Joe Manchin

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. First of all, I respect my colleague, and we just have a difference of opinion, but we are still going to work together on everything we possibly can to make it better. It is my understanding that we will be able to adopt the amendment by a voice vote since we will be having a rollcall vote on passage of the bill as amended with this language. I ask unanimous consent to extinguish the previous order requiring a 60-vote threshold for this amendment.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, we can fix our student loan program with a ``yes'' vote on the bipartisan legislation to lower interest rates for all student borrowers. The bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act is a long-term fix that is fair, equitable, financially sustainable, and fiscally responsible. This compromise will save students $8 billion in interest this school year which translates to $31 billion in savings over the next 4 years. That means a savings of $2,000 in interest for the average freshman student who starts college this year. A ``no'' vote will prevent our students from realizing this savings. There is simply no better investment we can make than the education of our children and grandchildren. I urge my colleagues to make that investment and vote to support this long-term bipartisan fix.

Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, as we know, Congress has trouble with deadlines. That is why we always seem to be missing them. When we have trouble finding a permanent solution, we seem to kick the can down the road, hoping to find a solution later. We are here today trying to fix the problem we have with the government student loan programs because we kicked the can down the road last year, and if we do not stop and start fixing things, we will continue to do it. That breeds a lot of uncertainty into the minds of the families and the children who are trying to go on and better themselves. The result was that on July 1 rates on government- subsidized undergraduate Stafford loans doubled to 6.8 percent. That is a fact. That is what we know we are dealing with, and we are trying to reverse that. Not surprisingly, it set off alarms. My goodness, we all got excited about this. What are we going to do? We had a year to do it, but we didn't do anything; we just extended it--3.4 percent and only for the Stafford subsidized loans and nothing for other loans people were taking. When you consider that 11 million students who are trying to better themselves are borrowing money every year, we were only talking about 1 million. That was all we were trying to help. We forgot about everything else. It is time to fix it today with a ``yes'' vote on the bipartisan compromise we worked out. It is really tripartisan--Democrat, Republican and Independent. That is pretty special around here, if you can get everybody agreeing and moving in the right direction. Let me explain what the bill does and what this bipartisan compromise will do. We can lower the rate for all undergraduates--all of them-- from 6.8 percent, which is where it is right now, to 3.8 percent. So we understand, that means a savings of $2,000 in interest for the average freshman student who starts college this year. Remember, doing nothing and voting against the long-term fix means that the 11 million students who will be borrowing money for this school year will pay a higher rate than they have to. Let's look at the amount of people we are talking about, and the money. This is what we are actually talking about. The legislation, the bipartisan plan, has been scored and we know this first year saves $8.1 billion that students will not have to pay in interest. That we know. For the first 4 years of this plan, 2013 through 2016, it is $31.8 billion. By doing nothing, that is what we are leaving. We are making the students pay that much more by doing nothing. Anything else we do other than the bipartisan, this is the type of money they will be paying in higher interest rates and more obligations on the families. All of us understand the importance of education. It is what has made America the land of opportunity. All of us want to help students go as far as they can with their talent, as far as their talent is going to take them. That is what brought so many of us together to come up with the tripartisan fix, if you will, for the student loan program. We all understand that the student loan rates are only one piece to the issue of making college more accessible and more affordable for all Americans who want to further their education. We will get to the other pieces when we debate the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, on which Senator Harkin has been working so hard. I truly look forward to having those discussions, but today we have to know what we are dealing with. We are dealing today with something that has an immediate impact on the pocketbook of student borrowers and their families-- people who need to borrow money to go to school. That is what is in front of us. We talked all over and around it. We are talking about accounting principles. We are talking about everything that needs to be looked at. But it is not going to change what we are dealing with today because this bipartisan agreement truly has savings that families need. As I said, it is probably more accurate to call our proposal tripartisan, and I am proud to do that with all of us working together. If you think bipartisanship is hard work and hard to get around here, tripartisanship is like hitting the trifecta; that is the megabucks. We are doing something really right when we can get all three sides going in the same direction. This legislation is a long-term fix that is fair, it is equitable, and it is fiscally responsible. We all agreed on a set of priorities when we began our negotiations--that is everybody: Democrats, Republicans, my colleagues on my side of the aisle, the Democratic side, who have other proposals. What we all agreed on is that the interest rate should be as low as humanly possible. We also agreed that there should be strong front-end caps on interest rates to protect student borrowers in high interest rate environments so that it does not just run wild with them. It has a cap of 8.25 percent, which has been historic for some time. We kept that cap. We ensured that the government did not profit or lose money on the loans. I think that was a big thing, that we all came to agreement. Some of the bills we had, had anywhere up to $16 billion of profit built into them. That money was going to go to debt reduction. We said basically that every penny we can reduce in the interest, that money should go right back toward education for the student, and we have done that. I admit there is no legislation that is perfect. I have been around this process for many years, and I have never voted on a perfect piece of legislation. But I tried to get the best we possibly could that made a difference and made sure we can get it passed, and we have that today. It is a good piece of legislation. Anything else that we think needs to be fixed that we have talked about, we can do that when we do the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act under Chairman Harkin, which will be looking at everything. Here is how good this bipartisan--tripartisan--compromise is. The undergraduate Stafford loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, are based around the 10-year T-bill plus 2.05 percent, which would yield a 3.86-percent rate for this year. The current rate is 6.8 percent; now we are at 3.8 percent. Let me show another chart. Nearly 8 out of 10 undergraduate borrowers will have both sub and un-sub loans, while only 1 out of 10 will have subsidized loans. That is how many students will have just the subsidized loans. That is what we thought we were fixing when we froze it at 3.4--that is all the people we helped. I don't think a lot of us understood. Some people thought it helped everybody, and it did not. Only subsidized is this, the Stafford subsidized. Those who borrow only unsubsidized is this. But if you look at those who needed both, this is what we are talking about--6.5 million more students we are helping and serving through this bipartisan--tripartisan--piece of legislation, the compromise. This is what we worked to do. How could we help? You want to help the middle class? This is where the middle class is. This is where the people are who need to have the assistance, this is where they come in, and I think we have done a very good job at doing that. We still have the PLUS loans. We have the graduate unsubsidized loans. Right now the graduate unsubsidized Stafford loans are paying 6.8 percent. Under our legislation they will be paying 5.4 percent. If you look at the PLUS loans today, the PLUS loan current rate is 7.9 percent. Under our bill it is 6.4. One hundred percent--every student--11 million of them who are borrowing money--will be benefited by the bipartisan agreement. Everybody benefits. That is what we tried to do. Our plan keeps in place the IBR, which is the income-based repayment plan. Let's say you graduate after years and you borrowed a lot of money. You have a lot of debt. You get a job that pays $40,000, and you have two kids now. We put in a protection that basically says they can only charge you--you only have to pay 10 percent of your disposable income. With a $40,000 income, with two children, that can be as low as $142 a month. Now, $142 a month--let's say that with the economy, the job you have that is where your heart and desires are--after 20 years it is completely forgiven. After 20 years, you made a good effort and maybe 50 percent of your loan is still owed. The taxpayers are picking up that. When people are saying that we are not helping, that we should be subsidizing higher education, we are doing that and I think with tremendous help. The Congressional Budget Office said our bipartisan proposal will save the government $715 billion over 10 years with $1.4 trillion of money that will be borrowed, and $700 million--that is over 10 years, and that is $70 million a year. That is about as close as they are able to come. What that really amounts to--let me give it to you this way. It might be better. Over the 10 years, $715 million means that the Federal Government--if someone says: Oh, but they are making a profit, over 10 years the Federal Government will make $2.76 on each loan. If we can get it to zero, we will take it to zero. We don't make a penny. That is about as close as we can get working with the numbers we have. We should not deny students starting college this fall $2,000 in savings for the sake of a principle. You say we are making $2.76 over 10 years, so they should not have the $2,000 in savings? It doesn't make sense to me. Chart No. 3. This indicates that the average freshman in 2013 who graduates in 4 years will save over $2,000 on our plan--$22,000 versus current law, $24,000. In the years ahead, the interest rates on newly issued Federal student loans will be tied to the U.S. Treasury 10-year borrowing rates plus add-ons to offset costs associated with defaults, collections, deferments, forgiveness, and delinquencies. What we are talking about is--what they are saying is that rates are going to go up. CBO projects this. They projected it before. If everything that you are hearing--and they say that rates will go up; that is where the difference of about $500 comes in. That is the difference. That is in the worst-case scenario that the $500 would come in. Setting the rates to the market borrowing costs is fair, and it is equitable and sustainable as long as we have strong borrower protections, and it is fiscally responsible. This way, Washington doesn't wind up profiting from students or losing money on them. Depending on the methods of accounting that you use--you heard how much money we are making on this and that. Let me explain a little bit about the accounting procedure. The student loan program either generates $184 billion, if you used the Federal Credit Reform Act--and I will say the Federal Credit Reform Act has been the way the CBO has scored for the last 23 years. For 23 years that is the way it has been done. If you use fair value accounting, which some have basically supported and want us to change to--even CBO has pointed toward that--there would be a $95 billion loss. There is a $280 billion swing between what some people say we are making in excess profit; others say we will be losing money, it is not paying for itself, and we are still subsidizing at the $95 billion rate. That is a tremendous swing. We are not going to fix that. Senator Harkin will look at all of this, and we will be able to address all of this in the comprehensive bill. We should all agree it is simply not fair to make a profit on the backs of students, and we agree on that, and that is why no matter what happens in the market in the long-term, the Senate compromise--and we fought hard for this--on the front end, the Senate compromise includes an interest rate cap of 8.25 percent. Much of this is important because there will be approximately $140 billion in new loans issued every year, which means $1.4 trillion in loans will be issued over the next 10 years. In just a few short weeks students will be returning to school, and they will have plenty to worry about: what books to buy, where their classes are, how to haul all their stuff to all the rooms, and much more. There has been so much discussion and argument. We will be voting on amendments that are based on what will happen after 4 years. This chart shows what the CBO said the interest rates would be. In 2003, we start at around 4 percent. They felt they would go up to 5.8, to 5.9 percent, and level off for the past decade, which is from 2003 to 2013. This is actually what happened. If we locked into some of the amendments some of my colleagues, whom I respect, are telling us to lock into, no one would ever be able to take advantage of these historic lows. We are able to adjust that based on the market rate rather than just a fixed rate. These are the things we don't know, but we know we are going to score $31 billion in savings in the first 4 years. We do know that. This is how far they have been off before, so there is no science in this. If anyone thinks this is the gospel, it is not. With a ``yes'' vote on our legislation today, there is one less thing students and their families will have to worry about: what the interest rate will be this year and how it will be calculated for years to come. We all came here to help our constituents do what we believe is right. We all agree that ensuring college remains affordable and accessible for this generation and future generations of Americans is the right thing to do. There simply is no better investment we can make than the education of our children and grandchildren. We will count on today's students to be the driving force of American creativity and innovation in the years ahead. Some bedrock values define America, and one of them is pretty fundamental: We believe in opportunity. We believe everyone who wants to work hard and play by the rules should have a shot to succeed. To make good on that American promise--the promise of the American dream--we must do all we can to ensure that students can have an affordable education. With a vote today on this bipartisan--more appropriately a tripartisan--agreement to lower the interest rates on all student loans, we will take a large step in the right direction. That is why I urge all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan, tripartisan, agreed-upon legislation that helps students in the future. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, upon the completion of my remarks, I ask unanimous consent my colleagues, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut and Senator Brown from Ohio, be recognized to speak after me.

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, we are talking about student loans. The thing I have found out working this in the amount of time we have been working it is we are all in the same position. We all want to help our students attain higher education, to be productive citizens, to live a better quality of life. We all know that is the most important thing we can do, and we are trying the best we possibly can to come up with a solution. We have what we call a bipartisan bill that we have all worked on. We have everyone's input. I respect everyone's position, and we are going to come to a comprehensive bill. I think under Senator Harkin from Iowa we will have a comprehensive bill that looks at why the costs are so high and why college is so unattainable for so many families today. We have to tackle that problem. The problem before us now is this problem: How do we help the most? What we have before us is 6.8 percent if we do nothing, 6.8 percent across. I know some people have said it is better if the 6.8 stays as it is. I disagree. We have been working on this. Here is the difference. The 6.8 percent that is basically the cap right now--the old cap we had was 3.4 percent just for the subsidized. If we look at the portion of people who are subsidized, it is less than 1 million. If we look at the unsubsidized, it is less than 1 million. If we look at basically the subsidized and unsubsidized, that is more than 6.5 million. Our bill basically reduces that 6.8 rate down to 3.86 for this coming year. Rather than leaving it at 6.85, we have helped this many people who are basically needing this money in order to go to school. If we left it as it is, they would be paying the 6.8. If we only kept the 3.4, the subsidized loan, this is the amount of people we would be helping. So we come as a bipartisan group saying: How can we help the most? I think most of us agree with that. As we look further down these charts, we have also asked: Under current law, how much would the average dependent undergraduate repay? Under the bipartisan bill, we can see 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, which we have scored out, it would be about at 3.86, 4.62, 5.4, and 6.2. At 6.8 across the board, if it would stay, there is a difference of savings of over $2,000. That we know. The other argument that has been used and the point that has been made is rates might go up. Yes, rates might go up. If they do go up, how much would you pay? This is worst case scenario. The bipartisan bill, over the 10-year period, and current law if it stayed fixed over 10 years, it is a very small possibility it would go up, and that would be a $505 difference. The bottom line is we know this is a fact. This has been scored and that is where these rates are going to stay. They think that might be the worst-case scenario. Let me show the difference of what has happened. CBO has not had the greatest track record with scoring. In 2003, we were a little over 4 percent. They projected interest rates for 10 years out. If we look at what they are projecting out for 10 years, it has about the same path as far as what actually happened under the rates. There is a big spread of money that would have been spent based on fixing the rate, let's say back in 2003, versus what was actually occurring. We are hoping we are able to continue that savings. We understand that what we are dealing with is an awful lot of help and safeguards that are built in for young students. The best safeguard we have built in is the IBR, income-based repayment. The IBR Program allows the student who has graduated with an exorbitant amount of debt--and finds a job that basically doesn't give them the type of money they would like--a cap on how much of their disposable income can be paid toward the loan. The cap is at 15 percent now, I believe, and is going to go to 10 percent. It is also based on the amount of years. After 20 years, they are done paying. If their income did not increase appreciably, they are only going to pay the loan back based on their income of 10 percent--10 percent of their disposable income. We think that is a tremendous savings. Most students who qualify for the subsidized loan get the Pell grant. They don't have to pay that back. As far as the subsidized loans, basically the taxpayers have invested in the students who qualify for those for the first 4 years of college, and that interest is not accrued. The interest does not accrue until they leave. Those are the things that have been built in that we think give the protections we want. If we do nothing, we save the students about $8 billion over 2013 compared to $31 billion if we do something. If we are able to help this many students, that is equivalent to a $23 billion difference in savings, and that has been scored. I know we have talked about the accounting procedure. I know the Presiding Officer has worked very hard on this and understands it very well. I agree with you--if we could take every penny of profit out and make sure the students were getting the absolute lowest rate. I also know that basically market-driven rates-- if we are going to go to market, which we are in this piece of legislation--and we look at the risk factors, defaults, and all that goes into that and score that normally under a market-risk value or market value, it would be different. They have shown that market value would be $95 billion we will be losing and that the taxpayers would be subsidizing. The way we are doing it now shows a profit of $184 billion. I am willing to work with the Presiding Officer to clear this up and get something more accurate of how we score and how we charge students. That is not what we have in front of us, and I think that is the difference. We are trying to move forward to get some certainty. We have a lot of students in West Virginia who are deciding whether they can go to college and, if they can, where do they go and what can they afford. This gives them the certainty I think they have been looking for and hopefully the certainty they definitely need. There are more than 8\1/2\ million undergraduate students who take advantage of the Stafford Loan Program every year and over 6.5 million of these students take both the subsidized and unsubsidized loans and that is a big change. Our colleagues on the other side, as we have been negotiating this, we talked to them about how we didn't want any profits whatsoever, and they agreed. The first bill that came from the House had $16 billion on top of what the base was at $184 billion. That has been taken out the best we possibly could to $700 million. When you think about how we are going to run a deficit this year of $740 billion just in our annual budgeting here in Washington--and we are talking about $714 billion over a 10-year period with over $1 trillion. They said that is as close as they were able to come. Even if there is any of that, we are looking at--with this amendment Senator Harkin was able to put in--how we are able to see if that can be funneled back in and reduce the loans even further. I think we are doing everything we possibly can. There is going to be about $1.4 trillion in loans offered over the next decade. We pretty much know that. There is $140 billion of loans every year. As a matter of fact, student loans are now the second largest indebtedness we are carrying. It is the largest burden we are carrying next to a mortgage. It just surpassed credit cards. It is unbelievable. We have to get a handle on the cost of college. Current students and graduates are holding at $1.1 trillion in loans. The loans represent investments and will pay dividends in the form of higher earnings. The best investment a youth is going to make is an education, but if it becomes unobtainable, inaccessible, and unaffordable, it does them no good. We know that, and that is the balance we are trying to find. The average student loan debt--every one of these young students, when they get done with college--for those who graduated in 2011 is about $26,000 that everyone is leaving college with, on average, for a debt. There is only a small percentage of borrowers who have small loan balances, but 11 percent, or roughly 4 million people, owe $50,000 or more. It is truly unbelievable. I have heard everyone here give their reasoning for this, such as not having had good consultation, good advice or good fiscal planning, and that may be true. We can do much better to make sure the students are not taking loans that they can do without or maybe not take too much out. I appreciate the hard work and good faith that all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been showing to reach this compromise. I know it is not easy for many, and I know everybody is going to have, hopefully, their say and their vote on an amendment or two if they wish to. At the end of the day, I believe we can walk away knowing we did better today than doing nothing at all. I believe that. I believe I, the Presiding Officer, and all of our other colleagues are going to come back and work hard whether it is the remainder of this year or next year. Basically, we are going to get a program so that these young people can find college attainable again and affordable. That is what we have all been working on. The plan helps everyone and not just some. It lowers rates 100 percent for all students. So everything we have in our compromised bill brings down those rates. It provides a long-term fix. We don't have to kick the can down the road. We know it is there. If we can find something better between now and 4 years, 3 years, 2 years or even before this year is up, then we are willing to go back and entertain that. We don't want to see loans that were supposed to help students move forward end up moving them back. I know what debt does; it will smother. My grandfather used to say: Indebtedness will make a coward out of you in the decisions you make when you are carrying so much debt. You will be robbing Peter to pay Paul just to survive. We have found ourselves with the sequester, and with everything else going on, we ask how we are going to make it. When you find yourself against a proverbial rock, if you will, you will do things you would never do normally. We are trying to find a way to move forward. It shows our students that the country believes in them and that we support their efforts to advance their education and reach for the American dream. When we, as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, work together and have a real debate on a real problem--and this has been debated--we can come up with commonsense solutions that truly benefit all Americans. I believe we have done that. It is refreshing for such an important issue we have. We have put politics aside in the first and foremost thing we want to do--help the students. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about a Republican, Democrat or Independent, everybody had the same purpose. I thought it was refreshing to see that. We want to lower the rates for everybody. We want to help everybody, give them some certainty and make it affordable. I look forward to working in this more bipartisan atmosphere we have right now on many more subjects. I know we can when we put our country first. The right thing to do is to put our country first. We might be a ``D'' as a Democrat or we might be an ``R'' as a Republican, but we are always an ``A'' first, which is an American. With that, I think the students have been served. I think we will be able to give them consistency. This piece of legislation has been worked on hard. There has been a lot of input, and Senator Harkin did a yeoman's job on bringing some of the most important factors we had to the forefront and into the bill. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MANCHIN

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

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, weeks and months ahead and maybe even for years to come, we will be debating President Obama's latest global climate proposal. It is crucial that this debate be based on crystal clear facts and not clouded by political ideologies on either side. So, starting today, I plan to deliver a series of speeches on energy, and I plan to start with coal, which I know is no surprise to the Presiding Officer. Coal is America's greatest energy resource. I think it is important to lay out the facts about coal for several reasons. No. 1, coal is America's most abundant, most reliable, and most affordable source of energy, and it will be for decades to come. No. 2, the coal industry and its supporters have been falsely portrayed by opponents as monsters who have done something wrong, that they value money over health and the environment. No. 3, I think the American public has some basic misconceptions about coal and how important it is to keeping our economy growing and our Nation secure. I think that because I was recently asked: If coal is so controversial, then why don't we as a nation just use more electricity? The question shows that, basically, people don't understand where their electricity comes from. When we turn the lights on, over 40 percent of the people depend on coal. Most of this industry and this country has been built on the back of coal and what coal has produced. I didn't know how to respond to the person who asked that. It was one of those rare moments when I was at a loss for words. Just imagine standing there and being asked: Why would we continue to keep mining coal? Why wouldn't we just use more electricity? I guess what I should have said was this: When we surf the Internet, watch TV or play video games, when we charge a cell phone or turn on an air-conditioner or plug in our hybrid car to charge it, we are using electricity, and there is a good chance that electricity came from coal. Coal has a distinguished past. In fact, one can't tell the history of America without telling the history of coal. It fueled the industrialization of America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, making us what we are today: the richest and most powerful Nation in history. Coal also has a distinguished present. It is responsible for 37.4 percent of all electricity generated in the United States today--more than any other source of energy. Just as important, coal has a distinguished future ahead of it. The U.S. Department of Energy says it will remain the dominant fuel for electricity generation in our country at least through 2040. Despite so many attempts to kill it, coal is critical to meeting the future energy needs of America. In other words, we can't make it without coal. Coal has the longest and perhaps the most varied history of all fuels. It has been used for heating since the caveman. It was once prized as the best stone in Britain by Roman invaders who actually carved jewelry out of it. Native Americans used it long before the New World settlers to bake their pottery, and blacksmiths have used coal to forge tools and all kinds of metal objects at least since the Middle Ages. In fact, a deep, rich vein of coal runs through all of human history and not just American history. Given all the blame it gets for carbon pollution today, it is worth remembering that coal was universally regarded as a carbon treasure. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of coal to both the American and British economies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Coal was the fuel that fired the Industrial Revolution. In the popular imagination, the industrial revolution is cotton mills, railways, steamboats, engines, and factories. But at the core of the industrial revolution was our use of energy, and the energy that powered the mills, the railroads, the steam engines, and the factories was coal. In fact, when James Watt invented the steam engine, he used coal to make the steam to run his engine, making it possible for machinery to do work previously done by humans and animals. But perhaps the most important role coal played in the industrial revolution was in the making of steel--the predominant building material of the time. In 1861, when the country was torn by Civil War, factories used coal to produce steel for the guns, the bullets, and the cannons that preserved this Union. By 1875, coke, which is made from coal, replaced charcoal as the primary fuel for iron blast furnaces to make steel. With the rise of iron and steel, coal production increased by 300 percent during the 1870s and early 1880s. By the early 1900s, coal was supplying more than 100,000 coke ovens, mostly in western Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia. In the 1880s, coal was first used to generate electricity for factories and homes. Long after homes were being lighted by electricity produced by coal, many of them continued to have furnaces for heating and stoves for cooking that were fueled by coal. I can remember as a young person at my grandparents' home, I would always stoke the fire at night and bank up the coal so it would be warm all night long. Of course, political, economic, and intellectual conditions also contributed to the industrialization of America. Representative government, capitalism, and the free expression of new ideas all played their part. But at the heart of this sweeping industrial revolution, a profound transition from hand production to machines, was because of coal. The first coal miners in the American Colonies were likely farmers who dug coal from beds exposed on the surface and sold it by the bushel--by the bushel. In 1748, the first commercial coal production began from mines around Richmond, VA. By the late 1700s, coal was being mined on what was known as Coal Hill. Now it is known as Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, PA. The early settlers there used coal to heat their homes, but they also carried it in canoes across the Monongahela River to provide fuel for the military garrison at Fort Pitt. Coal was first discovered in what is now West Virginia by German explorer John Peter Salling in 1742 in what is now Boone County. I have to wonder how hard it was to discover coal in West Virginia because coal occurs in 53 of West Virginia's 55 counties. As early as 1810, the residents of Wheeling--once a part of Virginia and now a treasured part of West Virginia--used coal from nearby mines to heat their homes. By 1817, coal began to replace charcoal as a fuel for the numerous salt furnaces on the Kanawha River. But it was not until the mid-1800s that there was extensive mining in West Virginia. The coalfields in southern West Virginia opened in the 1870s, and many of them owed their success to the coming of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Of course, you cannot talk about coal without talking about coal miners--the bravest and most patriotic men and women I have ever met in my life. A lot of Americans only know the TV and movie stereotypes of coal miners, so they do not always give miners the respect they deserve. The fact is that they deserve the same respect as our military veterans because they go down into the mines for the same reasons our veterans took up arms--to protect this country. It is not just a job, it is a calling, it is a way of life, even an act of patriotism in the defense of this great country, and to tell you the truth most of the coal miners I meet in West Virginia are also military veterans. Coal miners are vital to the security of this Nation. That was never so clear than in World War II when Franklin Roosevelt nationalized America's coal mines--it was that important to us. In a fireside chat in 1943 explaining his actions, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: A stopping of the coal supply, even for a short time, would involve a gamble with the lives of American soldiers and sailors and the future security of our whole people. That was the President of the United States in 1943. A stopping of the coal supply is still a gamble with the future security of our country. My own family first came to America to work in the mines back at the turn of the 20th century. Growing up in the small coal-mining town of Farmington, I saw just how proud and courageous all these miners were. In 1968, after the horrific Farmington No. 9 mine disaster that claimed 78 victims, including my uncle, I experienced the healing strength of coal-mining families. Working conditions and living conditions were difficult for miners in the early days, but they did their best to make a living and provide for their families. They fought and struggled for everything--first alone, then as union members led by the legendary John L. Lewis, the lion of labor. Lewis pleaded the case of the miners in what was once described as ``the thundering voice of the captain of a mighty host, demanding the rights to which free men are entitled.'' If you ever have any doubt about the courage of coal miners, read the scribbled last words of one of the miners who died in the mining accident at Sago, WV, in 2006. I was Governor at that time. In the pitch black of the mine, the miner, Mr. Martin Toler, Jr., wrote: Tell all I'll see them on the other side. I love you. It wasn't bad. Just went to sleep. Can you imagine? They were all sitting in that area knowing what their fate would be. From the very beginning coal mining was tough and demanding. It still is. But today it is also safe and efficient, and it is even high-tech. In the 1880s coal miners were learning how to use mules and donkeys to haul coal through the mines. Today they are training in robotics, automation, and positioning technologies. And the pay is good--starting out around $60,000 a year, sometimes even starting at as much as $80,000 a year. Coal mining provides more than 20,000 direct jobs in West Virginia at an average wage above $79,000 per person, generating more than $1.6 billion in income, but it also accounts for another 25,500 indirect jobs in West Virginia. The most recent available data show that the economic impact of the coal industry in West Virginia equals nearly $20 billion a year--$20 billion a year in my little State. To the miner, coal is the energy business, so they are mystified when they hear talk out of Washington about getting rid of coal, even as we continue to try to achieve energy independence. They cannot understand why their own government tries to kill the good well-paying jobs that support their families and provide the energy this country needs. And I cannot understand it either. I really cannot. It does not make any sense. Coal is America's most significant source of electricity, and it will continue to be for decades to come. The United States holds the largest estimated recoverable reserves of coal in the world--enough to last nearly 300 years. Coal currently generates almost 40 percent of the electricity in America, and our own Energy Department reports that our country will get 37 percent of its energy from coal at least through 2040. So it is obvious that removing it from our energy mix will have disastrous consequences for our economy, which is still trying to get back on both feet. We need an ``all of the above'' energy policy that uses every energy source we have--hydroelectric, nuclear, biomass, renewables, and fossil fuels, including coal. You cannot tell the history of America without telling the history of coal, and you cannot plan an energy future for America without coal. To put it in a nutshell, there are 8 billion tons of coal being burned in the world today. One billion tons of coal are being burned in America. For those who are saying we are destroying the global climate because of the coal we are burning, we burn it better and cleaner than most any nation on Earth. I am not a climate scientist, but I do know that the ocean currents and the wind currents do not start and stop in North America. I do know that. And I know that if you stop burning every ton of coal in America, thinking you are going to save the climate of the world, when there are 7 billion other tons of coal being burned--and it is growing faster than any time in history--we have oceanfront property in West Virginia at a bargain for you. That is what we are dealing with today. It does not make any sense at all. I know I have my good friend Senator Hoeven here from the good State of North Dakota, which is the leading energy producer in the country.

Mr. MANCHIN. Will the Senator yield for a question.

Mr. MANCHIN. If I may ask the Senator this, the Senator and I know the facts of what we do in our States and how we do it and how much energy we produce. Both of our States are energy-producing States. We are net exporters of energy, correct?

Mr. MANCHIN. The only thing I would say to my good friend is, we are a Democrat and a Republican from two energy States. It is not bipartisan. Energy should have no partisanship. Energy basically is something we all need and we all use. When you open that refrigerator, you need that energy to keep it cool. When you go into a house out of 100-degree weather, you need to be cool and comfortable. You need energy as a basic quality of life. That has basically made us different from most every Nation. Every developing nation today is trying everything they can to deliver what we take for granted. All we are asking for is for our President--he is my President, he is your President, he is all of our President. We want to work with him. We want him to be our partner. Do not be my adversary; be my ally. Work with me. We can do it. But we have to be serious about it. If there is $8 billion sitting on the sideline at the Department of Energy, and you are telling me you are going to use that for clean coal technology, let's start using it. Let's be a leader of the whole world and show the other 7 billion tons of coal that is being consumed in the world how you can do it and do it better. I think that is really what we are saying. To my good friend from North Dakota, I appreciate so much the approach he has been taking, a most commonsense, a most reasonable, responsible approach. We have been friends for a long time. We were both Governors of our respective States. We worked together. We tried to solve problems. It is exactly what we are still doing here in the Senate. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MANCHIN. Here in Washington, in the atmosphere that you are looked upon, let's say, in the atmosphere you enter into, do they believe we just throw caution to the wind and we do not care about the environment because we come from an energy State? Is that what the Senator is finding when he talks to other colleagues who might not know what an energy-producing State is about, but they sure like what we do?

Mr. MANCHIN. I want to ask my friend this question: Does he believe he could have built that plant in North Dakota today under the regulations that the EPA and this administration were to put in front of him?

Mr. MANCHIN. Let me just say this to the Senator. I found out today-- the information I received today was most disturbing from this standpoint: We all know that if we could develop and have a partnership with our government--with the EPA, with the Department of Energy--of finding the latest, greatest of technology that helped us still be able to use the most abundant resource--and the resource that is in the most demand for the whole world, correct--if we could do that, then we could truly make a difference in the global climate--we truly could--worldwide. I found out today--I am going to make sure these figures are accurate--that there is $8 billion. So the administration can tell me and you: Senators, guess what. We still have $8 billion for clean coal technology in a line item for the Department of Energy. Guess what. That $8 billion has been line-itemed since 2008. Not one project has been approved for which to use the money. I do not know if you found that. We have not had the technology perfected on a commercial basis for carbon capture sequestration. You have a coal-to- liquid plant, I believe. It has worked well for how many years?

Mr. MANCHIN. Let me ask another question. If the plan the President has put forward makes it almost impossible to build another coal plant--and maybe shut down many in this country--is there still going to be a demand for our coal overseas? Will we be exporting that coal? It will be burned somewhere in the world.

Mr. MANCHIN. What we are saying is how many people would think in West Virginia we have one of the largest wind farms east of the Mississippi? How many do you think really understand that? They think we are all just a one-horse show. We have wind, we have gas, we have coal. We have hydro and biofuel. We are all in. We are trying to use every resource we have the best we can. All we are asking for is a partnership. It is so hard to find. The people cannot understand. There is an old saying back home: You cannot live with me, and you cannot live without me. I guarantee you will live a lot better with me than you will without me. This country cannot live with us today and cannot live without us, but they have lived pretty darn good and will live a lot better if they will work with us than against us. I think that is what we are seeing. Our little States are doing the heavy lifting. Our little States have done the heavy lifting. We are providing the energy this country needs. We are providing the economic opportunities to compete globally. If they continue to overregulate to the point they strangle us, they are strangling the economics of this country. I am just praying to the Good Lord they will listen to us.

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

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today to explain my vote against Gina McCarthy, which I will cast later today or the first of next week, to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. My fight is not with her. My fight is truly with the agency itself, the EPA, and the President who nominated her to head the regulatory agency. That fight is not going to end with the Senate's vote on Ms. McCarthy's nomination. It will not stop there. The fight will continue until the EPA stops its overregulatory rampage and until the President comes up with feasible policies that achieve real energy independence, which is what I think we all wish for. I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. I have serious disagreements with many of Ms. McCarthy's views on energy and the environment, but I will say I met her a couple of weeks ago for the first time when she came to my office, and I found her to be earnest, friendly, pragmatic, incredibly intelligent. She is a talented scientist who has dedicated her life to public service. As a matter of fact, she served under Democrats and Republicans alike. I certainly appreciate her pragmatism, her willingness to serve her country, and her stellar bipartisan credentials, an extremely rare quality in Washington these days, as everyone knows. In fact, it is not hard to imagine this same lady could have been nominated to be the EPA Administrator--if Mitt Romney would have won-- by another President from another party. After all, she advised him on climate change when he was Governor of Massachusetts. My vote goes much deeper than her nomination, her views on energy and the environment or even her job performance for the last 4 years as head of air policy at the EPA. My vote against Gina McCarthy is a vote against the administration's lack of any serious attempt to develop an energy strategy for America's future, which we call an all-of-the-above policy. We need to develop every source of American-made energy, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, renewables, wind, solar, biomass, and biofuels. We need it all, and we are responsible to make sure we find a balance between the economy and the environment. Everyone knows it is common sense to use what we have in this country. We need an all-of-the-above policy that includes nuclear, hydroelectric, biomass, renewables, such as wind and solar, fossil fuels, including oil, natural gas, and coal. I truly believe if we work together and focus on a commonsense approach, we can develop a strong bipartisan energy plan. Such a plan will not only break the power of foreign oil countries and speculators, it will also chart a new and promising energy future for this great Nation and increase our national security and prosperity. Think about that. It will increase our national security and the prosperity of our country. The President often speaks about an all-of-the-above energy policy, but I have to say that his new global climate proposal amounts to a true declaration of war on one of the above. It is a true declaration of war on coal. In fact, the President plans to use the EPA to regulate the coal industry out of existence. The coal industry in the United States of America burns 1 billion tons of coal. Eight billion tons of coal is burned in the world today. I don't believe the wind currents or the ocean currents start and stop in North America. If we stop burning every ton of coal and declare war on the economy, it will effectively destroy people's lives and jobs as well as their ability to take care of themselves. There is more coal burned in the world now than ever before, and it is unregulated. We do burn coal better than anyone else, and we can even do it better if the government will work with us. All we are asking for is a partnership. It doesn't matter who is elected as the Administrator of the EPA. If the President plans to use the EPA to regulate the coal industry out of existence, it doesn't matter who it is. It could be Ms. McCarthy or someone else because it is the President and the administration that will be calling all the shots. That is my fight, and it is a fight where I wish we could sit down and work together. It is a fight we cannot lose as the United States of America. There is too much at stake. Coal is America's most abundant, most reliable, and most affordable source of energy. In fact, coal keeps the lights on and provides nearly 40 percent of the electricity in this country--40 percent. Almost half of the population of the United States of America depends on coal for their energy. It is the source of energy that built America. It made the steel that built the factories and defends our country with guns and ships. It has done it all. All we are asking for is a partnership so we can continue to keep the lights on. With all the clean coal technologies we have--and will continue to have for decades--we can use it in a way that strikes a balance between the environment and the economy. There should always be a balance. It can't be all or nothing. It seems as if we have these extremes today where a person is either on the right or on the left, absolutely for an issue or absolutely against an issue. If there is never a compromise, how can we make it work? There is nobody in West Virginia who wants to breathe dirty air or drink dirty water. Nobody in America wants to do that. We have a responsibility to do it better. In fact, in the last two to three decades, we have cleaned up the environment more than ever in the history of this country. For the last 40 years, every President has talked about how to end our country's addiction to foreign oil in order to achieve energy independence. We know our dependence on oil has taken us to places in the world to fight wars that have sacrificed American men and women as well as the precious resources of this great country. We have been fighting wars we shouldn't be in because of our dependence on foreign oil. We need to stop demonizing one energy resource--and I do mean demonizing it. When people say, I hate this or I hate that or I can't stand this--turn the lights off. Turn the air-conditioning off. Turn it all off and see how well you like it or don't like it. If we start using all of our resources, we can, once and for all, end our dependence on foreign oil. If we end our dependence on foreign oil, we will be a stronger and more secure Nation. We can do that within this generation and keep our economy more secure and our economy producing jobs for generations to come. All I ask is for a level playing field. I ask that our government--in this beautiful country of ours--partner with me and West Virginia so we can work together. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MANCHIN

Mr. MANCHIN. Was that for every student who was in college at that time no matter what their ranking or what service they had performed in the military or whether they had the GI bill?

Mr. MANCHIN. Maybe Congress did a better job of getting its financial house in order than we have.

Mr. MANCHIN. I have one question that I would like to ask in the spirit of a colloquy to my dear friend from Iowa. They are saying 1 year, and they are looking at the compromised, bipartisan bill we have worked on. In 3 or 4 years the rates may go up because market rates will change. If we are only looking at 1 year, is there anything prohibitive in our bill that we couldn't go back a year from now if we see a better solution? If we get an education bill, we can say: Hey, here is the grand bargain, which is better than what we thought we had. Still yet, our bill saves $9 billion, and the bill my dear friends in my caucus support only saves $2 billion. If we only do it for 1 year, we help more people save more money, and then we can still rewrite another bill in 1 year. Are we able to do that?

Mr. MANCHIN. If we look at it from year to year, we have 3.4 percent for the smallest group, 6.8 percent for everybody above that, and 7.9 percent for PLUS. Under our bill, it is 3.66 percent for all undergraduates, and every rate comes down; correct?

Mr. MANCHIN. So that is $9 billion versus $2 billion, and that is about as simple as I can make it.

Mr. MANCHIN. I think what we are talking about also is that they are saying if it consolidates, it strings the payment out for the maximum of 30 years, which means they are paying a lot more back in interest; correct? That is the argument I have heard from different people. So that means, why would you have an automatic consolidation? With that being said, I understand that with the government-run loan right now, there are no penalties for me. If I string it out to get the lowest payment for 30 years, and then I said I want to have 10 years, I can do that; correct? That is able to be done. So I can reduce that amount of time and amount of interest with my affordability to pay more.