June 9, 2009
HEOA Negotiated Rulemaking Update
As we reported earlier, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) established five negotiated rulemaking committees for drafting proposed regulations on the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). The negotiated rulemaking process brings together representatives from various interest groups and a federal agency to negotiate and hopefully reach consensus on the text of a proposed rule. Negotiation sessions began in February and were recently concluded after three meeting sessions for each of the groups.
Mary Mowdy, executive director for the Oklahoma Guaranteed Student Loan Program, served as the non-federal, guaranty agencies primary negotiator for Team I representing the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, guaranty agencies and NCHELP. Team I developed a total of 16 loan issues to negotiate, including a revisit of some earlier regulations. Mary had this to say about her experience: “Through participation in this effort as a first-time negotiator, I have developed significant respect for the thoroughness and measured approach that characterize this process. We had excellent leadership both from the Department and from the mediators. Team I participants were also obviously earnestly committed to creating responsible and realistic rules to support the statutes. We were lucky that we were able to reach consensus on all 16 of our issues.”
Provided below is a brief overview of the HEOA negotiated rulemaking teams and the outcomes of their meetings:
- Team I (Loans - Lender/General Loan Issues) concluded negotiations with consensus on all 16 issues in the last session.
- Team II (Loans - School-Based Loan Issues) successfully concluded their third and final negotiated rulemaking meeting with consensus on all 14 issues.
- Team III (Accreditation) reached consensus on all 16 issues in their last negotiation session which concluded on May 20.
- Team IV (Discretionary Grants) discussed TRIO, GEAR UP and migrant education. The final negotiations concluded without reaching consensus on all issues. This means that ED is under no obligation to accept agreements reached when drafting the proposed rules regulatory language. Negotiators could not reach agreements on allowable costs for Talent Search projects and the appeals process for unsuccessful applications.
- Team V (General and Non-Loan Programmatic Issues) finished its negotiations without reaching consensus on all 31 issues. The two issues that consensus could not be reached on were year-round Pell and consumer information. As with Team IV, ED is under no obligation to accept agreements reached when drafting the proposed rules regulatory language.
The next step in the rule making process is for ED to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register. The NPRM is expected to be published sometime this summer with a 30-day public comment period. ED will then review the comments received and issue the final rules no later than November 1, 2009 with an implementation date of July 1, 2010. Additional information regarding this year’s negotiated rulemaking can be found on ED’s Web site.
OGSLP will continue to keep you informed about the HEOA rulemaking process. We encourage you to visit our Legislation Page often to view important updates and access more detailed information. If you have questions, please contact our Policy, Compliance and Training department at 405.234.4432 or pct@ogslp.org.