Peace Corps News

Have French Atomic Tests in the Pacific put Peace Corps Volunteers at Risk?

Samoa RPCV Michael L. Driscoll writes: "In the Summers of 1973-1974, the French did 12 Atomic Tests in French Polynesian atolls, in the atmosphere, at elevations of around 800 to 1200 feet in the air. I served in Western Samoa, from February 19, 1973 until November 14, 1974, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I went through the 3 months of Peace Corps Training in country, Western Samoa, and upon graduation, was assigned the the Department of Education, and the Teachers Training College, in Apia, Western Samoa, as a Math Instructor. I was in Group 11. As I am writing this today, I am not able to say with certainty, that we were aware of the French doing their Atomic Testing in the French Polynesian Islands, to our West and South. I do know that I had some unexplained skin issues that came to my attention in the Fall, 1974, and when I went to the Peace Corps Nurse, she could not tell me what it was on my stomach, arms, and legs. The appearance was concentric, and just red circles, and while I was in the hot and humid climate of Western Samoa, the condition was that if one were to put a finger on my stomach, which had a redness and exposed blood vessels, about 2" in diameter, the finger would show blood on the end of it."

"For 30 years I thought that I had psoriasis; but, in May, 2004, I went to a dermatologist in Spokane, Washington, and he said I had EAC, Erthyma Annulare Centrifugum, and also said that the doctor in 1974 probably didn't know about EAC, as it has some characteristics like psoriasis. I also developed a thyroid condition in 1999, and have been taking a morning thryoid pill since, and will for the rest of my life, take this 75 mg Synthroid pill."

"I personally believe it was the French Atomic Tests that were putting me and all of the other Pacific Islanders at risk, as these tests were in the atmosphere. When I was in Western Samoa, the population was about 150,000 Samoans, of which about 3500 caucasions and other nationalities were present on the Islands. I am unaware of anyone serving in the Peace Corps at the time, nor am I aware of any Samoans, who were experiencing skin issues while I was, when I was there in 1973-1974. There are many thousands of Islanders, in a radius of 1000 or more miles from the French Polynesian atolls, that may be having health issues."

Read more.

Recent RPCV Obituaries

Obituary for Nepal RPCV Loret Miller Ruppe
Inspired by her mother, who was director of the Peace Corps at the time and who later, was the U.S. ambassador to Norway, Dr. Ruppe served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal from 1985 to 1987. She married another Peace Corps volunteer and moved to Charlottesville where she received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1990. While pursuing a doctoral degree in environmental engineering from the University of California at David, she completed the demanding Program in College Teaching and taught undergraduate classes. Dr. Ruppe organized conferences aimed at encouraging under-represented minorities and women to enter the engineering field. She also organized the National Science Foundation’s First Women in engineering Leadership Conference. She returned to the Washington area in 2003 to work at AID, where in addition to her role on the global climate change team, she also provided technical support on a range of climate-related issues to missions in Asia and the Near East and was a U.S. delegate to negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dr. Ruppe received her doctorate in 2005. Read More.

Obituary for Jamaica RPCV Bonita 'Bonnie' Mather
Bonnie's life was rich with service to others. After nursing school, her nursing career began in the early 1950s with assignments in Billings, Williston, North Dakota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota. She received her bachelor of science degree in elementary/special education at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and her master's in special education from Eastern Montana College in Billings, going on to teach regular and special education for Great Falls Public Schools until 1972. She also piloted the first elementary program for the emotionally disturbed. Bonnie again returned to nursing at the Montana Deaconess Medical Center (now Benefis East) in various units from 1985 to 1993. In 1995, Bonnie joined the Peace Corps and served two years in Jamaica as a primary health care and health education nurse. Bonnie retired to her residence in Monarch, where her intelligent wit, keen sense of humor, and desire to give to others made her a fast friend to the community. Read more.

Obituary for Pakistan RPCV Richard Bowman
After returning to the United States, he was among the first employees of the Peace Corps, joining in 1961. For two years, he spoke at college campuses and gave television and radio interviews throughout the country recruiting for the Peace Corps. He served with the organization in Pakistan from 1963 to 1966. Read more.

Obituary for Togo Medical Officer Albert E. Henn
He had been a Peace Corps medical officer in Togo in 1968 before working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. During 1970 and 1971, he served as regional medical officer for the Peace Corps in Washington, where he recruited, hired and trained Peace Corps medical staff and helped to formulate Peace Corps health policies; coordinated international emergency care; represented the Peace Corps with other government agencies; and conducted clinical research. Read more.

Obituary for Thailand RPCV Henry Ginsburg, Curator of Thai and Cambodian Collections at the British Library
Introduced to Asia with a stay in India, Ginsburg nevertheless studied Russian at Columbia, then joined the US Peace Corps, which sent him to Thailand. There he taught English in the provincial town of Chachoengsao, 1964-66. His interest subsequently took him to the only viable academic institution where he could pursue the topic of Thai literature, namely the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Under the guidance of Stuart Simmonds, he wrote a dissertation on a set of embedded Thai fables, progeny of the Sanskrit Pancatantra, that, as can be learned from his 1975 scholarly article on the subject, serve to discourage humans from allowing identities to be perverted (don't marry a nymph, and remember that the mythic Garuda bird lost his credibility when he allowed the birds he ruled over to see him featherless while moulting). Read more.

Obituary for Malaysia RPCV Norman Leo Haug
He served in the Peace Corps from 1964 to 1966 and was stationed on a Malaysian island where he was often the only physician for a population of several thousand. After the Peace Corps, he joined the Army. While serving in Vietnam, he narrowly survived the Tet Offensive. He was a volunteer physician after the 1998 Hurricane Mitch in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and received many awards including the Colorado Rural Health Excellence Award in 1999, the Civis Princeps Award from Regis University in 2001 and the National Rural Health Practioner of the Year in 2003. Read more.

Memorial tree planted for Uzbekistan RPCV Melissa Reynolds
Reynolds, who was in her second year of the sociology and anthropology masters program, was studying to become a historical archeologist when she came to ISU in 2005. Born in the Netherlands, Reynolds joined the Peace Corps for two years and taught English to elementary students in Uzbekistan before attending ISU. She aspired to become an archaeologist when she was in elementary school and was well on her way to achieving that goal. Read more.

Obituary for Colombia RPCV Bill Bullard
Mr. Bullard retired in 1976, and he and his wife promptly joined the Peace Corps, spending 1 and a half years in Colombia helping to plan new national parks there. Most of the volunteers were much younger, but "we could keep up with them pretty well," Jean Bullard said. Read more.

Obituary for Chile RPCV Charles Grier Johnson Jr.
After graduating from Glassboro High School, he earned a bachelor's degree in forest resource management from the University of Idaho in Moscow in 1967 then joined the Peace Corps and served in Chile. While in Chile, he met and wed Angelica Gonzalez Sotomayor. Read more.

Obituary for Poland and Sierra Leone RPCV Ellen Elliot
Mrs. Elliott's passion for social causes provided the framework for an adventurous life. Her charity work took her to West Africa, Nigeria, India and Poland. In the Bay Area, she championed fair redistricting rules in state government, opened educational opportunities to poor children on the Peninsula, started a message service for inmates at the San Mateo County Jail, fed the poor in East Palo Alto, and, as the public face of the League of Women Voters, advocated for more open government on television and radio.  She tried her hand at book publishing, after returning to the Peace Corps with her husband to help promote tourism in Poland during its transition back to democracy in 1991. While she was leading community-building groups there, Mrs. Elliott was also editing a book about the history of the large prewar Jewish community in the area, "Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Poland." The book was favorably reviewed by the New York Times and is now in its second edition. Read more.

Obituary for Somalia RPCV Laurence Bourassa who led Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia during the bloody era of the infamous killing fields
Mr. Bourassa's life was most notably shaped by two episodes, friends and colleagues said - his stint in Somalia with the first group of Peace Corps volunteers, which first gave him a taste for overseas humanitarian work, and two harrowing years he spent in Cambodia during the bloody era of the infamous killing fields. He first went to Cambodia in 1973, as the conflict in Vietnam was spilling across the border and the brutal Khmer Rouge communist regime was gaining power. Mr. Bourassa was in charge of field operations for Catholic Relief Services, where he worked for 40 years. He provided food, medical assistance and water to Cambodians who were fleeing to government-controlled pockets of the country. He set up a relief operation and field hospital in Neak Loeung, where he briefly was stranded in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge was shelling the city round the clock. "We were in a siege situation," said Pat Johns, the director of emergency operations for CRS and a fellow worker in Cambodia. "We couldn't get a chopper in there to get them out." Mr. Bourassa and several medical personnel finally escaped via helicopter just 12 hours before the city fell to the Khmer Rouge. "When the helicopter landed in Phnom Penh it was a sight to behold," Mr. Johns said. "It was shot to hell. There were bullet holes all over." Read more.

Obituary for Lesotho RPCV Ruth Dunn
In 1984, Ruth Dunn joined the Peace Corps and went to Lesotho, a country surrounded by South Africa, said her son. "You have to remember that South Africa was in upheaval with apartheid," he said. "Nelson Mandela was in prison. Lesotho was not a place you wanted to be." Dunn, described as "about as big as a bird," thrived. Assigned to set up business cooperatives, she became a beloved and trusted member of the community. "Everyone called her 'Miss Ruth,' " her son said. "She adopted a dog she called Chang II after her cat Chang at home, and they went everywhere together. It was the best time of her life. " Read more.

Obituary for Tonga RPCV Ervin "Duane" Lassen
Duane received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from ISU in 1972 and, after serving in the Peace Corps in Tonga, he returned to ISU, where he completed a residency in veterinary clinical pathology and obtained his Ph.D. Duane was an avid runner, weight lifter and scuba diver. He biked the Leadville 100 and was an avid sports fan. Beyond his hobbies and his career, Duane's great love was his family, and he will be missed as a son, husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend and teacher. Read more.

Obituary for Ethiopia RPCV  Claudette Renner
It was natural for Claudette Renner, who passed away Feb. 6, to find ways to help others. She dedicated her life to helping others who couldn't help themselves. She was an active member of the Peace Corps volunteering in Ethiopia from 1965-1967. After Africa, she came back to the United States as a social worker in the Appalachian Mountains. Read more.

Obituary for Mali RPCV Clarence Wilson
Clarence Wilson, born in 1916, was inspired by the exploits of Charles Lindbergh to join the Navy as a pilot. After fighting in World War II, Wilson continued working for the Navy until he was hired in the early 1960s to work on unmanned space exploration by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He helped launch a satellite in 1963 that allowed the United States to watch the 1964 Olympics from Tokyo, his wife said. When Wilson's first wife died, he joined the Peace Corps in Mali, where he taught agriculture. "He had to learn French in no time flat, because that is what they spoke," his wife said. "He joined the Peace Corps to get his life back together." Read more.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Global Warming

Congo Kinshasa RPCV Beth Duff Brown writes: Global Warming Effects Hunting for Inuit
Nattaq and other Inuit, the Arctic people of the United States, Canada, Russia, and Greenland - in Alaska where they're known as Eskimos - have been warning the world for more than a decade about the shifting winds and thinning ice. Hunting patterns thousands of years old are in jeopardy. 'Our way of life is at stake,' says Sheila Watt-Cloutier, just nominated with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change. Watt-Cloutier will argue before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington on Thursday that the United States, as the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, is violating her people's rights.

While for many global warming is a distant threat, for the Inuit its impact is a reality now. 'It's about real people who live on top of the world,' she said this week before leaving for the hearing. The commission, part of the Organization of American States, has no authority over the U.S. government. But Watt-Cloutier says she's looking for a moral and political victory, to help make climate change a bigger issue in future elections. Nattaq is one of 63 Inuit from Canada and Alaska on the OAS petition she is representing, filed on behalf of the world's 155,000 Inuit. Read more.

RPCV Mike Tidwell's house, once an ordinary 1915 bungalow, has become perhaps the closest thing to a "zero-carbon" home in the area
Across the Washington area, homeowners alarmed about utility rates and greenhouse gases are seeking to slash their power use or produce their own energy from renewable sources. Among them, Tidwell and a handful of others have succeeded in creating homes that require only minimal energy from power plants and fossil fuels. Tidwell, an environmental activist concerned with climate change, has outfitted his home with energy-efficient appliances, a corn-burning stove and solar panels. Now, the two-story house sometimes produces more electricity than it needs and sends the surplus to Pepco's distribution system.

Tidwell and his then-wife started with a $7,500 home-equity loan. They replaced incandescent light bulbs with more costly compact fluorescent bulbs, which work in the same fixtures and provide the same light but use a third as much energy. They bought an EPA-designated "Energy Star" refrigerator, which cost $150 more but used less than a third as much power. For heat, they replaced a natural-gas furnace with a $2,400 stove that burns corn kernels. Because corn consumes carbon dioxide as it grows, burning it doesn't release new greenhouse gases, he said. The corn, of a type used for animal feed, is grown in Mount Airy and brought to Takoma Park in a truck that burns soy-based biodiesel fuel. In town, the corn is stored in a 25-foot-tall silo owned by a community cooperative. In especially cold months, Tidwell has to get a load once a week. Author Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action  Committee, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

Congressman Thomas Petri working on bill to ease global warming
Thomas Petri has co-authored legislation with Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., called the Keep America Competitive Global Warming Policy Act, a bill that gradually imposes restrictions on the carbon-based pollution that many scientists believe is causing global warming. A little over a week ago Petri and Udall met with leaders of major businesses and environmental groups in Washington, D.C., to discuss global warming issues and the framework advanced at that meeting calls for a mandatory cap-and-trade program with specific limits on greenhouse emissions. Petri said businesses that succeed in reducing emissions would be allowed to sell unused emission allowances to other businesses that are having greater difficulty complying with limits.

Petri said the legislation that is being proposed is very similar to what European countries are doing to help the environment but admitted that it would be impossible for every industry to reduce all of their emissions. “The whole idea of making limestone is to heat it, and it emits carbon,” Petri said. “But we need it for cement and a variety of other things. So if you had a one size fits all and you said you can't emit, they would be out of business and it would disrupt our economy.  “This is more of a balance approach that will enable people to emit if it is really necessary, but will kind of discourage them from doing it and encourage people to use technology to reduce emissions as much as possible,” he added. “It's a place to start. It doesn't make everyone real happy but it looks like it is going to get pretty broad support.”

Petri admitted there is a large amount of controversy surrounding global warming and that most people think carbon-based emissions have some sort of an effect on the issue. “It is true the Earth warmed and cooled a number of times before people got involved, but it's also true that there has been a big increase in carbon-based emissions into the atmosphere,” Petri said. “Mostly everybody thinks that has some contributing factor to global warming.”  Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia in the 1960's. Read more.

Read more about what Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are doing about Global Warming.

Recent RPCV Obituaries

Obituary for Peru RPCV Keith McNeill
In late 1960s, the country was embroiled in the civil rights movement. Keith McNeill graduated from college and moved straight to the heart of racial conflict in Alabama and Mississippi. He lived with an black Baptist minister and worked organizing labor unions . From there, McNeill joined the Peace Corps, which took him to Peru in 1965. He organized a coffee cooperative and formed relationships with the residents there. He later returned to visit the families he'd helped. But McNeill also volunteered in his own backyard. He moved to Greeley about 30 years ago and spent many hours dedicated to movements throughout Weld County. "Whenever he saw a cause that was worth fighting, he was right there," his daughter, América McNeill, said.

Obituary for Malawi RPCV Bobbie Mullinix Miles
She was a former high school basketball coach and teacher in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Her last position was girls' basketball coach and physical education teacher at West Montgomery High School. She retired after 36 years of service in public education. She was a member of the West Montgomery Sports Hall of Fame. After retiring she spent three years in the Peace Corps. in Malawi.

Obituary for Chile RPCV Janet Berkenfield
After graduate studies at Stanford, Ms. Berkenfield joined the Peace Corps in 1965, developing health programs in Chile. Janet Berkenfield was a dedicated public health professional who worked to help immigrants, young mothers, and children during a career that lasted more than 40 years. "Janet had a true gift in starting up new projects and in administering the details of their implementation," Cindy Rogers, Ms. Berkenfield's supervisor at the state Department of Public Health and colleague of 14 years, said in a statement. "She worked tirelessly to bring the reality of her vision of systems that worked for the benefit of children."

Obituary for Philippines RPCV Linda Laighton Bahr
A graduate of MacMurray Collge in Jacksonville, Ill., Mrs. Bahr taught hearing-impaired students through the Northwestern Illinois Association. She took a break from teaching in Illinois schools to teach the hearing impaired in the Philippines from 1985 to 1987 by volunteering for the Peace Corps. Her two-year stint in the Philippines allowed her to learn about another culture firsthand and ignited an interest in world travel. She went on to visit Nepal, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru and Thailand "She liked going to places that other people don't necessarily find comfortable," explained Larry Bahr.

Obituary for Senegal RPCV Ruth Chapin Wolfe
After working 20 years as a bookkeeper and raising her children, she decided to go to college. She obtained her Bachelor of Science from Florida State University in Tallahassee. In her 50s and unable to obtain employment with her social welfare college degree, she joined the Peace Corps. She was assigned by the Peace Corps to Calack, Senegal where she spent two years teaching English to the Wolof speaking students of Calack.

Obituary for Togo RPCV Paul McKenzie
From 1975 to 1978, he taught English, coached basketball and developed a tree nursery as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, in West Africa. The Peace Corps, his wife said, was one of the formative experiences of his life. In 1980, he moved to Washington, where he joined the Department of the Navy. At the time of his death, he was deputy director for technology integration for the Naval Surface Warfare Center of the Naval Sea Systems Command.

Obituary for Somalia RPCV Charlie Nelson
After a tour together in the Peace Corps, the Nelsons -- who met while earning their degrees at the University of Minnesota -- went house shopping. He wanted a Victorian that was "untouched," Angie Nelson recalled Sunday, but he discovered the real estate agent was steering the couple clear of a fatigued section of North Minneapolis, where Nelson ended up finding a house he loved so much he purchased it on sight. "When we moved in, Minneapolis was tearing everything down around us," she said of the neighborhood. "We recruited our friends to come in and buy them up." And so began the Old Highland Neighborhood Association. Nelson joined the Historical Society that same year and supervised the statewide survey for the National Register of Historic Places. In 1974, he became the state architectural historian and in 1978, the historical architect.

Obituary for Korea RPCV David Alvord III
He and his former wife Rosemary Kirwin-Alvord served for two years in Korea, were Peace Corps recruiters in Seattle and later held administrative positions in Micronesia. Having become fluent in Korean, David taught English to South Korean Air Force pilots. Prior to his death, he completed an assignment in South Korea, where he was teaching South Korean educators English teaching methods.

Andrew Salmon writes: "He came to Korea with the first U.S. Peace Corps contingent in 1966. Stationed in rural Kangwon Province, he fell in love with the country and its people. A photograph from that time shows him carrying an A-frame, surrounded by grinning farmers. In 2002, he returned here to teach English. I am not sure what brought him back. Perhaps he had been financially unsuccessful; he certainly never had much money (though it never bothered him). He also had little time for technology. He despised cell phones, and when I set up a hotmail account for him, he insisted that he knew how to use it, but (as far as I know) never did. What he did have was time for people. His enthusiasm for travel, mountain hiking, athletics, dogs, and, of course, his beloved Korea and Idaho were infectious. Several times, just seeing his figure in the distance -- or hearing his booming voice, which preceded him by a considerable distance -- would bring smiles to faces. My four-year-old daughter loved being around him."

RPCV Congressman Tom Petri says US needs to consider Partition of Iraq

RPCV Congressman Tom Petri says US needs to consider Partition of Iraq
Republican Congressman Tom Petri voted for the resolution which expressed disapproval of President Bush's troop surge in Iraq, but he said that "Just saying 'no' is simple obstructionism. What we need is a new way forward to replace the old way that isn't getting us anywhere. " He said that the different groups in Iraq lack the trust in each other to support democratic government in a unified nation.

"We should seriously consider that we have two basic options: First, choose a faction to stabilize and rule the country through force, much as all of Iraq's previous regimes did - and that's hardly an attractive option; or, second, bring about a partition of the country to form a loose federation where the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds can each govern themselves while leaving the others alone," Petri said. "Our enterprise in Iraq has been carried out with the best of intentions, and our men and women in the armed forces have performed with great heroism, skill and honor - but we have to accept reality," he said.

"We have a responsibility to help stabilize the situation, and doing so is in our national interest. But I don't think it's fair to ask our sons and daughters to be policemen in a civil war. Sadly, it seems that most Iraqis do not embrace democratic government unless it is dominated exclusively by their own individual groups. The Sunni, the Shia and the Kurds are willing and able to establish law and order within their own ethnically homogeneous areas. The efforts to push out other groups currently underway in Iraq are deplorable, but it's surely not unexpected given Iraq's history and desperate situation. The sectarian militias have popular support because they have easily-understood plans to establish security within their spheres for their own people. Instead of fighting the militias, we need to co-opt them. We need to help acceptable local tribal leaders, government leaders and religious authorities establish authority over their areas. We also need to seek the positive involvement of Iraq's neighbors. Some of them may be meddling, or may be tempted to meddle, but at the end of the day, instability in Iraq means instability for everybody in the region. Let us set about the task of helping Iraq's three main groups to regroup and stabilize their own territories so that we can withdraw to our bases and ultimately get out altogether." Read more.

Petri votes against troop surge
Rep. Tom Petri has joined a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers who have broken ranks with the Bush administration by showing disapproval to escalate troop levels in Iraq. Petri’s announcement in a floor speech came with the caveat that he didn’t think the nonbonding House resolution addresses the need for a new policy. Petri suggested the United States should support the partition of the country into a confederation of regions each dominated by Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds who "can each govern themselves while leaving the others alone."

Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia in the 1960's. Read more about Congressman Thomas Petri.

John Nichols writes: Congressman Tom Petri ought to consider making a party switch from Republican to Democrat

John Nichols writes: Congressman Tom Petri ought to consider making a party switch from Republican to Democrat
Republican Tom Petri has been told by party bosses that they don't approve of his willingness to work with Democrats to address major issues. "Maybe I'm missing something," jokes Petri, perhaps a bit bitterly. "Sometimes I think you can be more effective by working with people." Petri's spokesman, Niel Wright, is blunter. After the Wisconsinite was passed over for the Transportation Committee chairmanship, Wright said, "It was pretty clear that those making the decision wanted a more confrontational and less bipartisan approach to the committee." It is, by now, abundantly clear that Tom Petri is not going to be given an opportunity to play a major role in Congress by his fellow Republicans. That's bad for his agenda, which is characterized by practical concern for advancing sound education and transportation policies. And it's bad for Wisconsin, since Petri is a senior member of the House who is being prevented from delivering for his home state. If Petri were a Democrat, he would be a committee chairman, and no doubt a highly effective and successful one. That's just one reason why the congressman ought to consider making a party switch. By crossing the aisle to the Democratic caucus, Petri could strike a powerful blow for bipartisanship. He would be welcomed by Democratic leaders, who would unquestionably treat him more respectfully than do the current Republican leaders. And he would be able to finish his tenure in Congress in a position to be a responsible and effective legislator, as opposed to just another victim of crude and increasingly dysfunctional Republican partisanship. Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia in the 1960's. Read more.

The change in control of the House is a blow to senior Republican Representative Tom Petri who lost the opportunity to become committee chairman next year...but there is an upside
Petri said after the November 2006 election that he expects a couple of his bipartisan higher education proposals to get more attention. One that he has co-sponsored with Democratic Rep. George Miller of California, who will become chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is to encourage more colleges and universities to use the less-expensive direct student loan program and put those savings into more Pell grants for low-income students. Read more.

Thomas Petri's Student Aid Reward Act of 2005 called for using $17 billion in savings from an expansion of the federal direct student loan program to increase Pell grants at colleges that participate in the program
Pell grants for an estimated 1.7 million low-income college students would increase by $1,000 to $5,050 a year under bipartisan legislation unveiled in March 2005 by four House and Senate lawmakers.  The Student Aid Reward Act of 2005 calls for using $17 billion in savings from an expansion of the federal direct student loan program to increase Pell grants at colleges that participate in the program. “We have a tight budget this year,” said Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, who described the legislation as offering a way to increase federal support for low-income students without increasing spending. Petri and his three co-sponsors — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. — said the $17 billion in estimated savings over 10 years would come from an increase in the percentage of colleges using the federal direct loan program. Read more.