mr. chairman , let me begin by just putting this issue in a bit of a historical perspective . 
looking at this chart , it reflects the pell grant maximum awards over the past 10 years . 
and you can see , 10 years ago , in 1986 the maximum pell award was $ 2 , 100 . 
this year it is $ 4 , 100 . 
the yellow reflects the period of time that the democrats were in control of congress , the red reflects the time when republicans took over congress . 
and you can see the relative spikes in the pell grant funding . 
it was essentially flatlined for about 10 years before republicans took over . 
now , when i got here to congress , elected in 2000 , we were spending $ 7.6 billion a year in pell grants . 
the maximum award was $ 3 , 300 . 
this year we are spending $ 13.4 billion a year on pell grants , and the maximum award is up to $ 4 , 100 . 
that is an increase of 76 percent in overall total pell grant funding . 
in addition to the $ 13.4 billion we have in the bill this year for pell grants , the bill also lists a very important addition of $ 4.3 billion to retire the pell grant shortfall that has accumulated in the program over the past several years because of higher-than-expected student participation . 
that is a grand total of $ 17.7 billion for pell grants , the largest investment in pell grants in the history of the united states . 
i want to commend and thank both the gentleman from ohio ( chairman regula ) and the gentleman from ohio ( chairman boehner ) for their strong leadership in increasing pell grants , which has resulted in an additional $ 1.5 million young people being able to go to college since the year 2000 . 
mr. chairman , let me tell you why i drafted this amendment today , though . 
on january 14 , 2005 , president bush gave a speech in florida where he said , `` we want to increase the pell grants by $ 100 per year over the next 5 years . 
pell grants are important . 
that is why we want to expand them. '' i agree with president bush about the importance of increasing pell grants . 
pell grants are truly the passport out of poverty for so many deserving young people . 
i myself would not have been able to go to college without pell grants . 
and i have the honor and privilege of serving as chairman of the congressional pell grant caucus . 
on february 7 , 2005 , president bush followed up his florida speech on pell grants by submitting a budget which also called for increasing the pell grant maximum award of $ 4 , 050 by an additional $ 100 this year . 
on may 26 , 2005 , i sent the gentleman from ohio ( chairman regula ) a letter signed by 46 members of congress , which encouraged the appropriations committee to fully fund the $ 4 , 150 request by president bush . 
this bill does , in fact , increase the overall award , but only by $ 50 , not the $ 100 requested by president bush . 
and so the purpose of my amendment was to fully fund the president 's request . 
mr. chairman , i would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from ohio ( mr. regula ) xz4003340 at this time to see if he would be willing to work with the senate during the conference to see if it is possible to increase the pell grant funding to an amount sufficient to fully fund this $ 4 , 150 request by president bush . 
mr. chairman , i would also like to hear the comments of the gentleman from ohio ( chairman boehner 's ) comments on the issue as well . 
