occupying the new 450,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art Center for Research and Technology (CRT) facility. HSR scientists will work in collaboration with other PM USA scientists at the CRT to investigate and discover technologies for the reduction of harm associated with our products. Cigarette Smoke-Related Disease Scientists: Will participate in the development of models and biomarkers of cigarette smoke-related diseases including: Cancer Scientists investigating cancer with emphasis on lung cancer. COPD Scientists investigating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. CVD Scientists investigating cardiovascular disease. Experimental Pathologists: Will participate in the development and use of microscopic and imaging techniques to investigate the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases. Oxidative Stress Scientists: Will participate in studies investigating the role of oxidative damage and cell death processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases. Inflammation/Immune System Scientists: Will participate in studies investigating the role of inflammatory/immunological processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases. Inhalation Toxicologist for Aerosol Dosimetry: Will participate in studies investigating in vitro and in vivo exposure to cigarette smoke to quantify airway smoke deposition and develop relevant exposure models. Toxicologist for PK-PD Studies: Will study the PK-PD of exposure to cigarette smoke during smoke inhalation for the purpose of developing clinically predictive cell and tissue dose models. Epidemiologists (Molecular/Genetic and Chronic Disease): Will participate in the design, conduct and analysis of large-scale, high-throughput, molecular and chronic disease epidemiologic studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Biostatisticians: Will participate in the design and analysis of large-scale epidemiologic, in vitro and in vivo studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Geneticists (Statistical and Population): Will participate in the design and analysis of large-scale, high-throughput, molecular epidemiologic and in vivo studies on cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Complex Systems Analysts (Systems Biology): Will participate in the integration and modeling of high- throughput, cross-platform, trans-species data on cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to address a serious and deadly health issue. I am talking about tobacco, a scourge on our society. Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. These are not mere platitudes. They are the deadly truth. Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined. My colleague Senator Kennedy has proposed dealing with this shocking statistic by having the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco. I suggest my colleagues ask themselves: What will it mean to have cigarette and tobacco products regulated by the FDA? The FDA is the gold standard among public health regulators the world over. For the past century, the FDA has protected the public, from filthy conditions in meat packing plants to thalidomide, which caused thousands of birth defects in Western Europe. The FDA's constant vigilance is not just an historical artifact. It seems like every day there is something new for the FDA to protect us from. The headlines behind me show how we have come to depend on the FDA every day to protect us and our children from poisons that could harm or even kill us. It is evident that the FDA is overworked and underfunded. We, as a nation, currently ask the FDA to be responsible for so many things: ensuring that new drugs and medical devices are safe and effective; safeguarding the Nation's food supply; regulating the manufacture and distribution of food additives and drugs that will be given to animals; and, increasing the security of our blood supply. In each of these key activities, the role of the FDA is to protect our health. In providing that protection, the FDA examines key scientific facts and weighs the balance of benefit to our society and risk to our health. It is incomprehensible to me to extend that critical role to an FDA risk/benefit analysis of tobacco and cigarettes. I will say it again: Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a ``safe'' cigarette. Any public statement by the FDA under their current authority would necessitate the finding that there is no benefit to the use of cigarettes, only harm. The Kennedy-Cornyn bill would establish the FDA as the regulator for tobacco products. However, the bill explicitly states that the FDA will not be permitted to prohibit the sale of any tobacco product to adults. That is not true regulation. The bill would gut the authority that Congress has bestowed and staunchly defended for the FDA, the authority to remove health threats from the marketplace. This approach is so flawed that I believe the bill cannot be fixed. Even having the FDA review and approve cigarettes sends mixed and confusing messages to the public, creating the sense that cigarettes are safe or can be made safer. The FDA cannot be put in the position of approving a product which years of science and the personal experience of far too many Americans has shown to be dangerous. Simply put, tobacco kills people. Piling on regulations and bureaucracy won't change that. I commend my colleague Senator Kennedy for trying to do something about the evil of tobacco. But this bill is a dinosaur. It has been introduced year after year, with barely any changes. In fact, the bill would have FDA issue a regulation from 1996 completely intact. A regulation, I might add, that was overturned by the Supreme Court. But that is beside the point. Instead of resurrecting broken, outdated legislation, we should be aiming to make tobacco extinct. While some in the tobacco industry claim to share my views on smoking, I do not believe they have actually bought in to the idea of getting people to stop using tobacco. A case in point is the new $350 million facility Philip Morris has built in Richmond, VA. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following classified ad from the journal Science.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this ad calls for the recruitment of scientists to work at this facility, studying how to ``develop relevant exposure models'' for smoking related diseases. Or to do large scale epidemiology studies on ``the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases.'' Here I thought the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases was smoking. Silly me. Clearly, Philip Morris believes it will still be able to operate under the Kennedy bill. It will be business as usual for the Marlboro Man, and more Americans will die needlessly. Trying to make cigarettes safer through a billion-dollar bureaucracy is a waste of time and money. The right approach is to get people to stop smoking, or better yet, to never start. The key failing of the Kennedy dinosaur legislation is that it will not reduce smoking. In 2004, this bill did pass the Senate, as part of FSC-ETI. The Congressional Budget Office, in scoring the Senate-passed bill, examined the tobacco provisions. I suggest my colleagues study that score carefully. CBO suggested there would be essentially no reduction in adult smoking, and only a 12.5 percent reduction in youth smoking. The bill assesses user fees in excess of $450 million a year. There are currently 2.7 million youth smokers. When you do the math, it comes out to nearly $1,500 per year per youth smoker to achieve these reductions. I don't know if you've talked to any teenagers recently, but they are pretty entrepreneurial. I bet a lot of them would quit smoking if you just paid them to give it up, or even to stay off the stuff in the first place. In another example of very little bang for very big bucks, a recent Institute of Medicine report from May says that if we keep doing what we are doing, we will reduce smoking from the current 20 percent of the population to about 15 percent over the next 20 years. If we do everything in the report, which is basically the Kennedy bill plus a number of other steps, some of which maybe unconstitutional, we might reduce it to 10 percent. At an unknown, but likely very high, cost. This bill can't be fixed. I know we can do better. We just have to think bigger. We must win the war on tobacco, not sign a peace treaty with Phillip Morris. I have developed my own tobacco legislation that would truly have an impact on the number of smokers in this country, and I am pleased to introduce today the Help End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits or HEALTH Act. My bill contains a novel cap-and-trade program--guaranteeing that fewer people suffer the deadly consequences of smoking, while providing flexibility in how those reductions are achieved. Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena. In the 1980s, lakes and forests were dying from acid rain. The acid rain was caused by emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from power generation at electrical plants. The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 instituted a system of allowances for emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides that could be used, banked, traded or sold freely on the open market. The number of allowances decreased each year. This system achieved the desired results faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated. The cap-and-trade program for sulfur and nitrogen oxides has made dramatic differences in our air quality over the past 15 years, and is a resounding success. I propose to carry this market-oriented system over to the tobacco control arena. Although this has never been tried for a health issue, I think it will work. My legislation will contain a cap-and-trade system for shrinking the size of the tobacco market over the next 20 years. Smoking reductions are guaranteed, and companies are given time and flexibility to make the reductions or divest. In addition, small tobacco companies would have a valuable asset in their allocations, leveling the playing field a bit between the smaller and larger industry members. Finally, and I think very importantly, public health groups could buy and retire allowances to achieve the reductions in tobacco use even faster than specified in my bill. I would like to issue a challenge today to those groups, use your clout to help me make this work. Stand with me to fight tobacco and protect the health of all Americans. I want to remind my colleagues that the FDA approves cures, not poisons. Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco but not letting them ban it, as my colleague Senator Kennedy proposes, would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health. In closing, every day, we hear about some new problem the FDA faces in protecting our health. From contaminated seafood to tainted toothpaste, this agency is in dire need of congressional support to carry out its mission. We should be focusing our efforts on increasing the number of inspectors, and on renewing the expiring drug and device user fee laws. I ask my colleagues to think hard about what they are proposing when they suggest FDA regulation is the way to defeat tobacco. My record is clear when it comes to tobacco. I am no friend of big tobacco and I have never taken a dime of tobacco company money for my campaigns. I don't intend to start now. But I absolutely reject the notion that the way to show you're ``for kids'' and ``against Big Tobacco'' is by sending the Nation's premier public health watchdog out to fight for safety with one hand tied behind its back. We must not mandate the FDA seal of approval on a deadly product that has no health benefit whatsoever. We can do better. Will you join me? Health Science Research for Harm Reduction--New Positions at Philip Morris USA The Health Sciences Research Division of PM USA is seeking Leading Scientists in several biomedical-related research areas. The primary goal of the Health Sciences Research Division (HSR) is to conduct health science research to facilitate the development of new methods and technologies with the potential to reduce harm associated with our products. In June 2007, PM USA research scientists will begin occupying the new 450,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art Center for Research and Technology (CRT) facility. HSR scientists will work in collaboration with other PM USA scientists at the CRT to investigate and discover technologies for the reduction of harm associated with our products. Cigarette Smoke-Related Disease Scientists: Will participate in the development of models and biomarkers of cigarette smoke-related diseases including: Cancer Scientists investigating cancer with emphasis on lung cancer. COPD Scientists investigating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. CVD Scientists investigating cardiovascular disease. Experimental Pathologists: Will participate in the development and use of microscopic and imaging techniques to investigate the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases. Oxidative Stress Scientists: Will participate in studies investigating the role of oxidative damage and cell death processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases. Inflammation/Immune System Scientists: Will participate in studies investigating the role of inflammatory/immunological processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases. Inhalation Toxicologist for Aerosol Dosimetry: Will participate in studies investigating in vitro and in vivo exposure to cigarette smoke to quantify airway smoke deposition and develop relevant exposure models. Toxicologist for PK-PD Studies: Will study the PK-PD of exposure to cigarette smoke during smoke inhalation for the purpose of developing clinically predictive cell and tissue dose models. Epidemiologists (Molecular/Genetic and Chronic Disease): Will participate in the design, conduct and analysis of large-scale, high-throughput, molecular and chronic disease epidemiologic studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Biostatisticians: Will participate in the design and analysis of large-scale epidemiologic, in vitro and in vivo studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Geneticists (Statistical and Population): Will participate in the design and analysis of large-scale, high-throughput, molecular epidemiologic and in vivo studies on cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer). Complex Systems Analysts (Systems Biology): Will participate in the integration and modeling of high- throughput, cross-platform, trans-species data on cigarette smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to address a serious and deadly health issue. I am talking about tobacco, a scourge on our society. Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. These are not mere platitudes. They are the deadly truth. Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined. My colleague Senator Kennedy has proposed dealing with this shocking statistic by having the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco. I suggest my colleagues ask themselves: What will it mean to have cigarette and tobacco products regulated by the FDA? The FDA is the gold standard among public health regulators the world over. For the past century, the FDA has protected the public, from filthy conditions in meat packing plants to thalidomide, which caused thousands of birth defects in Western Europe. The FDA's constant vigilance is not just an historical artifact. It seems like every day there is something new for the FDA to protect us from. The headlines behind me show how we have come to depend on the FDA every day to protect us and our children from poisons that could harm or even kill us. It is evident that the FDA is overworked and underfunded. We, as a nation, currently ask the FDA to be responsible for so many things: ensuring that new drugs and medical devices are safe and effective; safeguarding the Nation's food supply; regulating the manufacture and distribution of food additives and drugs that will be given to animals; and, increasing the security of our blood supply. In each of these key activities, the role of the FDA is to protect our health. In providing that protection, the FDA examines key scientific facts and weighs the balance of benefit to our society and risk to our health. It is incomprehensible to me to extend that critical role to an FDA risk/benefit analysis of tobacco and cigarettes. I will say it again: Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a ``safe'' cigarette. Any public statement by the FDA under their current authority would necessitate the finding that there is no benefit to the use of cigarettes, only harm. The Kennedy-Cornyn bill would establish the FDA as the regulator for tobacco products. However, the bill explicitly states that the FDA will not be permitted to prohibit the sale of any tobacco product to adults. That is not true regulation. The bill would gut the authority that Congress has bestowed and staunchly defended for the FDA, the authority to remove health threats from the marketplace. This approach is so flawed that I believe the bill cannot be fixed. Even having the FDA review and approve cigarettes sends mixed and confusing messages to the public, creating the sense that cigarettes are safe or can be made safer. The FDA cannot be put in the position of approving a product which years of science and the personal experience of far too many Americans has shown to be dangerous. Simply put, tobacco kills people. Piling on regulations and bureaucracy won't change that. I commend my colleague Senator Kennedy for trying to do something about the evil of tobacco. But this bill is a dinosaur. It has been introduced year after year, with barely any changes. In fact, the bill would have FDA issue a regulation from 1996 completely intact. A regulation, I might add, that was overturned by the Supreme Court. But that is beside the point. Instead of resurrecting broken, outdated legislation, we should be aiming to make tobacco extinct. While some in the tobacco industry claim to share my views on smoking, I do not believe they have actually bought in to the idea of getting people to stop using tobacco. A case in point is the new $350 million facility Philip Morris has built in Richmond, VA. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following classified ad from the journal Science.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. OK. I yield them such time as they need to present their amendments.

Mr. ENZI. I yield such time as the two Senators need, until 11:40, which I think has been reserved for the leaders; is that correct?

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his outstanding job of explaining a number of the provisions that are in the bill before us today. This is the reconciliation bill, which has to deal with savings in the budget. We are hoping that anybody who has amendments to it will bring them down. It is a privileged motion, which means there will be a maximum of 20 hours of debate on it. We don't have to do the full 20 hours if there are not 20 hours' worth of amendments. So I hope people will bring the amendments down and get them debated and voted on. There is an essential piece that is not included in reconciliation because it doesn't deal with savings in the mandatory programs. It is actually most of higher education. We need to get to that part too. It should be done in conjunction with the reconciliation bill. For parliamentary reasons, it is difficult for that to happen. We were not able to get to it in the last 2 years. We need to get to it now. We talk about deficit reduction. This is not the first time we have done deficit reduction. During the last 2 years, we did a major deficit reduction. We took away subsidies from the lenders and put some of that into deficit reduction, and a good chunk of it went into help for students. I don't know whether we ought to use the term ``deficit reduction,'' though. For the most part, what we are doing is spending money, and we are spending money we don't have. So that is why the deficit reduction piece was put in as a piece of legislation, to allow us to actually grapple with trying to save the Federal Government money. Of course, when it gets into the area of students, it is hard for us to have any constraint, particularly if it appears we are taking it away from students. We are adding to what the students get, just as we did in the last 2 years when we did deficit reduction. We gave parts to deficit reduction from the lenders, which decreased the amount of money we were spending that we didn't have, and we continued to increase some of the programs for students. That is what we are doing again here, but we are not doing much deficit reduction. There are people who are very concerned about that. We are making a substantial reduction again in lender subsidies. At some point--we don't know what that point is--lender subsidies will get to the point where lenders will not be interested in working with students because it takes employees to do that, it takes facilities to do that, and there is even risk in doing that. All of those have a cost. When the cost exceeds what they are able to take in, they will no longer be interested in it, and without the thousands of people in this Nation who are servicing these loans, as well as informing people how to get them and helping them to get them, there will be a lot of students who will not be able to get the help they need to have. So we need to be very careful in doing these things. One of the areas we have taken great care has been in instituting a pilot project, and that pilot project is to do, on a portion of the loans we have, set up an auction--to have people actually bid to see what the real dollar number is they would be willing to give up in the way of subsidies in order to have the business at those universities. That will give us a better indication of where the subsidy should be, and I am glad we are doing it in a pilot project way. When you move out into the area of doing something totally different than you did before, it is good to start fairly small, with maybe 10 percent of the loans, so if it isn't quite right, it will not destroy the whole college program. Also, it will give us an indication not only of the process we ought to be using to make it as fair as possible and make sure students are taken care of as well as possible, but it will also give us an indication of things that ought to be done differently. So I am pleased that we are able to start on a small basis like that instead of a big basis because one of the things that happens when you do a change is that there is an estimate of how much revenue will be saved. There isn't anything really to base that estimate on, but there is an estimate of how much will be saved. What we are doing with this bill is we are spending the estimates of what could be saved. We are not spending what actually will be saved but the estimates of what will be saved. As everybody knows, estimates don't always come out the same in reality. Sometimes they come out bigger and sometimes less. Unfortunately, with the Federal Government, when we are talking about the amount of revenues that will be coming in, we are usually overestimating that, and on the spending side we are underestimating, which means we are spending more than we are taking in and compounding it. In all of these programs, we have the sense of wanting to do generous things, but we also have a responsibility for making sure we can pay for our generosity. Our goal, of course, is to have as many students as possible have access to college. Money is one of the problems, but there are other problems too. I wish to speak about the importance of the legislation that is under consideration, but I wish to reiterate the importance of taking up the Higher Education Act reauthorization and, hopefully, doing that right after this reconciliation bill. That is why I encourage people to bring amendments down, so maybe we can yield back some time. There may be time today to cover the other part, which is a bigger part than reconciliation, and it is more important. The reconciliation bill provides for additional need-based grant aid, and that is a critical component of increasing access and affordability. Additionally, by increasing the income-protection allowance, we have increased the ability of working students to receive Pell grants. That change is particularly important and one I have been sensitive to. I worked during junior high and high school so that I could afford to go to college, and that all counted against me when I tried to apply for any kind of aid. I wasn't eligible for it. My daughter ran into a similar situation. We made sure all of our kids worked toward their education. She had saved some money, and we always gave them a little incentive: we would match anything they came up with, whether it was scholarships or money they earned and saved. So the first time she applied for any kind of assistance, scholarships, or anything need-based, they said: You know, you have this money in savings, you should have spent that on a car. A car doesn't count. So what are we teaching our kids? Don't save for college, spend your money. That is not right. We have tried to set it up so that working students have a great ability to receive Pell grants. This change is particularly important as the student population in our colleges become more and more nontraditional. However, it is not only important to ensure that more students enroll in college prepared to learn but that more students have the support they need to complete college with the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful. America's ability to compete in the global economy depends on increasing the number of students entering and completing college. Of the 75 percent of high school seniors who continue their studies, only 50 percent receive a degree in 5 years, and that is within 5 years of enrolling in college. Only 25 percent of them receive a bachelor's degree or higher. These numbers are even worse for students from low-income families. Among eighth graders in 1988, only 16 percent of them from low-income families attained a bachelor's degree by the year 2000. The fact is that over four times as many eighth graders from high-income families attain bachelor's degrees as their peers from low-income families. Pell grants are aimed at providing low- and middle-income undergraduate students with resources needed to enroll in college and persist through graduation. America's competitiveness depends not only on the investment in scientific research and technology but the investment in human capital; that is, our students. Two years ago, Congress invested the savings it achieved through reconciliation in students by providing $9 billion in new spending for student benefits, including $4 billion in additional need-based grant aid through Academic Competitiveness grants and SMART grants. This grant aid is in addition to the basic Pell grant award for Pell- eligible students. For first- and second-year undergraduates, the Academic Competitiveness grants are designed for Pell-eligible students who complete a rigorous high school curriculum. These grants are important because recent data shows that slightly less than one-third, 31 percent, of public high school students are prepared for postsecondary education as demonstrated by the academic courses they pursued. Let me repeat that. These grants are important because recent data shows that slightly less than one-third of all public high school students are prepared for postsecondary education, and that is demonstrated by the academic courses they pursued. It is also demonstrated by the number of remedial courses they have to take when they get to college. That is something we hope to fix in No Child Left Behind, concentrating on the high school years so there isn't that wasted senior year of education and then there are the courses they have to take in college just to get up to the entry level. The Academic Competitiveness Grant Program not only provides additional need-based grant aid to low- and moderate-income students, but it encourages those students to take the rigorous high school courses that will enable them to enter college, not needing remedial education. Well-prepared and well-supported students are more likely to persist to degree completion, to succeed in obtaining needed knowledge and skills to compete in the 21st century global economy. National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent grants, that is SMART grants, are designed for third and fourth year undergraduates majoring in physical, life, or computer sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering, or a critical foreign language. These grants serve a dual purpose, and that is to provide needed grant aid and to encourage students to major in and enter a field where there is a national need. The reconciliation bill before us today provides for additional need- based grant aid to students as well, through the creation of Promise grants. The provisions of the bill move us in the right direction. Low- income students who are striving to attend college will know there is financial aid available to them to access college or career and technical education. What is missing from this debate? We have a pretty complete explanation of what is in the bill, but consideration of the rest of the Higher Education Act is essential. The bill before us today focuses on a very narrow slice of the Higher Education Act, one piece which is dependent on the other foundational programs that are not part of reconciliation. We are only seeing a fraction of the higher education picture by debating this bill separately from the larger higher education reauthorization package. I cannot emphasize enough how essential it is to cover the whole higher education package. By discussing only the reconciliation provisions affecting higher education, we are leaving behind financial aid application simplification. We have touted that a lot, and it needs to be simplified. Previously, in filling out an application for financial aid assistance, it was necessary to do both sides of this long form, using these many instructions. Mr. President, does that look formidable to you? It looks pretty formidable to me. As a result, a lot of people who could qualify for financial assistance have not qualified for financial assistance because they did not do the paperwork, and it is easy to understand why they did not do the paperwork. Who needs all that? One of the things we have done is to simplify that form so it is both sides of one page. It is much easier to answer. The reason we are able to simplify it is that the questions that are asked on it are the ones that are essential to being able to determine whether the student needs financial aid or not. So it is much more concise. This application gathers a lot of information. We couldn't find out who used the information. So if we don't know who uses it, why gather it? We have simplified that application which should increase the number of students who can fill it out. If we do not do the other higher education package, that will not be done. There are also student loan disclosure requirements and year-round Pell grants in the reauthorization bill. Right now a student is limited to a school year rather than year-round. A lot of the technical schools go year-round, which means there is a portion of the year they cannot cover with Pell grants. There are additional supports for nontraditional students. That is very important. As we are talking about a lifetime of employment, there are a lot of people training and retraining, and they are nontraditional students. They didn't just get out of high school. They are ready to go back and learn something additional. They are usually very motivated people because they understand the importance of what they don't have and what they desperately want. Graduate and international education would be covered in the other package; financial literacy and better borrower information; privacy protection; also improvements to the Academic Competitiveness grants and SMART grants. We always want to be improving those grants and encouraging the sciences, technology, engineering, math, and medical fields. There is also a college cost watch list, a little more information for everybody; and quality teacher preparation programs. We need to be encouraging teachers. We are going to lose a lot of them shortly through retirement with the baby boomers, and they need to be replaced. The basis of education is having quality teachers. We are, once again, faced with the possibility of only dealing with the mandatory spending programs and leaving comprehensive reauthorization of the Higher Education Act undone. I wish we could have combined the two. I guess we still could, but it is not going to happen because reconciliation gets special consideration with a limitation of 20 hours of debate. We are cutting the bottom line if we do not deal with the quality and substance of the important programs I mentioned. We have to have the whole package. The American success story of higher education is at risk of losing the very qualities that make it great--competition, innovation, and access for all. Our goal should be to promote innovation and new technologies to keep the cost of college down, to expand the availability of information to keep students and parents in a position where they can make more informed decisions, and improve financial literacy across the board so that students have a better understanding of how they can manage their loans and monthly payments. Schools and colleges have to do more to increase accountability and seek efficiencies that bring down the cost of postsecondary education. When we raise the Pell grant amounts, it doesn't help the students if the cost of college goes up an equal amount or greater. The complexity of the Federal student aid system has to be tackled. Right now filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid prevents many students, as I mentioned, from even considering college. That was never our intent. It is time to make that less complicated than filling out our tax forms, and for an accountant to say that is really something. Also, it is our responsibility to ensure that students and their families have the information they need to make informed decisions about the investment of time and money they are making to secure a college education. The cost of college has risen dramatically, and at the same time the need for a college education is greater than it has ever been before. America's students must have the tools they need to complete higher education and to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to become competitive in the 21st century economy. This can be accomplished, but it will take both the reconciliation and reauthorization bills together to reach that goal. I am again stating for the record that I hope the Senate Democratic leadership will provide us with an opportunity to have a full and open debate on all aspects of the Higher Education Act. Both pieces are essential to ensuring students have access to a quality education. It is no longer an option whether to pursue college or skills certification that is nationally recognized. Everyone needs to have all the tools to understand and shape their future. They need these options. It cannot happen with just the reconciliation part of the package. The money without the capability doesn't do it. I look forward to working with Chairman Kennedy and colleagues on my side of the aisle so we do not let this opportunity pass by once again. So far we have two amendments that have been submitted. I need to talk a little bit about those two amendments. One of them is the Murkowski amendment. We have this interesting process under reconciliation. It is supposed to be for deficit reduction, but any time there is deficit reduction, it leaves money hanging out there, and that money can be used in amendments in a number of different ways. It just works on our minds to know that there is money out there that could be spent. So we have a couple of amendments that will use up the money. There are a lot of people who would prefer we didn't use up the money, especially since we are talking about deficit reduction, which means we are spending more than what we have, so what we are spending is money we don't have. But we are going to take this estimate of excess revenue that we are saving and spend it under both amendments. The first amendment is a relatively small amount, $176 million over the next 2 years. It does some very important things. Not-for-profit lenders, particularly small ones, might not be able to participate in the auction pilots and, thus, they will lose funding. This will allow them an opportunity to still be able to participate in the college market and conduct outreach and do all the important things those nonprofits are already doing for students, that they lose out on the auction. When we are talking about money around here, $176 million is a micro-dot in the budget. The other amendment is the Promise Grant Program. It is to spend the outlying money. There is some money that comes in further down the road. It is actually pretty big money, $5.7 billion, and this spends a good portion of it. So the decision people will have to make is actually whether they want to save any money or whether they want to take some of the money we don't have and put it into some new programs. I wanted everybody to know what the situation is. From an accounting standpoint, I feel compelled to point that out. We do have an important bill before us. I hope we can make it through that bill today. I know we can because the rules require us to do that. If we can finish it a little earlier, perhaps we can get to that second package, the one that has good stuff in it, the one that has to be done in order to have a complete package. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I am so pleased at what just happened here. We have an important part of higher education in a reconciliation bill. In every speech I have made since we started this yesterday, although it seems like weeks ago, there was a second part that is actually a bigger part. There is a whole puzzle, and we are taking care of the little red triangle there in the reconciliation bill, but there is a lot more to higher education that we need to do. We came close to getting some done a year ago, but we didn't quite get there. The system kind of failed for the students. Now we have the chance, and we are going to do it on Monday. We are going to take care of that bigger part, the yellow part there, which is the reauthorization. We have talked about this financial aid form simplification--and even showed the multiple pages that are currently required--bringing that down to one page. That is in there. We have talked about the need for better loan disclosure for financial institutions, the need to do a better job of following the rules, and we even interjected some new rules. That is in this part. There are year-round Pell grants so students do not have to interrupt their study when they want to get ready to be in the workforce. There is support for nontraditional students that we have not had before for graduate and international education. We have financial literacy and better borrower information in this part we will be debating Monday. We have privacy protection in there, which is extremely important. We have improvements to the Academic Competitive Grants and the SMART grants which encourage students to get into science and math and engineering and technology and languages and medicine. There is some additional incentive for them to do that. There is also the college cost watch list, which will provide more information to students and to us so we know what we are doing when we reauthorize higher education the next time. There is much more. One of those ``much more'' is a very important part, which is more money for teacher preparation. Teachers are a key to the education system, and they are taken care of in the reauthorization part of the package, not in the reconciliation package. So it is very important to get both of them done. I am so pleased we have been able to arrive at a unanimous consent agreement to do both of them. We will finish this one up. I will make a few comments. We will be ready to yield back time and get on with the vote-o-rama. I wish to echo the sentiment that the amendments are rather limited. I hope that is the case. I think the amendments that were really pertinent to the reconciliation bill have probably already been put out there. There may be a couple of others, but I am hoping we do some things that are pertinent to this reconciliation so we can get that wrapped up and get the reauthorization done so that higher education in this country will function the way we envision it. It is always on a good path. It can be better. These two bills make it better. The reconciliation bill, of course, reduces subsidies to lenders by $18.5 billion and provides $17.6 billion for students benefits. This legislation, coupled with the Deficit Reduction Act passed 2 years ago, will result in $40 billion in changes to Federal student loan programs. I am pleased we have come to an agreement that will allow the rest of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to be considered on the floor of the Senate with limited relevant amendments and a limited amount of time. The bill before us today focuses on a narrow slice of the Higher Education Act. As I mentioned, it will give us a chance to do the entirety of the Higher Education Act, which will ensure the continued quality of our higher education system. Now, as I mentioned, this is the second time in as many Congresses we have been on the brink of systemic reform. We are going to make it through the reform this time. I am so pleased at that. The students of America, whatever age, will benefit from this legislation. We talk about the need for education from the time you are born until the time you retire. We have some other pieces yet that we need to do, such as the Workforce Investment Act, but we are on course to get that done too. The American system of higher education is renowned throughout the world. America's students will now be provided with the tools and assistance contained in both bills to complete their higher education and training to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to be competitive in a 21st-century economy. I supported reporting both bills out of committee. I did ask they be considered together and had that expectation. So I am very pleased that the Senate Democratic leader has worked with us and provided an opportunity to have an open and full debate on the aspects of the Higher Education Act. As debate on this bill comes to a close, it is necessary to thank those who worked long and hard on this bill. First and foremost, I thank Chairman Kennedy. The bill we will be doing Monday is virtually a bill the two of us worked out last year, for which we got to that brink of getting done, and then it did not get done. So now we are presenting it again. I thank him for his commitment to keeping this process bipartisan. Education is bipartisan. There is no partisanship in that. I think that will be displayed throughout the process. And I appreciate his working with me and my Republican colleagues on the HELP Committee throughout this entire process. We have a different process than some of the other committees. We use the markup to kind of find the direction, the intent and the intensity of the feelings on the issue, and then we actually keep working with people through that time to either correct the situation or to get an understanding of what it is we are really doing. Sometimes that even requires coming up with a third way. But that is what has happened in both of these bills, and it gets us to this point. Now, it involves a tremendous amount of work on the part of members of the committee, but it also involves a tremendous amount of work by our staff. They work through weekends. They work late into evenings trying to resolve a lot of these things so it can get to the decision at the Member level. So I particularly thank Katherine McGuire, my legislative director; Beth Beuhlmann, who heads up the education shop; Ann Clough; Adam Briddell; Amy Shank; Ilyse Schuman; Greg Dean; Kelly Hastings; and Lindsay Hunsicker. I also thank the members of Senator Kennedy's staff for their hard work: Michael Myers, who is doing a marvelous job of coordinating with us; Carmel Martin; J.D. LaRock; Missy Rohrbach; Emma Vadehra; Erin Renner; Raquel Alvarenga; and David Johns. Finally, I thank all the members of the HELP Committee and their staffs for all their hard work throughout this process. It has been hard work making sure everybody had an understanding of all of these difficult issues and getting us to this point. So again I thank the chairman for his hard work and cooperative work to be able to get this done for the kids of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ann Clough, a detailee in my office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the remainder of the debate on H.R. 2669.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I again thank the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for his diligent work on this bill and for his outstanding explanation of what is in the bill and ways it can positively affect kids across the Nation. Our goal with this bill and the Higher Education Act that we hope to have follow immediately is to make sure there is affordable access for everybody who wants to go to college. Even affordable access for those who have other educational goals following high school, who have some other occupations they want to pursue that requires specialized schools, this bill will help in all of those aspects. For those who may think some of these goals are unachievable, I wish to share briefly an experience I had last weekend because I was fortunate to have an opportunity to be a part of the Western Governors University commencement. It was a very memorable day and brought back memories of my own graduation and other graduation ceremonies I have been a part of over the years. This one will stick in my mind for a long time to come because what makes the Western Governors University such a unique institution of higher learning can be reflected in the eyes of those who were graduated. The Western Governors University is a school without boundaries. It is a nonprofit school. It was founded and supported by 19 State governments. This is the only time the Governors of several States have joined together to create a university. It is also supported by more than 20 leading U.S. corporations and foundations. This may be important. It is self-sufficient. Of course, it is only self-sufficient because of some of the provisions we are providing so kids have the opportunity to attend. I keep referring to ``kids.'' But with this one, I should not be referring to ``kids'' because the average age of their students is 38. I mention this to encourage everybody that if they want some other job opportunities, there are possibilities. This is one of the possibilities for a person to get some additional education and be covered by what we have in this bill. Western Governors University offers a competency-based, regionally accredited college program that is open to just about everybody. That means a student who proves his or her knowledge in a certain subject area does not have to put in seat time to relearn something they already know. Their knowledge of a subject is measured through a series of assessments when they start, and that allows the university to individualize each course and tailor each degree to meet the needs of that particular student. The courses are all online. There are no classrooms. It can be taken at the student's own convenience and speed. That is why I am mentioning this university. Everybody does not have access, particularly in the rural areas of this country, to a university. But online, they have access to this and other institutions. Tuition is $5,600 a year, and Federal education aid and private scholarships are available. There are 20 corporations that provide quite a few scholarships in addition to that Federal education aid. That makes a degree from Western Governors University one of the most reasonable college educations you can get, especially when you studying while holding down a job. In that situation, your room and board is probably your home. When a student is accepted by the university, they are assigned an instructor, a mentor, a counselor who will work with them and help them make their way through the studies. That individual stays with them the whole time they are in the university and keeps in touch for a year beyond their graduation to help with placement and problems they may experience. The course is designed so that those who have other obligations in their life--children, a job or other responsibilities that make a traditional education impossible--can still get their undergraduate or master's degree while keeping true to their day-to-day obligations and responsibilities. A lot of people have to hold down a job in order to feed their family, yet would like to be able to improve their situation. This college makes that possible. When their studies are completed, their tests have been taken and the degrees have been earned, the whole university comes together to honor the graduating class. That is the ceremony I was a part of and a day I will not forget. The university student body is quite diverse. The campus stretches through all 50 States on the Internet. In addition, the fact that the university serves Active-Duty military personnel overseas stretches this university without boundaries all around the world. The students I visited with on graduation day came from cities, suburbs, and rural areas. The average age is 40, but they range from the twenties to the sixties. The university makes it clear that you are never too old to pursue a degree or return to college to get additional education to get a better job or begin a new career. In November 2000, Western Governors University graduated its first student. It is a new university. Since then, the university has grown and attracted more and more students to its programs. Now, a few years after the first graduate earned a degree, WGU graduates more than 400 students each year in a growing number of degree programs. The school keeps in touch with its graduates to check on how the degrees they have earned have helped to improve their lives. They also have a very active alumni association that helps former students to continue to achieve and set new goals in their careers and pick up additional courses. At each graduation ceremony I have attended, I have always found that what makes each school unique is its student body. Western Governors University was no exception to the rule. I was greatly interested in the remarks that were offered by four students who spoke at the graduation representing their class. I mention these again to emphasize there is a way in the United States to get higher education no matter what your circumstances. One of them wanted to be a teacher. It was a dream the university made possible because their flexibility made her course schedule fit into her life schedule. She already had a son and a job, and she spoke about her work with the teaching program. She had to do student teaching, just like everybody does, and one day she told one of the students in her class how smart he was. He beamed and said, ``You know, I wasn't smart until you came.'' That is what sold her on a teaching career. She could see in his eyes he had come to believe in himself because someone else believed in him. She spoke of the importance of using your gifts and talents to encourage others to be the best they can be. When it comes down to it, that is the sum of what an education is all about, learning to reach out to others so we use all our gifts and talents to make this a better world. Under this bill, there is the capability, if you are dedicating yourself in these areas, to take advantage of some special benefits that are available. Another graduate spoke with pride at how hard he worked to earn his degree and how every moment had been worth it. He too had a family. He mentioned the logic of an online university having a football team and suggested that would truly be fantasy football. For him, one of the most important parts of the experience had been the mentors who worked with him, supported him, and shared his joy when he earned his degree. He was certain his degree would open doors for him and change his life. He was looking forward to getting involved in the alumni program so everyone in his class, and others, could keep in touch and follow each other's successes. At traditional universities, that is an even more important part of college life, keeping in touch and following each other's successes. Another speaker told of the difficulties we all face, and said, ``Don't ever tell me you don't have time in your life or that it is too tough.'' Her philosophy reminded me of a favorite motto of my own family--TGAPA which stands for Trust in God and Push Ahead because that is exactly what she has done. Despite the problems she has had to face, which was the loss of two of her children and a husband who was facing several health problems, she forged ahead, worked at her own pace, and earned her degree. Another speaker who had a message to share was Ngozika Ughanze from Texas--originally from Nigeria--who was one of 10 children. Her father was very concerned about his children and the importance of their schooling so he sent all 10 to school to learn English. It started her on the road to higher education that she has continued to follow all her life. In her words, ``The more I learn, the more I want to learn.'' She left Nigeria with her husband in 1997 because they wanted to get their own piece of the cake. She said, ``I believe if you work hard, then you are able to live here.'' The problem for her, as it was and is for so many, was finding the time to get it done. The only way she could make any progress was to cut things out of her schedule. That meant giving up some of her favorite things, such as television and shopping. It wasn't going to be easy to pursue a college education because of her obligations to her family--she has seven children--but she made it happen. She made it happen despite having to relocate four times because of Hurricane Katrina. She made it happen despite missing some deadlines, which meant she had to work harder to catch up, again because of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, which also got involved in it. She made it happen because she refused to accept any other outcome. She used her family time to study with her children. She enjoyed getting them involved almost as much as her children loved being a part of their mommy's project. As she received her degree, three of her own children are attending college and one day will receive their own degrees. There were nearly 90 graduates in the hall, representing 29 States, but the ones watching online and getting their diploma online represent 42 States and 2 countries and ranged from 22 to 63 in age. A remarkable group of men and women. Although I have only noted the dreams of a few, each of them had their own story to tell about their degree, how they earned it, what they planned to do with it, and how they hoped to use what they learned to make the world a better place. I was very pleased to be a part of that ceremony that honored such a spirited group for having laid the groundwork for a great life. They are all to be congratulated for earning their degrees and for making another of their life's dreams come true. That is what we want for the people of the United States, regardless of age. It doesn't matter whether you are 22 or 18 or 63 or 94. I got to see a diploma given to a man this spring who was 94 and who was pleased to finally get his degree. That is possible in America, and this bill helps to make that dream a reality in conjunction with the hard work of the students. It isn't easy, and it is even more difficult if you are in situations where you have a family, you have a job, and you have to maintain those to maintain your family. So we are doing what is possible to make that burden as easy as possible, and we hope we will have a lot of support. We would encourage people who have amendments to get those down here so we can complete this in a timely manner so we can do the other 80 percent of higher education that also needs to be done and that we have been hoping to get done since last year. So our work is cut out for us, but from these examples, you can see the people out there are worth working for. We owe it to them. We have the chance to do this, so let us do it now. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I need. I want to begin by thanking the chairman of the committee for the consideration he has given to all of the amendments that went into the bill, and also further work from the time that we passed it out of committee to resolve any misunderstandings or any questions. It has been a tremendously cooperative effort and one that I think will lead to a very good bill when we finish with reconciliation. That is not all we need to do for higher education, and I will be emphasizing that throughout the speech, but I am very much appreciative of the leadership and the bipartisanship that has been shown by the chairman and members of the other side of the aisle who serve on the committee. Both sides of the aisle are interested in making sure that we can make a college education as affordable as possible with as much help from the Federal Government as is possible. Of course, I would note that every time we make a little adjustment at the Federal level, the colleges go ahead and make just as big an adjustment in their tuition, which is one of the ways we get to some of the figures that are on that chart. But I do want to speak on this very important bill which is the substitute to H.R. 2669. For millions of Americans, access to affordable college education is the key to their success in the 21st century. We now have a global economy, and to participate in that global economy a person has to have more than a high school diploma. Without some additional education following high school, these Americans will not have the qualifications for over 90 percent of the new jobs that will be created in the next 10 years. I want to repeat that. Without additional education following high school, these young Americans will not have the qualifications for over 90 percent of the new jobs being created over just the next 10 years. This bill, as did the reconciliation bill we considered in the 109th Congress, aimed at reducing the subsidies to lenders and providing greater benefits to students. In the 109th Congress, approximately $20 billion in changes were made to the Federal Family Education Loan, the FFEL Program, by reducing subsidies to lenders and providing $13 billion in benefits to students. The bill before us reduces subsidies to lenders by another $18.5 billion and provides $17.6 billion to student benefits. The result is that within the span of 3 years we will have made close to $40 billion in changes to the Federal student loan programs. Getting to this point has not been accomplished without difficulty. Again, I thank the chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Kennedy, for his commitment to make the process as bipartisan as possible. This is the second time in as many Congresses we have been on the brink of systemic reform of Federal higher education programs. I do not want to squander yet another opportunity to make these programs more efficient, as well as more effective. We are only seeing, at most, half the picture by debating this bill separately from the larger higher education reauthorization package. We have a chart back here that shows that any way you slice it, higher education is left undone if all we do is the reconciliation bill. What is left out? FAFSA simplification: That is the form that students have to fill out in order to get Federal loans. It has been an extremely complicated form. We have made that considerably simpler. Sunshine/loan disclosure, the year-round Pell grants so that students don't just have to go to school through two semesters, but have access to summer semesters. This is important to students who are in vocational programs, and allows them to get into the workforce more quickly after high school. Support for nontraditional students: We had some requirements before that discriminated against the nontraditional students, the ones who are not just graduating from high school. Graduate and international education, financial literacy and better borrower information and better privacy protections are all in the big yellow circle of reauthorization. It also provides improvements for the American competitiveness grants and the SMART grants. Those deal with encouraging kids to go into science, math, engineering, technology, and foreign languages. There is additional money that is available if they do that; some for their freshman and sophomore years in college, much more for math and science in the junior and senior years. The reauthorization bill includes a College cost ``watch list'' and many more provisions. A big piece of the pie is this other part we still need to do. Our challenge is not only to improve access to higher education but to ensure that the quality of our system of higher education is not compromised. We need to consider both pieces of legislation because America's students must have all the tools they need to complete higher education and to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge for the 21st century. We want them to be competitive. The American system of higher education is renowned throughout the world. I can highly attest to that after having gone to India, seen how their educational system works and how it is becoming very competitive with the United States, and seeing what we need to do to ``stay ahead.'' Of course, they like to send their graduate students to the United States for an education because they learn creativity and flexibility. In most of the other countries around the world they learn the basics, can do excellent calculations and have a vast amount of knowledge. But what our colleges specialize in is teaching kids to think, to come up with new ideas. That is what has kept America ahead. Our more than 6,000 colleges and universities enroll over 14 million students and provide access to all types of academic and technical skill-building programs. In Wyoming we only have a handful of the total of these 6,000 colleges and 14 million students. In fact, we only have one 4-year university, and we have seven community colleges. Our grand total of 10 accredited institutions of higher education in the State is the smallest of any State but Alaska. But I do have to digress just a little bit, after we talked about how much students had in loans, and mention that students are worried about tuition, they should take a look at the University of Wyoming. The out- of-State tuition is less than most in-state tuition in other States. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the Western Governors University. This last weekend I got to attend their graduation and it is a unique university. It is largely for nontraditional students, and its program is done completely online. There are no classrooms to go to. The average age of their students is about 38. That was the average age of the graduates this last weekend. Their tuition is $5,600 per year--not per semester. You can take as many courses as you can pack into that year included in that amount. At Western Governors you are assigned a mentor who is a part of the teaching staff. As soon as you get there, that person watches, counsels, and even follows you 1 year after you are out. So there are some bargains out there even for people who feel tied down where they may be now. One of the persons who spoke at graduation was a woman who has seven kids and, because of Katrina had to move four times during her last year of education. She wanted people to know that if she can complete a degree with seven kids and that many moves, that anybody can get a degree in higher education. I will have more to say about the Western Governors University and their low tuition and their opportunity to complete their programs from anywhere in the world. We have a lot of military folks who are participating in that in different places in the world. But the American success story of higher education is at risk of losing the qualities that made it great, which are competition, innovation, and access for all. That is a real key in the United States. I mentioned visiting India, where only 7 percent of their kids get to go on to higher education. That does create a very high level of competition to get in and probably produces more science, technology, engineering, math and medical people than we have. But our principle, our emphasis is on having innovation and access for all. In this bill we are doing deficit reduction. Deficit reduction is a tool that should be taken seriously. While I am pleased that we have saved about $1 billion toward deficit reduction in this process, we have made some changes to the Higher Education Act that may prove to be problematic in the long run. This bill is not the perfect solution. Not everyone is satisfied with where we have ended up, but I do believe that with the traditional need-based grant aid we are making available to low-income students, we are moving in the right direction. I recognize it is essential to find ways to ensure that students have access to the financial assistance they need to attend and complete college. The cost of college has risen dramatically. We saw the figures earlier. At the same time, the need for a college education has never been greater. It is our responsibility to ensure that the investment our students and families make in time and money is a good one and that they are confident that there will be the financial aid to assist continued access to college education. We believe students benefit from competition in the student loan programs, both within the FFEL program and between the FFEL and Direct Loan Programs. It is important to support both programs to ensure that the needs of all students are well served. I think many of us agree that if there is excess in the system we should eliminate it. The key question is how much excess there is and how to eliminate it. There are no perfect answers to those questions. This bill is one answer. Do we all agree? No. But we need to provide students and parents assurance that they are receiving sound, honest advice about their student loans in order to make informed decisions about their futures. This bill continues to recognize the unique role that our not-for- profit lenders have in providing information to students and their families. They conduct outreach to make college possible and assist in debt management and default prevention. Not-for-profits focus on communities and serve students locally. I am pleased we are able to continue to acknowledge the important contribution these entities make. We have reached a good balance in the reconciliation bill, reducing the subsidy to for-profit lenders by 50 basis points, reducing the subsidy to nonprofit lenders by 35 basis points, and reinvesting those savings in need-based grant aid to students. Providing additional need-based grant aid is a critical component of increasing access and affordability. I am pleased this bill does this by providing additional grant funds to Pell-eligible students over and above the increased maximum Pell grant award that is included in the reauthorization bill. I wish to emphasize again, that this is in the reauthorization bill, so we cannot just do a part of this puzzle. By increasing the income protection allowance, we have increased the ability of working students to receive Pell grants, which is critically important as the student population in our colleges becomes more nontraditional. In addition, I think there needs to be in the future some way that we build in an incentive for students to do better in high school, in particular wiping out that wasted senior year. The incentive of Pell grants can be effective in moving students to college with higher levels of achievement. 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. The choice of whether to pursue a postsecondary education is no longer an option. College or some kind of nationally recognized skill certification is needed. We need to make sure individuals have all the tools to understand their choices and shape their future. Let me again remind you, we do not have the whole pie before us today. We are only talking about the little red sliver there. That slice of the pie. We have to do the whole thing. We will be leaving behind students if we do not consider the entire scope of the Higher Education Act, rather than the narrowly focused slice contained in this bill, and those programs that reach students and help them to persist in attaining a college degree. By not considering the entirety of the Higher Education Act, we are forsaking quality in the Federal student loan programs by only cutting their bottom line. We will not provide the disclosure and information students and their families need to make informed financial decisions that will have a significant future impact. Finally, reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, the big part of the pie, is critical to the success of what is the reconciliation bill, as it contains the programs that serve as the foundation for student aid. 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 hope the Senate Democratic leadership will provide us with the opportunity to have an open and full debate on all aspects of the Higher Education Act immediately following reconciliation. Both pieces are essential. There is no reason we cannot debate them and finish them now. I know there is huge bipartisan desire to get both of them done. Since the other one is the bigger part of the pie, probably even more interest in getting the other one done. But they have to go together. One does not work without the other. I will continue to work with Chairman Kennedy and my colleagues on my side of the aisle to address this concern. I hope people will show up with amendments, if they have amendments, so we can get them debated. There is a 20-hour limit on debate. There is no limit on the vote-arama that can happen at the end. But it is not very satisfying to have a vote-arama with no discussion and just a quick vote on the proposals that are out there. So I hope people will bring their proposals down. I hope there is a limited number of them so we can condense the amount of time we debate the reconciliation and get to the bigger part of the pie slice and get it wrapped up this week too. Again, I thank the chairman for his leadership and bipartisanship in getting us here and his willingness to work all the parts of the pie so we can provide the quality of education and the access our students deserve. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I just wanted to congratulate the Senator from Wyoming on the speech he gave this morning. It is his first speech on the floor since he arrived. It is not necessarily his official first speech, but it is his first speech. I wish to congratulate him on doing a very admirable job. He accurately reflected the feelings of Wyoming which he has collected from his extensive travels in the 3 weeks since he has been in office. He has held a lot of town meetings; he has been to a lot of places; he has listened to a lot of people. I also appreciate very much the comments he made about Senator Thomas and also the tribute that has been paid to Susan Thomas at the events he has attended. I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair, and I thank my fellow Senator for his excellence comments.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to express my disappointment in this all-night session and the attempt to call this PR stunt progress for our troops. It is clear that some in this Chamber are putting rhetoric before results. Our troops in Iraq continue to pay the price of political rhetoric in Washington, DC. I believe my colleagues truly care about our troops and I share their desire to have all of our troops home as soon as possible. To endorse a strategy of withdrawing troops in 120 days after this bill passes, however, undermines those very troops. We make it even more difficult for them to achieve their mission. With today's rapid communication made possible by the Internet, cell phones, and other technologies, what we say here can almost instantaneously find its way around the world and straight to the camps of both friends and foes--and they are both watching. In fact, I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that the whole world is watching to see what we will decide to do. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, our U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, has made some very interesting comments that I find valuable. He, like our military commanders in Iraq, is in the best position to give us in Washington a true assessment of the situation on the ground. Ambassador Crocker has stated that he could see the Iraqi Government achieve none of the debaathification benchmarks and yet have a situation of stability and progress. At the same time, we could see a situation where all benchmarks are achieved and yet have an unstable and unsecure nation. In statements on this floor, I have discussed the goals of benchmarks for the Iraqi Government--and I continue to believe we should be setting those goals. We should be helping the Iraqi Government achieve them. But we cannot expect the Iraqi Government to exist in a vacuum where our American ideals of democracy will simply exist in 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year. I have also recently read an article by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Washington Post. Dr. Kissinger wrote about the centuries-long struggles between the Sunni, Shiia, and Kurdish populations in Iraq. He, too, points out that it is unrealistic to expect these groups to, in a matter of a few years, forget hundreds of years of conflict and work together in our timeframe. I will ask that three articles be printed in the Record. The people of the United States and certainly the members of the Senate should continue to press for progress being made by the Iraqi Government. We should provide our troops and our civilian representatives on the ground in Iraq with the resources they need to assist the Iraqis in achieving a secure and stable state. We must not undermine their efforts in attempt to score political points. An assessment of military actions will be released in September. When that assessment is made by those on the ground in Iraq, I will carefully evaluate what their determinations mean for the future of America's troops serving in Iraq. I want to close by expressing my heartfelt thanks to all of the men and women serving in our U.S. Armed Forces. You are all true heroes. You have volunteered to defend our Nation, our freedom, and our way of life. For those of you deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world, I hope you know the difference you are making in the lives of the people around you. Your families, friends, and the people of America are safer because of the work you are doing. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the articles to which I referred be printed in the Record.