TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in recent years we have faced a lot of difficulty filling positions for service to our Federal Government, not the least of which are critical diplomatic posts around the world. We have seen delays in confirming Federal judges, one of the most important duties of the Senate. These men and woman are chosen for life appointments.

The most frustrating part of this is that virtually all of these nominees should be confirmed with overwhelming support. To be nominated by the President at the White House for an ambassadorial spot or even a Federal judgeship you go through a clearance process in the beginning for the White House to choose this person, then a background check--and it is a pretty extensive background check--and then eventually, if the White House is satisfied this person is fit for the job, with no obstructions to their moving forward, they send them to Congress and it goes through this process all over again.

So these nominees have been vetted once, twice, three times before they finally reach the point where there is a vote on the nominee in a committee on Capitol Hill in the Senate. If they clear that vote--and it is a partisan vote--if they clear that vote, then they make it to the Executive Calendar. It takes a long time. While this is going on, people are sitting there in suspense as to whether they are going to be selected and when they finally might get a chance to serve.

For some reason, we have seen a virtual standstill since the Republicans have taken control of the Senate when it comes to filling critical positions appointed by the President. It is time for us to schedule up-or-down votes on more than 27 foreign affairs and judicial nominees who are awaiting floor action.

Given the foreign policy challenges we face around the world, the delays in considering delays for our ambassadors and other critical foreign policy positions is inexcusable. Many come to the floor on the other side of the aisle every day to criticize the President and his foreign policy. Yet when he asks for men and women to serve and represent the United States in foreign countries, they languish on the calendar.

Most of the people languishing on the calendar for ambassadorial spots are not political, they are professional. They are men and women who have served our government through Democratic and Republican administrations, have developed a good reputation, and are now moving up to a new responsibility. Why in the world is the Republican majority refusing to allow those men and women to serve the United States? I don't understand it. I think it is dangerous. I think some people are putting politics ahead of national security.

As of today, we have at least 11 foreign affairs nominees on the Senate Executive Calendar. Typically the vast majority of those nominees move quickly in a bipartisanship manner. However, over the past few years that has all changed. Everything is political now. Last year the Senate Republicans held up more than 30 nominees at various times. At least 10 of them were held over from the last Congress.

Most astonishingly, on the Senate Executive Calendar today, at a time when the international community is facing a terrible conflict in Syria, is a professional named Gayle Smith. She is a qualified nominee who wishes to serve as the head of USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development. What does that Agency do? That Agency provides food and medicine to the refugees of the Syrian war. It is a big process. It has to be moved into countries and into refugee camps in massive amounts to keep innocent people--victims of this war--alive.

Gayle Smith has been waiting for weeks, if not months, for approval. So what is so controversial about her? The only controversy is she was chosen by President Obama. She is eminently qualified. No one has raised any questions about her competency to do this job. She came to see me a week or two ago. She is anxious to serve our government, and the job she has to do is critically important at this moment in history. Yet she languishes on the Senate Executive Calendar not approved. So there is no nominal leader of this massive Agency which is responsible for the well-being of so many innocent people. There are another 10 just like her. In addition to this, three dozen more await confirmation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Many of them have had hearings; they just sit there. This includes people like Jeffrey Hawkins to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic. Now, most of us would struggle to find that on a map, but the fact is, that country is facing its own conflict that has displaced more than one-half million people. Yet the post of U.S. Ambassador to that country goes vacant, not because of any controversy about Jeffrey Hawkins but the fact that he was chosen by this President. That is it. That is the only complaint.

It also includes Roberta Jacobson, who has been named as the next Ambassador of Mexico. Roberta is a seasoned diplomat who would be a great asset to a country that is our neighbor and closest among Latin American countries.

It includes Daniel Rubinstein to be the next Ambassador to Tunisia, one of the few countries to emerge from the Arab Spring as a functioning democracy. In total, some of these posts have been vacant for more than 1 year, despite the President's efforts to fill them. Other nominees are supposed to replace current Ambassadors who are looking forward to moving to their next post. They cannot do it. Why? The Senate does not want to call them for a vote.

That is a decision to be made by the Republican majority. It is a shame our nominees, many of whom are noncontroversial, who have distinguished careers in the Foreign Service, languish on the Senate Executive Calendar for months at a time, in some cases a year. There used to be a spirit of bipartisanship when it came to national security, one that had a long and proud tradition. I hope the majority now will return to that proud tradition.

We have a similar delay when it comes to judges. So far this year--this year, and here we are in the month of September, near the end, coming into October--so far this year, the Republican-controlled Senate has held confirmation votes on six judges--six--all year. Well, you say, the President only has 2 years left. Maybe

it is normal that you would not approve a judge for a lifetime appointment if he only has a little over a year left now. During President George W. Bush's final 2 years in office, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed 68 judicial nominees--6 so far this year by the Republicans. At this point in 2007, the Democratic Senate had confirmed 29 of President Bush's judicial nominees. That is nearly five times the number that has been cleared by the Republican Senate, despite the fact that there is no controversy involving any of those nominees.

There are 16 noncontroversial judicial nominees currently pending on the Senate Calendar whom we could confirm right away. Seven of these nominees would fill judicial emergencies. That means they are being sent to courthouses where the cases are stacking up and people are asking: When am I going to get my day in court?

Well, you will not get your day in court until the new judge gets his day in the Senate. We don't know when that might happen. There is no reason to delay these confirmation votes. These nominees would be confirmed with overwhelming support. We need to put them into the vacancies on the Federal bench. Overall, there are 67 vacant Federal judgeships now, 31 of which have been designated as judicial emergencies. Most of those vacancies are from States where there is at least one Republican Senator. What that means is that nominee would not even be on the calendar were it not for the approval of that Republican Senator. So they have bipartisan support. I urge my Republican colleagues to work in good faith to fill these vacancies on the Federal bench. This is an important responsibility of the Senate. We should not neglect it.

The vast majority of nominees could be confirmed today. If debate is needed on a few of them, so be it. If a rollcall is needed, let's have it. We cannot leave vacant important positions in our government and in our judicial system: 16 judicial nominees, 11 nominees for foreign affairs. We could vote on them this afternoon. Are we holding off the vote because we are too busy on the Senate floor? If you are following the Senate, you know that is not the case. It is time for us to do our jobs so these nominees can do theirs. For the sake of national security and our system of justice, let's move forward in a bipartisan fashion and vote on these nominees.

FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES

Mr. President, another school year has begun. In August, I marked the occasion by holding a press conference outside of Argosy University. Don't be surprised if you have not heard the name Argosy University. It is a for-profit college in downtown Chicago. This for-profit college is part of an industry that enrolls 10 percent of all college students--the for-profit colleges and universities--10 percent of the students. They take in 20 percent of all the Department of Education financial aid. Here is the kicker. For-profit colleges and universities account for 44 percent of all the student loan defaults: 10 percent of the students, 44 percent of the student loan defaults.

Why does that happen? Because of several things. First, they are very expensive. They accept anyone--virtually anyone. Many of the students start going to these for-profit schools and realize they are getting too deep in debt and they drop out. Then they have the worst world: a student debt and no degree. Some of them finish the school, finish the course, and are given a diploma. They find out that they cannot get a job with it.

When you look at the Brookings Institution's recent study of for-profit schools, they ranked last when it comes to good-paying jobs after college. Then what happens? The students cannot make enough money to pay off their student loans and they default. That, sadly, is the cycle that has faced thousands of students across America. This industry is in trouble. It is in such trouble that many of the large for-profit schools are threatened and some have collapsed. The largest, Corinthian College, this for-profit university sent shock waves through the industry. They raked in profits, leaving students with mountains of debt, and then when they were asked to prove to the Federal Government that the students actually got a job after they graduated, they falsified the returns to the Federal Government. When they were challenged, they went under. They sunk.

When they sunk, look what happened. The students who had gone to school there were told: Corinthian just disappeared. You no longer have a university. Then they learned that the courses they took could not be transferred to any other school except maybe another for-profit school somewhere. The net result of it is, the students had an option: give up whatever credits they had at Corinthian and walk away from their student loans or keep their Corinthian credits and pay their student loans.

The students who walked away from their student loans, of course, created an obligation to Federal taxpayers who had to make up the difference.

Argosy University is another one of these for-profit colleges. It is owned by Education Management Corporation. It is one of the companies that are also being looked at very carefully. Students who walk through Argosy's doors in Chicago or surf their ads online considering enrollment should know the company that runs this school, Argosy University, is under investigation by at least 14 different State attorneys general for unfair and deceptive practices.

In 2013, the Colorado attorney general sued EDMC, which owns Argosy, for deceiving, misleading, and financially injuring students.

The Colorado attorney general's investigation centered on Argosy and found a long, elaborate pattern of deceptive behavior by the school. That is not all. EDMC is also being sued by the Department of Justice under the Federal False Claims Act for falsely certifying compliance with provisions of Federal law. It turns out that they are incentivizing people to sign up students at their schools, these for-profit schools. They give them a signing bonus if they can lure some young student into signing up. That violates the law.

In addition, the San Francisco city attorney found that EDMC, the company that runs Argosy, engaged in marketing tactics that underestimated program costs for students and inflated job placement figures. They were just flatout lying to these kids.

According to the Department of Education, EDMC is considered ``not financially responsible.'' It has been placed on the Department's special heightened cash monitoring status.

The company withdrew its stock from trading on NASDAQ because it no longer wanted to make public filings with the SEC. You see, if you make a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and lie, you can go to jail, so they just withdrew their stock rather than be caught lying.

In addition, in Chicago, an Argosy student seeking an associate's degree in business, information technology, or psychology will pay about $34,000 in tuition to this for-profit school. Two blocks away, the students at City Colleges of Chicago Harold Washington Campus are also getting the same degree, and the cost there is $7,000. It is $34,000 at Argosy and $7,000 at the City Colleges of Chicago. Incidentally, the hours at the City Colleges of Chicago are transferable to other universities and schools--not if it is Argosy.

One in fifty students at the Harold Washington Campus is likely to default ultimately when it comes to paying their student loans; at Argosy, one out of seven. It is just too darn expensive, and these kids cannot pay back the loans.

A recent Brookings report found that Argosy University Chicago--the one I visited in August--is No. 9 in the country on the list of schools whose students owe the most in Federal student loans. They owe a total of $6.2 billion--billion. In fact, of the top 25 schools on the list, 13 are for-profit colleges and account for 10 percent of all the outstanding student loan debt in America.

I want to close, as I see my colleague is on the floor seeking recognition. I close by using one more example: ITT Tech. It sounds great, doesn't it. It is No. 16 on Brookings' list. Students owe $4.6 billion in loans. It is not surprising. An associate's degree, a 2-year degree at ITT Tech, costs $47,000, and the students have a one-in-five chance of defaulting on the loans they make at that school. Meanwhile, ITT Tech, which does business in Chicago--Arlington Heights, Orland Park, and Oak Brook--has been under investigation by at least 18 State attorneys general for unfair and deceptive practices, has been sued by the New Mexico attorney general for misrepresentation to students about their accreditation status and sued by the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for predatory lending. The list just goes on.

The point I am getting to is we are subsidizing these schools. This is the most heavily subsidized for-profit business in America; 80 percent to 95 percent of their revenue comes straight from the Federal Treasury. If all of the money going to for-profit colleges and universities--think about the University of Phoenix, DeVry, Kaplan--if all of that money were combined, this would be the ninth largest Federal agency in Washington. But, instead, the CEOs who run these for-profit companies are making a ton of money. The top man at the University of Phoenix--the biggest one--makes $9 million a year. How is that for being a college president? And some of these other ones, small change--$3 million a year. They get to run these for-profit schools while these kids stack up in debt, end up defaulting, and end with their lives ruined. Incidentally, defaulting on a debt means you still owe it to the grave. Student loan debts are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I could go through a long list, but I hope Congress comes to its senses when the higher education bill comes to the floor. This rip-off, this scam on students and families across America, has to come to an end.

I yield the floor.

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