[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20026-20028]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            PERKINS LOANS, HARDEST HIT FUND, AND ENFORCE ACT

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a couple of 
areas where I think we can make progress on legislation before the end 
of the year. This has been a legislative session in which we passed a 
number of important bills, and I think there is more we can do. 
Specifically, I am going to talk about some legislative initiatives 
that will give a leg up to American workers--Ohio workers--and also to 
help our families and help our students.
  I will start with students. There is an opportunity over the next 
couple of weeks for us to ensure that we reauthorize the Perkins Loan 
Program. Perkins is an incredibly important program, particularly for 
low-income students. In my view, of all the student loan programs out 
there, Perkins is by far the most flexible. This is an urgent matter 
because if we don't pass an extension, new loans will not be rewarded, 
even in January as students start this next semester. Let's not allow 
college tuition to become even less affordable for low-income students. 
Let's ensure that they can get a college degree to pursue their dreams 
and that we do move forward with this Perkins reauthorization.
  I spoke about this on the floor a month or so ago. I talked about it 
as a program that was incredibly important for students in my State. I 
talked about the fact that there are 60 schools in the Buckeye State, 
in Ohio, that have received loans from this program. Over the last 
school year, more than 25,000 Ohio students received financial aid 
through Perkins--including about

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3,000 students at Kent State University and about 1,700 students at the 
Ohio State University.
  I was in Columbus last weekend and had a chance to meet with some 
Ohio State students who care a lot about this. They want to ensure that 
this Perkins is going to be there for them so they can stay in school. 
Some of them already have help from other programs, but they know that 
if they don't have the Perkins Loan Program, they can't afford to make 
ends meet and to stay in school. It is very important.
  I have also heard from our college Presidents from around the State--
particularly from Dr. Beverly Warren from Kent, who was here a couple 
of weeks ago to talk to me about this, and Dr. Michael Drake, whom I 
saw last week at Ohio State. They want to ensure that their students 
have this possibility.
  One of the students I talked to is Keri Richmond. Keri is a junior at 
Kent State, and she interned at my office this past summer. Keri was an 
incredible intern. She is a student who is working hard. She is at Kent 
State, likely to graduate a little bit early. She spent her teenage 
years going from foster home to foster home. She fought the odds, and 
she is now excelling in college. She is bright. She is ambitious. Even 
with her Pell Grant, she has to have that Perkins loan in order to be 
able to stay in school, in order to make ends meet.
  This is an important program, but it is not about a program. It is 
not about numbers. It is about people. It is about Keri Richmond and 
others like her. The impact goes well beyond Ohio. Over 1,7000 colleges 
and universities across the country participate in this program. Low-
income students everywhere rely on it. If it expires, it is only more 
difficult to pay for school. Instead, what we should be doing in the 
Senate is making it easier, not harder, to afford to go to school. Some 
of these tuitions have gone up and up. We have to be sure every kid has 
a chance to be able to get ahead by going to college or university.
  If we don't move, students who previously received a Perkins loan 
will lose their eligibility if they change institutions or academic 
programs. It is a big deal for them. If we don't act soon, students who 
are seeking loans for the winter and spring semesters will be 
ineligible. In total, it is possible that 150,000 freshmen will lose 
their eligibility this fall. We can't let that happen. Let's not allow 
college tuition to become this roadblock for low-income students who 
are looking for a college degree. Let's give them this chance. Let's 
give them this opportunity. By the way, let's extend it but at the same 
time work on ways to improve the program. I know there are some Members 
on my side of the aisle--and I think on the other side as well but 
certainly on my side of the aisle--who said they have concerns about 
some of these student loan programs and would like to reform them to 
make them work better. That is great. Let's take the time to do that.
  In the meantime, let's not eliminate this program and have these kids 
fall between the cracks. I am there on the reforms. I would like to 
help on that. I think we can do better for all of our student loan 
programs and help all of our kids be able to have a better chance to 
succeed. Let's not create this terrible uncertainty for these students 
in the meantime. Let's extend this program and then work on those 
reforms.
  I thank Senator Casey, Senator Baldwin, Senator Collins, and others 
for their strong leadership on this. I want to ask my colleagues in the 
Senate to do simply what the House has done and do an extension of this 
program. The House has already passed this legislation. There is no 
reason it shouldn't be in the omnibus legislation, and there is no 
reason we shouldn't move forward with ensuring that these kids have the 
certainty they need to be able to stay in school.
  Mr. President, the second issue I want to talk about is that while 
students get the education they need, we also have to ensure that the 
communities they are going back to are safe and make sure those 
communities can thrive and grow.
  One of the issues we have in Ohio and unfortunately in too many 
neighborhoods all around this country is that you have a lot of blight, 
a lot of homes that have been abandoned. Two things happen: One, when 
homes are abandoned, they become a magnet for crime, for drugs, and for 
other criminal activity to the point that they are dangerous for the 
community, but, second, they drive down the cost of the other houses--
sometimes by as much as 80 percent. If you are in a community or you 
have a beautiful home you are taking care of but your neighbor's house 
becomes abandoned and becomes a magnet for crime and an eyesore, it 
drives down all of the property values.
  In Congress we have spent a lot of money, taxpayer money, on helping 
people deal with their mortgages when they are underwater--particularly 
after the financial crisis. In my view we ought to focus more on taking 
down these abandoned homes and creating safer neighborhoods but also, 
through market forces, allowing the property values of all of these 
homes to increase.
  I think this is an honorable effort, and it is one that a lot of 
people are focused on now around the country. I don't think we are 
quite caught up to where our neighborhoods are here in Washington, DC, 
because when I go home to Ohio I hear about this all the time. We have 
about 80,000 of these dangerous abandoned homes in Ohio.
  Again, to address public safety concerns and tumbling home values in 
these struggling neighborhoods, one of the best alternatives is to 
demolish these abandoned structures. Sometimes another structure can be 
rebuilt there. That is what we want. We want more economic development 
in these communities. In some cases, I have seen where there was an 
abandoned home, it was torn down and made into a community garden and 
the community can all participate. The point is to get these homes down 
so we can have the redevelopment we all want.
  I have walked the streets with local officials in Cleveland, Warren, 
Lima, and Toledo, OH, and I have seen these problems firsthand. As I do 
that, I talk to the residents. I ask them what they think. You can 
imagine the response I get. First, for them, it is an eyesore. It is a 
danger for their kids, grandkids. Second, they are worried about their 
property values.
  I had one occasion to speak to someone in Toledo, OH, that was 
particularly concerning to me. This was a woman who had three kids. Her 
home was right next to an abandoned home, literally feet away--6 or 7 
feet away, sort of like a row house. She said: Rob, every night I go to 
bed worrying that the home next to me, which is abandoned, is going to 
be torched by arsonists. At that point in time--this was in Toledo, 
OH--there was about one arson a night, where these abandoned homes were 
not just targets for crime but they were also being used by arsonists 
as practice for burning down a home. She was worried about her kids. 
She was worried she couldn't go to sleep at night because if that home 
caught fire next to her, her home could be next.
  This is something we ought to focus on and we can focus on. Land 
banks in some of our hardest hit areas of Ohio, Michigan, and other 
States have gotten to work on attacking this problem. They have done a 
great job. They don't have the resources they need to demolish as many 
properties as they would like to help some of these struggling 
neighborhoods. That is why these land banks have come to us and asked: 
Can you help us a little more?
  After talking to them, after visiting these neighborhoods, we did 
take action. We authored legislation called the Neighborhood Safety Act 
of 2013, which was a bipartisan effort and a bicameral effort. In the 
House, you had Members like Dave Joyce, Marcy Kaptur, and Marcia Fudge 
working on this. Our legislation called for what is called the Hardest 
Hit Fund to be used not just to help people pay down their mortgages 
but also to help people be able to knock down these abandoned homes. We 
pushed it aggressively, and this important change was made 
administratively. It has provided nearly $66 million in Ohio and around 
the

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country to deal with these thousands of abandoned homes in our State. 
Michigan also got funds, as did other States.
  Now, in many of these States, these Hardest Hit Funds have run out. 
In other words, there are more abandoned homes than there is money to 
be able to deal with the problem. Given the success rate we have and 
the fact that these land banks are doing a great job, we think it is 
time to provide some more funding. That is what we proposed to do in 
the Omnibus appropriations bill.
  I am working with Senator Stabenow, Senator Brown, and others to 
transfer funds from what is called the Home Affordable Modification 
Program, which is a program that would be eliminated under our 
proposal, and shift some of those funds into the Hardest Hit Fund for 
demolition purposes. I have repeatedly discussed this issue with our 
leadership, Senator McConnell and others, our leadership here on the 
committees in the Senate and in the House, and I am very hopeful this 
can be done before year-end. It is the right thing to do. It is an 
opportunity for us to be able to shift some of these funds from a 
program that is not working as well into a program we know works and to 
make progress in some of our struggling neighborhoods in Ohio and 
around the country.
  I give special thanks to these land banks in Ohio that have taken the 
lead on this issue back home. Particularly, I want to thank the 
tireless efforts of Jim Rokakis, director of the Thriving Communities 
Initiative at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. He has done 
excellent work in helping to lead this effort and highlight this issue. 
I hope we can get this done, even in the next week here, to be able to 
help our communities in Ohio and around the country.
  Mr. President, finally, when we talk about keeping our communities 
safe and the need to help our students, we also have to be sure that we 
are helping our workers. We need to ensure we are protecting jobs in 
our States that are threatened by unfairly traded imports.
  I am pleased that we will soon be voting to pass the conference 
report for the Customs bill. It is my understanding that this may come 
up as early as Monday or Tuesday next week. I hope we can pass that 
here in the Senate and send it to the President for his signature.
  There are a number of aspects of the Customs bill I support, but one 
aspect of it that I think is really important is legislation that is 
called the ENFORCE Act, to ensure that we are enforcing our laws 
properly. This is on the heels of legislation we already passed as part 
of the trade promotion authority earlier this year. That legislation is 
called Level the Playing Field Act. Senator Sherrod Brown, my colleague 
from Ohio, and I offered this legislation, and it is now part of our 
law and ammunition we can use against unfairly traded imports. It is 
already working because it has already been signed into law, and it is 
helping to deal with dumping when people are selling below costs or 
when they unfairly subsidize imports. It is helping workers in Ohio. It 
is helping our tire workers, paper workers, and steel workers, and we 
are proud of that.
  The problem is that although the legislation that we have already 
passed, the Level the Playing Field Act, helps with regard to taking on 
countries that are sending their products here unfairly, sometimes 
those countries then decide to try to evade the provisions we put in 
place, the higher tariffs for their dumped products or their higher 
tariffs for their subsidized products. That is what the ENFORCE Act is 
about. It is about ensuring that although we have this legislation in 
place, countries and their companies don't go around those regulations 
and still try to get products here into the United States by illegally 
sending it through another country or relabeling the product so that it 
doesn't fall under the tariffs that might be levied against them.
  I am really hopeful that we will able to pass this additional 
legislation. It is incredibly important, as I said, not only for Ohio, 
but it is also important for the country. Time after time we have seen 
that once we put these protective orders in place against these 
unfairly traded imports, these countries continue to illegally enter 
our country through illegal transshipments to other countries or 
through relabeling these products.
  I think we have an opportunity to move forward on something that is 
really important to help protect workers to ensure that we can closely 
examine these schemes and stop them.
  This effort, by the way, is backed by the National Association of 
Manufacturers, the American Iron and Steel Institute, and the United 
Steelworkers. They have a common cause because they understand that it 
is so critical that we ensure that our workers get a fair shake.
  I got an email last week from workers at Pennex Aluminum in Leetonia, 
OH, in the Mahoning Valley. They have 78 workers at their facility, and 
they won an important case against aluminum extrusions from China. The 
email said that this relief really helped us.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. These workers said: Senator Portman, ``this relief 
enabled our company to compete once again on a fair and level playing 
field.'' That is the relief we helped to provide by enforcing our laws 
against this product coming in.
  They then said:

       As a result, we recently completed an investment of $38 
     million to expand our facility in Leetonia and create 
     significant new jobs. Our great concern is that this trade 
     relief is now at risk due to the efforts by Chinese producers 
     to avoid paying duties by, among other schemes, manipulating 
     the alloy content of their extruded aluminum products and 
     shipping their products under a different name.

  In other words, they were getting around the protections that are in 
place by simply relabeling the product. Again, this also happens by 
going around to other countries. That is why the ENFORCE Act is so 
important. Those 78 workers at Pennex Aluminum know it is important, 
and they know this legislation will help them to be able to get a fair 
shake.
  Finally, I wish to thank the members of the conference committee on 
the customs bill for putting our BDS language into this legislation. It 
will help to avoid boycotts and divestment in sanctions of Israel. This 
is a way that some countries around the world are trying to 
delegitimize Israel. It is something that is important for us to take a 
stand on as a Congress, and we do that in this Customs legislation.
  So again, I think there is some good legislation we can pass here in 
the next week or so in the Senate. I hope we will do it.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me the time tonight. We need 
to continue to stand up for our families, our students, and our workers 
and ensure that, indeed, we do give the people we represent a fair 
shake.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.

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