I think the American people watching this are feeling the same way.

There is no accountability for any of you individually, and that is a shame.

Accreditors must also embrace the commitment to high quality and improved outcomes.

We continue our work to strengthen higher education by taking a closer look at another one of the key principles guiding our efforts--providing strong accountability for students and taxpayers.

If we are going to roll back rigid Federal requirements, it is up to accrediting agencies to take the flexibility we are working to provide and do something meaningful with it.

We can improve the accreditation system, ensuring a balance between flexibility for institutions and accountability for students and taxpayers.

Like some of you, I served as an elected official in State and local government, and can testify to the difficulty of balancing a State budget when there are dozens of complicated unfunded Federal mandates that must be taken into account.

We applaud Congresswoman Virginia Foxx for introducing H.R. 50, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act.

I have always admired the purpose and spirit of UMRA, but weaknesses in the law have been exploited in the intervening decades, and they need to be addressed.

UMRA was designed to force the Federal Government to estimate and report how much its mandates would cost local and State governments, which was previously not the case.

I want to thank our witnesses today, and I also want to thank Mr. Rokita for introducing this bill.