have interest rates as high as 18% and in addition to serving on this committee i serve on the education committee and the department of ed and they help committee have looked at a number of these different for-profit schools and one in particular has an interest rate student loan that is 15% but they also have a default rate of 18%. another school has interest rates, and these were in 2009 in 2010, these interest-rate numbers, at 18% with a default rate of 55%. so it looks like the for-profits are offering the student loans with high interest rates and yet a low expected repayment rates, which i think speaks directly in some cases to the aggressive recruiting nature of some of the schools, that they are really not that concerned because the default rate is so high as long as it means that student is in

fact enrolled and federal dollars have been collected. does the cfpb have plans to study these types of loans further and are there any recommendations that you can offer that will address the institutional loans made by the for-profit colleges and universities? >> in recent years, there has been financial reforms that have indicated a couple of principles that might be worthwhile here to mention. one is the concept of skin in the game so the dodd-frank act actually requires that lenders retain some interest even if they were to tell them to securitize pools of assets. another is considering the ability to repay. in the mortgage market lenders will be required to consider whether a mortgage borrower can actually repay. >> that's a good idea. >> in general when an entity is

able to come out ahead, even when they expect upfront that the customer will likely fail, that may be a sign that the competitive market forces aren't really working and that incentives are distorted. i think that there'll has significant expertise in the area of institutional lending and the role that 9010 might play so we will continue to monitor that market closely and as you have mentioned before, we have also looked in this set your at the recruitment of veterans and servicemembers as it relates to compliance with 9010 and then my colleague has probably petraeus has been quite outspoken about this and we continue to work with other agencies to monitor this. >> speaking of the 9010 ruled the g.i. bill does not include the 90% so in most of those cases, the federal part, the

federal bone position assistance is much higher than the 90%. >> what you are saying is correct. we are currently experiencing a rapid increase in the number of veterans returning from foreign conflicts who are enrolling in higher education, so i think it's in the interest of all of us to ensure that they can continue to be an economic engine as they were after world war ii but also that they did not unnecessarily take on high-cost credit when they have in enough is that they have earned. >> and especially when you look at the high expected default rate needs to be taken into consideration. >> yes, all aspects of how the marketplace works or something that we closely monitor to ensure that the market is fully functioning and that there is compliance with consumers.

>> one of the recommendations made in a recent report states that congress should require the institutions of higher ed work proactively to protect and inform the private student loan borrowers. would it be like no before you all or should it be up to the school to protect and inform the borrowers or should the lenders take some responsibility in ensuring that the borrowers have a clear concise and accurate information regarding their student loans? >> so everyone has a responsibility and borrower certainly need to take the responsibility for the commitments they take on. but the point about the financial aid office is an important one. currently, most lenders are requiring loans to be certified by the school. to simply verify that the student is actually enrolled, that they have not already over borrowed.

very common sense underwriting principles, which was certainly not well observed in the years prior to the financial crisis, where capital markets conditions created the incentives for originators to make substantial fees without really having the borrower having the ability to repay. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. chopra, how are you? >> very good. >> very well. let me ask you, i heard your response to a question with reference to borrowers who field trapped in their present interest rate and are not able to refinance at a lower rate and i think your answer to the question was there was not enough competition. is that correct? >> if might not simply be that. there might also be issues in the service infrastructure where

borrowers may not know that they are able to make certain changes to their loans. so i think it is market conditions as well as financial education and the servicing. >> do we have -- does the bureau have any ideas or suggestions as to either how we create greater market competition or greater inflows of information for individuals so that they can exercise their rights? >> sure, think we have a strong role to play in educating borrowers about their ability to -- what their options are when they may not be able tonight their payments and we have already released a number of web tools and other partnerships so that students know how to manage their debt better, but one thing we do here is that even if they want to refinance, there simply is not that much opportunity for them. it's something that many mortgage borrowers think about when they want to refinance, but the current market conditions

often constrained them and the processes that do so can be paralytic. >> as someone who has been a strong advocate in a different context in being able to allow mortgage borrowers to refinance at historically lower levels, it seems to me that we should find the wherewithal to be able to achieve this, and continued to have people be responsible borrowers to be able to meet some of their debt load at the end of the day. we would like to maybe pursue that a little bit more with you as well as how do we stimulate creating competition so in fact the marketplace itself will find itself more robustly engaged when rates fall. how about the part of your report that noted that about 40% of private student loan borrowers had not exhausted their federal student loans and

in that respect obviously before you go and rov from the private sector wouldn't it be more desirable to maximize that which is available to you on your federal student loans limits because those are at lower rates than generally in the private marketplace? >> infected to count people who even apply for federal loans that number goes north 50% i believe so yes one of the key issues is that we put forth in the report is involving the financial aid office more in the process and giving much clearer information. there has been an abundance of fine print in quite small font that has invaded so many of our credit card agreements, mortgage agreements and all other things. there is a lot of work that we try and do to simplify disclosures. we find that this actually is lower costs for smaller

financial institutions to provide and much more clear to borrowers because you should not need an attorney and a magnifying glass to understand your obligations at age 18. >> so the question is, is there a way to enhance -- i mean you mention some of the web sites. are there other fraternities in which we can get you no financial aid departments to be more robustly engaged in saying here is the ability if you qualify before you consider taking out a private sector loan that will be more costly. you should consider the federal loan. >> in fact most lenders will strongly agree that federal loans should be looked at first and many of them communicate that to their borrowers of getting financial aid officers the opportunity to actually counsel the student before the student loan would help. we actually heard reports from

lenders, schools and groups about that. >> finally i listen to my distinguished friend and colleague, senator corker, expressed his concerns about the interface between the bureau and regulators and i wonder in the process of doing this work to just find prudential regulators were doing the type of consumer information and advocacy that the bureau has been doing in this particular regard? >> we have a very explicit mission on financial education and also to assist borrowers with the completion of financial aid applications. their primary role of courses to ensure the capital adequacy of the financial system and they do work with us on financial education work but we have placed a major emphasis on that because we believe they can ensure a more robust marketplace across all consumer financial products. >> thank you.

>> thank you senator menendez. senator corker one more question and then we will move to the next panel. >> first of all you are obviously a very intelligent person and it sounds like you have done a lot of good work and i want to thank you for that. i meet with students who are 27, 28 years old, people who used to be students and have huge amounts of debt if you look at the amount of money they're making and you just wonder when they are ever going to have a real life because they are working two or three jobs to pay these loans off. i frustration really is that the hypocrisy around all of this. on one hand, we hear especially during the election cycle, talk about student lending and student loans and i assure you there are students that have huge amounts of loans that never may be repaid or may take 20 years and we advocate policies that drive up tuition rates. on the privacy side that senator

menendez was referring to they are seeking flexibility but the prudential regulators are hesitant to give them the flexibility's that you have on the public side so you know there is the hypocrisy that goes with his whole testimony today. not you, but the difference between the consumer agency in the prudential. then we have the law that says that student rates are going to be up 3.4%, just pull it out of the air. so those loans are all comers, regardless of any kind of credit status. no collateral, no payments made for four years. is there any way you as an intelligent person could possibly imagine that the federal government is going to come out on loans like that and are we not again to demonstrate tremendous hypocrisy and that what we are really doing is piling up debt down the road to

the same students to have to pay off? is there anyway that when an agency is taking all comers, there is no collateral being put up, no underwriting taking place, no payments being made the entire time they are in college. is there any way think federal government could possibly come out to the good on 3.4% loans? >> the rates set by congress are a bit outside our jurisdiction but i will say that the market for the global competitive market is very very fierce and across all indicators, having a highly-skilled workforce has very real economic growth potential and investing in a way that is strategic such that people who may not have the means can access education, there is a significant upside to that. it is absolutely hard to underwrite that type of loan and in many cases, you see that, how

can you anticipate whether someone is going to be able to repay five years in advance when perhaps if they entered in 2005 the entire global capital markets collapse. so it's a difficult problem but insuring that the workforce is built with skills is something that needs to be a priority as well. so we have to balance all of these and we look forward to working with the. >> i think your answer is no financially but there are other benefits. >> no, it's in i don't know. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chopra very much. i will call the second panel forward. i think senator corker there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around when i see what state governments have done when we are in college and schools like ohio state were considered state universities and now we consider them state-supported or even

state assisted and we can blame it on medicaid or we can talk about a attack structure or a whole bunch of other issues but that can come later. i will introduce the three members the panel if they are beginning to be seated. deanne loonin staff attorney with the national consumer law student and director vince elc borrowers system project where she provides direct representation to low-income student loan borrowers. in her role ms. loonin says attorneys represent low income consumers and teaches consumer law to legal services private consumer attorneys and other advocates. ms. loonin received her b.a. from harvard radcliffe college and her j.d. j.d. from the university of california at her glee. jen mishory is a founding member and deputy director of a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that represents the interests of 18 to 34-year-olds is deputy director. she directs the our east that for the organization. she serves as a consumer advocacy represented at the

department of education's 2012 night issued rulemaking on student loans. ms. mishory holds a b.a. from -- and a j.d. from georgetown. jack remondi is chief operating officer of sallie mae and is responsible for the company's loan servicing information technology credit and underwriting and marketing and communications divisions. prior to his current position he served as vice chair and chief financial officer where he create -- helped sally make -- he received his bachelor of arts degree at connecticut college. thank you all three for joining us and for your publicmphasize s

detail in my testimony about why this is such a critical time. the first is that the opportunity is now to shape the market that is going to emerge. there are more responsible lending practices and we are very heartened to see that but i want to make sure that the same things that happen happened before don't happen again. even if that means it's a small private loan market. that is better for a lot of our clients if it means that there aren't going to be stuck with these predatory loans were these unaffordable loans.

the second theme that we have spent a lot of detail on in our testimony is that we need to figure out ways to provide the relief for those that were harmed by the predatory practices of the past. the lenders as we will hear more from sallie mae have moved on for the most part but the borrowers haven't been able to. their futures are shattered in a lot of cases both with federal and private lands but the difference we find on the private loan side is that there is so little flexibility on the part of the lenders. we talked with the private lenders all the time and we try to negotiate modifications, income-based repayment, things like that and generally the relief that is available is very short-term relief. unfortunately its short-term relief that these are long-term structural problems. we understand that there are some barriers. senator corker mentioned for example that there are problems with the prudential regulator's.

that is what we hear. we don't know if that is really the problem that is preventing the lenders from offering broader relief and if it is, we want to find out ways to be more flexible about those. in some ways just like it's happening in the mortgage market and also heating some of the lessons we have learned from the modification programs in the mortgage market that these have to be flexible, affordable modifications and also some principle reduction because that is going to make it less likely that the borrowers world reader fault. we also would like to look at the possibility of canceling in extreme situations such as death and disability. the ideas to have a more standardized transparent policy so borrowers can know what to expect in extreme situations. again i have more detail in my testimony including policy prescriptions and i'm happy to

take questions at the end about this. >> thank you very much miss loonin. ms. mishory thank you for joining us. >> chairman brown, ranking member corker and other members of the subcommittee thank you for having me here. my name is jennifer mishory and i am the deputy director. young invisibles is a nonprofit organization that seeks to represent the interest of 18 to 34-year-olds making sure that her perspective is heard in our decisions about a collective future of being made. this spring we released a report detailing the experiences of high debt or worse with private student loans. the report analyzes subset of an on line survey of about 13,000 borrowers. additionally young individuals completed a 40 city national -- our interaction with young people make it clear. borrowers are struggling, students are confused and as a private loan market rate emerges students need more guidance and

protection. as as been detailed already away to the pipeline market has shifted significantly in the past 10 years. more predatory lending led to significant increases in in the prerecession private market. after the credit market dried up the lending standards tightened in the market merged and consolidated. recently there've been signs the private student loan market may be on the rise. for example sallie mae is expecting growth in new loans for the second consecutive year. private lenders have begun offering new fixed-rate loan options. as the student loan market expands and evolves again stakeholders must assist borrowers and set up a the next generation of cartilage grow or -- goers for the next future. borrowers have encountered an array of typical lease amidst the parcplace pergola students have responsibly to responsibly to do their homework the sheer complexity of student loan terms and the fact that many young students are making their first major financial decision necessitates the key institutions involved take aggressive steps to ensure that students are informed.

unfortunately this is not happening enough right now. for example about two-thirds a private loan borrowers in our survey said they did not understand the major differences between private and federal loan options. this is problematic given that federal loans often have better rates, better repayment terms based on income, give temporary relief when the borrower faces unemployment, have more standard iced payment requirement. current love requires disclosures providing provide better providing federal options and some private terms that these are often too little and too late. at the same time 80% of our worse in the survey turned to their schools as trusted sources of information on these loans. at those options are the right answers and they are not involved enough. roundtable participants at the high school level also voiced similar problems. career and college counseling in high schools are understaffed and often undertrained on these issues. we also hear frequently about significant problems after loans into repayment as borrowers

attempt to -- repayment and loan terms. for example the sender in cleveland ohio has about $90,000 in private loans. when she was struggling she said sallie mae did not process a request to make payments and she was denied a deferment when her husband lost his job. repayment terms are nearly impossible for an experienced borrowers to anticipate on the front end or tooth bite in while in repayment. one another borrower richer went to the peace corps after graduation she said he was able to do for her federal loan but not $46,000 in private loans. her mother agreed to help make payments while she was gone. a few months before bridges returned in 2000 or grandfather passed away. the turn of events that ensued led to one missed payment in my more. after that second missed payment she was told that the loan was charged off in the full amount came do. she said useful the only way to move it back into regular

repayment would be to pay 60% of the balance upfront. that's over $27,000. currently she said she pays $300 in monthly payments and that nothing has been put in writing. she did not get villages unable to check or balance on line and she continues to receive calls from that thing. after three years of these monthly payments she told us that all five separate loans still show up as delinquent every single month so her sober credit score has predictably plummeted. she tells us she has no hope of coming up with a lump sum required to rebuild her financial future as none for monthly payments count towards that lump some. in the wake of the great recession in the minds of borrower started to do with unemployment link with these defaults in high debt and millions more attempt to navigate the private loan market we must act. the department of education uses an on line hours to inform struggling borrowers about the

new options which is a resource that we have sent many borrowers to already. we also must take aggressive action to effect future borrowers as estimate as the maker choices but the lender should be required to obtain certification before private lands. marking the tears shampoo clear explanations of the payment terms and be available earlier. we need to ease the application process improving independence from parents of the borrowers receiving no help from the family can access the fuller said of federal loans and fully understand the difference between private and federal loans. particularly with the new options on the table. for example as a future teacher getting a masters degree on a fixed-rate private loan he or she will often be better served taking out a federal loan due to other terms such as flexible repayment or the ability to defer during times of unemployment. as a private loan market evolves impotently reemerges they must

ensure the new borrowers are fully informed and have access to fair lending terms and current are worse -- thank you very much. >> thank you very much. mr. remondi thank you for being with us. >> good afternoon chairman brown, senator corcoran members of the subcommittee. my name is jack remondi i'm the chief operating officer sallie mae and i thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the educational loan. private education loans help families fill the gap between their own resources financial aid grants and the total cost of their college or university of their choice. they are not for everyone. they were never intended to replace federal aid and in fact they were originally called supplemental loans indicating their stated purpose. in most cases higher education as a family commitment which are private education loans are designed to support. last year over 90% of our private education loans had a

cosigner tip of his apparent. are loans provide important protections that benefit the family including extensive disclosure, just rate in repayment options, embedded tuition insurance and disability loan forgiveness. but the best protections inherent in any loan including private education or federal student loans his quality underwriting and planning before one borrows. or free agent vacation planner helps families know before they go. by assisting themith the following important steps for turning access into success. pick the right school and most importantly consider lower-cost options, create a financial plan that covers the entire cost of completing a college degree not just one semester. make loan payments to keep borrowing costs down and student loans without a degree in mean loan payments without the higher earnings to support them.

during the application process we disclose monthly in total payment information and present customers with a side-by-side choice of interest rate and payment options available to them. customers receive multiple disclosures that quantified expected monthly payments in finance charges highlight the availability of federal loan programs encourage the applicant to shop for lower-cost options and outline the right to cancel the loan. after disbursements our customers receive monthly statements that to detail their loan balance and accruing interest. customers elect stupid differed payment while in school are reminded of the positive impact that in school payments would have on the total loan costs. the most recent findings of our how america pays for college study shows how effective these disclosures and reminders are. private education loan, private education loan borrowers 90% filled out the fafsa the first up to picking out a student

loan. among all education loan borrowers are pages 3% borrowed only private loans. and two-thirds of our customers and making payments while the student is in school allowing them to save thousands of dollars in interest charges over the life of the loan. sallie mae has pioneered new products and procedures designed to help families make informed decisions. for example we advocate school certification as an important safeguard. we will not disburse alone until the school certifies it. and until recently nearly all borrowers deferred loan payments while in school. in 2009 sallie mae became the first lender to encourage school payment because they saved the bar were thousands of dollars in interest charges over the life of the loan. are in school customers who opt for either interest payments are a fixed payment of $25 a month can save an estimated 30 to 50% in and total interest costs. the results are encouraging. even in these tough times and the stories we heard today are

certainly important to hear but they are not the norm. 90% of our loans in repayment our current. and still we recognize that the recession has supposed real and significant challenges for many americans including some of our customers and because our success depends on our customer success we actively assist borrowers experiencing difficulty by understanding their individual circumstances. to customers who need help we offer a mix of repayment products in counseling and collection programs that give them the best opportunity to manage their debt obligations. these options include reduce monthly payments, interest only payments, extended repayment terms, temporary interest rate reduction and if appropriate, forbearance. all scale to the customer's individual circumstances and ability. since 2000 we have modified

$1.1 million in private education loans to help our customers. nonetheless loan modifications and other efforts are sometimes insufficient and for this recent reason sallie mae supports bankruptcy reform that would require period of good payments that his perspective so as not to rewrite existing contracts with customers and that applies to federal and nonfederal education loans alike. we would also be interested in increasing the options available to default to borrowers specifically federal rehabilitation program allows them to cure the default and repair their credit. if a customer makes the required -- the default is removed from their credit history. for all of the consumer loans however the fair credit reporting act does not allow students a second chance. so there is no provision to rehabilitate private student loans. for some time we have been discussing the promise of providing this option to private education loan borrowers and would certainly recommend that congress consider it.

in sum, market forces and legislative changes some of which were developed here on this committee have combined to make private education lending better understood by students and families, better underwritten and more targeted to provide needed financing that can help america's families achieve their education dreams and create the opportunity for a brighter future. thank you. >> i want to interrupt this hearing just for a moment on the senate floor and on the house floor and by the gate of the capital senator mcconnell and senator reader marking the 14th anniversary of the murder of the two capitol hill police officers on july 24 at 3:40. officer jacob chestnut and detective john gibson were shoving line of duty and if i could ask for a moment of silence in the room. thank you all.

thanks to all three of you for your testimony. i want to start with ms. loonin. you made a rather telling statement. mr. chopra in the beginning comments on the first panel spoke about the difficulty in refinancing and potentially students are our worst know enough about this refinancing opportunities and refinancing opportunities if you will. what types of relief or free financing opportunities are currently available to private student loan borrowers and i would like to hear ms. loonin's answer and also the other two briefly if you would comment and then at the same time elaborate on any sort of barriers or federal rules that may impinge lenders ability to provide those relief options to those borrowers.

>> thank you senator. right now what we have been able to see working with our clients is there are very few private loan refinancing options even available. a lot of our clients are lower credit score may be because of that but we also hear from borrowers through our web site our web site and others who are looking, prime borrowers who are having same problem so i would say there are very few products and opportunities out there. as far as barriers, one point that i wanted to make especially on the issue of the regulators have come up numerous times. i think it's very telling the number of options that sallie mae for example is offering so clearly it is possible to offer some of these options and i was like -- if they are hearing from regulators that they can offer something but one of the problems that we find is that

there is this haphazard nature to the option, that some of the lenders will for example offer or they have programs where they will offer cancellations for death or disability in some time we will call a clients and they say they will have them in the same lender will say that they don't. in terms of barriers it's a little bit harder for us to know exactly what those problems are because we all want to work together to figure those out. >> and ms. mishory or comets? >> similarly the borrowers who have come to us have increasingly to express frustration at the inability to work with their lender to find better terms and have not found other options in the marketplace. mr. chopra earlier mentioned education of our worst as well. if their options we also need to make sure that students and borrowers know about those in so that is another issue as well.

>> i think as rohit chopra described there a couple of factors here. these are principally in sallie mae's case family education loans in the and the price we charge for this based on the highest credit score of both apparent and the student so to some extent they are already gaining the benefit of the parental cosigning on that account based on the interest-rate at the time. the second is that the loans are variable. the most finance -- fixed-rate loans made in a higher interest rate environment being refinancing to a lower interest rate environment. very rarely do we see interest rates or loan products being refinanced because a credit profile has changed in such a dramatic way to change the overall interest rate structure and i think because of those two reasons you see a very limited marketplace for private

education loan consolidation refinance activities. see what can we do about it? >> as i said i think it most cases those loans will be offered at the same terms and conditions as they are offered at today because they are based on the parents creditworthiness and based on the variable into straight so as interest rates have come down since 2008 all the interest rates on our student loans have been coming down with the a fall in the short-term interest-rate. >> interest rate. >> what steps can we take do you take an individual responsibilities are sure we take in congress to make sure that students are aware of the differences between these loans and federal loans, not just the initial interest rates but other kinds of terms of repayment and other problems that might arise during the repayment process? why don't you start again. >> so there are changes in truth in lending as you know to the

disclosures. they are more extensive than they have been in the past and there were some very positive changes their but we hope that congress will take a look at the timing of some of the disclosures as well so the borrowers can get the terms of their actual loans earlier in the process and not just the a sample of what they may be getting. as we know the private loan products and vary quite a lot. the certification process as a number of people have alluded to here and mr. chopra talks about in his testimony as well, we think is another opportunities to make that mandatory program. some schools use that opportunity to counsel borrowers as well and they think the think that is an opportunity right and to give a lot of information before the student is actually signing on the dotted line. >> ms. mishory your response on that? >> i would also add in addition

to the options that ms. loonin listed, on the bus tour we talked to a lot of juniors and seniors trying to figure out their next steps and they were confused and they didn't have clear options on where to go. school counselors often are not prepared to talk about differences in loans and how to finance their college education so i think a lot needs to be done in college counseling offices but we need to be teaching some of these financial literacy skills even earlier so families can prepare their education. >> mr. remondi? >> i think as we heard in the cfpb report there is more disclosure today on private education loans and there is on any other consumer lending product out there period. we do provide all of this information to the borrowers as they are going for the application process so they get a rate and their credit is approved and they get their actual rate. they have a 30-day term to

accept the offer without any changes that we would make and then they also have 30 days after the loan has been funded to cancel the loan. each time in a process they are encouraged to consider lower-cost federal loans and to shop for lower-cost options. i think i'm the one hand we are providing enough a lot of good disclosure today. i think to the other participants comments here one of the pieces that could improve dramatically as helping students and families know before they go. figure out what they can afford to spend on a college education, pick the right school that matches the financial abilities of the family along with the prospective earnings that they can gain from that career and pick up off the full cost of education. the number one reason students default in student loans and this is true whether it is federal loans education loans is the kit does not graduate from school. they have the debt burden but they don't have the economic

benefit of the education. if we can help families plan better through that process and be more prepared before they go we would have a better educated consumer and i think better results from the federal program as well. >> you agree with mr. chopra's statement that we shouldn't need an attorney and a magnifying glass? >> he made that statement on all loans, not just to gloss but in our disclosure you are required to have a certain size of print font -- he was referring to the credit card statement that we get when you get your new credit card. [inaudible] >> thank you offer your testimony and i do appreciate that we have three folks in different backgrounds that are trying to solve the problem and again and now officer concerned. we see people that are unable to

make payments or are paying a life for their education. ms. mishory what are some of the predatory lending instances if you will that you are seeing out in the marketplace right now? >> i think as was discussed fortunately a lot of them have improved over the last couple years. we certainly saw over the 2005 to 2007 era of lots of direct consumer marketing and a lot of students taking on burdens that they did not need to. so i think that we have seen a lot of improvement. i would say we still see marketing materials that are unclear to students. in each picture that marketing materials show the terms and they show the terms in a way that students who don't have the ability or the experience actually understand them. >> so it's more an issue of just people understanding what they are getting into and maybe it

being explained in clear language. it's not necessarily that people are out there purposely trying to take advantage of students. >> i would say that again is a lot of panels discussed the market certainly is improved over the last couple of years but that leads to the problem of folks at already have flown to today to go on and also ensuring that going forward as the market changes we make sure that students know what they're getting. >> mr. remondi with all the loans that you will make i am sure there has to be data that shows people who go to certain colleges are more likely to pay back their loans than others. regarding while april 2 look across our country and see certain outliers where people go to a particular institution and they have more difficulty paying back their loans in others'? >> we have over 7 million borrowing customers that we have

the wealth of data that goes across federal student loan programs in the federal marketplace and they are absolutely our differences in repayment success rates and therefore the flipside of that -- >> when people are making loans to students who attend these institutions are they taking those kinds of things into account? >> yes think what happened over the last couple of years is that people weren't aware of some of the changes that were coming in the economic environment. more recently people, lenders are trying to take into consideration the overall success rate of students at a particular institution. we cannot make private education loans to students at every school in the country so we have an approved lender or approve school list that we used to determine whether not the borrower is eligible to participate in our program's. >> on the federal side we are making loans to students.

>> the federal program also as a cutoff based on the cohort default waiter cdr but that is a very high default rate standard and i believe it's 25% for a couple of years and it's only measuring the incidence of defaults in the first two years after repayment. >> office with the private lenders have to think like that because unlike us we just can't make up the numbers and go ahead and kick you can down the road for future generations. [inaudible] >> you let me ask you this question. is it possibly fathom mobile been an institution can make loans at 3.4% to all commerce, no collateral, no credit checks, no payments made for years and come out and away that is net positive on the basis of the

loan? is that even within the realm and to an institution whether they actually have a lot of students attending those institutions? is that fathom a global -- fathomable. i know i've demonstrated an attitude here but obviously mrs. loonin great testimony and i appreciate your work in this regard and you are talking a little bit about how the private sector side has certain constraints, sometimes prudential regulator's place them in some of them are not as tight as some of them abdicate as you mentioned earlier. but on the private side they actually have to survive to the next year. they actually have to make it an insolvency way on the public side and in an election year we can just make things up and they can decide that we want to try

to get votes from students and young people by doing things that we know make this even more insolvent as a country that we can just do that. can you understand why there might be differences between what the private sector is doing that has to exist into the future and the public side which we can just print money and borrowed money from other people and do things that make us more insolvent during the time of elections. can you understand why you have different types of lending arrangements taking place? >> i can understand and i should say save say the loans that i saw during the heyday of the predatory lending where the worst products i have ever seen and i don't think there was any caution put into those when those -- they were landing to students and schools back then at rates

that i've never seen before also and those were some of the loans had failed at the highest rates. so we are talking about it now because the market has changed a cousin of the crash so you are right about that. that is actually still frankly problem. >> and for any entity doing out there -- out there doing things you just mentioned we ought to do a thing we can to put them out of business, i cannot agree more. i'm really just talking about us, and not you guys. i thank you for what you do. i continued to be appalled at their ability to be irresponsible and candidly as i listened to mr. remondi it sounded like they are trying to be responsible. i don't know if you all would take any issue with some of the things that he just discussed regarding sallie mae's policies. would you do that? >> i can say this. i agree that they are trying to be responsible now and i do have

good working relationships with their customer advocate office at sallie mae. a very respectful relationship and unfortunately but unfortunately for a lot of our clients they are still mod able to offer anything but i do think a lot of the projects they have created going forward to show much more responsible lending practices. >> thank you for your help as advocates in making that happened and just in closing, mr. remondi only institutions and i know there was an effort by the administration to make it so and it might've been a good policy, so that you know if they private entity had students that were attending and they were borrowing money that there had to be certain outcomes they are or they could no longer participate in certain governmental programs. it sounds like there may be a number of public institutions around the country that we made me to look at in that same way. would you agree or disagree? >> yes, mean there are good

schools and their bad schools and they're a for-profit and not-for-profit. in terms of educational outcomes for their students. >> and i guess as far as consumers go equally bad outcomes for students if they borrow money in a responsible way from a responsible entity whether it's public or private. they could end up attending one of the schools that is not equipping them to perform the 21st century. there is a issue there also. >> an awful way we might deal with that? >> i think that having information available to students so information about the school's graduation rates, information about the default rates of students who attend those schools is a good step in that direction. i would go back though to my earlier comment that says a lot of this is trying to address how to make a decision about the current semester. i have the tuition bill on the kitchen table. what do i do?

i think more students and families need to think about the total cost. how my going to get from the first year of college student graduation so actually get the economic benefit of the money i am investing. >> for the people that you are dealing with, it's very important to you as a lender that they sit down at that kitchen table and try to think through the entire process through graduation because otherwise it's going to end up creating a loss for your institution. is that correct? >> that's correct and that is why we offer our investment planners of free web sites tool to customers and noncustomers alike. >> are we doing that with the federal loan program to your knowledge? >> no, we are not. >> so we have a lot of students that borrow money from the federal level and don't have this type of input, the federal level that don't have this input on the front end and the innocents again us here, not you guys and certainly not not any

of the witnesses trying to overcome some of the predatory issues, we here have a policy that may be in fact be harming people throughout their lifetime. is that correct? >> we are certainly not making information available to those customers in all of the disclosure examples that were provided today certainly do not exist in the federal student loan program. >> do you know why that would be the case? >> it is exempt from the truth in lending laws. >> yeah echo i think you can understand my frustration with the hypocrisy in this institution. >> i guess i share senator corkers -- views about the hypocrisy. when we should know more about the student and you suggested mr. remondi someone coming for a student love should know more about what of the are the graduation rates of the school

of for-profit or not for-profit schools, two-year five-year or public or private and should also know what kind of placement rates, all kinds of placement, job placement counselors and job placement offices they have that these for-profit or not-for-profit schools and with the rate of getting a job, the rates of job placement are. i think all of that should be in this picture so there's plenty to go around. senator akaka. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. i want to tell the panel that i really appreciate your presence in the sharing of your experiences in the student loan programs. we have heard from you today information that includes expanding the role of colleges and universities in working with private lenders. however, since 2008, average

tuition at private, not-for-profit schools has gone up almost 10% and tuition at public four-year schools has gone up 15%. these increases are surely leading students to take out additional loans. schools both determine tuition and help students find ways to pay their tuition. i would like to hear from the panel, what can be done to ensure that schools continue to provide advice with the best interest of their students in mind, and do you see a need for a mutual third-party to offer advice to students?

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the outcome of the education. if you succeed and particularly in federal programs with a lot of flexibility and a lot of options, most likely it's going to be a situation where the borrower is going to come out ahead it is good for the economy and all that as well. as far as having a neutral third party adviser, i'm not sure at what point of the process that you're talking about specifically. i think it's always important for borrowers to get neutral advice. i think the schools themselves sometimes you have conflicts of interest where they want the student to come to the school. they're selling their products in a lot of ways and may be difficult in some schools to give mutual advice. on the other hand, a lot of financial aid officers do a very good job now of providing a kind of good faith, something that ms. mishory mentioned this to get that information out before they get into the school doors in that it gives schools with

counselors and that should be as neutral and objective as possible. >> ms. mishory. >> yeah, i would absolutely agree the cost of college is a huge issue. we hear about it from other students we talk with. you know, families are struggling to figure out how to afford to pay for college and the sloan -- the issue of student a dad is related in the cost of college is what his impact this debt. i do think there are larger issues we need to look at, public institutions are no longer affordable like they used to be. as someone for mom's generation paid a third of what i pay to go to a public institution. we need schools to be accountable for their money did you receive and there is not that many ways in which we

should. we need reformation and the kids to look inside the school down the street, you know, a lot of students default to his only, you know, kids two years out at a 50% employment rate. if i go across the city, kids having 80% employment rate. go to school across the city. we don't have that and they desperately needed. >> mr. remondi. >> i would agree the cost of college has risen dramatically. i think the sticker price is a lot different than what the consumer pays then we have the team debt burdens grow at a more rapid pace than the tuition level. so the average student is graduating with about $26,000 at the back of which is 2% more for the year over the last 10 years. one of the challenges they face is the economy coming out of school at today's difficult for

students to get a job either in their field or the pay level they were except dean when they started and that is creating some of the issues. but again, going back to the concept of know before you go, if students understand the dynamics, how much is going to cost to complete their education while at the graduation rate is at its core, what the default rate is, they can make better, more informed decisions in that process. >> will ask a final question here. mr. remondi, as the recent scandal over libor had any effect on how sallie mae sets lending rates? and have you thought about the possibility of using a different measure for rates that name? >> our interest rates are set using the libor index. we have not seen any issues or

problems with that. the allegations made to date have said that libor was set artificially low, which as i was sure would've been to the benefit of the barbers. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. akaka. want to thank you, ms. mishory and mr. remondi. if you hav [inaudible conversations] >> we are any can't enter the conventions. in six days watch gavel to gavel coverage of the republican convention live on c-span. your front was a to the conventions. this morning on c-span2 childhood obesity, and efforts schools are making to combat the

disease. live at 8 a.m. eastern from tampa, the republican national committees second have platform meetings. >> tuesday on c-span a form of keeping the u.s. competitive in the global economy. the center for american progress will examine the progress of china and india in preparing their labor force for higher skilled jobs and export efforts in the u.s. to remain competitive. that's live 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now i know that there are those who criticized me for seeing complexities, and i do. because some issues just are not all that simple. saying for a weapons of mass destruction in iraq doesn't make it so. saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so, and proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.

>> three days after september 11, i stood where americans died in the ruins of the twin towers. workers in hard hats were shouting to me, whatever it takes. a fellow grabbed me by the arm and he said, do not let me down. since that day i wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. i will never relent in defending america, whatever it takes. >> c-span has aired every minute of every major party convention since 1984, and our countdown continues with a week to go into our live gavel to gavel coverage of the republican and democratic national conventions life on c-span, c-span rated and streamed online at c-span.org all starting next monday with the gop convention with new jersey governor chris christie and the keynote address. also 2008 presidential nominee

senator john mccain and former governor of florida jeb bush. democratic convention speakers include, plus first lady michelle obama and bill clinton. >> a look now at how schools can implement policies using nutrition, exercise and other methods to help fight childhood obesity. you hear from a panel including a school chef, administrator, and the president of the american beverage association. it was held this summer in washington, d.c. and hosted by the online magazine "the root." >> hello. we will be discussing today our schools can can do about job of helping our kids live healthier lives. school nutrition, exercise, parental outreach and other strategies. we've assembled an expert panel to walk through some of the challenges that our schools are doing with them hopefully share

best practices that can serve as a potential solution. so to my left we have susan neely to as the president president and chief executive officer of the american beverage association. the leading policy and public education advocate for the non-alcoholic beverage industry. and notably on her tenure at aba the industry is voluntarily reduce calories from beverages sold in schools by 80% through its national school beverage guidelines. next we have chef wilhelmina bell, she's the head chef and kitchen administered a children's village early childhood center in philadelphia. in 2009 children's village of them made all processed foods from their menu and they serve fresh and seasonal foods whenever possible. sheldon bell was honored as the 2007 national educator of the year by the american culinary federation. and next to her we have danielle

moodie-mills who is the director of education advocacy at the national wildlife federation. and she leads the federation's efforts to reverse the trend of the indoor sedentary child through federal environmental education campaigns which emphasized the importance of outdoor time, as well as other aspects to the healthy development including general physical fitness and unstructured play. and we have matt jones was the principle of the kennedy schools here in d.c. which serves students with disabilities and have a comprehensive curriculum focused on health and wellness. so from their school nutrition to the physical education curriculum, community support, that's the focus of the school. and his expensive education field is also included, classroom teacher, special education coordinator and dean of students. and we are also joined by doctor fran meyer.

she's a veteran educator with broad experience as a teacher, administrator, researcher, author and professional development specialist, a member of the board for governor for the american alliance for health physical education, recreation and dance but she works with schools and organizations on policy and program development for coordinated school health programs and comprehensive arts education, so welcome, our panel. [applause] and i wanted to kick things off talking a little bit about school nutrition. especially when we're talking about children, we know who those who purchased the in school breakfast and lunch programs, they're getting the bulk of their meals everyday in the school setting. when we talk about all of the problems with school lunches and we talk about pizza being counted as a vegetable of french fries and ketchup counting as nutritious items, i think it's really important to also talk

about the context in which a lot of school kitchens are working in. after your account for labor and transportation and other policy, average school has about 1 dollar some change or each meal of food. and so i know chef bell, your nonprofit entity with mostly low income students who are attending the program on school subsidies for your soldier with a limited budget, and yet you've managed to serve overcome some of those challenges and had some amazing offerings but i just want to know what can school cooks and administrators do to stretch their dollars when they're faced with such tight budget constraints? i'm country and it's not just budgets. it's also capacity sometimes not having the equipment to store fresh produce in things like that. so what are some of the strategies that you been able to utilize that overcomes some of

those things? >> fortunately for me i have a unique program. i deal with fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and i couldn't. i don't buy processed foods, you know, like chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, and even frozen pizzas. my children still eat pizzas but i use non-bread, i use flatbread. i use fresh spinach. i use portobello mushrooms. i make it interesting and i flavor the food with natural herbs, not a lot of salt and sodium and all those things, and things on labels that i can even pronounce or know what it is. so very fortunate with that and i have a local purveyor that i can call every day to bring me fresh fruits and vegetables but i'd usually call him maybe every other day because he gets kind of tired of the. but whatever is in season, i have him to tell me if the food

looks good or the fruit is good or ripe and ready. so i don't have to keep massive amounts of fruits and vegetables on hand. and run the risk of them sporting, which would cost more money or not being able to utilize. >> so just a call for fresh fruits and vegetables? >> you know, i know they hurt today when her from the chef in the white house. it costs more to eat healthy, actually not. i make fresh soup. if i were to buy cases and cases of soups with all the chemicals and sodium, it's easier for me to make a soup with fresh tomato and in the how to and put fresh vegetables in it, and a lot of things, you know, the thing is to make the kids want to be. and i hide a lot of things. i will puréed carrots. i will hide it. they get their vegetables and the nutrition they need but it also has to taste good.

>> okay. i actually want to ask a question to mr. jones, i know you're not direct in the kitchen preparing the meals but as an administrator you've got to be thinking about the challenges of how to get healthy meals to your students. >> i'm sort of envious of the kitchen that they have. we once upon a time had a kitchen in our school and he became a tedious process, something very difficult to keep up with the guidelines. part of a school lunch program and it has, there should so many limitations for a small school with limited funds, limited budget, limited resources, the ability to move to and from. so we have hired vendors in order to bring our food in, and it just takes away from all of the great things that i hear the chef talk about, we lose. and so the biggest thing, and i think this is the biggest

problem that i have with our kids beating and eating healthy is that they have to enjoy the food. it has to be something that really is tantalizing to the taste buds. what i find his food is overprocessed, sometimes under coach, overcooked and kids don't really enjoy it. i have a number of kids who choose not to eat because the food is just, doesn't have the taste. they all love pizza. we can't do pizza, only so often. so that's the challenges we have is how to create a lunch program which kids truly enjoy. that's more than anything, if it's good to the mouth, they will take it, they'll enjoy it, they'll ask for seconds. so we are talking not just the taste of food, the limitations, and providing extra portions if needed. because of the a lot of kids, that may be their only meal for the day. >> following up on getting the

kids be excited about the food, i know part of the program at your school can't find ways to make people feel more connected to their health just been walking into the school cafeteria every day. are there other ways that you're able to make students feel more connected to want to eat and introduce them into new foods? how is that working? >> is a part of our health and wellness chapter part of the challenge is to actually create an atmosphere which kids want to eat vegetables, fruits and vegetables. and it's a part of the challenge that the kids ha teams that they work together on those teams and they get points for eating fruits and vegetables. we also for health and wellness challenge, we invited parents and families to participate in the families also can provide points through the eating of fruits and vegetables your it is an honor program. for the most part of the kids actually have taken to the challenge. one of the things we do have, we

do get pretty decent fruits and vegetables. so it's now giving the kids good food, it's good for you, along with the exercise component that we have is really showing, it's having a great impact on not just the students but the staff. the staff are part of health and wellness program as well. >> okay. and for susan, i know that the aba made a lot of changes to the drinks that were unavailable in schools, typically take away full calorie sodas. i was countries what kind of responses, if any of you got from students? was it not that dramatic as a transition to give people different options, and was able to adjust? what was your experience? >> well, just give them, just make sure everybody knows what exactly we did it as part of the

alliance for a healthier generation, which was sort of the program that preceded mrs. obama is very dynamic let's move effort, we agreed that we changed the beverage mix in schools, and after talking to parents with kids in the schools, k-12, we founded -- we found a way to things. one, for little kids only limited choices. little kids meaning under 15. so for those little kids it's low-fat milk, 100% juice and water only. then for the high school kids, parents said they could have more choices but let's make sure we're pushing them towards moderating the calories but we took out all high calorie soft drink everything else that calories in it that was less we lowered the portion size. you're getting something with calories in a smaller size or you are picking a water or a diet beverage or a low-calorie one. so that's what we did. for feedback, of all, as a big

consumer beverage companies were going to listen to the monstrous because that's the gateway to the future. this is what the moms want and we're very glad to be aligned with him. in terms of the students i think as the companies have been able to innovate and provide more choices, so it's not just a diet soda or a water or 100% juice, it's all the other things that are out there, powerade, zero, so pay, propel, there's lots of different choices now that tastes good and have low calories in them. that's what's worked with the students. so think it's working pretty well. >> i want to go back into food related issues than on any channel but, of course, others are talking of physical education and i want to get into that piece because i know we have seen around the country schools are dropping physical education from their curriculum. it's usually tied to budget cuts, when we are thinking about

higher priorities for school come sometimes that's going to be math or science programs, technology and gym class. so in that context i wanted to ask dr. meyer, you work with schools on programming around physical education. i mean, how do you explain to school administrators for physical education should be a priority for students? >> students can't learn if they haven't got a good physical act of the program. that is the basis for learning. it's the basis for brain development. building synapses, all of learning, physical education is critical. they are two books that belong every professional development library right now, and that is one, it's by charles bausch on -- w i knld forget.

healthier students are better learners. the missing link in education reform. and in the second is the one by cdc which is the association between physical a kerry, physical education school-based physical activity, physical education and academic performance. so these two books belong in every professional development library. because these all have taken hundreds of studies and analyzes them according to what benefit they have to academic success. and we have hundreds of studies that document the students learn better with more physical activity, the more time, the more intensity they have towards physical activity, the higher their test scores and just the better student and general. they have lower discipline in the schools.

there's less, they are demonstrating less stress level. we talked about that earlier. so there are so many benefits to physical education and physical activity that if people drop it, they are doing a total disservice to the field of education. >> and i know you are also part of your work is going into schools and promoting physical, not physical education, but physical activity, and i'm just curious what kinds of conversations you're having with schools, what challenges they're discussing with you about why they are not in this and how you been able to work around some of those. >> one of the major challenges that schools are facing is the fact that, i mean, one, you cut down on physical education, kids don't have gym anymore but they also don't have recess if you. a lot of people don't realize that. over 40% of schools no longer

have recess. i don't know about you but i don't know if i could survive in school today because this was a thing i look forward to and you -- i needed my moment to decompress. kids don't have the. games like tag and red rover, remember those? if you ask a kid today, if you ask a kid today what they do at recess and a look at you like you have two heads. and it's something that is really, really important it is really important for kids to be able to have that time to decompress but it helps with her learning. it's not just about structured physical activity and having his head in the school, which is another opportunity for them to be told what to do and how to do it, but it's also recess and that time provides them that unstructured, how to deal with what it's like to put together a group and figure out and negotiate with one another and develop social skills that we are missing out because we are all like this. all of the kids are like this.

like sam said, it's screen time has gone up astronomically where kids are spending 10 hours a day. and that doesn't include school time, by the way. for 10 hours a day on a device doesn't include time in school. so there's a lot that can be done. there are organizations like play work which keeps kids out of a because now they have to learn how to play. spits out as this organization work exactly? >> they have play coaches, i swear. that go to school and teach the kids how to organize groups, how to organize again and play because they have lost that part of learning how to play. i know that most of us now have learned that at school on the playground. and there are lots of schools that don't even have playground anymore, or had areas, green space areas to run around.

it's a tremendous problem. >> going back to the more structured, vigorous curriculums that dr. meyer was espousing the benefits of just earlier, i think that, i mean, another reason i would imagine that schools are not really taking gym class seriously is because so often issues kind of seen as a free period. it's ghana play, especially in the high school age, sitting on the bleachers talking to your girlfriends and are not really doing a whole lot there. so i just want to know what, i mean, what sort of, i don't know, what does a good physical education program look like? >> been the educator, i brought a prop. cdc at the time the division of adolescent school health, even though they reorganize it will still be a school health program, they have developed this be kept which is physical

education analysis tool. this is excellent. every school needs this manual and its online also as well as paper version and it explains exactly what a quality education program is, how do you assess it, how do know what children need at what level and its preschool through 12th grade. it explains, it's everything in here. and they have been a nice job, and i can't say enough and is training available on how people can use it to do it. and i think administrators need this. not just for peoples in the classroom or the program supervisor, but it ministries need this because so many times administrative when they're observing the teachers, and no offense, but they aren't sure of what they should be observing. you know, they don't know what is educational in a physical

education curriculum. and so there are people, and i hate to say it, so that the program slide because they know that the administrator doesn't know really what is a quality program. >> i'll let susan jones respond to that, but we are talking about here's what you have to do and can you give us specific example of what administers look for, what the education component, is it to be hypercompetitive? what is it? >> it should become just like any curriculum edge of learning outcomes, they should be accessible. they should have planned lessons, sequential better develop appropriate. it should have the lessons should be tied to the outcome and it should have all of those components with any. so that it's one thing to look for. in a second is how is it

delivered, what type of delivery is the instructor using, are they in the active or are they conflicted? i may, i just is going over what are the roles of things? they should be lifelong learning that students are getting into physical education curriculum. it should not be a lot of competitive forms. it should be skills-based. hud how can we develop that child mentally, emotionally, socially and intellectual. they should be addressing all four of those components. >> and mr. jones, can you describe i guess some of the applications that you're doing at your school regards to physical education? >> [inaudible] >> can you hear him? maybe switch. >> hello. so just to piggyback on some the comments here, one of the pressures we had in public school was a fact that academically we are pushing,

pushing, pushing. were constantly pushing our student. standards are always increasing. it's a great idea we know where our country is ranking amongst other countries around the world. we are in a panic selling to compete and compete on all levels. with that we have taken so much out of all of the other aspects of learning that i once had. you know, having a home that class, but had to go, learning how to take care of home. gym class is something that every year as it ministries we sit down and try to decide who will get jim this year. and it's unfortunate because everyone can benefit from gym. we are in such a panic mode to create streamlined of individuals rather than create holistic individuals who will eventually find something and be

productive members of society. so that's one of the things. where i am now, we decided to create a health and wellness environment where we wanted to focus on. we totally believe that a healthy person with activity, i also remember the tv going off and i felt pretty bad that i was one of the few ever remember that, but my students come to school with in plea three player, telephone, something connected to the years, and if you don't force them to let go, they won't let go. so our focus was to force them to put those things down and interact, because through those interactions a lot of the social skills, and a lot of social skills, kids become mature in a much faster rate whereas if you allow them to sit in the corner, go sit in the corner, just tune

out and tune out the world. so what we've done is to make sure that all of our students are physically active. we also included three-time, for our older kids. so-called recess, you have free time. but we also have staff engaged in different activities during that time as well. so our focus is to keep kids active as much as we can. even within our lesson plans, even within our curriculum, our curriculum, i encourage my teachers to make students move. it's very difficult to choose learned in one spot. get up, go interact with the committee, fine things in the community to do. even if it's just a short walk around the block to engage in something, just to keep the focus on. my focus is on movement at all times. >> may i add something that he was talking about, encouraging people to be active. i'm also chair of our local

school health advisory board and with local school health council, a building level council within the school system, to. and the teachers, we are encouraging all of the teachers, especially the elementary schools, to have activity breaks and we call them bring breaks. because gets the brain active and get the synapses going into encourage more efficient learning, because the more active the brain is, the more synapses, then they will be able to learn that much faster and be able to get to learning. so you are using that as activity breaks and we are even encouraging out in the middle and high school level. >> i wanted to touch on something that mr. jones was talking about, and that was talking about community involvement, ideas into the home. because for all of our efforts that we're making in schools, we don't want to have them all refers the second they leave to

go home and go to the neighbors. i'm curious what sorts of efforts you are making so that schools, those efforts don't go to waste once school is over, and how are you involving parents? are you getting pushback from parents we are trying to sort of implement these ideas about health, nutrition, physical fitness back at home? and anyone can jump in. >> well, is it on? we have no idea. we have a program called eco-schools u.s.a. and where the host to this international program which promotes healthy schools, right, from the inside out. notches, it's about what kids are eating. it's about outdoor space and creating gardens where you can actually decide, you learn about vegetables. you can learn about vegetables and then put them on the plate and it be a part of their

curriculum. and that is a way, it also encourages parents to get involved, parents to come and beat eco barons npf the school and really participate. because i think decades, when they get real excited about something they can't wait to share it with their parents. they can't wait to share with their friends. that's a way to kind of bring parents and is to have these innovative, you know, wonderful food. what did you have for lunch today, and they can say i had pizza with portobello mushrooms, and we grew it in our garden in part of science class is going outside and get our hands dirty. i think those are the types of things we need more in schools because that will leak out into the community because parents will have israel -- have real excited kids that they want to keep that excitement, where does that come from. you are talking and not texting across the table which i think

is really important. >> when you're talking about national wildlife liberation equal schools program, at all these efforts, how do schools get onboard with this? do they come to you? >> they can sign up it is a voluntary program. there are three, there are like three flights. you can either focus as a school on water quality. you, you can create a recycling program. you can create an outdoor garden. you can sign up. >> nutrition obviously, you talk a lot, alas belt on the people not knowing how to cook but if your parents on that level, when the kids leave your kitchen, and, are the ways that your fighting to enrich that? >> first of all, i wanted to talk about incorporating the committee. [inaudible] i work out of the

high schools without, and we do a lot of community-based functions because the committee supports transfer pcat and pcat goes back to the '20s. they will talk about nutrition. they do a lot of different things. though going to other schools and work with kids. but at the other end of the spectrum, i teach parents at my childcare center. i have culinary classes for parents. because what happens is a lot of times the kids will go home and they will eat the food their parents give them. they said i want it like chef bell hazard and defense company and say can you give me the recipe because johnny won't be this. so i do parent classes. it's always about nutrition. how you can go and make a meal for your child if you work both days and your cart and you say i don't feel like cooking this, nick donald a seizure. but it's not. i teach them how they can make healthy desserts, unlike a

society with a very diverse group of people. they all come, i have met with mothers and fathers, to this cooking class. at one cooking class i asked him give any suggestions you want me to do for your next cooking class? and i got stuff that is piled up to here, but it's always fun. and i teach them also how to cook with her children. a lot of times it's easy because you don't want to do with your kids. but kids have a tendency to want to beat what they fix. and they are part of that. so that's the initiative ideas my program. spent first of all i think would all like to have you in our school or are life. that's very impressive. but what i like about what's listen to them is what everybody is trying to do their part, serenity objective it's one of the things that we've done actually in response to mrs. obama's cry to get the

private sector involved in which is designed to help bombs, parents, consumers make the right choices for them is to put a counter label on the front of every can, bottle and pack. now, if you're picking out what your family is going to consume in terms of beverages you can look at that can't, it's very clear this is one of 50 calories per serving, this has 10 catalyst for certain. so just another step to give parents, consumers information so they can make the choice is right for them. if you try to moderate your calories for a family, take something with fewer calories spent one of the things that has been difficult is getting parents involved within the schools and getting them, the schools in general and to get them involved in physical education, physical activity programs. sometimes even tougher because they are working many jobs so that they can put food on the table. but we've been trying to do

things with even educating them about those that do have computers at home, but they can go online and look at things like from the pda, the national pta. they have a website that is just come has loads of activity, ideas about activities that parents can do with the kids and how to get them involved. and we have a wonderful, and one of our schools would early childhood school, when the kids are assessed to have a nutritionist that goes into the homes of the children that need that type of assistance to help them, that parents have to be cooking, what the kid needs. so there are some programs out there that are doing wonderful jobs. >> another question that is really not super specific in terms of programming, but when we are talking about children and whether it's in schools or outside, especially in the wake of -- we often talk about it in

a framework of childhood obesity. there's been some pushback around, discussion that way particularly with kids because adults like we're focusing so much on size, perhaps issue of shame and body consciousness. and i just want to see what's her thoughts on how we should be discussing health and childhood obesity with kids, and getting focusing on obesity is probably not the way to go, or maybe given the reality of the situation, it is something best head-on? >> in a quality physical education programs they should be working on this for every child. is looking at how are you personally, what are, helping to educate them about what their body should be able to do at what age level, and helping them

to set their own personal goal and how to reach those personal goals. and if they've got a good program, it should be included. >> they should make it fun. fitness should be fun. it shouldn't -- we, a tin can used to play and that was our activity. i remember as first -- the first lady said recently, it used to be called play. you just played. he rode her bike and you ran around with your friends. i think that's focusing on obesity does bring up a lot of -- that our schools i believe that are putting bm-25 on report card. you know, the body mass index on your childhood report card and they're doing that and, they say that they're trying to do it anyway that will help schools and help kids regulate, you know, regulate their health. but at the same time, do we really need that number on the?

does the kid really need to know that right now? made as an adult, yes, of course, pay attention, go to your doctor. but i think we need to make movement fun. we need to tell our kids to put down the device. the tv doesn't go up anymore, so it's our responsibility as parents and caregivers to turn it off, to say, to have agreeing power. we have agreeing our where you say, do you know what? were going to do this old school. are going to turn off the devices, turn off the computer and going to go outside, or which is going to sit, have a conversation face-to-face. you know, not device to device picks i think focusing on the funds instead of a detriment would be the way to deliver the message of health to the kids. >> i think it's on. >> is it on? the question is kind of hard in today's society with so much

information and media be available to sort of separate the conversation of obesity and size, fitness, things of that nature. one of the things i think we are overwhelmed with how much fitness information there is on television. or even online. it's always a vision of some perfect person trying to get even more perfect. and so, and images that our kids, the panel prior to his there was this discussion of expectations and stereotypes, and how do we fight those things and just have a conversation on health and wellness. one of the things that i deal with all the time, every time they get on an airplane i realize, i need to get into the gym. and i have those moments throughout the day, i think if

we force people to come to the realization that, dinner, things in our society are not necessary working on our behalf. just because if there's a mcdonald's on every corner doesn't mean it's the right thing to do all the time. i mean, there are a number of things that just seem, the images that we give to our young kids are not all, not always positive images. and we should work to really control what are some the things we're feeding our kids like, you know, curves are not meant to be over curves. and a healthy, the health aspects of that. it's something that we all do. i have all the challenges. as a part of what i do, i make sure every day before my kids lead i change into my workout kids just so they know before they live on going to work out.

hopefully get someone to take up the same activity throughout the day. it's a holistic view i think that we have to take culturally, how do we raise our kids in a generation where so much is available, as a child, it wasn't an option to me, because the house we stayed drunk, there was work to do. so we left the house because we didn't want to do that work. where as there's so much now to keep you glued to the television, keep you glued to computer screen or some type of device and sitting in a chair. it's just the way i think where to look at, society has to look at change. >> me personally, i think that healthy eating is very, very important. you can do the workout as important as well but if they work up and eat and five bags of chips afterwards a kind of kills the work of situation. i think that we need to address

healthy eating. and like i said, i'm in a unique position because i work with children as young as 18 months all the way to 12 years old. so they are eating hummus at an early age. teach them how to eat healthy. so by the time they get to high school, they have or have a pattern, they've introduced to a lot of things that they may normally not be introduced. plus because i work with such a diverse population, and a lot of it is asian, i'm introducing them to difference foods as well as introducing the rest of the population. it's about choice and other foods that they would not possibly be exposed to. so for me i just think that it starts with healthy eating, and then we can address the obesity. i think it's carry around a lot of baggage. and when we add on to that, bmi, come on, when i talked about the stress early, that is stressed.

sometimes i feel overweight and it's very stressful, what do i do? so i just think we focus, you yu know, a lot on healthy eating, that helps down the road for the obesity. cut it off at the past. >> thank you. and i want to open it up to audience questions. so if you have any questions, there are microphones going around. one up here. >> this is a question i guess for the chef. i know we do a lot of work, i work for d.c. hunger solutions with schools and school meals and the quality of the meals that are served. one of the things we run into with some of the other food service records, they said well, okay i understand the meals are changing. we're going to have to put up his but the net kids ask me questions, what are my carrots -- why did you switch this are why do we have to this new instant? they are saying sometimes they don't understand how to answer

the question. so i guess i was wondering what suggestions you have to educate others service workers how they can be proud of the food that they're putting out even the food they might not have the ability to prepare fresh, but still understanding some of the nutrition guidelines and be proud of the vegetables and the changes that are being made. >> where i i also have to cope for vegetarian children. i have to cook for gluten-free children. i have a lot of what we call a lot of different types of, they can be allergic to tomatoes are the specs of the question comes, why does this look like this or like that. you have to explain to children sometimes, you know, it's fresh, it's a different but it's not frozen. it's more healthy for you and the flavor. the most important thing is i use a lot of curves to flavor so you have to make them wanting to do. it's okay to ask a question. the question is, how come we eat

black beans instead of red beans, and what's the difference of the flavors it and they give a question back to them and say you tell me. what do you taste? what do you think is the difference? that's how i usually deal with this set of problems. i incorporate with him and let them start, i ask the questions and make them thing. and taste, i love did you taste test to taste this one and am one and am at a difference. or tell me what i added. tried to develop their palette. a lot of times they don't know what he does. well, that's funny. there's different kinds of honey. there's honey with lavender, tiny this. like give them a lot of information to a lot of times i think they are not listening, he doesn't get a four week cycle of food. for each season, because i'd like to deal with seasonal vegetables and a might come back the following three months and say how come we don't have this because i really like that honey and i know it's lavender. and the parents say what do you get lavender honey?

i always try to include the children as well as the parents and make the foods are covert everybody loves to be involved. you be surprised how much information, how much they want to give you back to let you know they know what they are eating. [inaudible] >> missing from the dialogue around wellness, we talk about the correlation between stress and health. they are standardized testing, teaching evaluation systems, as all these are adding to the challenges of students, our teachers and teacher stressed trickles down said students from

is also in student achievement of some wondering how we can elevate this to our district meet, our state education, the federal u.s. department of education, how can we elevate this to teach and educate a wellness and how important that is? >> i'm a former teacher as well and i would say it needs to be a part of the professional development. teachers go through professional development over the summer all the time, and it usually is based on the curriculum around what the kids are going to learn. but it's not. it doesn't include wellness and how to have a healthy classroom and what different kinds of activities bring breaks and always different things that you can do to encourage productivity without doing drill and kill all day long. i think it really needs to be a part of professional developer for all teachers, that wellness and health and movement need to be a part of learning. >> there's also the center is to

develop they call a school health index. a self-assessment, and planning guide. and this has a component in there about employee wellness. and that really, when the school system implements that assessment system, they really get, really get the data that they can show to the central office staff that our teachers aren't doing so well. they really want help, and these are the issues that they need help in, and our system, well, it was already doing a pretty good job but it helped to make it more, more evident that more needed to be done. and that was one of the issues that came from every school, that the employee wellness needed addressing more than some of the other issues did. so that is a huge issue. >> some of the principles, i'm curious how you are addressing

that. >> you know, doing the hiring season we always talk about, we recognize that around thanksgiving, christmas, that you have a few teachers who are beginning to check out because of high levels of stress. it's not unusual to show up in january, a few seats are empty. some simply decided it's too much. i think it has to be a national approach. one of the things we have not looked at, no child left behind really just, it's too narrow. it's too narrow focus. and the holistic peace, looking at a chart for every angle, given every opportunity to succeed, a lot of that has been taken away. it seems like we are focusing on getting every child a chance, but we take a lot of opportunities away. it's important of a healthy

child. child gets enough sleep, where as, it was appropriate amount of food to eat, the right foods to eat, comes to school with the right frame of mind, to recognize that this is something, this is a place of refuse and they will get something out of it. you know, whole-mac was it the class when i was in school. it was just huge because everything that i learned about running a household that i use today i learned in school. kids don't have that opportunity anymore. so what i believe is that the focus has to be a national focus on everything for holistic child to not just about longer school hours, but about how to serve an how to help the entire child, the mental peace, how to get into the community to provide some resources, some help in the committee. so it's a holistic approach. the academic piece, i just

really believe that if we serve the whole child, the academic peace will take care of itself and i think we're looking at it, and to the perspective where we are creating a very to fight in those who can and those who cannot. >> other questions? >> i'm just curious as a parent where you think we are in the broader academic community are educated community accepting it as the objective, looking at the whole child. because we have been through a decade or more of raise academic standards, raise our academic standards and i just wonder where we are raising the point that you just made? >> i don't know. i think sometime my personal belief is probably counterintuitive to what i believe but i don't think we're headed in the right direction. i think our focus, we are really trying to compete with a global

community who has surpassed us in other areas, and the focus is not, we are in a race to the top, of what? hodo we make sure that our community's are safe, how our kids are healthy? what is really important? and this to me as a political conversation because what about the workforce? how do we have people who can be gainfully employed? right now i believe we are in a position where we are saying it's all or nothing, and in that we create stress. we create reasons -- you look at a lot of major cities. upwards over 50% dropout rate. kids are not engaging, and they are turning to behaviors that are unproductive. so even within this conversation about health and wellness, if you can at least make somebody feel -- it's not about exercise

ask the chef said to actually about the holistic person. we eat enough to eat the right foods, do we get enough sleep? are we putting the appropriate things in our body? we as a society, you know, facilitating that for our kids get i would say now, no. not facilitate that it is not been enough time to surface the whole child. and in those areas, we have a few schools the that this holistic approach. a lot of that starts at 4 p.m. our kids how to survive much longer than that. there are a number of issues. >> there are organizations that are really focusing on this now, and a sed, which mentioned earlier has a whole initiative on the whole child. and this is now it's 10th year of the initiative to start out slow. it is gaining momentum, and i

think it's gaining momentum and understanding, and so i think the more, the more partners with several organizations i'm involved with also our partners to whole child and that's been my career is focusing on the whole child. my life is built around it. and so when a scd accepts that as one of their first position statements, and a major initiative that i was very happy to embrace. so the our initiatives out there to help, help people to understand this, and we just need more people, more people going to the website, understand what is there, and then joining into the partnerships. >> okay. so i have a few more questions but i wanted to see if we have more audience questions.

okay, one right there. >> hi. my name is angela, and i'm an intern at the u.s. department of energy. as a college student, college students are always busy with homework, schools and have got to go to work and after that maybe that an internship or something. so they're always on the go. obviously, if they are like spending a lot of time, like not sleeping and stuff so they rely on energy transit all these, what are those i've our shots and stuff. do you think those energy trends should be banned from campus is? >> that's a great question. >> well, i would say that energy drinks are not sold in schools, and so when you're talking about k-12 and what is sold in those vending machines, on school premise, they are not available. as you move into over 21, you

know, there's a lot of personal decision there. my day we are taking no does at night to stay up into studies. so it's just a different question when you're getting into the adult population. i will tell you that a mainstream energy drink, 16 ounces, has two-thirds the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee from one of the popular coffee houses that we might mention of the same size. so it's, you know, i think for the adult market i personally would always argued that there could be more choices, and people make their decision with full knowledge and they should know how much caffeine is in there and what effect it will have on them. and i guess college students as adults, you know, choosing whatever they choose. i believe they have that right. >> no matter what age, the brain needs rest and sleep to function well. so we think we're doing a good

job, and we are doing things just like last night, i was working and i wanted to get something done before i went to bed, and i realized my brain is not function well. i've got to sleep. so then i got up and did what i needed to do before coming up here this morning. the brain needs rest and it needs food spent all energy trends do is bring your sugar level up, and then the worst crash ever. i remember being in college and drinking red bull, you know, like it was water. and then the crash that it gives you is disastrous, worse than the entire day i felt before. so i agree, take a break, go for a walk, like a lot of yourself to recharge naturally. i don't believe in banning things from adults, because it is your choice. >> i think it's time for one

more question. over here in the back. >> good afternoon. the question i had was someone mentioned pta, which, of course, peace my interest because i'm on the board for my daughters pta. the question is what often, okay, the jimmy at all? -- did you hear me at all? .. >> as a key component of children's lives, regardless of

age? >> go ahead, dr. meyers. >> okay. i don't want to take all the time. but the national pta really has a lot of stuff of just ideas on their web site. and i highly recommend going there to look because not only -- but then there's another parent group that is affiliated with the pta. if you call the pta office and just say where else can i get some other ideas to work with parents, they'll put you in touch with this other parent coalition. and they've just got phenomenal resources out there to help parents of, of all communities and all kinds. so i say go there first. >> i would also recommend, um, going to nwf.org. they -- on our site we have an area called get outside, and under that is our be out there program which has lots of tips

for parents, um, and caregivers on different activities to do with kids, um, in the outdoors and tips on recycling at home and composting and just getting overall healthy from, you know, from the house old out into the community. >> and, mr. jones, i know, i mean, your not representing a national o, but as part of -- organization, but as part of the curriculum at your school, i understand parental involvement is a huge part of that. what does that look like in texas? >> a part of our middle states accreditation did include a health and wellness program in which we hired a fitness coach, a health and wellness coach to actually monitor and manage that program for us. and a big part of that initiative is to engage parents. so we try to reach out to them often. we do at least one newsletter a month, and part of that newsletter is to find out in the

community where they can get resources, where you can go and shop for fresh vegetables, fruits and individual tans. -- vegetables. we try to do enough to engage them and encourage them to also be a part of this initiative. but as my, you know, colleagues here, you know, there are a number of resources. i would research those resources and create an initiative within your school to say this is what we're going to work on, this is going to be our focus. because, um, it takes a ground root effort in order to get those things up and running. a lot of time, again, the further you move away from the classroom and being able to deal with kids hands on, the more it becomes about numbers. and it's easy to lose that focus of what kids really need, and so i'm all about the holistic view of the kid. and so you have to reach down sometime and go back into the commitments, go back to those persons who are dealing with kids one on one to find out

their needs. >> that's actually all the time we have. i'd like to thank our panelists, and also the audience for your participation. laugh can and i think next we're -- [applause] , and i think next we're going to have closing remarks from our publisher. >> let's give the panel one last round of applause. [applause] on behalf of the root, i just wanted to thank everyone for coming out today. we've had a wonderful session. we've had incredible panelists and moderators, i'd like to thank cheryl sol moan -- solomon, laura williams and all of our panelists who have helped to teach us a little bit more about what's going on regarding health in our communities, the obesity issue in our schools and, um, some of the health disparities. as we wrap today, i just want to say a big thank you to all of you that have also come out.

we appreciate your attendance today. we hope that you've learned something, and we hope that as you go from here you are able to, um, speak to your colleagues, um, your families, your communities about some of the topics that were raised today. before we close i would like to thank again our sponsors. we had the american beverage association, hbo, and online we have the office of minority health. we encourage you to go to the root. we will have cover am of this, we'll have a number of these panels that will actually be broadcast on the root. i believe c-span is going to be airing this sometime this summer, and we also will have coverage -- sorry, we have video coverage of this on the root as well as articles that we will continue throughout the year. this is an area of focus for us, it's an area that we're very passionate about, we're very clear on the importance of this issue and how it impacts our communities, and we hope that today you've learned something,

and you will, again, go out and share some of these learnings with your communities. thank you very much for coming, and we look forward to seeing you, hopefully, on the root. captions made possible by fox business network >> live tuesday a forum on how government regulations effect u.s. manufacturing. the manufacturers alliance for productivity and innovation hosts the discussion here in washington. you can watch it live at 10 a.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span3.

>> now, i know that there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities, and i do. because some issues just aren't all that simple. saying there are weapons of mass destruction in iraq doesn't make it so -- [cheers and applause] saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so, and proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so. [cheers and applause] >> three days after september 11th, i stood where americans died in the ruins of the twin towers. workers in hard hats were shouting to me, whatever it takes. a fellow grabbed me by the arm, and he said, do not let me down. since that day i wake up every morning thinking about how the the -- how to better protect our country. i will never relent in defending america, whatever it takes.

[cheers and applause] >> every minute of every major party convention since 1984, and our countdown to the conventions continues with a week to go until our live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the republican and democratic national conventions live on c-span, c-span radio. all starting next monday with the gop convention with new jersey governor chris christie in the keynote address, also, 2008 presidential nominee senator john mccain and former governor of florida, jeb bush. democratic speakers include julian castro, plus first lady michelle obama and former president bill clinton. and we are live again in tampa, florida, as the republican national convention platform committee is meeting again the craft positions on topics such as foreign policy, defense, health care and education. yesterday members approved the reports of the subcommittees on the economy, jobs and debt, and energy, agriculture and the

environment. the rnc convention officially begins on august 2th. 27th. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. we're ready for day three of the committee on resolutions. you've just completed the most difficult task of the entire week in getting your photo taken, and that was a well organized logistic. thank you, hope you're rested and have read the last four sections and ready to go. as we have done the last few days, we will open in prayer, and i'd like to recognize mary suma from north carolina to lead us in the invocation mary? >> thank you, governor. heavenly father, we thank you for the opportunity toly in the freest -- to live in the freest nation on earth. we are sorry for the many times we have sinned against you, and we beg your forgiveness. shower us with your blessings today. in particular, we ask your guidance as we discuss the issues which form the fundamental principles of freedom, in particular the belief in the inherent dignity of the human person. help us today honor you in our thoughts, words and actions. in jesus' name we pray, amen.

>> amen. >> now like to recognize heather sand strom from arizona for the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [inaudible conversations] >> well, ladies and gentlemen, just a quick recap. we are ahead of schedule. that is the good news. we have completed the sections, the two sections that we were scheduled to complete yesterday, and we have completed most of the section on the american century of foreign policy. we have about five amendments

left on that. senator hoeven will take the gavel in here just a minute. we'll then proceed with the constitution section and then government reform and health care, crime and education, and congresswoman blackburn will chair those remaining sections. at this point i think we've received about 16 or so new amendments for the entire last three sections. i anticipate some more forthcoming. there are some new forms that are a lot more user-friendly for you to use. we also will be using, as we did yesterday, technology so that you will have those on the screen that will be easier to navigate. i would ask that we endeavor the make sure that we -- to make sure that we get through this. i imagine there are quite a few more amendments on the constitution/government reform section. would like to ask as you present your comments or make further comments to be concise, keep your commitments to a minute or so -- comments to a minute or so. that way everyone will have a chance to be heard. with that, thank you for your

good work and your spirit of teamwork and cooperation. i think it's been a very good, especially the work on the subcommittee that's allowed us to proceed with where we are now ahead of schedule. with that, senator hoeven. >> thank you, governor. good morning to you and to congresswoman blackburn, good morning to both of you and to all of you. as you recall, we left off yesterday on the foreign policy and defense section. we were on page 14, and the subsection, our unequivocal support for israel. we had an amendment submitted, fp13 which you should have in front of you, fp13 submitted by randy page of south carolina. that is an amendment which would substitute a new section for the current section, our unequivocal support for israel. so with that, we'll turn first to mr. page, except that he's not -- >> yes. he is, ladonna riggs from

south carolina, his counterpart, he is working on some compromise language right now on that particular amendment. >> oh, boy. so are we at the point where he'll be here shortly, or do we need to move to something else? >> you might want to move to something else. >> yeah, okay. all right. then out of deference for mr. page, we will move to -- let's see if we have another, i think we were going to take fp3 next. which is also on page 14. so if you would, go to amendment fp3. >> senator, if i may just briefly? these next three all relate to this entire, the same section. >> oh, boy. >> may i suggest that we jump back to the beginning of the document? is. >> yeah. >> because since we might be stepping on some amendments. if we go back to fp101 or, i'm sorry, if we go back to fp15 -- enter yeah. >> all right. >> which would take us back

to --. >> i've got fp15 and fp3 both relate to this section. >> yeah. fp102 that was just handed out? >> all right. okay. all right. so fp102 is, if you don't have it, it's coming. those three relate to this section. we'll step over those. we go to fp15 which takes us back to page number 1, line 24. all right? does everyone have fp15? all right. that is submitted by pat kirby of nevada, page 1, line 24. mr. kirby. >> yes, mr. chairman, thank you very much. kind of the explanation for this amendment is that i have a list oif -- of things i believe are universal truths, and one of them is if you're going to grant

the power for government, you must first imagine that power in the hands of your worst enemy. and so this picks up on line 24, um, and i'll read it into the finish as history -- as history has sadly shown, even fellow citizens may rarely become enemies of their country. nevertheless, our government must continue to insure the protections under the constitution to all citizens, particularly the rights of habeas corpus and due process of law. for this reason the republican party must oppose the indefinite detention of american citizens as proposed by the national detention authorization act. um, the, um, the, the obama administration has, um -- it's not beyond them to, to use things like the irs to go after, um, donors for conservatives.

the idea of granting this power, um, to government is in defiance of the constitution. um, i guess i'll open it for discussion. >> all right, is there a second? >> i will second. >> there is a second. mr. bach? >> thank you, mr. chairman. jim b be ach, indiana. i rise to oppose this amendment. amendment to the same subject was moved in our subcommittee, restoring the constitution. it was defeated. what this would do is change current law, including current constitutional law, which permits enemy combatants who are captured on the battlefield to be held indefinitely without the

right of habeas corpus. the supreme court has upheld that concept, and it doesn't matter whether the enemy combatant is a u.s. citizen or not. if they are fighting for a foreign country or foreign interest, they can be so held. and, of course, during world war ii there were literally thousands of both german, italian and japanese enemy combatants held in camps in the united states, and they were dealt with by the military authorits, were not subject -- did not have the rights of habeas corpus. and that included several german soldiers who were captured after they were released, after they got into the united states by submarine on the east coast. so they were captured i the united states. but because they were an enemy

combatant, they were subject to military authorities and indefinite detention. i support the idea that that constitutional law that is currently existent be continued, and i oppose treating enemy combatants as if they're peaceful united states citizens. so i oppose the amendment. >> mr. coback. >> when we were in the justice department at 9/11, we needed maximum flexibility to deal with terrorists, including detention like gitmo. terrorists routinely will do so. anwar al-awlaki is a recent example although a drone took care of mr. awlaki. but you may remember john walker lend who was among the

al-qaeda contingent. they will have the right of habeas corpus as my colleague from indiana has mentioned, they will have access to article iii court review. so putting this blanket statement while i agree with the base sentiment of the sponsor, i think i wouldn't recognize the flexibility we need in our war against terrorism. >> yes, sir. minnesota -- >> [inaudible] >> mr. erickson from minnesota. yeah, get close to the mic, if you can. >> [inaudible] >> there you go. now you're on. >> [inaudible] i would support this position. as the language stands we're already having -- [inaudible] all due respect to our respected

colleagues on the other side, the fact is that taking care of al-awlaki, the u.s. citizen, by assassinating him with a drone attack, frankly, would have our founders spinning in their graves -- [inaudible] or by fiat. the fact that we have a president who has a kill czar, an assassination czar and a kill list is an abomination to our constitution. so whether you are -- [inaudible] or not, the fact is that absolutely power corrupts absolutely. and putting that kind of power into the hands of a single person or a small commission without the checks and balances envisioned by our founders is wrong and incredibly -- [inaudible] >> yes. >> the gentlewoman from nevada. >> cynthia kennedy, nevada. the gentleman who spoke against

this amendment talked about german submariners being captured and imprisoned. well, i think it was fairly obvious what they were here for. it's not like they were on a fishing boat cruising the shoreline, it was obvious they were enemy combatants, and i don't think anyone would disagree with him that they should have been captured and imprisoned until the war was over. but i would also direct people's anticipation to the japanese citizens who were put in concentration camps throughout the country and years later, i believe it was about 10 or 15 year ago, those japanese citizens received an official apology and renumeration from the united states government because they regretted imprisoning those people just based on their ethnic heritage and not considering at all the fact that they were u.s. citizens and held their own personal allegiance to this country and not japan. but there's another aspect of

ndaa that i also find very alarm ing, and a severe infringement of our first amendment rights. and i also want to say that when osama bin laden and his -- >> ma'am, we're on a different amendment. >> well, no, i'm talking about this ndaa. well, i'm just going to say there's also a part of this, of the ndaa about your first amendment speech and not being allowed to protest within so many hundred feet of a person protected by secret service. well, there are so many people in the federal government now who receive secret service protection, which i find unusual that that many people in government feel the need for that kind of protection, and we're paying for it, but the fact yo that you cannot even protest around them. i see obama on television with roads lined with cheering people and wonder, where are the

protesters? well, you don't see them because they can't be there, and they're going to be arrested. and you think about your first amendment right to free speech, you should be able to tell people how you feel about them and not worry about being put in jail. >> point of order. >> mr. attorney general? >> senator, a couple things. one, when i look at the number of amendments today, if we don't have limits on these individual amendments, folks are going to be shortchanged at the end of the day. and i think we need to have limits. >> but i'm going to let the delegate from nevada -- complete your point, ma'am. you've been interrupted a couple of times, and i want to make sure you can complete your point. >> i thought -- [inaudible conversations] >> i can speak loud enough -- [inaudible] to me it was very important because i do not want my rights for free speech to be infringed. i want to be able to protoast --

protest when and where that i feel -- [inaudible] >> mr. davage, alaska. >> mr. chairman, first of all, i correct the woman from nevada. those people were american citizens that were interned and not enemy combatants. my wife's family was part of that. >> i -- >> secondly -- excuse me. >> the gentleman has the floor. >> excuse me. this was a motion brought up at our state convention, and as chairman of the committee dealing with defense and foreign affairs we, none of us on the committee had read ndaa, and the former commander of military for security or for intelligence of nato was a member of my chief and he volunteered to head up a review of the statute. they came back about 30 minutes later after specifically going through the statute and found that there are a number of very specific exemptions that apply to american citizens in this statute, and they could not find a specific end of statute, the

purpose of this amendment. >> mr. bopp? >> a couple of points. first, historical record is that we have treated enemy combatants in the, in many -- in such a way that they are not afforded full constitutional rights. they are subject to ip definite -- indefinite attention if they are captured. in fact, contrary to the lady's suggestion, one of those german sub ma'er ins that came onto american soil to be a spy who was dressed in civilian clothes was, in fact, a united states citizen. he was captured, he was subject to indefinite us pension under military -- suspension under military authority. secondly, as you remember when the british soldiers came to concord and lexington, the militia that formed to defend

their homes and their families didn't go to court to determine whether or not it was okay to fight these enemy combatants, the british sold soldiers -- soldiers who were coming to their town. they were free under the rules of war to engage them. enemy combatants are not treated in the same way as peaceful citizens such as the japanese citizens of the united states who were interned in world war ii. they are not treatmented the same way, and -- treated the same way, and that was certainly a regretful period of our time where the distinction between enemy combatants and peaceful civilians was not recognized. we've recognized that error, but that doesn't mean we just abandon the whole concept of how we treat enemy combatants. >> we did -- >> this amendment -- >> mr. prks ruitzer from

california. >> mr. chairman, i'd like to call the question. >> all right. the question has been called. nondebatable motion. so we'll vote at this point. all those this favor of the motion signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> opposed, same sign. >> no. >> we'll have a show of hands. all those who vote inside favor of the motion -- voted in favor of the motion raise their hand. >> point of orderly, mr.-- >> point of order. the motion that we're -- >> wait -- >> which motion, the motion to cut off debate, or the motion to the amendment? >> to -- once the point of order is made, my understanding is we need to vote on the amendment at that point. mr. parliamentarian, would you make a ruling? >> [inaudible] >> excuse me, i said point of order, i meant -- >> when you call the question,

it takes a two-thirds vote. >> mr. senator? >> [inaudible] >> all right. so the question has been called. i'm sorry, we're voting on ending debate. >> point of inquiry. >> point of order? >> hold on just a minute. >> point of inquiry. >> just a minute, just a minute. mr. parliamentarian, please, explain the procedure, then we'll go to your point. >> when you call for the question -- [inaudible] >> all right? so the question has been called. >> [inaudible] >> all right. and it requires a second? when you call the question, does it require a second? >> yes, it does. >> there was a sufficient second, am i correct? >> yes. >> all right. so the question has been call ld, a second has been made. now, we're required to make the vote, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and it takes a two-thirds vote to end debate. >> right. >> point of order. >> just a minute. mr. parliamentarian, question has been called and been seconded, does it take a two-thirds vote? >> no. >> yes, it does. >> but we're voting on --

>> just a minute. >> to end debate, correct? >> who's speaking? >> [inaudible] >> who's speaking? is that ms. layman? okay, ms. layman, go ahead. >> i just wanted to clarify. we're about to vote on ending -- >> ending debate. takes a two-thirds vote. we're going with the parliamentarian. if you want to discuss that with him afterward, you can. takes a two-third vote according to the parliamentarian. we're now going to vote. all those in favor of the -- we better do this by a show of hands. >> we're voting against this. >> wait. okay, clearly that's two-thirds. those opposed also raise your hand. all right. clearly, two-thirds, the ayes have it. now we will seat on the amendment. is that the correct procedure, mr.-- >> that's correct. >> okay. now we will vote on the amendment. all of those in favor of the amendment raise your hands. all those opposed to the

amendment, raise your hand. the amendment fails. all right? now, are there any other amendments for the section at american century? are there any other amendments for the section on american century? seeing none, that section is now -- >> senator? >> yes. mr.-- [inaudible] >> yesterday at the end of the session i was going to suggest which i'll do now as suggested by yourself, um, i think it's an editing suggestion, but that goes strongly towards what we want to convey and communicate as part of this blue print for the next four years. and it has to do with subtitles, particularly in section -- in pages 2, 3 and 4 principally. and it's turning what seemed to be, and unless the subcommittee

had taken this into account, it's taken those subheadlines that are specific observations about the state of the situation in that particular subject matter and turning it into whatt our vision statement is for that. and i'll give quick suggestions. for example, on sequestration, i think our party's proposal and what we hope president romney will be implementing is securing our military in a world of budget sequestration on leaks for political purposes, it's about securing our nation's classified information. on the subtitle a failed national security, it's about a new, functional national security strategy. >> if i might, these are working titles just for the document with the fewest number of words but get people right to the point internally. >> okay. >> whether our staff will be putting together much more appropriate language -- >> okay. >> please, share those with elise and bill. we appreciate that. if you have thoughts, e-mail

them in. tomorrow when we do the proofing, the proofing and the editing before we go to print, all titles will be -- >> okay. >> i'm sorry. >> thank you, ben, thank you. appreciate working that out. all right. >> if i could just -- >> there's two ground rules. i'm sorry, go ahead and close the section. >> we're going to close, first let me close, the section an american century is now closed. >> when too many of you hit your microphone before you're recognized, that's why we keep losing microphones. when you put your hand up and you're recognized, do not hit it. state your name and your state. thank you very much. >> all right. we'll go to the next section. yes, point of order, mr. erickson? >> [inaudible] >> sure. you need to get closer to your mic. i think they're having trouble

hearing you. >> i call a point of order. i've been asked by other delegates coming in from minnesota when they will have the final proofing since you were talking about that. do you know when that will be able to be distributed to the delegates who are coming in from my home state? >> question is, when will they get a final draft? the document will be delivered to the tennessee forum monday -- tampa bay forum monday morning at 6 a.m. we'll put it on every delegate's seat, it'll be on their seat when they walk into the stadium for the delegates. we are printing an extra number that will be shipped to washington, but every delegate will receive when they sit down in the house. >> all right. we're going to the current failure. there are, actually, several amendments. is that in sequestration, or was that in -- hang in here. the amendments i have, i've got fp11 and fp101.

those both relate to page 2, line 2, and that would be in the current failure. so, ben, do you have something different than that? [inaudible conversations] >> the recorder's asked me to remind all of you make sure every time i call on you even if i say your name to give your name and state so he has all that fort record. for the record. all right, now, the amendments i have in front of me are fp11, and i also have fp101, both of which relate to the current failure. ben, now, did you have something different -- >> no, that's exactly what i have. they're both by mr. ford, both represented the same page. >> right. same page, same line. >> i'm withdrawing 11. >> 11 is being withdrawn. >> all right.

fp11 is withdrawn. >> so it's fp101, sir. >> right. so we're now on fp101 which is in the section a current failure, relates to line -- excuse me, page 2, line number 2. richard fort from rhode island. mr. fort. >> richard fort from rhode island. um, yes. nation building is a failed policy of the democrats, and we republicans need to go back to the humble foreign policy of george bush before 9/11. 9/11 pushed us into a situation where we had to do some things, but we need to go back to not creating democracies overseas that creates islamic regimes and just focus on the goal of getting our enemies and bringing our troops home as safely and as soon as possible. and that's why i wrote this amendment. >> mr. ford, on your text you

say you've got, you're inserting it after "we face similar challenges." so does it actually relate to line 1 coming before the current administration? or are you replacing something? >> i'm not replacing anything. >> so you're just adding it after "we face similar challenges today," is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> all right. so it actually would start on line 1. page 2, line 1. and you've got the language before you. is there a second? there is a second. is there discussion? >> mr. chairman? >> raise your hand please? >> over here. >> senator talent. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i think i see what the amendment is getting at, but i'm very concerned that, um, it would be read and maybe intended to be read as getting at a whole range of tools that we regularly use in foreign policy in order

to protect the american security at as inexpensive a cost as possible, tools by which, you know, we assist other countries in developing grassroots democratic and economic institutions. now, we've been successful at doing that in the past, and in doing so have reduced conflict. i mean, look at germany and japan which we helped develop in that way. we're trying to do that right now and, as a matter of fact, ought to be trying to assist libya as it emerges as a democracy. it doesn't mean that we have to go in and build a nation, but it does mean that we can use tools like that in order to prevent having to use more expensive, more costly kinds of tools to protect our security that might well cost americans in life or considerable treasure. so i have to oppose the amendment. and i would also say that, um, we did spend a lot of time on this subcommittee mark, we considered a lot of these. we tried to take into account

instances where policies or powers have been abused and tried to provide hedges and protections against that so that we get a good, strong, principled and balanced subcommittee mark. so i certainly appreciate everybody's contribution, and i know the delegate's trying to be constructive, but i have to oppose the amendment. >> mr. ford. >> i appreciate that. but, um, i feel 110% that nation building blows up in this our face, especially in the middle east. we have yemen on fair right now, bahrain gets ignored. there's so many issues over there that it doesn't work. libya is pretty much al-qaeda central now. i don't agree. >> all right. yes, sir. >> mr. chairman, cam ward from alabama. you know, just on a brief comment in response, i have to agree with senator talent in that, you know, when it comes to nation building, i don't think anyone's trying to promote nation building, but what we should say this is: we can't say we like the kind of democracy

that we want it at. we can't sit there and pick and choose, well, i want this country to have a democratic government, but by the way, i don't like the way the democratic government looks the country over. that's inconsistent with our founding principles. >> are we ready for the question? >> how is sharia law democracy? come on, now. >> are we ready for the question? mr. kirby, did you want to make a comment first? >> yes, sir. i'd like to speak in favor of this amendment. um, i respect the opinions of everyone here, but the, um, i don't think this in any way would deter us from using tools. it's just a policy of if we believe in national sovereignty, then we must respect the national sovereignty of other nations as well. and if, um, we are -- and if

they become a threat, then we will deal with them and then come home. we've been how many years in afghanistan, and we keep fining new people to -- finding new people to fight, or new people come to fight us. one tribe will fight us one time, and then we'll be friends with them, and another tribe will fight us another time, and the people that we've lost over there, it seems like we keep making no progress. and, um, the idea that we're going to continue to do this in other parts of the world when our borders are wide open and we have our own national security issues here and the financial crisis. so i'm going to speak in favor of this amendment. >> the gentleman in the back, and then governor mcdonnell. >> jay bare rows from massachusetts. may we call the question, please? >> all right. the question has been called and seconded. we will vote on that motion. all those in favor of calling

the question signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries. we'll now vote on the motion. all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> those opposed signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> all right. the motion fails. all right. governor mcdonnell, did you have something before we go on? >> ladies and gentlemen, briefly -- [inaudible conversations] >> for us to maintain order and be able to get through some, a number of sections where there's going to be a lot of heart-felt disagreement, please, speak when you're recognized, and let's follow the rules of decorum. we do have a light on. now, we're going to have this as a guide at this point. but if we get to the point where we can't keep the comments to a minute, we're going to have to have a little stronger enforcement. because we've been ahead of schedule, we've been pretty lenient with that, but let's govern yourselves accordingly. the light is here for a guide at

this point and speak only when you're recognized by the chair. thank you. >> and, governor, the guide is 45 seconds, we're going to try to limit -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah. so we're trying to keep your comments around a minute. again, we want to try to get as much debate as possible, we want to make sure we have time for your amendments, and we want to give everybody their shot. so this is about maximizing debate and making sure everybody has a chance to give their thoughts and their comments and their input. with that, i believe that we're ready -- oh, no, we have one more amendment. fp12 also relates to the current failure, so that is mr. ford as well. >> richard ford from rhode island again. um, i just think just calling up the chinese on attacking our hegemony is wrong. it's the entire brink -- block,

india, russia and china, and they all want our currency to fail. >> mr. ford, would you explain where this amendment fits on -- you've got page 2, line 4. where would that amendment fit on that? >> [inaudible] >> right after the word "rising "? >> [inaudible] >> mr. ford, turn on your mic. >> apologize. after brick nations, brazil, russia, india and china. >> economies and assault on our hegemony around the world. okay. so you're putting it right in where we've got chinese hegemony. >> yeah, because it's not just the chinese. >> right. okay. that's the amendment. is there a second? i'm sorry, did i hear a second? is. >> second. >> there is a second.

>> mr. collie? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> guest: thanks for the help, but if there is a second, please, identify yourself. >> paul henderson, second. >> there is a second. all right, discussion. mr. kim from idaho? >> illinois. >> illinois, i'm sorry. >> illinois. the bric countries, india's the largest democracy this the world, so i don't think these bric countries would all fit together in their plait call at -- political attitude, so i would oppose the amendment. >> mr. ford? >> they are all working together to trade out of our currency in their own and completely disrupting our hen moanny in

the -- hegemony in the world, so i would have to disagree. >> mr. shone balm. >> i'd have to speak on behalf of brazil. they love america, and they don't want our currency to fail. i guarantee that's the issue. and to call out names of friendly uncountries to the united states in such a pejorative manner, i think, is an error, and i oppose the amendment. >> senator talent from missouri. >> thank you, mr. chairman. well, i'd just say in response to the amendment that america's not a hegemon, and if we were, brazil and india wouldn't be opposing us, and with great respect to the delegate, i call for the question. >> question's been called with sufficient second. all those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> opposed, same sign the motion now carries, we'll vote on the amendment. all those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye.

>> aye. >> all those opposed to the amendment say aye. >> aye. >> the amendment fails. i believe that closes out this section on the current failure, now we move on to sequestration. >> excuse me. mr. chair? >> just a minute. we're going to make sure we've got, um, do we have an amendment in the sequestration section? >> no, sir. that section is closed. >> all right. sequestration is closed. the only, the only section i have left open is the changing nope. >> page. 14, our unequivocal support of israel and a changing middle east. >> they have a tie topo -- typo. >> okay. the remaining sections are unequivocal support for israel

and then a changing middle east. we have at this point i have three amendments, actually, that relate to -- i believe those -- >> yes, sir. we have three -- >> fp13. >> and additional amendments aring with -- are being offered right now. >> fp13 has been submitted by randy page of south carolina. this was the amendment that we for thed on yesterday. this was the amendment we finished yesterday. mr. page. >> randy page, south carolina. i appreciate the opportunity to reintroduce the amendment discussion that we closed out yesterday evening. the change proposed should not be controversial. it does not contradict the israeli government in any way. it does not prejudice any particular course of action or outcome. if israel wishes to continue a policy of negotiations, it can certainly do so. but only as a matter of it own free will.

our voters want to work toward repairing the damage that obama has done to israel's standing and the u.s./israeli relationship. we can't simply offer them more of the same. the voters who will put president romney in office already agree with us completely on the spirit of this new language, and we have good reason to hope that there's more tempered and more realistic approach will strongly appeal to democrats in florida, ohio and pennsylvania who will be crossing over for this very reason. in fact, just recently the republican national committee passed a resolution authored by the committee woman from south carolina to put forth a one-state solution. the platform calls for a two-state solution. i simply want to move us to a neutral position to allow israel to be sovereign. i want to close by reiterating my remarks from yesterday evening. how we decide upon the choice that we are facing here today will be known to the public. they are watching us. if you stand for the idea of

having america pressure israel to continue negotiating the establishment of another terrorist state in its backyard just like president obama has, then i challenge you to hold your hand up high so every republican and every friend of israel can see just where you stand if you vote against this vast improvement. ..

be against. so i would support the amendment to chop the language supporting palestine and governor romney sets his own policy we know it can change from one week to another. thank you. >> please try to keep your comments in the minute if you can. the gentleman in the back. >> i rise in support of the amendment. i think the current language in the platform is good as it pertains to our support of israel which i agree we need to be unequivocal with our support, given what this administration has done with our friendship with israel. however, the language in the current proposed platform is leaving and that is as we

envisioned a two-stage solution. i agree that should be up to israel to decide what is up to their best interest and we should be neutral on that language. i support the amendment. >> senator from missouri. >> thank you mr. treen. i appreciate the delegates recognizing this report that does accept our unequivocal support of israel. i plan actually after the double get to read the first week paragraph plight what will encourage anyone to read it and you'll see how strong language is in support of israel. the question is whether we should say something in this report in support of the idea of two states in the mideast. the argument is offered that we shouldn't say that because if we do say that we will be pressuring the government of israel but it is exactly designed and which pressures the government of israel because the policy of the government of israel right now and has been for a number of years has been to negotiate the peace that

involves two states and i would suggest the sponsors of this amendment don't like that i'm not sure that they are wrong they are the ones pressuring the government. here's the premise for netanyahu said in a speech to congress while israel will be ever vigilant we will never give up our quest for peace. israel wants peace and needs peace short peace agreements with egypt and jordan held up for decades that they are not enough we must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the palestinians. two years ago it publicly committed a solution for two states for two people, the palestinian state and the jewish state. how we express support for irsael if we are offering an amendment pushing them in the direction of abandoning the policy they have chosen? this is we've talked about in the subcommittee. i appreciate the support of the delegates for irsael. can't be strong unless we are in support of them, but i have to oppose the ground on the it is going to achieve the opposite of what is intended.

>> mr. chairman, i would like to call the question. there is a motion to call the question and a second. we will vote on that motion. all of those in favor signify by saying aye. opposed, same sign. a vote show of hands. all of those in favor of the motion, raise your hand. all those opposed to the measure, raise your hand. keep up. you're satisfied that -- okay. we will go to vote on the amendment. the motion carries. we will put a vote on the amendment. roll call. all those in favor -- of those in favor signify by saying aye. all those opposed, signify by

saying aye. we will go to a show of hands. >> roll call, please. >> there's been a request for the roll call vote. mr. parliamentarian, is that in order? >> point of order. >> we are checking on the parliamentarians to make sure we are following the right procedure here. >> it has to be second by 20%. semidey you need a second for roll call vote? >> mr. chairman -- >> just a minute, just a minute. the request has been made for the roll call vote. mr. parliamentarian is that sufficient not to engage in the roll call vote? >> 20% must request. >> show of hands. how many request and roll call vote? show of hands. requires 20% to have the roll call vote.

keep them up. it requires 20% request of the members present are to require a roll call vote. we are checking to see if there is 20%. that would not be sufficient. you're going to need it for your vote anyway. is insufficient for a roll call vote, so we will have this entered a vote. all those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye.

those opposed, signify by saying aye. we will do -- i believe the amendment fails, but we will make a show of hands to a also was in favor of the motion, raise your hand. excuse me, the amendment could get all those opposed to the amendment raise your hand. the amendment fails. all right. now we have -- yeah, we have other amendments to relate to this. >> there are several fp3 by kevin erickson of minnesota. page 23 to 29. >> we will go to fp3, page 14, line 28 and 29. kevin erickson minnesota. >> kevin erickson from minnesota. i was a part of the subcommittee. this was a very close vote in the subcommittee to strike the language requiring the two-stage solution or supporting the 2-cd solution. i think it is worth a full

discussion rather than completely throwing out the existing language and replacing it as the last amendment required this would simply take off the table. what and change our policy. but one of the things that happens, we suggest this is the solution we are pushing towards that can cut off discussion if and when the negotiation happens of other alternative solutions that may come through the negotiation. there is nothing in making this amendment would pressure irsael to do anything again to negotiate only when the palestinians reject. estimate is there a second to the motion -- to the amendment, excuse me. there is a sufficient second. >> mr. chairman? >> go ahead, please. >> mr. stern's from virginia. where are we? which document are we on?