Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Legislation

Charting the student loan interest rate proposals

Posted on

As the Office of Federal Relations continues to track the proposals and progress made on legislation affecting the student loan interest rate, below is a chart highlighting the proposals to date and major proposals.

Options continue to multiply as the July 1 deadline raising the 3.4 percent interest rate to 6.4 percent is quickly approaching. Soon, colleges will begin originating loans for the fall semester not long afterward. Congressional insiders predict that if the rate is allowed to double, Congressional Republicans will likely lose their appetite for addressing the issue because students will not feel the impact immediately.

The many options, and the apparent disagreement among Senate Democrats and the White House, mean that the fate of any successful bill may rest on the House’s ability to pass a measure that will then be amended in the Senate. Further, it puts the Obama administration in the unusual position of being allied most closely with Congressional Republicans, making the some of the most unusual bedfellows.

Continue reading “Charting the student loan interest rate proposals”

Farm Bill goes to mark up

Posted on

Both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are working on the Farm Bill this week. The respective farm bills scheduled to be marked up in Senate Agriculture on Tuesday and House Agriculture on Wednesday. The draft House plan released on Friday would save a projected $39.7 billion over a decade through reductions to nutrition programs, farm and crop insurance, and conservation efforts. Like the Senate bill (S.10), it would eliminate yearly direct payments to farmers and shift financial risk management away from traditional subsidies to insurance-based alternatives.

The UW’s School of Environment and Forest Studies is impacted by the legislation’s Research (Title VII) and Forestry (Title VIII) titles. The Office of Federal Relations is monitoring the progress and changes of each bill as it goes through the legislative process.

Continue reading “Farm Bill goes to mark up”

Progress on Student Loan Interest Rate Bill

Posted on

Although both chambers are in recess today, there’s plenty of behind-the-scenes legislating and negotiating. House lawmakers plan to release a draft 2013 farm bill that’s expected to produce $38 billion in savings over a decade. Across the Capitol, Senate Democrats are looking for ways to advance President Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency – Gina McCarthy – who is having a tough time getting Republican support. The Administration also is engaged in talks with Republicans to head off a scheduled student loan interest rate hike. And there are efforts afoot to revise a Senate Internet tax bill in the House in an effort to gain support from conservative lawmakers.

A deal aimed at preventing federal student loan interest rates from doubling on July 1 appears possible after both sides made concessions on Thursday. A House Republican bill (HR 1911), that could be marked up next week, would treat the subsidized and unsubsidized portions of the Stafford federal student loan the same, pegging their interest rates to the 10-year Treasury rate plus 2 .5 percent. The legislation would also shift loans for graduate students to the 10-year Treasury rate plus 4.5 percent. Those interest rates would be capped at 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would save the federal government $990 million over five years and $3.7 billion over 10 years.

This measure largely mirrors a proposal included in President Obama’s FY2014 budget to shift the current fixed interest rate to a market-based variable rate.  The House is poised to move the measure through that chamber by Memorial Day, plus or minus a week.

Senate Begins Mark Up of Immigration Bill

Posted on

The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning to mark up the immigration bill today in the opening act of what will likely be a long, contentious fight over amendments. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” (S 744) is the immigration reform proposal developed by the so-called “gang of eight.”

Among other things, the bill would expand the annual cap of H-1B visas to 110,000 from the existing cap of 65,000, raise the number of visas for foreign graduates with advanced degrees from U.S. universities that are exempt from the annual cap, and create a 13-year path to citizenship for nearly 11 million immigrants. No undocumented worker, however, would be eligible for citizenship until the border is considered secure.

The Office of Federal Relations has been actively engaged with Congressional members on issues related to visas and pathways to citizenship for our students (Dreamers).

Watch the Senate Committee mark up live.

Senate Releases Immigration Reform Bill

Posted on

Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a bill to make the most substantive changes to immigration laws in nearly three decades. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013” would affect visas for high-tech workers, create a new “W-visa” program to attract low-skilled workers, and require businesses to implement new electronic-verification requirements to check the immigration status of their employees.

The bill will also create what is certain to be a controversial pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to become permanent legal residents a decade after they register with the government. Immigrants would pay a $2,000 fine, pass a background check, have a job, and wait 10 years before applying for a green card. Three years after that, they could apply to become U.S. citizens. Dream Act youth can obtain green cards in five years and citizenship immediately thereafter.

In exchange for the “pathway to citizenship” for many immigrants, conservatives demanded language in the bill that would call for billions of dollars to be spent on tightened security at the U.S.-Mexico border with a goal of apprehending 90 percent of those crossing the border in “high-risk” areas. But the whole process is contingent, at several points over a decade, on the government meeting certain border-security benchmarks.