[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.
____________________