Buck McKeon

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his work on this issue. As this bill moves through the process, I will work with the gentlewoman, with my good friend from the State of California (Mr. Berman), my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer); you can see this is a coast-to-coast issue; and others to ensure that we have additional compliance from the higher education community on the illegal downloading of copyrighted material, including working on report language during the conference committee to ensure that colleges and universities take seriously their obligation to aggressively tackle this problem. Schools should have policies in place accompanied by strong punishments to notify students that unauthorized downloading and sharing is illegal. I thank the gentleman for his strong leadership on this issue and for bringing attention to this issue. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue and share her concerns. We will work on that. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his work on this issue. I am aware that there has been resistance to efforts to gather this information. I hope it is clear to the university community that Congress will continue to monitor such efforts. I now yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono).

Mr. McKEON. I certainly understand and share the gentleman's belief that illegal downloading of copyrighted material on college campuses is a serious matter. I strongly believe that policymakers, institutions of higher education, and those in the recording and motion picture industries have to make a renewed commitment to address the important issue of piracy on college campuses. You have my commitment to work with you on this issue. I now yield to the gentleman from California for his comments.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes, and I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. McKEON. Yes. H.R. 609 incorporates a new use of funds under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education for integrated education reform services in order to improve college access and opportunity. Under this allowable use, Project GRAD will be able to compete for Federal funding. I recently had the opportunity, at your urging, to visit a Project GRAD program in my home State of California, and they are doing a wonderful job and generating very impressive results. I am grateful to you and Mr. Tiberi and Mrs. McCarthy for your diligent efforts in this.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I have a pro forma amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. You were not alone, Mr. Miller. The Student Association said: ``The advocates say they arrived at the proposed 6.8 percent by determining the average rate that borrowers would pay over the next 10 years, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, if the formula change were to take effect. `Financially we believe that this would be a very good deal for students,' said Corye Barbour, legislative director for the United States Student Association. `We also think this would add much needed simplicity to the student loan program,' '' 6.8 percent, what this law that we are asking you to support puts into effect. We really need to come together, the Federal Government, State government, schools, lenders, parents, students, to solve this problem. The bill that we have before us today, H.R. 609, goes a long way to making that happen. I encourage my colleagues to vote against the substitute; vote for the underlying bill.

Mr. McKEON. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlewoman, a good member of her committee, for her work. I think this makes the bill better, and I hope all of our Members can support this amendment.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to thank Mr. Gohmert from Texas for the great work that he has done on improving this bill. It is very important that this amendment passes and Mr. Souder's amendment later today. I have a letter here from NAICU, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, who have been vigorously opposing the bill, and because of your amendment and Mr. Souder's amendment, they have written us today that they are withdrawing their opposition to the bill on the House floor and I appreciate that, and I appreciate all the work that Mr. Gohmert has done on this bill.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I will claim the time in opposition; although I do not intend to oppose the bill. I want to thank the gentleman from Rhode Island and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for their efforts on this amendment, and again, I think it strengthens the bill, and I thank them for this and encourage support of the amendment.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, but I don't plan to oppose the amendment. I just want to thank the gentleman from Washington and Mr. Kirk from Illinois for their work on this project. I had the opportunity to lead a congressional delegation to China last year, and I think it is very important that we stress the importance of learning other languages so that we can communicate and do a better job of competing around the world, and so I encourage support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment. In fact, the amendment is critical to final passage of the bill. I want to thank Mr. Souder and Mr. Bishop, both good members of the committee, for their efforts in working together to strengthen the bill through this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, this has been an interesting debate. I hope those who have followed it have followed it closely. I think if you have listened to most of what the other side has talked about, they are complaining about what we did a couple of months ago in the Deficit Reduction Act to try to bring some controls to the budget. There have not been many challenges to the bill, and you can see the substitute that they are putting in now, most of what they have in the substitute we have in our bill. The new graduate Hispanic-serving institutions program, very important. Year-round Pell Grants. These are things we have in the bill. As you can see this chart shows how public 4-year institutions' and private 4-year institutions' costs, tuition and fees, have been going up in the last 10 years. If we carried it back further, you can see it is even worse. For over 20 years, the cost of college university higher education has gone up at four times people's ability to pay. We are very concerned about that. That is why it is important that we do the things that we are doing in this bill to bring more affordability, more accessibility, more accountability to higher education. In the bill, we strengthen Pell Grants. We provide students and parents with more information, and we shine a spotlight on excessive tuition rates. And we enhance American competitiveness. All very important things that we are dealing with at the current time. One of the other things they have in their substitute is they lower student loan interest rates. Now, interest rates are really an interesting thing. I remember back about 30 years ago when Mr. Carter was President, interest rates got up to 19, 20, 21 percent, and that just seemed to be the norm. It looked like it was going to go on forever. When we passed the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 1998, we lowered interest rates, and we have been living with lower interest rates for students even though their loans have gone up from $8,000 average to $18,000 average. They are still paying about the same amount of interest in repayment. That was due to the work that Mr. Kildee, myself and the Congress did in 1998. That was a good thing for students. Now they are talking about how bad the interest rate of 6.8 percent is. The Fed increased the interest rate this last week. Interest rates are going up. Who knows what they are going to be like in the future? Let me read what Mr. Miller said when we worked together in 2002 to set the interest rate: ``Over the last several months, PIRG has worked closely with other student advocates and the lending community to develop a compromise that will deliver low-cost loans to student borrowers and maintain the stability of the guaranteed student loan program. We're confident that S. 1762 does this, and we applaud the passage of the provision.'' What that did was set interest rates at 6.8 percent.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is an interesting debate we have had to this point. This is a bill we have been working on now for 3 years. Up until 2 days ago, it was totally a bipartisan effort. As you can see in their substitute, they include many of the things that we have in the underlying bill. We have a basic difference of opinion that the gentleman has pointed out. I look at it a little differently than he does. I feel it is not totally the Federal Government's responsibility to provide for all of higher education. When I introduced a bill a few years ago to try to keep the cost of higher education down, because it has been going up for the last 20 years at four times the ability of people to pay, I said it is important that the Federal Government, the State government, the schools, the lending institutions, the parents, the students all come together to solve this problem, and I still feel that way. I feel it is important for all of us to come together to solve this problem, not simply the Federal Government to pick up whatever the difference is. As schools continue to increase their fees and tuition, the Federal Government should not have the responsibility of picking up all of the difference. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Higher Education to let him further go into some of the differences and some of the things that we have done in the past and some of the things that we do in the underlying bill for the importance of higher education for our students of this country.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), a member of the committee.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee Of The Whole

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 609.