[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 156 (Thursday, September 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6197-S6199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Ralph R. Erickson, of North Dakota, to be United States 
     Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit.
         Mitch McConnell, Orrin G. Hatch, James Lankford, Jerry 
           Moran, Johnny Isakson, John Thune, Thom Tillis, Shelley 
           Moore Capito, Mike Crapo, James E. Risch, Mike Rounds, 
           John Barrasso, John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, John 
           Boozman, John Hoeven, Rob Portman.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Ralph R. Erickson, of North Dakota, to be United States 
Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Alabama 
(Mr. Strange).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) 
and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 95, nays 1, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 206 Ex.]

                                YEAS--95

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--1

       
     Warren
       

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Cochran
     Franken
     Menendez
     Strange
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 95, the nays are 1.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Wisconsin.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1808

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, in 2 days, unless Congress acts, the 
Federal Perkins Loan Program--the Nation's oldest Federal student loan 
program--will expire, leaving thousands of students with one fewer 
option to help them afford a higher education.
  Since 1958, the Perkins Loan Program has existed with broad 
bipartisan support and has provided millions of students a stronger 
path to the middle class.
  In the 2016 to 2017 academic year, the program has served more than 
770,000 students with financial need across more than 1,400 
institutions of higher education. In my home State of Wisconsin alone, 
Perkins provided aid to more than 23,000 students who are working hard 
to achieve their dreams.
  Colleges and universities are invested in Perkins. This program 
operates through campus-based revolving funds that combine prior 
Federal investments with significant institutional resources. While 
Congress stopped appropriating new funds for Perkins more than a decade 
ago, these schools continue to invest in this program because they know 
it works, and the campus-based nature of the program allows them to 
target aid to students they know are in the greatest financial need.
  I am here to call on all of my colleagues to join me in supporting 
the extension of this critical program and investment in our students 
across America.
  Two years ago, we allowed this important program to lapse, but thanks 
to the tireless efforts of students, institutions, advocates, and a 
bicameral, bipartisan majority in support of Perkins, we were able to 
advance a compromise that ensured that this source of support continued 
to be available to students in need.
  Once again, we are facing a deadline. Once again, there is strong 
bipartisan

[[Page S6198]]

support for extending the Perkins Loan Program. Last week, Senators 
Portman, Casey, and Collins joined me in introducing the Perkins Loan 
Program Extension Act, which would provide for a 2-year extension. My 
fellow Wisconsinite, Representative Mark Pocan, together with New York 
Representative Elise Stefanik, have introduced a House companion bill 
that is supported by over 225 of their colleagues--a bipartisan 
majority in that Chamber.
  I am here to call on my colleagues to act once again and support a 2-
year extension of the Perkins Loan Program. And while I look forward to 
a broader conversation about improving Federal supports for students as 
we look to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, we cannot once again 
sit by and watch it expire as America's students are left with 
uncertainty.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be 
discharged from further consideration of S. 1808, a bill to extend the 
Federal Perkins Loan Program for 2 years; that the Senate proceed to 
its immediate consideration and the bill be considered read a third 
time and passed, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to 
explain my reason for the objection.
  First, I would like to say to the Senator from Wisconsin that I am 
grateful for her work on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee, where she is a valuable, diligent, and constructive member. 
We work on a great many things together and have agreed to very many 
things. However, we disagree on this one, and here is why. Let me 
summarize it at the beginning of my remarks and then explain it with a 
little more detail.
  No one who has a Perkins loan today loses that loan, period. So if 
you are a student anywhere in the country and you have a Perkins loan 
for this year, you don't lose that loan, period.
  Second, no one who has a Perkins loan for next year loses that loan 
because no one has one. They were ended 2 years ago. Every student was 
told in his or her financial aid information that the Perkins Loan 
Program ends this year, so no one could expect to have one next year. 
No one has been granted one for next year, so no one who has a loan is 
losing a loan.
  Why did we, in December of 2015--2 years ago--reach a bipartisan 
agreement to sunset, or end, the Perkins Loan Program in 2 years, which 
is the end of this week? In that agreement, we allowed graduate 
students to receive Perkins loans for 1 additional year and 
undergraduates to receive Perkins loans for 2 additional years. It was 
made clear at that time--2 years ago--that this was the last time the 
program would be extended, but we wanted to have a smooth transition, 
and we did not want students and colleges and universities to be 
surprised. That agreement, therefore, included many requirements for 
institutions of higher education to inform students over the last 2 
years that the Perkins Loan Program would end on September 30 of this 
year, which is the end of this week. That agreement also set policies 
to make the sunsetting of Perkins loans as smooth as possible for 
students. The expiration of this loan program was not and should not 
have been a surprise. It has not received any appropriation since the 
year 2004, and the U.S. Department of Education reminded institutions 
that it was ending the program this year.
  Now, why? Why are we ending the program? Why did we agree to do that 
2 years ago, and why have the last three Presidents recommended that we 
end it--President Obama, President Trump, and President Bush?
  The Department of Education estimated that in the 2016 to 2017 school 
year--that is the school year that just ended--the Perkins Loan Program 
provided less than $800 million in new Perkins loans to about 300,000 
recipients. That may seem like a lot, but by comparison, the Department 
estimated that the Federal Government disbursed over $22 billion to 
almost 7 million undergraduate students in the Stafford Subsidized Loan 
Program, or the regular Direct Loan Program. The Perkins loan--a 
separate loan--provides an average loan of roughly $2,000, and it 
illustrates the complicated mess in which students find themselves 
because of our Federal student aid system today.
  The Perkins loans have a higher interest rate than other loans that 
are available to students today. The interest rate is 5 percent, 
compared with 4.45 percent for undergraduate loans. And students who 
have a Perkins loan aren't eligible for certain programs that exist for 
students with other loans, such as the income-based repayment programs 
and the public service loan forgiveness programs, which help students 
manage repayment of their loans. Those aren't available to students 
with a Perkins loan. The default rate for Perkins loans is higher than 
for the Stafford loan.
  The bill which the Senator from Wisconsin has offered would cost 
taxpayers, according to the Congressional Budget Office, $900 million 
for a 2-year extension. If we were to extend the program over 10 years, 
it would cost $6.5 billion, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office. The bill does not have an offset, so these billions of dollars 
would only serve to add to the $20 trillion Federal debt we already 
have.
  I object because I think it is time for our country, through 
legislation by this Congress, to move on to a simplified Federal 
student aid program that has only one Federal loan for students, one 
Federal grant for students, and one work-study program for students.
  As I have spoken often about on this floor, along with Senator Bennet 
from Colorado, we would like to reduce the application form for those 
Federal grants and loans called FAFSA--the dreaded FAFSA which 20 
million students and their families fill out every year. We would like 
to reduce that from 108 questions to 2 or 5 or 10 questions.
  We need a much simpler program for Federal student loans, and the end 
of the Perkins Loan Program is a small step toward that end.
  As I mentioned, President Bush recommended that the program end, 
President Obama recommended that the program be changed and folded, in 
effect, into the regular Direct Student Loan Program, and President 
Trump has the same position.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues, including the Senator 
from Wisconsin, on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act 
later this year, when we can work together to improve our Federal 
student loan programs and our grant programs, find ways to simplify 
them, make it easier and cheaper for students to attend college, and to 
help students pay those loans off, after they get them, in a fair and 
simpler way.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I am certainly disappointed that my 
effort to extend the Perkins Loan Program today was just blocked by my 
Republican colleague, but I want to say that it is an honor to serve on 
the HELP Committee, where we do some very impressive bipartisan work.
  I understand the Senator's concern about the program and his belief 
that we must simplify. I share his desire to work on a broader 
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and I look forward to that 
broader conversation about our Federal financial aid programs. However, 
I do not think it is right or fair to end this program, with nothing to 
replace it, to the detriment of students in need.
  Also, I cannot agree that the compromise we hammered out 2 years ago 
was an agreement to wind down the program. I guess it is the 
perspective that we each bring to this subject, because I believed we 
were acting to ensure that the Perkins Loan Program could continue 
until we could discuss changes, improvements, and reforms to it and all 
Federal financial aid programs as part of broader legislation to 
improve higher education. We have yet to get to that bigger 
conversation, and it would once again be unfair to let this program end 
now without the benefit of a holistic assessment of the many ways the 
Federal Government helps to make college affordable for students across 
this country.

[[Page S6199]]

  I will continue to fight to extend this support for America's 
students, and I hope the chairman of the committee will once again work 
with me and the bipartisan supporters of this program to find a path 
forward for the Perkins Loan Program.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks because I 
see the Senator from Mississippi is here.
  Of course I will be glad to work with the Senator from Wisconsin. The 
fact is, 2 years ago we agreed to end the program. The graduate loans 
ended last year, and the undergraduate loans end this year. Everybody 
was told about it.
  Every student who wants a loan can get a direct student loan from the 
government at a lower rate, with better repayment programs and better 
payment provisions than the Perkins loan. So no one is losing a loan, 
and everyone can get a better loan if they apply for a direct loan.
  We do need a simpler program, and we need to simplify the application 
process for applying for the loans and grants and for paying them off.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.