Press Releases

Today, Representative Virginia Foxx (NC-5), Republican Leader of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Republican Leader of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, sent a letter calling again on U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to clarify the Department’s statutory basis for reforming the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.
 
In October 2021, the Department of Education claimed a liberal reading of a statute to find it had executive authority to waive existing PSLF Program requirements created by Congress. On October 29, 2021, Representative Foxx and Senator Burr sent a letter to determine the Department’s rationale for its decision to unilaterally change existing law and to request a briefing with Under Secretary James Kvaal and General Counsel Lisa Brown. Today’s letter is a follow up to their original oversight request.
 
“While the briefing with Mr. Kvaal was finally scheduled months after our request, your staff refused to include the General Counsel in that briefing,” the letter states. “We appreciate the Under Secretary’s time and the Department accommodating our busy schedules, even helping us reschedule once due to floor votes, but noticeably absent was General Counsel Brown. Because of her absence, there are several questions that were not answered in that briefing.... when Mr. Kvaal was asked to provide a copy of the legal memorandum from [the Office of the General Counsel], Mr. Kvaal declined to provide a direct answer and asked that we submit this request in writing, despite this request being among the many that remain outstanding from the letter.”

“We would like to remind the Department that Under Secretary Kvaal, General Counsel Brown, and yourself all provided personal assurances during the confirmation process that each of you would be responsive to all Congressional oversight requests,” the letter continues. “Continued failure to work with Congress simply serves to further diminish possibilities of working together in the future.”
 
Click here to read the full text of the letter.