James Lankford

We are pushing on banks, calling banks predatory and putting all kinds of new regulations on banks on campus.

So it looks like we are pushing in the wrong area.

The hope is that this can be an ongoing dialog, because they feel like the 'Dear Colleague' letter shows up, and they did not have input.

They are drowning in guidance documents--and 'Dear Colleague' letters is actually how they are coming from you.

They feel like they have to take it, where other entities, obviously private businesses, they get a guidance document come down, they file lawsuits, and they challenge and they push back on it.

The challenge that I hear over and over again from institutions of higher education is they have a tremendous number of guidance documents that are coming to them.

There are a lot of folks that are not content with that allocation.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, thank you as well for being here.

If the goal is to be able to provide that student the opportunity to be able to get a degree, maybe $5,000, $6,000 for a college degree they can do mostly online with high-level classes.

I would tell you, the State of Oklahoma years ago invested at a very high level in our career and vocational education.

I know it is there. What are the ideas on how to actually fix that?

Typically when you have rising costs, you have--competition floods into the market, and you have innovation that occurs.

I think that is crazy.

One of the worst things that we can do is to get increased Federal involvement to something that is going well.

I am one of those folks that believes we have the greatest educational system for higher education in the world.

I would argue at the moment the nation-state represents the greater national security challenge, if you will.

Currently the agencies have responsibility to be able to take on and make sure that their systems are all protected.

What else can NSA do to help other agencies deal with cyber deficiencies?

Americans are saying, I am getting guidance things that I do not know what to do with.

So, I think that is a fair question to ask when they, again, find out one day that there is suddenly a very expensive rule that is going to cost them and their consumers a tremendous amount of money for something they wish they would have…

The cumulative effect for them has the same thing. So, this is not just an issue of a law that has been passed.

Let me just bring up a couple thoughts on that.

I really do appreciate the witnesses coming and your preparation.

No one is arguing on safety issues, but we are arguing on process to be able to make sure that we can get that.

I do not find a lot of Americans that say, do you know what I really want? I want an unsafe working environment.