[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 116 (Thursday, July 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H8126-H8128]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 547 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, 
H.R. 3043.

                              {time}  1148


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R. 3043) making appropriations for the Departments of 
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies 
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, 
with Mrs. Tauscher in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on the legislative 
day of Wednesday, July 18, 2007, amendment No. 31 printed in the 
Congressional Record by the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) 
had been disposed of and the bill had been read through page 125, line 
2.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, as we begin this debate today, I think I 
ought to take just a moment to explain to the Members of the House 
where we stand. We have, I believe, 19 amendments still pending to this 
bill. Four of those amendments will take at least one-half hour and 
perhaps significantly longer. When you add the slippage time to those 
debate minutes, if every Member exercises his or her right to offer the 
amendments that are filed, we could be here for another 8 hours on this 
bill.
  I know Members are trying to catch their planes. I will try to keep 
my remarks as brief as possible; I would appreciate it if everyone else 
would do the same. And if there are those Members who could be 
persuaded to forgo offering an amendment or two, that would be helpful 
also in terms of any Members who are trying to catch planes. I think 
that by now we are well aware of what people's philosophical ideas are 
about this bill, and I would appreciate it if Members could extend 
enough courtesy to their colleagues so that our colleagues, especially 
those on the west coast, will be able to make their planes without 
staying in town overnight.
  Mr. WALSH of New York. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. WALSH of New York. I certainly would like to echo his sentiments 
regarding the time available to us to complete the bill and the ability 
of Members to get home.
  Let me just offer a modest proposal. There is a unanimous consent 
request, but I just ask that the authors consider the possibility that 
there are four across-the-board cuts proposed for the bill different 
percentage amounts and there is 2 hours allocated for that debate.
  Seemingly, 1 hour's worth of debate to determine whether or not there 
was a majority of votes in the Chamber to cut this bill across the 
board by 0.25 percent or 4.6 percent, seemingly 1 hour would be enough 
time to debate as opposed to 2. So that decision has been made, but as 
the chairman suggested, people may think differently as we move on 
through the debate about the possibility of spending less time debating 
those same issues.


                 Amendment Offered by Mr. Westmoreland

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the 
amendment, and I will ask the Clerk to read it.
  The CHAIRMAN. A point of order is reserved.
  Without objection, the Clerk will report the amendment.
  There was no objection.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Westmoreland:
       At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the 
     following:
       Sec. __. None of the funds made available under this Act 
     may be used by the Department of Education to publish or 
     process the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in a 
     language other than English.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, July 
18, 2007, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) and a Member 
opposed each will control 5 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, when a student decides to go to 
college, many families gather all their financial records and sit down 
to fill out the free application for Federal Student Aid, or the FISA, 
form.
  To be eligible to receive Federal student aid, a student must meet 
certain eligibility requirements. Importantly, one of those 
requirements is that the student be a U.S. citizen or eligible 
noncitizen, basically, a legal permanent resident. They also have to 
have a high school diploma or a GED and be enrolled or accepted at a 
school that participates in the Federal Student Loan Aid program.
  Given these requirements, it would be expected that a citizen or 
legal permanent resident that is a high school graduate or GED holder 
and has been accepted as a student at an institution of higher 
education would be able to complete the FISA in English; however, the 
U.S. Department of Education clearly does not think so. I have a higher 
opinion of our education system than that, and I believe a student that 
meets these eligibility requirements will be proficient enough in 
English to complete this form in English.
  When I learned that this free Federal student application form is 
available for completion in either English or Spanish, I became 
concerned that others don't share my opinion of the capabilities of our 
education system. Even more disturbing is the presumption that the 
Federal Government would be subsidizing the college education of an 
individual that does not have the proficiency in English to fill out 
the form to get free Federal assistance.
  So, colleagues, my amendment is simple. It would prevent the 
Department of Education from providing or

[[Page H8127]]

processing the free application for student loan assistance form in any 
language other than English. With the requirements for obtaining 
student assistance, it is not an imposition to ensure that our tax 
dollars go to students that are clearly ready to receive and achieve a 
college education. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Madam Chairman, I wonder how any of us would like to have 
our future decided by people we have never met or never even seen on 
the basis of those people having a 10-minute conversation without our 
being present. I don't think any of us would like that very much, and 
yet that is what the gentleman is asking us to do.
  The gentleman, in effect, is asking us to pass sentence on 150,000 
students who applied for student financial assistance last year using 
the Spanish version of the application form. Those students would 
automatically be denied financial aid, with no demonstrable proof that 
they were illegal aliens, only because they felt more comfortable 
applying in Spanish.
  Now, I want every American--I want every person who comes to this 
country to learn English. I hope our values are the cement that holds 
this country together, but I think that English is a great tool to 
strengthen that cement. But I really would simply suggest that, first 
of all, this is the wrong venue.
  The Appropriations Committee has held no hearings on this matter. So 
far as I know, the gentleman has held no hearings on this matter. He 
may have very strong opinions; I do, too. But both of our opinions may 
be irrelevant when we discover what the facts are. The fact is, if 
something like this is going to happen, if we are going to make 
decisions that affect people's career possibilities just for the heck 
of it, it would be nice if we had thought about it rather than jumped 
onto the nearest slogan masquerading as an amendment.
  So I would strongly urge that this House show a sense of fairness and 
a sense of restraint and decline to support the gentleman's amendment, 
at least until we have had hearings in the proper committee. That is 
the way we would do things if we are concerned with due process, if we 
are concerned with maximizing fairness rather than scoring political 
points.
  Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Wisconsin withdraw his 
reservation?
  Mr. OBEY. Yes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Chairman, I seek the time in 
opposition.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Chairman, I would hope that 
all of our colleagues would oppose this amendment.
  The student loan application that is in question here, the criticism 
of it and the concern with it is not because it is printed in Spanish 
or English. The real criticism is that it is so complicated that 
families have an incredibly difficult time in filling out this form. 
Our committee has been working, Mr. Emanuel and others have been 
working, to try to simplify this form to make it useful.

                              {time}  1200

  This form has more questions than if you went to the World Bank to 
get a loan. But to now suggest that a student may be denied access to a 
loan and the family may be denied access to financial support for that 
education solely on the basis of whether or not the parents speak 
English, they fill out the form right and whether or not the form is 
printed in Spanish, you know the old saying, I'm here from the Federal 
Government; I'm here to help you. This has nothing to do with the 
parents' status. Nothing to do with the status. It is a question of 
whether or not we make some effort to reach out to these individuals to 
make it easier for them to fill out the forms that are necessary for 
their young people, their children to go on to college and have the 
financial resources to do that. The question of whether it's printed in 
Spanish or not is simply now arbitrary. And as would they, if they 
don't fill out the form correctly, if they have do it with their child 
or somebody else trying to interpret the questions, interpret the 
answers to them, I think that's incredibly unfair to people who are 
here in this country. They're here legally, and they don't happen to 
speak English and they made need this assistance.
  What we know about people trying to learn English is that in every 
city, in every part of this country, where there are classes to teach 
English, they're oversubscribed, they have waiting lists because these 
people understand that English is the language of this country. It's 
the currency of the country, it's the means by which you get ahead in 
this country, and that's why they want their children to learn English. 
To now come along and say that we're going to make it more difficult, 
based upon this characteristic that has nothing to do with your 
qualifications for the financial assistance, with the qualifications of 
your child to go to school, what they've accomplished with their lives, 
I think is outrageous and arbitrary.
  I'd like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Honda).
  Mr. HONDA. As an educator and a classroom teacher and as a principal 
of a public school, working with youngsters who come from different 
language background, I find the amendment quite counterproductive and a 
barrier. Many parents feel embarrassed that they can't help their 
youngsters, and this would only enhance that. If in our system that 
we're looking to encourage children to go to school and pursue higher 
education, this would be but a barrier. And I'm sure that you don't 
want youngsters to be not going to public education system and applying 
for these kinds of assistance.
  I have a thought though. And we have Fortune 500 companies in this 
country. And I just bought a phone. And in the instruction manuals, the 
instructions are not only in English but it's also in Spanish, French 
and German. There must be a reason why Fortune 500s do this. It's about 
customer satisfaction. And if this government is about satisfying those 
who are here in this country, who are citizens, who are taxpayers then 
we should be also looking at this kind of mentality.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I think the gentleman makes a point. 
This is about American citizens who are here who are paying taxes, 
whose children have done well enough to go on to college. They're 
seeking the financial resources to do that. They may not speak English. 
And this is a service that we provide to those individuals so that they 
can accurately fill out a form. They can understand the form, they can 
understand the liabilities that they're taking on. They can understand 
the qualifications.
  To arbitrarily come along and tell one group of citizens, based upon 
this question of whether or not they speak English, they will be able 
to have the same access to these resources as others or not seems to me 
to be very unfair, very un-American. It promotes a set of values that 
really aren't consistent with the values in this country. And it really 
is about whether or not the Federal Government is in the business of 
looking at the people they're trying to serve as customers, people who 
should be served.
  I would hope that we would oppose this amendment. We continue to 
struggle to try to make this form comprehensible to those who speak 
English and understand English. And I think to make it more difficult 
now for those who don't is a very poor service to that part of American 
society. And I would urge opposition to this amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Reclaiming my time, I wondered how the other side 
would answer to this, and quite interesting answers. First of all, this 
doesn't have anything to do with K-12. And as far as you buying your 
phone, Mr. Chairman, as far as somebody buying a phone that's got 
instructions in three or four different languages, they may be sold in 
different countries. I don't have any idea. But the Federal Government 
didn't buy that phone for you to use.
  Now, here's the thing. We're talking about student aid, free aid 
going to someone who is fixing to go to college that is a legal 
resident here, either a citizen or a legal resident. All we're

[[Page H8128]]

saying is if you're going to ask the American taxpayers to pay for your 
financial assistance, that you should be proficient enough in the 
language of this country to fill out the application. Now, you don't 
have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. And we can throw all 
these other little things in there about the people that won't get to 
apply and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter.
  All this amendment says is if you're going to ask the Federal 
Government to help with financial aid for your college education that 
we hope you succeed in, and that we want you to excel in, that you can 
at least speak the language of this country. That's all we're saying.
  This is a very simple amendment. There's been so much rhetoric over 
there. I guess, you know, evidently, they're taking this for something 
that it's not. Very simple, Mr. Chairman. Very, very simple. Do we want 
to make sure that our taxpayers' dollars go to students who are legal 
citizens of this country, who have a GED or a high school education, 
that are applying for financial aid to go to a college in this country 
to be proficient enough in English to fill the application out in 
English? It's very simple.
  I won't belabor this. And I know the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee is trying to get as many of these amendments out of the way 
as you can. But I certainly hope that my colleagues, and especially all 
the colleagues who are interested in protecting the hard taxpayers' 
dollars of this country, and who are interested in getting as many 
students financial aid that need it, that have the best opportunity to 
go forward and succeed in their college education and spend the money 
wisely, that they would support this amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN (Mr. Lynch). The question is on the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).
  The question was taken; and the Acting Chairman announced that the 
noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further 
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia will 
be postponed.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Committee will rise informally.
  The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Welch of Vermont) assumed the chair.

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