Bobby Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a statement from Third Way urging Members to stand up for students across the country and vote ``no'' on this bill. [From Third Way, July 18, 2023] Third Way Statement on the Schools Not Shelters Act (By Lanae Erickson) Washington.--Third Way released the following statement from Lanae Erickson, Senior Vice President for Social Policy, Education, & Politics: ``House Republicans have found another target for their 'defund' campaign: schools. The Schools Not Shelters Act would pull federal funding from any school that provides undocumented immigrants with shelter, even temporarily. By bringing this bill to the House floor, majority is yet again signaling that their priority is to put politics over the welfare of our country's students. ``During a time when teachers and students are working tirelessly to overcome learning loss from the pandemic, Republicans are threatening to defund schools to protest something that has nothing to do with students' quality of education. What's worse, schools in the poorest communities across the country are the targets of this political stunt. If Republicans really cared about students, they'd work with Democrats to invest in our nation's schools and improve educational outcomes. Instead, they're focusing on banning books, banning history, and banning migrants. Teachers and students have much bigger things to worry about. ``Republicans have backed out of every major bipartisan immigration reform deal this century, leaving the system outdated and overwhelmed. And now they're punishing American students for the consequences of their inaction. ``We urge all Members to stand up for students across this country and vote `no' on this bill.''

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record another letter from Council of the Great City Schools pointing out that the bill does nothing to help urban school districts and communities provide the needed educational and transitional services for newly arriving students and families. Council of the Great City Schools, June 12, 2023. Hon. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman, Committee on Education and Workforce, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Bobby Scott, Ranking Member, Committee on Education and Workforce, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member Scott: For more than a century, urban schools have taken in children and families from other countries who came to the United States seeking a better life and who eventually served as the backbone of the country. The nation's Great City Schools seek to not only meet our legal obligations to provide educational services to whomever comes through our doors but to do everything we can in partnership with our local communities to make sure that newly arriving students and families are welcomed and prepared to give back to the country. In recent years, the nation's urban public schools have opened their doors to families from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Sudan, and many other countries as they were seeking refuge, freedom, and a better tomorrow. In addition to providing newcomer aid, instruction, and social services to students, the Great City Schools are helping families find housing, coordinating community services, and providing much of their initial social contacts, translations, and food services. They have also provided cultural orientations, language lessons, and other assistance for refugee families upon their arrival. The Council has examples from school districts across the country--including Anchorage, Sacramento, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tulsa, Charlotte, and countless other cities--that are working with their local agencies, faith-based leaders, charities, and financial institutions to welcome new arrivals, align and coordinate services, and create a seamless transition into the public schools and the community. Unfortunately, the Schools Not Shelters Act (H.R. 3941) before the committee does nothing to help urban school districts and communities provide the needed educational and transitional services for newly arriving students and families. After decades of inaction, we urge Congress to focus on bipartisan and comprehensive solutions to address immigration reform rather than threatening federal funding or intervening in local decision-making regarding housing for those who need it. Sincerely, Raymond Hart, Executive Director.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that my Republican colleagues are forcing through another proposal that contradicts our responsibility to help students succeed. This bill threatens to take funding away from schools if they are used for emergency shelter to shelter undocumented immigrants, except specifically exempting cases of disaster. It allows anyone else to be sheltered, just not undocumented immigrants in an emergency. We should be focusing on helping students make up for learning loss. They were out of school for a long time. Last Congress, congressional Democrats took critical steps to actually address learning loss by passing the American Rescue Plan Act, investing in students' abilities to offer after-school and summer mentorship and tutorial programs, yet not a single congressional Republican voted to pass the American Rescue Plan Act. Now, they are seeking to pass a bill that takes funding away from public schools while also considering a budget that makes dangerous cuts to Federal educational funding. If my colleagues want to address learning loss, we should be talking about evidence-based strategies that actually meet the needs of students. If my colleagues want to keep students safe, we should be confronting what is actually killing them. Parents, teachers, and students are demanding that we take meaningful action on gun violence. Yet, my Republican colleagues refuse to budge on that issue. Instead of coming up with meaningful solutions, Republicans are continuing to push their extreme agenda that does nothing to address learning loss or improve school safety. We should all agree that our students, parents, and schools deserve better. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to respond to the amendment because the underlying bill makes little sense. I am not sure what the amendment does because if the amendment is passed, undocumented immigrants would be properly sheltered in the schools because there is an exemption for disasters. After 72 hours, 3 days if the disaster is still going on, I guess you would have to kick them out to avoid liability, unless the emergency is over. If there is no longer an emergency and they are not being housed under an emergency, they can't be housed because only emergency sheltering is allowed. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I just oppose it, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and recognize the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice (NABCJ) on their 50th Anniversary. The mission of the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice is to act upon the needs, concerns, and contributions of African Americans and other people of color as they relate to the administration of equal justice. This milestone of NABCJ advancing justice for 50 years signifies decades of positive change and a commitment to criminal justice as a fundamental aspect of our democracy. At the heart of NABCJ is its dedicated members, who consist of criminal justice professionals including those in law enforcement, corrections, courts, social services', academia as well as religious and community leaders. They work diligently to research relevant legislation and focus attention on improving law enforcement and our criminal justice system through evidence-based policies. Their strong commitment to respect the dignity of all humans contributes to the NABCJ's rich history of excellence and integrity. The 400 Years African American History Commission, created by Congress in 2017, has been heavily engaged with NABCJ through 11 student chapters of the organization at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Additionally, the National Alliance of Faith and Justice, first formed as a committee of the NABCJ, was founded and has successfully grown over the last 20 years. The establishment of these relationships have helped pave the way for African Americans and other people of color to receive equal justice under the law. The National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice has a long history of promoting evidence-based strategies that more effectively address crime and keeping America's communities safe. I was grateful for NABCJ's support of my Youth Prison Reduction through Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education (Youth PROMISE) Act, which I first introduced in 2007 to help communities develop and implement evidence- based strategies to reduce youth violence and delinquency. Provisions of the Youth PROMISE Act were ultimately enacted in the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018, and it would not have been possible without the work and support of organizations like NABCJ. Mr. Speaker, NABCJ embodies what it means to fight for ``liberty and justice for all.'' It is my pleasure to congratulate the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice on the many hard-fought battles won since its inception 50 years ago and wish the organization many more years of success.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I also thank her and the gentleman from Illinois for talking about the importance for opportunity and a recognition of the history of discrimination in the United States. The Supreme Court has long held that our Nation has a compelling interest in creating racially diverse college campuses. Holistic college admissions practices that narrowly tailor the use of race as one of many factors in evaluating prospective students are a key to fostering such diversity in a college campus environment. Such admissions policies not only help the historically underserved students, research confirms that diverse campuses also provide all students with a better quality, well-rounded education. Last month, the Supreme Court decided, with little regard for precedent, that Harvard's and the University of North Carolina's pursuit of these compelling interests is unconstitutional. Regrettably, the Supreme Court's decision is a setback in our effort to eliminate invidious disparities in access to higher education and an effort to ensure diverse learning environments for all students. Now that it is done, it is imperative that we review all other facets of college admissions that research shows may be racially discriminatory and have a disparate impact and determine if they, too, need to be eliminated, given this ruling. Now, there are admissions factors to take into consideration: Racially inequitable K-12 schooling opportunities, racially biased admissions tests, the legacy admissions that have been mentioned, and other factors that may have a discriminatory impact. Now, race-conscious affirmative action provides a counterbalance to these discriminatory practices, but since the Court has invalidated that balance, we must now review all current admissions practices to see if they, too, have disparate impact so that we can see whether or not they are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. To facilitate that review, we must pass the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act. This bill that has been pending for several years would hold federally funded programs, including schools, accountable for providing students with equal access to education by restoring a private right of action for students and parents to bring disparate impact claims under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Because of a Supreme Court's interpretation about 20 years ago, there is no longer a private right of action in Title VI cases. Those cases based on disparate impact must be brought by the Federal Government. So if there is discrimination going on, the Federal Government has to run around the country and find it. If it is going on in your community and you know it, you can't bring that individual case. Mr. Speaker, Justice Sotomayor said it best in her dissent when she said that: ``Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954, is true today: Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality.''

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H. Res. 461. Like clockwork, we are here, yet again, taking up another proposal that, among other things, purports to improve school safety but does nothing to address gun violence in schools or improve students' mental health. So far this Congress, the Republican priorities for K-12 education have focused almost entirely on so-called culture wars. First, the House Republicans passed legislation to ban books. The House then advanced legislation targeting trans students. We just debated an impeachment resolution, and now the House is considering a proposal that would encourage taking away funding from schools whose facilities are used to temporarily house refugees and immigrants. Schools are routinely used to temporarily house people in emergencies like hurricanes or earthquakes. So now I guess they are suggesting that we check citizenship papers before we let people in. The resolution falsely implies that temporarily using school facilities to house immigrants leads to learning loss, but there is no evidence to support that claim. Addressing learning loss and helping students make up for lost time in the classroom is what we did last year, without a Republican vote, when we made historic investments in the American Rescue Plan to help schools make up for lost time by funding after-school, summer mentorship programs, and other initiatives to actually make up for lost time. But we cannot continue to meaningfully address learning loss or meet students' mental health needs if all we are talking about is taking away Federal funds from schools. Moreover, any conversation about school safety that does not meaningfully address gun violence, is not a serious conversation. This is a haphazard proposal and another distraction. Since it is a nonbinding resolution, it doesn't actually do anything the supporters of the resolution say need to be done. It does nothing to improve immigration policy. It doesn't even stop the use of schools to house immigrants. This is a nonbinding resolution. If my colleagues are serious about addressing learning loss, we should be talking about evidence-based strategies that meet the needs of our students. There is nothing in the resolution that addresses learning loss or mental health. If my colleagues were serious about school safety, we should be confronting what is actually killing them. Parents, teachers, and students are demanding that we take up meaningful legislation to address gun violence. There is nothing in the resolution to address gun violence. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 461. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), the ranking member of the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that House Republican priorities for K-12 education are focused entirely on distractions. Instead of devising ways to meaningfully address learning loss or gun violence in schools, here we are, threatening to withhold Federal funds from K-12 schools that do not adhere to the extreme MAGA agenda. The reality is that H. Res. 461 does nothing to address the real issues confronting students today. This is a nonbinding resolution, so it does nothing to fund education. It doesn't even prevent schools from being used to house undocumented immigrants. One thing that we have to come to grips with is complaining about a problem doesn't solve the problem. Complaining about immigration policy doesn't solve the problem. Complaining about schools doesn't address any of the underlying problems. It doesn't fix anything. What this resolution is, is an opportunity to complain, but it doesn't do anything. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I would inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, the proposals in H.R. 3799 are yet another recycled, futile attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and actually make it harder for workers and families to find affordable, high-quality health insurance. This legislative package includes two bills that were marked up by the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The first is the Association Health Plans Act. This act undermines a core promise of the ACA, access to affordable healthcare for all. This faulty legislation may provide lower costs for some enrollees, but it would do so by skimping on benefits and increasing costs for everybody else. Specifically, the bill would allow association health plans to cherry-pick low-risk, young individuals for a pool separate from the ACA marketplace. You may hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle tout the bill's nominal protections against discrimination based on preexisting conditions, but they omit the details regarding the other large loopholes that leave consumers vulnerable in this bill, such as charging higher risk groups more so that the plan will not be attractive to them and charging low-risk groups less so that they will be the ones that come in. In fact, this legislation explicitly authorizes AHPs to set premiums based on the ``specific risk profile'' of employer members, enabling them to charge higher premiums to groups based on their age, gender, and other factors. AHPs could also exclude certain categories of coverage, such as maternity care, mental health, or substance abuse disorder, to dissuade certain groups or individuals from enrolling. Under the bill, association health plans could also evade essential health benefits and other consumer protections under State and Federal law. It is a bad idea because of simple arithmetic. If healthy, low-risk individuals can leave the Affordable Care Act marketplace risk pool and join a separate association and pay lower rates on average, those that did not get into these plans will, on average, pay higher premiums. Let's be clear. Only low-cost groups will be in these plans because if you are a high-risk group, the cost will be too much and will not be attractive. If they are high-risk groups with preexisting conditions, older groups, and whatnot, they will not be able to form groups that charge less than the ACA marketplace, and nobody will want to join. Under the ACA, everybody pays an average. If you have a preexisting condition or do not have a preexisting condition, everybody pays the same, and everybody gets insurance at an affordable cost. Everybody enjoys all the essential benefits under the ACA. Association plans, for example, do not have to provide coverage for essential benefits like maternity benefits. All the costs of maternity care will be borne by fewer and fewer people. The average cost of insurance for those not in the plans will slowly grow as the number of association plans grows. Various versions of this legislation have been pushed by Republicans for decades, but all iterations suffer from the same fundamental flaw, they shift costs to the most vulnerable. That is why more than 30 leading consumer and patient groups have expressed serious concerns with this harmful legislation. The other bill marked up in the Education and the Workforce Committee was the Self-Insurance Protection Act, legislation that further erodes the ACA by exempting stop-loss insurance from key consumer protections. The bill would prevent the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury from regulating stop-loss insurance coverage. Even more troubling, the bill makes it virtually impossible for States to protect consumers from abusive practices by invalidating State laws that regulate stop-loss. Stop-loss insurance usually covers costs above a catastrophic level, over a million dollars or something like that. They can be written to cover everything over a thousand dollars when they become essentially regular insurance except that they are not regulated. There are no solvency regulations, no benefit regulations, no nothing. We can all agree that small businesses and self-insured people deserve access to affordable healthcare, and that is what you get under the Affordable Care Act. We should also agree that people deserve basic consumer protections to ensure that they have insurance with quality, solvency, an agency to call if something goes wrong, and coverage for essential benefits. That is why we passed the Affordable Care Act in the first place. It is also why, when Democrats were in charge in the last Congress, we passed the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act to make coverage even more affordable. The question before us is: Do we want to make sure that every individual can continue to find affordable and quality healthcare coverage, or do we want to pass H.R. 3799 and create roadblocks for Americans seeking care? Madam Chair, I would hope that we would oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, the gentleman from Michigan talked about the motive of employers. I think the employers want to give good coverage. The problem with this bill is it enables one company to find loopholes to get a good deal for that company even if it results in higher costs for everybody else. That is the problem with this legislation. Madam Chair, I include in the Record a letter of opposition written by the AFL-CIO. Among other things, the letter states that this bill undermines comprehensive coverage and subjects workers to financial risk.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I include in the Record a broad post written by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Among other things, the post states that the bill will undermine consumer protections, segment insurance markets, and impose new burdens on individuals to navigate an already complex system. [From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 20, 2023] Health Bills Headed for a Vote in the House Undermine Consumer Protections and Market Rules (By Sarah Lueck) The House is moving toward a vote on legislation that would weaken Affordable Care Act (ACA) consumer protections and private market rules. Proponents of these changes claim they will increase choices and reduce red tape for employers, but a closer look shows the problems they would create. The legislation would: Expand association health plans (AHPs). The legislation would allow AHPs, a type of health plan that trade associations, professional groups, and other organizations may offer their members, to cover self-employed individuals and small businesses as if they were large employers. This would exempt them from ACA standards that otherwise apply to health plans in the individual and small group markets. Similar to a Trump-era rule a court struck down in 2019, the bill would segment insurance risk pools: some individuals who are younger and healthier, or small businesses whose employees have that profile, could get plans with lower premiums because they would be priced separately from ACA- compliant coverage and would not have to meet ACA standards, such as a requirement to cover a set of essential health benefits. As a result, other individuals and small businesses remaining in ACA-regulated markets would see higher premiums. Expand Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs). The legislation would codify provisions similar to a Trump-era rule currently in place that allows employers to forgo offering a regular group health insurance plan and instead offer an HRA (a tax- favored, employer-funded account) that workers could use to buy their own individual insurance coverage. Increasing such arrangements could raise ACA marketplace premiums; they are likely to attract sicker-than-average firms that can spend less to fund an ICHRA than they must pay for a group health plan. And firms may find strategies to shift sicker workers to HRAs, even with guardrails in the legislation meant to prevent this. Plus, these arrangements require employees to do considerable work compared with signing up for an employer plan--they must apply for and select a plan, set up premium payments, and understand what expenses the ICHRA covers. Also, workers offered an ICHRA could be confused about whether the offer renders them ineligible for a marketplace premium tax credit--that is, whether it constitutes an ``affordable'' employer offer that precludes credit eligibility. And while employers must give workers a notice of HRA rules, they needn't personalize them to tell individual workers whether their plan is affordable. These complications for employees could drive down coverage. Increase self-insured employer plans. Another provision would encourage more small employers with healthier workers to self-insure (meaning that the employer bears the financial risk), rather than offering a fully insured health plan (for which an insurer bears the risk). Specifically, the bill would protect a complex self-insurance arrangement known as level funding from tighter regulation. Similar to AHPs, this scheme allows small firms with healthier workers to provide plans that avoid ACA small-group market premium and benefit standards without being a large employer or taking on the risk of self-insurance. This provision would make level funding an even more common way for smaller firms to avoid having to offer plans that meet ACA market rules--this would raise premiums for small businesses that remain in the fully insured, small-group market if small firms with younger and healthier workers move to self-insure. House committees recently approved other health bills that raise concerns. The Ways and Means Committee moved to expand health savings accounts (HSAs), which overwhelmingly benefit high income people and exacerbate racial and ethnic inequities in coverage access and wealth accumulation. HSA tax benefits currently are only available when someone has a high-deductible health plan that meets certain federal rules. But the committee approved a bill that would allow high- deductible plans to cover telehealth services pre-deductible, while still qualifying for HSA tax benefits. It is estimated to cost $5 billion from 2025 through 2033. Another bill, approved by the House Education and Workforce Committee, would let employers offer workers stand-alone telehealth-only plans and exempt the plans from providing ACA consumer protections or meeting other federal laws that otherwise apply to employer coverage. The bill would exempt telehealth plans from, for example, covering mental health care at parity with other care and providing preventive services at no cost to enrollees. The plans could also impose annual and lifetime limits on coverage and sharply limit the types of conditions they would address. Additional policy changes are needed to make health coverage and care more affordable for many people, despite the ACA's significant benefits for individuals and small businesses. But the legislation heading to the House floor is misguided. It would undermine consumer protections, segment insurance markets, and impose new burdens on individuals to navigate an already complex system.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chair, I regret that my Republican colleagues continue to relitigate the Affordable Care Act. However, what we have seen is not new. It is what we have seen time and time again over the last 13 years. They continue using every tool they can to undermine the ACA and limit access to quality healthcare, weaken consumer protections, and increase average costs. The provisions of this package do nothing to lower overall healthcare costs for workers and their families. In fact, for most consumers, the result of this legislation is that while some may save a little bit, most consumers will end up paying more. Madam Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. Association health plans have a long, well-documented history of cutting costs for themselves by cherry-picking the cheapest people to cover and leaving the more expensive behind. This raises costs for everybody else and causes premiums to go up in the rest of the market. Republicans have been pushing this idea for decades, and experts have consistently found it to be harmful. The Affordable Care Act made a number of reforms to commercial insurance markets, including a requirement that plans in the individual and small group markets cover essential health benefits such as maternity care and prescription drugs. The ACA also prevented these plans from charging higher rates based on health status and limited the premium amount that older people could be charged compared to younger people. This was a vital protection that ensured that an age tax would not make coverage unaffordable for older individuals. This legislation has no protection without this amendment. The bill is entirely silent on discriminatory pricing against older people. In fact, by explicitly allowing associations to base premiums on risk factors of each employer within the group, it actually invites them to charge older Americans much more. This amendment would ensure that older workers are protected by providing in this bill that it would not take effect until the Secretary of Labor certifies that it would not have the impact of raising premiums for older workers. I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her leadership on the Education and the Workforce Committee. Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 45, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, 43 million Americans are eligible for President Biden's student loan relief. That is about 100,000 people, on average, in each of our districts. Nearly 26 million borrowers in congressional districts all over the country have already applied for relief, including 16 million who had already been approved for relief prior to litigation stopping the process. H.J. Res. 45 seeks to deny these borrowers the relief that they were promised. To be clear, the people who would be impacted are not the wealthy and well-connected. Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of the relief would go to borrowers earning less than $75,000 a year, and you are not even eligible if you are making more than $125,000. That is in stark contrast to the Trump tax scam where 80 percent of the benefits went to the top 1 percent and corporations. For the top 1 percent, that is about half a million dollars. Moreover, my Republican colleagues refuse to acknowledge the serious questions that have been raised about how the resolution would actually be implemented, because under a Congressional Review Act resolution, you don't pick and choose which parts of the rule you are overturning, you have to overturn the whole rule, including the pause in student payments and the deferral of interest. Now, how do you unpause a payment that you were supposed to make many months ago? What is going to happen to all those interest payments that now have to be added back to those loans? What happens to the credits that participants in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program were promised during those months? Are the firefighters and teachers and police officers and other public servants who may have already had their loans forgiven based on those credits, now back on the hook for additional payments? The reality is that H.J. Res. 45 would trigger a wave of delinquencies and defaults for most of our vulnerable borrowers. Intentionally or not, this resolution would create chaos for borrowers and their families, as well as loan servicers. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that this chaos would be triggered by the retroactive application of this rule. Mr. Speaker, anyone in this country who wants to take advantage of the benefits of a college education should be able to do so, not just the wealthy few. That is the way it used to be. Just several decades ago, the Pell grant covered 80 percent of the cost of attending a State college. Now it is less than 30 percent, and States are paying a much lower portion of the costs of State colleges than they used to. This proposal does nothing to help students, so I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from approximately 200 different organizations in opposition to this resolution. May 8, 2023. Hon. Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker McCarthy, and Minority Leader Jeffries: The undersigned 261 organizations representing millions of students, workers, people of color, veterans, people with disabilities, consumers, and people of faith write in strong opposition to bicameral efforts to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn President Biden's actions to pause student loan payments and provide student debt relief for low-income and working-class Americans continuing to recover from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating economic fallout. In March, policymakers in the House and Senate unveiled a CRA resolution to retroactively overturn the pause of federal student loan payments and interest accrual, and President Biden's debt relief plan. If successful, these CRA efforts would immediately force tens of millions of borrowers into abrupt and unplanned repayment with devastating effects, including adding thousands of dollars of payments and interest onto their loan balances. It will also force the Department of Education to unwind loans forgiven under Public Service Loan Forgiveness for first responders, nurses, educators, servicemembers, and hundreds of thousands of other public service workers across the country. These actions are a clear attack on millions of the most vulnerable workers and families who are still reeling from the devastating impact of