All Economic Regulations are Transparent Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, in addition to protecting workers, the inspector general's office also makes recommendations which call for new and better regulations to protect America's taxpayers.

The Department of Education provides more than $150 billion every year in aid to more than 15 million college students with grants and low-cost loans. An alarming audit issued just this past week by the Department of Education's IG found that we need to crack down on shysters and fraud rings related to long-distance education.

Despite the Department of Education's recent efforts to curb this fraud, the audit found that sophisticated criminals are able to scam Federal programs through false identities and phony attendance records.

The IG urged the Department to quickly create new rules to ensure that billions of dollars it offers in financial aid are not wasted on people who take advantage of our distance education programs and siphon off precious resources that students and families desperately need.

This bill would cripple and hamper that necessary work. The legislation before us would also hamper the DOE from moving forward with other inspector general recommendations to reduce student loan defaults, root out wasteful spending that would save taxpayers $1 billion, and strengthen the overall accountability of our Nation's higher education programs.

The bill's lengthy list of at least 60 additional procedures would add years to the rulemaking process and would significantly hamstring the Education Department's ability to adopt regulations that protect taxpayers and students in a timely manner. This amendment would ensure that this bill does not compromise the ability of agencies to follow up on IG recommendations and would protect taxpayers from waste, fraud, and abuse.

All who patted themselves on the back about the student loan bill last summer, you are crippling the ability of this country to help students and families pay for college, which we need as a Nation. Let's adopt the Miller amendment in order to protect the inspector general's integrity and independence to get good reforms to protect the taxpayers and students of America.

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