[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1643-S1649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

     ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 2657, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:


[[Page S1644]]


  

       A bill (S. 2657) to support innovation in advanced 
     geothermal research and development, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Murkowski modified amendment No. 1407, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Portman/Shaheen amendment No. 1514 (to amendment No. 1407), 
     to establish greater energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness 
     in building codes.
       Shaheen amendment No. 1525 (to amendment No. 1514), to 
     modify the authorization of appropriations for cost-effective 
     codes implementation for efficiency and resilience.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip is recognized.


                              5G Spectrum

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, the United States is poised for 
nationwide deployment of the next generation of internet technology--
5G. 5G will mark a giant leap forward for internet technology, 
delivering speeds that are up to 100 times faster than what today's 
technology can deliver. It will be vastly more responsive than 4G 
technology and will be able to connect 100 times the number of devices 
that can be connected with 4G.
  While that will make it even easier to do the things we do today, 
like check our email or stream our favorite shows, the biggest benefits 
of 5G lie in the other technologies that it will enable--precision 
agriculture, medical and surgical innovations, safer vehicles, and 
more.
  5G is already being deployed. Cities across the country, including 
Sioux Falls in my home State, are introducing 5G networks. There is 
still work to be done before 5G can be fully implemented nationwide. A 
big part of that work is freeing up adequate spectrum to support the 
technology.
  Like all internet technology, 5G relies on radio spectrum, or what we 
commonly call the airwaves. In the United States, radio spectrum is 
owned by the American taxpayer but is licensed to companies that make 
use of the spectrum to broadcast TV and radio programs, connect cell 
phone calls, and transmit internet data. Radio spectrum is divided into 
bands--low-band, mid-band, and high-band--according to frequency and 
wavelength. Current wireless technology mostly relies on low-band 
spectrum, but 5G will require the full range of radio spectrum--low-
band, mid-band, and high-band.
  The United States has done a good job freeing up high-band spectrum 
for 5G, but we need to free up more mid-band spectrum to see full-scale 
5G deployment. Mid-band spectrum is crucial for 5G. It combines strong 
data capacity with good geographical coverage and allows 5G signals to 
penetrate buildings in more urban areas. Mid-band spectrum is 
particularly crucial for rural 5G deployment, as it can provide the 
coverage and capacity to reach less populated areas.
  As past chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and current 
chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, 
Innovation, and the Internet, I have been working on 5G for a number of 
years now. In 2018, Congress passed my MOBILE NOW Act, which laid the 
groundwork for freeing up more spectrum for 5G.
  This past November, Senator Wicker and I introduced the 5G Spectrum 
Act to require the Federal Communications Commission to free up a 
critical portion of mid-band spectrum, commonly referred to as C band, 
for 5G use. While Congress did not enact our legislation, at the end of 
February, the Federal Communications Commission announced it would 
adopt a framework similar to that outlined in our bill to make 280 
megahertz of C band spectrum available for 5G.
  Currently, C band spectrum is licensed by satellite companies that 
use the spectrum to deliver programming for television and radio 
broadcasters, among other things. Under the FCC's new rules, the 
majority of this mid-band spectrum will be made available to wireless 
companies for 5G. Satellite companies will still be able to provide all 
the services they are currently providing by launching new satellites 
and investing in new technologies to make more efficient use of the C 
band. The licensees for the remaining portion of the C band spectrum 
will be returned to the government, which will then offer the spectrum 
to wireless companies in a public auction. Satellite companies will be 
reimbursed for the cost of relocating their operations to the upper 
range of the band, and they will be offered incentives for moving their 
operations quickly so that space for 5G can be freed up as soon as 
possible. I was very pleased by the FCC's decision, which I think 
provides the most expeditious and efficient way to free up the 
necessary mid-band spectrum for 5G.
  Some have argued that rather than reimbursing satellite companies, 
the government should just pull the satellite companies' licenses, but 
there are a number of problems with that approach.
  First of all, while it is true that radio spectrum is owned by the 
taxpayers, satellite companies have invested a lot of money to put the 
spectrum into service. While they will still have enough C-band 
spectrum to provide current services, shifting their operations to the 
upper band of the spectrum will require a substantial investment. It is 
fair that they be reimbursed for this government-required shift.
  Furthermore, reimbursing companies and providing incentives for them 
to quickly free up spectrum is the fastest way to make that spectrum 
available. Simply demanding that companies relinquish their control of 
a substantial portion of the C band could tie the government up in 
litigation for years, while countries like China take the lead on 5G.
  Finally, setting a precedent for the government to simply seize 
spectrum licenses would create a significant disincentive for 
technological investment. Why should companies invest major sums of 
money in bringing next-generation technologies to market if they are 
likely to have the licenses on which those technologies depend seized 
without warning?
  The truth is that the taxpayers will see a bigger return--for deficit 
reduction, rural broadband, and other priorities--if companies are 
incentivized to invest. The United States was at the head of the 4G 
revolution, and we need to ensure that we are at the head of the 5G 
revolution as well. Winning the race to 5G will provide huge economic 
benefits for American businesses and American workers, and it will 
allow the United States to set security standards for 
telecommunications networks worldwide.
  I am very pleased that the FCC has acted to free up mid-band spectrum 
needed for full-scale deployment of 5G around the country. I will 
continue to work to ensure that American companies and American workers 
have the resources they need to bring us into the 5G future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip is recognized.


                  For-Profit Colleges and Universities

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, perhaps later today or one day this 
week, we will have debate on the Senate floor and a vote, and that vote 
literally will decide the future for over 200,000 young Americans.
  Politicians and elected officials are prone to exaggeration, but I 
don't exaggerate when I say that, because we will have an opportunity 
here to debate and vote on a system that was put in place years ago to 
protect students from being defrauded by the colleges they attend. It 
is called the borrower defense program. It was started years ago. It 
was really designed for that rare situation where a student would take 
out a government loan to go to college after the college made 
misrepresentations about the education it offered. The student would 
rely on those misrepresentations, sign up for the school, sign up for 
the government loan, and learn, to his disappointment, months or years 
later that the school had lied to him. The school may have told him: If 
you take this certain course at this school, you will qualify for a 
certain job or licensure. The school may have misrepresented to the 
student that the courses they took at the school could be transferred 
to other schools if the student decided to go to a different university 
to complete their education. The misrepresentation may have been 
something as basic as saying ``All of our professors and instructors at 
this school have certain college degrees qualifying them to teach 
you,'' or the school may have misrepresented to the student that ``If 
you complete this course, here are the jobs that will be readily 
available for you to fill.''
  Students listen to those promises, sometimes rely on them, oftentimes

[[Page S1645]]

signing loans with the Federal Government that need to be paid off 
later, and then they learn they were lied to.
  Because they were defrauded or lied to or misrepresentations were 
made, we set up a provision in the law that said there is a way out for 
the student. You don't end up holding the bag here when a college or 
university which the United States government has recognized as 
accredited has lied to you. You are not left holding the bag. There is 
another way out. Our Department of Education will take a look at your 
circumstances and decide whether there is evidence that this school has 
lied to you or misrepresented, and if we find it, we can restructure or 
forgive some part or all of your student loan debt.
  You know, that makes all the difference in the world to these 
students because here they are holding the bag, with tens, if not 
hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt because of lies that were made 
by the schools that tried to entice them into enrollment. It is called 
the borrower defense program.
  Under President Obama, thousands of students came to the program and 
said: We were lied to by these schools.
  Most of the schools are for-profit colleges and universities. One of 
the most notorious--Corinthian Colleges--is now bankrupt and gone, but 
for years, they were enticing thousands of Americans into their 
programs. They were signing up young students for courses, making them 
sign the loan agreements, and then after that was done, the students 
learned later on that the education was virtually worthless.
  What happened to Corinthian? Well, the people who started this for-
profit college and university did quite well, thank you. All these 
students paid thousands of dollars to them, and even though they 
misrepresented the school to the students, they ended up taking the 
money and going home, and the school faced bankruptcy, and the students 
are left holding the bag. That is the unfortunate reality we face. We 
can do something about it today.
  The Secretary of Education, Mrs. DeVos, has decided to change the way 
students have to go through proving their losses, and that is why we 
are here today. The House has voted overwhelmingly saying Secretary 
DeVos's approach was unfair. I will describe to you why we think it is 
unfair.
  What we are asking Members of the Senate to do today is take an 
honest look at the plight of these students and decide whether they are 
entitled to any relief under the proposal by Secretary DeVos. We 
estimate that fewer than 3 percent of the students will receive any 
kind of relief because of the approach she uses. What we can do today 
is reject that approach. This vote is not about any alternative 
approach. Though, we could sit down and actually negotiate a better way 
to deal with this. I have talked to Members on the Republican side 
about doing just that.
  The first step is to stop this new rule by Secretary DeVos, and that 
will be an opportunity we have today. If we stop these rules she has 
promulgated, then the students will have a chance to have some part of 
their student loan forgiven--perhaps all of it--if they can prove 
through evidence that they have been defrauded.
  Let me be more specific about what we are facing here. In 1992, 
Congress added a provision to the Higher Education Act which I just 
described called the borrower defense program. It allowed student 
borrowers defrauded by their schools to have their Federal student 
loans discharged. Congress rightly didn't want students left holding 
the bag because the schools had been guilty of misconduct. It was 
really a little known or rarely used portion of the law until the year 
2014 with the collapse of the for-profit giant Corinthian Colleges.
  Corinthian had lied to students one after the other. They inflated 
their job placement rates, saying to students: Take these courses, and 
there are plenty of jobs waiting for you. They took out loans for 
students without the knowledge of the students, and then they lied to 
the students about employers' recognizing their degrees.

  Yet Corinthian was not unique. Nearly every other major for-profit 
college has been the subject of multiple State and Federal 
investigations and lawsuits for similar predatory practices.
  Since 2015--just 5 years ago--nearly 300,000 student borrowers, 
mostly from these for-profit colleges, have applied to our U.S. 
Department of Education for borrower defense discharges. They have 
said: We were lied to. These schools lied to us about what the 
education would mean to our futures. They enticed us into getting 
student loans, and we learned too late that we have been subjects of 
this fraud. Now, because our lives have been compromised with the great 
debts that we carry, we are asking for relief from a 1992 law that has 
been established.
  Almost 220,000 of these students have pending claims with the U.S. 
Department of Education. Do you know how long they have been waiting 
for resolutions so they know if they can get on with their lives? Many 
of them have been waiting for years. The claims come from every State 
in the Union--large, small, red, blue, purple. It doesn't make any 
difference.
  Sadly, it is not going to stop. The Department of Education's 
estimates show that nearly 200,000 student borrowers will be subject to 
illegal practices by their schools in 2021 alone. The schools continue 
to make these misrepresentations to students.
  With the new borrower defense rule, Secretary DeVos at the Department 
of Education will make it virtually impossible for these future 
defrauded borrowers to receive the borrower defense discharge that 
Congress intended. The DeVos rule places unreasonable new burdens on 
defrauded borrowers, including requiring the student borrowers to 
submit evidence that they will have to obtain by hiring lawyers and 
private detectives. For example, defrauded borrowers will have to show 
that the schools intentionally misled them. How are they supposed to do 
that?
  In addition, the rule requires defrauded borrowers to apply and 
submit evidence individually instead of being able to apply as a group 
when many borrowers have experienced similar misconduct across a 
program or school.
  Think about these schools that have been investigated by so many 
different States and have been found guilty of predatory practices, of 
exploiting these college students. The schools have been found guilty 
of defrauding these students in State, after State, after State. Under 
the new rule by Secretary DeVos, to be discharged under this borrower 
defense program, each one of the students has to essentially lawyer up. 
Each one of the students has to hire an investigator.
  What is the likelihood that a student who is burdened with debt and 
is struggling to find a job is going to go out and make those 
expenditures? It is next to nothing. In fact, it turns out it is about 
3 percent of the students who are likely to be able to take advantage 
of that. Secretary DeVos is basically telling these student borrowers: 
You are on your own. Lawyer up. Hire a private detective to find the 
evidence.
  This is unfair and unrealistic. We need to go no further than the 
Department's own statistics to realize that 97 percent of the students 
have no chance under this DeVos rule. By the experts' best testimony, 
only 3 percent have a chance of recovering under this new approach. 
That is the rule we will get a chance to vote on this week, whether 
that rule should continue.
  The Department claims that these new hurdles for borrowers are 
necessary to guard against fraudulent claims made by students, but 
there is no evidence--none--of widespread fraud on the part of 
borrowers among the 300,000 borrower defense claims that have already 
been submitted. In fact, the Department itself notes that it does not 
have sufficient information to determine the extent of any potential 
fraud by students. There is no evidence whatsoever of this notion that 
Secretary DeVos's rule is needed because of fraud by borrowers. The new 
rule just means that defrauded borrowers with legitimate claims are not 
going to get relief.
  The Department also claims the DeVos rule protects taxpayers by 
shifting the burden of relief from the taxpayers to the schools that 
commit misconduct. Yet it then turns around and acknowledges that other 
changes in the rule will, in fact, reduce recoveries from schools 
compared to the 2016 rule, and that means more cost for taxpayers.
  The truth is, of the small amount of relief that will be awarded 
under the DeVos rule, schools will be on the hook for about one-third 
of it at the most. In

[[Page S1646]]

reality, the DeVos rule achieves savings on the backs of the borrowers 
who are victims of fraud. It eliminates $11 billion in relief while it 
reduces the share of relief that the schools which are guilty of fraud 
have to pay.
  The Department also acknowledges that the DeVos rule is not expected 
to significantly change the percentage of loan volume subject to 
misconduct. In other words, this rule will not only generate less money 
from the offending schools, but it will be less likely to discourage 
future misconduct by the same schools. On the other hand, the former 
Department inspector general said the 2016 rule would ``avoid costs to 
students and taxpayers that result from school closures.''
  I could go on, but the bottom line is this: If we want to stop this 
insidious practice of defrauding students and having them pile up debt 
from schools that are phony and that eventually all go out of business, 
we have to have a program that is sensitive to the needs of the student 
borrowers and that puts these schools that are guilty of misconduct on 
the hook for the payoff rather than the taxpayers.
  The DeVos rule eliminates the prohibition in the 2016 rule that 
prevents schools from using mandatory arbitration and class action 
restriction as a condition of student enrollment. What is mandatory 
arbitration? It is basically saying to the students and their families: 
You can't go to court. You have to go into a closed room, sit across 
the table from one of our lawyers, and take it or leave it.
  That is what mandatory arbitration is all about. Class action 
restrictions mean that the students of one school that defrauded 
thousands of students can't come together in any kind of legal action.
  You don't see those kinds of provisions for mandatory arbitration and 
class action restrictions in the contracts that most students run into 
when they sign up at colleges and universities. It is almost 
exclusively in the area of private, for-profit colleges and 
universities. The clauses are often buried in stacks of enrollment 
documents that students rarely, if ever, read. It means that the 
schools can defraud and mislead students and that they are protected 
from being held accountable in court. Businesses around America are 
held accountable for their conduct and misconduct. Why would we let the 
for-profit colleges and universities off the hook?
  Students have nowhere else to turn other than to the taxpayers 
through this borrower defense program that we are discussing here. 
Instead of allowing borrowers to hold their schools directly 
accountable for misconduct in court, Secretary DeVos's rule shields 
these schools from accountability and puts American taxpayers on the 
hook.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter that 
was published in the Charlotte Observer over the weekend. It was 
written by Shaun Joyce, of Greensboro, NC.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Charlotte Observer, Mar. 8, 2020]

       A Dwindling Defense Against a Fraudulent School, Big Loans

                            (By Shaun Joyce)

       I'm one of 300,000 people who applied for ``borrower 
     defense,'' a government rule that is supposed to cancel 
     federal student loan debt for borrowers who have been scammed 
     by their schools, almost 8,000 of us from North Carolina. 
     Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made it harder for 
     defrauded students by rewriting the borrower defense rule 
     with so many restrictions that only 3 percent of the people 
     who were lied to by their schools will get the relief the law 
     says they should.
       Fortunately, the U.S. House of Representatives has already 
     voted to strike down DeVos' rewrite, and the Senate is set to 
     vote on it later this month. This won't help my situation 
     because of when I took out my student loans, but I'm hoping 
     that North Carolina Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis will 
     stand up for people cheated by predatory colleges--and pass 
     the bill to provide some justice. I always thought college 
     would be the magic key to unlock opportunity and open the 
     door to the life I wanted. My mother had to drop out before 
     she earned her degree, but always told me, ``Go to school.'' 
     After learning about the Art Institute of Charlotte, I 
     thought,
       ``Here's my chance,'' envisioning a future as a video game 
     designer. Art Institute recruiters at a college fair 
     convinced me the school was perfect for me. A week later, a 
     representative barely glanced at my portfolio, more 
     interested in selling me and my mother on all sorts of loans. 
     She said the school would prepare me for the job market and 
     connect me to people who could help me land a job. My 
     Bachelor's would cost me around $64,000, an amount that 
     seemed a little intimidating. But she talked about a number 
     of options--all loans--to help pay for it. She assured me 
     that if my mother didn't qualify for a parent PLUS loan, the 
     school itself would cosign loans for me.
       We signed. I was on my way to earning the college degree 
     that would change my life. And it did. But not in any way I 
     would want.
       Today, I owe nearly $100,000 for a degree that didn't 
     prepare me for a job within the gaming industry. I work 
     writing on--hold telephone messages for a marketing company 
     and attend one class at a time at my local community college, 
     working toward a degree in biology--none of my Art Institute 
     classes transferred.
       The Art Institute of Charlotte shut down two years ago, but 
     my degree was worthless before then. None of my classes had 
     anything to do with video game design. The school kept 
     pushing me to take out more loans, and I didn't feel I could 
     leave. I still had my dreams--and, as a young black man, the 
     last thing I wanted to do was become just another statistic 
     by dropping out. I switched to an Associate 's in hopes of 
     saving money.
       When I asked about career opportunities, my adviser sent me 
     Craig's List job postings in California. I never saw any 
     great opportunities. I'm not the only one. Hundreds of 
     thousands of people like me have attended colleges that 
     failed to educate them, left them with crushing debt, and 
     shut down for predatory lending and fraudulent recruitment.
       I hope Congress comes through to provide these people 
     struggling and in debt through no fault of their own with 
     some relief. Senators Burr and Tillis should vote yes on 
     Senate Joint Resolution 56.
       Shaun Joyce is a 2010 graduate of the Art Institute of 
     Charlotte. He lives in Greensboro, N.C.

  Mr. DURBIN. Shaun is one of nearly 6,000 borrowers from North 
Carolina who have applied to the Department for a borrower defense 
discharge. He attended the Art Institute of Charlotte and thought it 
was his path to having a successful future. He was told by recruiters 
that the school would prepare him for a job in video game designing and 
that those at the school would connect him with people who would help 
him land that job. That is a pretty serious promise to a young person, 
isn't it? He said they kept pushing him to take on more and more 
courses and more and more debt. Eventually, he had so much debt that he 
felt there was no other option than to finish the degree. He had to go 
all in with this school, the Art Institute of Charlotte.
  He writes: ``[As] a young black man, the last thing I wanted to do 
was become just another statistic by dropping out [of school].''
  Shaun owes nearly $100,000 in student loan debt today for a degree 
that did not prepare him for a job in the very industry he was 
promised. When he asked the Art Institute of Charlotte about career 
opportunities, do you know where they sent him? Craigslist.
  As of today, Shaun's work is in writing on-hold telephone messages 
for a marketing company, and he attends one class at a time at his 
community college at which none--not one--of his Art Institute credits 
can be transferred. He has asked the Senate to overturn the DeVos rule. 
He knows the struggles defrauded student borrowers go through.
  I want to share with you a story of a U.S. Army veteran whose name is 
Jarrod Thoma. Jarrod is from the State of Colorado. After Jarrod left 
the Army, he wanted to pursue his lifelong passion for electronics by 
pursuing a degree in engineering. He signed up at the for-profit DeVry 
University in Westminster, CO. He said he quickly realized he was not 
getting the quality education it had promised. Course materials and the 
equipment for instruction were subpar and not as advertised.
  He says: ``Although DeVry was more than happy to cash all of my GI 
Bill benefits, my complaints about quality [of the courses they were 
offering] fell on deaf ears.''
  When he tried to transfer, he found out that his credits wouldn't 
transfer to a public university or even a community college even though 
DeVry had promised him they would.
  In addition to using his entire GI bill benefit for serving this 
country, he accumulated $52,000 in additional student loan debt in 
order to finish his program at DeVry.
  On top of that, Jarrod says: ``Upon entering the job market, I 
quickly found that the degree . . . was not worth the paper it was 
printed on, and it actually hurt my job prospects.''
  Jarrod is waiting, along with 3,800 other Coloradans, for the 
Department

[[Page S1647]]

to act on his borrower defense request, and he has urged the Senate to 
overturn the DeVos rule in order to help future veteran borrowers like 
him.
  Let me also show you Tasha Berkhalter. I met her recently. She is a 
U.S. Army veteran from Lima, OH. She enrolled at ITT Tech, which is 
another notorious for-profit school. After she had been honorably 
discharged from serving in our U.S. Army, she was promised by ITT that 
her GI bill benefits would cover the cost for the program and that her 
program would lead to a job in her field after graduation.
  At one point, she tried to transfer, only to find out that other 
schools wouldn't accept the credits she had earned at ITT Tech. She 
didn't have any options. She had to finish at ITT. Not only did she 
exhaust her entire GI bill benefits at ITT Tech, but she had to take on 
additional Federal student loans despite all of ITT's assurances that 
was not going to happen. Tasha's student loan debt today for having 
attended ITT Tech is almost $100,000 beyond her GI bill benefits--all 
for a degree that she says no employer takes seriously.
  Of course, this puts a lot of pressure on her now. Tasha is married 
and has a family. She is facing overwhelming stress, anxiety, and 
depression because of the miserable experience she had with this for-
profit school, ITT Tech, and the student debt she incurred.
  She served our country, and she risked her life for America. When it 
came to her GI bill benefits, she lost all of it at this for-profit 
school. She is asking for a chance to start over with her life, and our 
vote on the Senate floor may decide that. She even questions herself as 
a wife and as a mother of four young children because she is unable to 
provide for her family as she is still unable to get a job in her 
field. She has lost cars, homes, and has had to move from State to 
State. She supports overturning the DeVos borrower defense rule because 
she wants defrauded veterans like her to have a shot at relief.
  Veterans like Jarrod and Tasha are the reason that I bring this 
matter to the floor and ask my Republican and Democratic colleagues to 
join me. So many of us give speeches about our appreciation for the 
veterans and their service to our country. So many of us voted for the 
GI bill benefit package. We said to veterans: We owe it to you. You 
served our country. We want to be on your side after that service so 
you can build good lives in America.
  Then schools like Corinthian and schools like ITT Tech defraud these 
students out of their GI bill benefits and pile additional debt on top 
of them. That is why this has become such a major veterans issue.
  Take a look at the veterans organizations that support the measure 
that I bring to the floor today: the American Legion--and I am going to 
quote from a letter from its national commander in just a moment; the 
Student Veterans of America; the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of 
America; the National Military Family Association; the Paralyzed 
Veterans of America; the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors; 
VetsFirst; Veterans for Common Sense; and Veterans Education Success.
  I would like to show you this last poster here. It is a letter that I 
received from Bill Oxford. Bill, as you can see, is the national 
commander of the American Legion. He wrote to me on behalf of 2 million 
American Legion members whom he represents because he wanted to go on 
the record and give me a chance to bring this evidence before my fellow 
Senators, Republicans and Democrats. Many of them are being visited 
today by representatives of these veterans organizations, including the 
American Legion. I hope they can spare a minute of their time in their 
offices in honor of these veterans and listen to the pleas they are 
going to make for a vote in favor of the measure I am going to bring 
before the Senate.
  Here is what Bill wrote in his letter to me: ``Thousands of student 
veterans have been defrauded over the years--promised their credits 
would transfer when they wouldn't, given false or misleading job 
placement rates in marketing, promised one educational experience . . . 
but given something completely different.'' Bill calls this rule by 
Secretary DeVos ``fundamentally rigged against defrauded borrowers'' 
and writes that it ``flagrantly denies defrauded veterans [fair and 
timely] decisions [on their claims].''
  Bill closes his letter by calling on Congress to overturn the DeVos 
rule.
  How many times have each of us stood on the floor and talked about 
honoring the sacrifices of men and women who serve our country in 
uniform?
  Well, we have a chance to do it with a vote this week--to put our 
votes where all of our speeches have been. We have a chance to stand up 
not just for the American Legion but for all the veterans groups that I 
referred to before, to give defrauded student veterans and student loan 
borrowers a fair shot at the Federal student debt relief that Congress 
intended for them.
  We don't do many things on a bipartisan basis around here anymore, 
and it is a shame. I hope this will be an exception. Frankly, all of us 
have given these speeches on both sides of the aisle. All of us have 
said how much these veterans and their families mean to us. Well, now 
they are asking us to be on their side with this vote.
  I am urging my colleagues to show America that, when it comes to 
supporting our veterans, the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, can come 
together and do the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, student debt and student loans are a 
frequent topic of conversation, and, of course, that is what we are 
discussing here today. As someone who took about 20 years to pay off my 
law school loans, this is personal. Fortunately, I was able to do so 
due to generous interest rates and lending that helped facilitate 
people pursuing higher education and beyond.
  Across the United States, student loan debt totals nearly $1.6 
trillion and is made up of some 45 million borrowers. As more and more 
Americans are going to college and beyond, which is a good thing, this 
widespread problem isn't going to go away any time soon.
  I agree that we need to take some action here in Washington to 
address the financial burden for those with existing debt and to help 
give prospective students a better understanding of what the debt that 
they will assume will mean to them in their future life, before it is 
too late.
  One of the leading candidates for President on the other side of the 
aisle, Mr. Sanders, has suggested that we just make education free and 
that we eliminate all debt. Well, that is a fantasy. There is no such 
thing as free. I am tempted to quote Milton Friedman, who said: There 
is no such thing as a free lunch. Of course, what he meant by that is 
that somebody, eventually, will pay. It may not be the immediate person 
who is the object of your bounty, but somebody will pay.
  It is not financially responsible to just suggest that you are going 
to wipe away all debt, and it is certainly not fair to those who worked 
hard to earn the money to pay for their school only to find that those 
who did not find themselves with no debt. We have to come up with some 
commonsense answers, not just live in a fantasy land. Of course, to say 
that we are going to wipe away the debt is not fair to the parents who 
started saving for their kids' college even before they started walking 
or to the college student who worked multiple jobs to graduate with 
little or no debt at all or decided to go to community college at a 
lower cost before they then transferred to a 4-year institution and 
found a way to mitigate or keep their debt manageable. This idea of 
wiping away debt or making everything free is unfair to the person who 
chose not to go to college, only then to be saddled with someone else's 
debt. That is not fair.
  So the problem with wiping away debt is that it is never really gone. 
You just pass the responsibility on to someone else, and we see that 
concept--that mentality--at play here today, when it comes to this rule 
promulgated by the Trump administration that our friends across the 
aisle seek to reverse.
  Last fall, the Department of Education took a big step to forgive 
loans for students who have been defrauded by an institution of higher 
education without placing a serious burden on taxpayers. I think that 
is a good thing. People who commit fraud ought to be

[[Page S1648]]

held to account and those loans should be forgiven, but the burden 
should not be placed on taxpayers.
  There have been similar regulations around for decades, and, in 2016, 
the Obama administration made some serious changes that actually 
broadened the types of claims a student can make. They issued a rule 
that said a school's substantial misrepresentation could result in a 
student's loans being forgiven.
  But if my time in a courtroom taught me anything, it is that a good 
lawyer could portray even a factually accurate advertisement as somehow 
a misrepresentation, and there is no requirement that it be material 
but just that there be some abstract misrepresentation.
  I don't have any doubt about the intent of the law and that the 
intention is good, but the concept is far too broad and the sad truth 
is, being so broad, it is ripe for abuse, and that is exactly what the 
current rule in place sought to change--to maintain the ability to 
relieve debt as a result of fraud, but not make it so broad that it was 
subject to further abuse.
  The new rule establishes a clear standard for students to get 
individual debt relief and helps those impacted by school closures to 
find a way to finish their degree. It also takes big steps to hold 
schools accountable, which I believe is absolutely critical. We have 
this strange system where the school itself receives the tuition but 
has no accountability if the student is unable to complete their course 
of study or ends up getting a degree or a certificate in something that 
does not generate the income they need in order to pay that debt back. 
So we need to find ways to hold schools responsible, as well--as well 
as prevent predatory behavior from impacting more students, for 
example, targeting of veterans and then draining their GI bill benefits 
and leaving them with basically nothing to show for it. Those are the 
types of things we ought to be focusing on.
  Overall, this rule--the underlying rule that our Democratic 
colleagues seek to reverse--includes commonsense reforms to ensure it 
achieves the goal of helping students who are defrauded, while 
preventing taxpayers from footing the bill for a far-too-broad 
definition of what constitutes a misrepresentation.
  It is disappointing to see that they are trying to take us back to 
the previous rule, which was so ripe for abuse. In doing so, it would 
cause serious harm to students and schools and to the American 
taxpayer. They will end up left holding the bag.
  Rather than zeroing out the loan balance for tens of millions of 
borrowers or allowing broad and vague allegations of fraud, we need to 
look at targeted changes that can make a huge difference. One place 
that I mentioned a moment ago where we need to focus is our veterans. I 
have heard from a number of my constituents who are straddled with 
student debt--many before the time they actually served in the 
military.
  If someone goes to college after leaving the military, the GI bill of 
rights will cover a substantial part of their education. But what about 
those who went to college or graduate school before they went into the 
military, those who took out loans prior to their service?
  Well, in most cases, the GI bill cannot be applied retroactively, and 
servicemembers are left footing the bill for an education that 
otherwise would have been covered if they had gone to school after 
their military service.
  Well, I don't think we should categorically exempt student debt and 
tuition incurred before military service and thus make the GI bill of 
rights, if you go into the military after that, worth basically 
nothing. These men and women should have the choice and the flexibility 
to use the benefits they have earned to pay off their student loans--in 
other words, use their GI bill of right retroactively, just as they 
would be able to use them pursuing a new degree.
  I will be introducing legislation soon to make that change and to 
help our servicemembers address loan debt using the benefits that they 
have already earned.
  We can't just look at preexisting debt, though. We need to ensure 
that prospective students are making wise financial decisions on the 
front end. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. There is no 
clear system that makes it easy for students to compare financial aid 
packages from one school to another and to decide what the true cost of 
each will be. Many times, it is like comparing apples and oranges, and 
sometimes it can be downright misleading.
  Depending on how a school displays information about scholarships or 
other financial information, the difference in the pricetag can be 
pretty stark. It doesn't matter whether you are a 17-year-old heading 
straight to college from high school or somebody who has been in the 
workforce for years and is now heading back to school. The process is 
far too confusing, and it does not need to be.
  There are a lot of resources to help students get a clearer picture 
about their loan obligations and their expected salary after graduation 
and how that will impact their loan payments. Every student who incurs 
a penny of debt ought to have the information they need to be able to 
determine what amount of debt is acceptable in light of their future 
earning capacity and whether they will actually be able to get a degree 
that will allow them to pay back the money they borrowed for their 
school.
  I believe that is a shared responsibility. Not only is that something 
that the student bears responsibility for, but I think the school they 
attend bears responsibility as well.
  At the very least, we ought to provide accurate information. For 
example, the Department of Education has a calculator on their website 
that lets students calculate the net price of a degree before ever 
deciding which school to go to or what kind of loan to take out.
  The issue, though, is that this information isn't always easy to find 
and colleges and universities are not doing a great job at promoting 
it. That needs to change.
  I am a proud cosponsor of several pieces of legislation that would 
help prospective students better understand the cost of their higher 
education on the front end.
  Three of these bills have been introduced by our friend from Iowa, 
Senator Grassley, and would simplify the process for prospective 
students. One of these bills would standardize the format in terms of 
financial aid so that students aren't comparing apples to oranges; they 
are actually comparing apples to apples. Another would improve both the 
effectiveness and access to net-price calculators to help students make 
informed decisions before even deciding where to apply. The third would 
strengthen student loan counseling requirements to schools, so students 
are made aware of every option available, making it less likely that 
they will borrow more than they are likely to be able to repay.
  So despite what our colleagues across the aisle are saying, outright 
loan forgiveness across the board isn't the only path here. There are 
other options which I intend to pursue to make incremental changes that 
will have a huge impact on people working to repay their student debt 
without spreading that burden to each and every single American 
taxpayer. While these ideas may not fit on a bumper sticker, that does 
not mean they are not worth pursuing.
  I look forward to working with our colleagues to try to address this 
problem of mounting student debt and the difficulty many students have 
of paying that debt back because of misinformation or bad decisions 
they made, unaided by the schools they attend, to determine whether the 
degree they are pursuing and the debt they are incurring is actually 
realistic in light of their future income-earning capacity. We can 
address this sensibly and responsibly and in a way that does not affect 
each and every American taxpayer.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.

[[Page S1649]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, later today the Senate will be taking 
up the borrower defense CRA vote and likely voting on it tomorrow. Each 
and every Senator will have a choice. They can side with working 
students, or they can side with predatory, for-profit colleges. It 
should not be a hard choice, and that choice certainly should not be 
partisan.
  Students who were cheated and defrauded by predatory, for-profit 
colleges are often left with crushing debt and no path forward. That is 
why President Obama issued the borrower defense rule--to help students 
move forward with their lives and education and to get the debt relief 
they so urgently need.
  Since taking office, Secretary DeVos has put up roadblock after 
roadblock for students and borrowers. First, she refused to implement 
the borrower defense rule that was on the books, until a court forced 
her to. She stalled on debt relief for hundreds of thousands of 
borrowers who were left waiting for an answer, with tens of thousands 
of them falling into default and collections. Once again, the Federal 
courts were forced to step in.
  Now Secretary DeVos is trying to deny full relief to students who 
were clearly cheated by predatory colleges. For so many people, getting 
relief on your student debt means the difference between making ends 
meet or not, the difference between paying your rent or not, and the 
difference between getting back on your feet or not.
  Now, to make matters even worse, Secretary DeVos has gone further 
than just delaying and limiting the relief. She has issued a disastrous 
new borrower defense rule intentionally designed to make it harder for 
defrauded borrowers--defrauded borrowers--to get relief even when 
predatory colleges clearly violated the law. It will prevent students 
from getting their day in court and let predatory colleges off the hook 
financially. This rule says, in the fine print, that students will be 
stuck repaying 97 percent of their fraudulent debt. The Department even 
admitted that students will be cheated out of $2.5 billion per year, 
and students will only get 3 cents back for every dollar of fraud they 
experience. That is cruel and wrong.
  The Congressional Review Act, or CRA, would immediately halt 
Secretary DeVos's rule in its tracks and prevent it from going into 
effect.
  It is time to put an end to the nonstop efforts by this 
administration to prioritize the interests of predatory, for-profit 
schools over the interests of our students. It is time for Senators to 
decide, once and for all, if they will support our student loan 
borrowers who have been cheated out of a quality education or help 
corrupt institutions with their bottom line.
  I want to personally thank Senator Durbin for his tireless efforts to 
push this important issue forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if your car is a lemon, you don't sue 
the bank; you sue the dealer. A college can be a lemon, just like a car 
can be. A college could promise a potential student a job and then tell 
them that 50 percent of their students scored perfectly on their SAT 
tests. The potential student might use that information to take out 
student loans and enroll in a college. Then, if the information turns 
out to be false, the student may be stuck with student loans they can't 
afford to repay. Unlike a car, if your college is a lemon, you do sue 
the bank, and the bank is the taxpayer.
  Today, Democrats are forcing the Senate to vote on a Congressional 
Review Act that, if passed, would overturn the Trump administration's 
borrower defense rule. This process allows a borrower of a Federal 
student loan to have their loan forgiven if their institution misled 
them and that misrepresentation led to financial harm.
  First, if your college closes, it is important for you to know that 
your loans are forgiven. Let me say that again. If your college closes, 
it is important for you to know that your student loan is forgiven.
  There are about 6,000 colleges and universities in our country, and 
783 of them closed in 2018. For example, when Corinthian College 
closed, that made a lot of news. Many students, though, transferred to 
another college. But if they didn't transfer, they weren't stuck with 
their student loans; their loans were forgiven.
  We are not talking about that today when we vote. If your college 
isn't closing but it does defraud or mislead you, then you can file a 
claim. You can file a claim to have your loan forgiven, and you file it 
with the U.S. Department of Education.
  There are 42 million Americans with an outstanding Federal student 
loan. In 2018, about 106,000 of those 42 million Americans filed what 
we call borrower defense claims. They claimed they were misled by the 
college when they used their student loan to go to that college.
  In November 2016, the Obama administration issued a rule that 
required a borrower to demonstrate only that they had been misled, not 
that they had been financially harmed. The Trump administration fixes 
that overly broad regulation, while still protecting borrowers and the 
taxpayer.
  Here is the difference. Under the Obama administration, if one 
student had filed a claim and proved that he or she had been defrauded, 
all the other students in that program had to do was attest they had 
been misled in a similar way before having their loans forgiven as 
well. It was sort of a class action.
  It was unnecessary for the first student or subsequent students to 
prove they had been financially harmed by that misrepresentation. What 
this meant is, if you went to a school that had misled students, your 
loan could be forgiven even if you had a job making $85,000 a year.
  Under the Trump administration, each student needs to file a claim, 
prove that they were defrauded and that they were financially harmed, 
and then their loan would be forgiven by the taxpayer. Remember, the 
bank is the taxpayer.
  Secretary DeVos's borrower defense rule restores the original intent 
of the law that a borrower must be misled and harmed.
  The new rule establishes a fair and clear process as to what a 
borrower must demonstrate: No. 1, that the school misled them; No. 2, 
that the student relied on that information to enroll in the school; 
and No. 3, that the student was financially harmed. The new rule gives 
the borrower ample time to submit a claim and ensures that the 
Department is basing their judgment on all available information.
  The DeVos rule also protects the taxpayers who spend roughly $100 
billion a year on Federal student loans. It continues to allow the 
Secretary to recoup funds from an institution that has defrauded or 
misled borrowers. It encourages borrowers and the institution to 
resolve issues directly rather than involving the Federal Government.
  And the new rule allows the Department to evaluate the level of harm 
to each individual borrower filing the claim and forgives the 
appropriate amount. For example, if you were told by the school that 
you would make $45,000 a year when you graduated, but you are only 
making $40,000, the Department could decide to forgive a part of your 
loan.
  The Obama administration's rules went too far and allowed borrowers 
to have their loans forgiven whether or not they had actually suffered 
financial harm. Secretary DeVos's new borrower defense rule restores 
the original intent of the law that the borrower must be misled and 
harmed.
  I encourage Senators to vote against today's Congressional Review 
Act.
  I yield the floor.

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