[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 132 (Thursday, September 17, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H9704-H9705]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SOUDER AMENDMENT ON STUDENT LOANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to briefly explain what happened to the Souder 
amendment in the student loan bill. We had worked out an agreement last 
night, and then I was occupied over in a border security hearing that 
was very important on SBInet and didn't make it over to the floor. I 
appreciate that Chairman Miller explained the compromise some, but I 
wanted to go through a little bit of what the history of this is.
  First, in existing law, both a possession conviction and a dealing 
conviction will result in your loss of a student loan. You can get that 
loan back by going through treatment, drug testing. You can get it back 
in the second year.
  The second time it happens--this is while you have a loan--if you get 
convicted, then you would be suspended for 2 years, unless you went 
through treatment and then were drug-tested as clean. The third time 
and you're out. Now, for dealing, it was two times.
  There's been a lot of ruckus about how this law was initially 
applied, but we fixed that. I had no intention ever of punishing people 
who at some time in their life had problems, whether it was in high 
school or in their later life that they had convictions.
  I believe in forgiveness. I believe it's important that people get 
back on the right track. I believe that we need to work in our prison 
population to get them to move back to school, to get the degrees 
possible.
  The initial debate on this law on the House floor and in committee 
said: You will lose your loan. You can't lose a loan if you don't have 
a loan. We had debate about that for many years. We got that fixed. But 
I believe, overwhelmingly, every poll shows that the American people 
believe that if you are convicted, which is not easy when you're on a 
college campus, while you're getting taxpayer funding, you should lose 
the funding. It doesn't mean you're going to lose school. It doesn't 
mean you're going to go out. But why should the taxpayers fund you if 
you're going to be basically drug-addled while you're at school?
  The challenge with this debate is that it has become kind of a cause 
celebre in the marijuana community. As this progressed, as we did the 
reauthorization on student loans, the so-called Souder amendment was 
not completely knocked out, but possession was knocked out. We left the 
law in place for dealing.
  So my amendment today would have reinstated possession as a grounds 
for losing a student loan.
  Congressman Perlmutter from Colorado came to me and said he had a 
suggested compromise. He made his compromise, which basically says that 
conviction of a felony offense of narcotics

[[Page H9705]]

for possession, in addition to dealing--dealing is already covered in 
the Democratic bill--but would make felony conviction for possession 
also grounds for losing your student loan. Presumably, that's State and 
Federal felony conviction.
  Now, in this, I was faced with several choices. One, I'm a Republican 
in a Democratic Congress. I was probably going to lose today. This was 
a practical way. I didn't want to see possession go out of the bill.
  It basically means that marijuana won't be covered. If you have that 
much marijuana in your possession to be a felony, it probably means 
you're a dealer. You wouldn't have that much if you weren't a dealer. 
It's far more than individual use.
  It basically covers meth, cocaine, and all sorts of other drug 
convictions for felony possession. It means the United States 
Government still stands on record saying that both possession and 
dealing should restrict your ability to get a student loan.
  But there are some other practical things here. A lot of States, I 
believe, falsely and wrongly overrode Federal marijuana laws by 
decriminalizing marijuana, declaring that it was medical in some States 
when, in fact, marijuana is not medical. There are ingredients inside 
of marijuana that can be medical. We have Marinol, for example, that 
deals with that.
  But they affect chaos in marijuana laws across the United States. 
It's very similar to what we are dealing with in Canada, as I debated 
up there as they proposed changing laws, and now Mexico has; and that 
is when different provinces have different laws and there's complete 
chaos in the laws, the Federal courts are not likely to uphold a law 
because it would be unequal enforcement.
  So how would an Indiana student get denied a loan but a California 
student wouldn't get denied a loan? What about if it's somebody from 
Indiana who's in California going to school? What about if you're 
taking an online course combined with going to class, and the online 
course is based in California but you're going to school in Indiana? 
It's chaos. I do not believe, even had I won, the courts would have 
upheld my provision.
  This shows, in fact, Republicans and Democrats can work together. 
It's very difficult on the major fundamental debate arguments. For 
example, I felt this was a Federal takeover of private lending and will 
lead to more Federal takeover and a national bank.

                              {time}  1445

  So we weren't going to be able to agree on the loans. But it doesn't 
mean inside, even on controversial provisions, that we can't work 
together. So I wanted to explain that, and I want to thank Chairman 
Miller and Congressman Perlmutter for working with me.

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