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An Unusual Feat in Congress: Student Loan Bill Breezes On

WASHINGTON — Something pretty rare happened in Congress on Wednesday: it approved and sent to President Obama a major piece of public policy by an overwhelming bipartisan margin.

The feat was even more notable because the legislation, which created a new set of rates for federal student loans, is entwined with many of the issues that often divide Republicans and Democrats: the economy, the financial markets and the government’s role in lending. It passed by a vote of 392 to 31 in the House.

Representative Luke Messer, Republican of Indiana, praised the student loan deal as a triumph of both policy and politics.

“It’s a great victory for taxpayers, because taxpayers won’t be forced to subsidize student loan rates that are arbitrarily set by politicians,” Mr. Messer said. “This, I hope, opens the door to potential compromises on some of the other big issues that we have before us that we have to deal with in the next several months. This proves Washington can work.”

Despite such optimism, lawmakers had little choice but to find a path to a deal. Student loan rates doubled on July 1 because Congress could not come up with a plan to replace student lending laws that had expired.

Failing to act on a compromise before the end of this week would have left legislators heading home for a monthlong recess to face constituents already disillusioned over dysfunction and inaction in the Capitol. None wanted to face criticism that they were so inept that they could not protect middle-class families from paying double what they used to pay to borrow money for college.

Yet the vote, as encouraging as it was on the surface, raised the question of why Congress cannot find consensus on big issues more often. An overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, which passed the Senate in June, is stymied as House Republicans struggle to come up with a plan that unites the disparate views in their caucus. Though some believe that revamping the immigration system is crucial to the future of their party, others denounce any pathway to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country as amnesty.

Efforts to overhaul the tax code seem similarly stuck as Democrats demand more revenue, an idea that Republicans portray as unacceptable. And the parties have found even less common ground on the budget, as many conservatives insist that any new spending resolution not include financing for Mr. Obama’s health care law.

“They don’t trust each other,” said Steve LaTourette, a former Republican congressman from Ohio and a close ally of Speaker John A. Boehner who decided to retire last year in large part because of his frustration with the dynamics on Capitol Hill. “Boehner doesn’t trust the president. The president doesn’t trust Boehner. And until they do trust each other, you’re not going to see anything big getting done.”

Passage of the student loan bill came the same day that House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull from the floor a $44.1 billion spending bill on transportation and housing because of a lack of votes. The bill had steep cuts that Republican moderates opposed. Community development block grants would have been cut in the coming fiscal year to $1.6 billion from $3.3 billion, a level lower than when the program began under President Gerald R. Ford.

Representative Hal Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who leads the Appropriations Committee, issued an unusual broadside after the bill was pulled, saying it was now clear that the House could not pass spending bills that complied with overall financing levels set in its own austere budget plan. That suggested tough times ahead for passing required spending bills, and some pointed out that even the student loan deal almost fell victim to the same fate that has doomed other big-ticket items in Congress.

“A few months ago, at least, it seemed like everybody expected a bill that connected student loan rates to Treasury rates would move ahead without any kind of trouble,” said Neal P. McCluskey, an education analyst at the Cato Institute. “And it was surprising when there was.”

The House passed a student loan plan in May. But Senate Democrats balked, saying that the borrowing rates it set were too high and would leave students and their families with too little protection from inflation and fluctuations in the financial markets. Then a coalition of liberal Democrats resisted any plan that linked rates to the financial markets, keeping a deal at bay for weeks.

Under the old federal student loan program, borrowers were offered a fixed rate. Under the new rate structure, which still drew opposition from nearly one-third of Senate Democrats when it passed last week, loans to undergraduates and graduate students, along with parents in the PLUS program, would be subject to a fixed rate plus the yield on the 10-year Treasury note.

Rates for loans taken out after July 1 of this year would be 3.9 percent for undergraduates, 5.4 percent for graduate students and 6.4 percent for those receiving PLUS loans. The rates are fixed over the life of the loan but would change for new borrowers each year.

In a compromise that pleased many Democrats who had initially been wary of using a rate that was subject to inflation and fluctuated with the markets, Congress set a cap on all loans: 8.25 percent for undergraduates, 9.5 for graduate students and 10.5 for PLUS recipients.

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, said that while she was “disappointed it took as long as it did for us to get to this place on student loans,” she hoped that the legislation was a harbinger.

“I hope this is setting the stage for more bipartisanship and success on other issues,” she said.

Seaworld’s Unusual Retort to a Critical Documentary

In an unusual pre-emptive strike on the documentary “Blackfish,” set for release on Friday in New York and Los Angeles by Magnolia Pictures, SeaWorld Entertainment startled the film world last weekend by sending a detailed critique of the movie to about 50 critics who were presumably about to review it. It was among the first steps in an aggressive public pushback against the film, which makes the case, sometimes with disturbing film, that orca whales in captivity suffer physical and mental distress because of confinement.

Magnolia and the film’s director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, shot back with a point-by-point rebuttal in defense of the movie.

The exchange is now promising to test just how far a business can, or should, go in trying to disrupt the powerful negative imagery that comes with the rollout of documentary exposés. That kind of dilemma has surfaced with previous documentaries like “The Queen of Versailles,” which last year portrayed the lavish lifestyle of the real estate moguls Jackie and David Siegel, and even with narrative films like “The Social Network,” which took an unflattering look at Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.

Businesses accused of wrongdoing in films often choose to lie low, hoping the issues will remain out of the public mainstream and eventually fade away without much fuss. That’s especially true of documentaries, which generally have small audiences.

SeaWorld, advised by the communications firm 42West, which is better known for promoting films than punching back at them, is taking the opposite approach. By midweek, the company was providing top executives and animal caretakers for interviews about the movie and its purported flaws.

It was also deliberating possible further moves, which might conceivably include informational advertising, a Web-based countercampaign or perhaps a request for some sort of access to CNN, which picked up television rights to “Blackfish” through its CNN Films unit and plans to broadcast the movie on Oct. 24.

Among other things, SeaWorld claims that “Blackfish,” which focuses on the orca Tilikum’s fatal 2010 attack on a trainer, Dawn Brancheau, exceeded the bounds of fair use by incorporating training film and other video shot by the company. The company also contends that Ms. Cowperthwaite positioned some scenes to create what SeaWorld executives see as a false implication of trouble or wrongdoing.

Asked whether SeaWorld was contemplating legal action against the film, G. Anthony Taylor, the general counsel, said decisions about any such step would have to wait until executives were able to more closely assess the movie. “Blackfish” made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January and has since screened at other festivals in the United States and abroad.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Cowperthwaite said she stood by the film and described any quarrel with its construction as an evasion of her inescapable conclusion: “Killer whales are 100 percent not suitable to captivity.”

“For 40 years, they were the message,” she said, referring to SeaWorld. “I think it’s O.K. to let an 80-minute movie” have its moment.

Since 1965, SeaWorld has kept and displayed dozens of orcas in parks here, in Orlando, Fla., and elsewhere. According to Mr. Taylor and other executives, at least 10 million people a year view some of the 29 whales now held. SeaWorld executives say that without access to the whales — which are now bred at the parks, rather than captured wild — humans would be denied a connection to large, intelligent animals with which many feel a bond.

“We’re deeply transformed by them, the killer whale is an animal that does that,” said Dr. Christopher Dold, SeaWorld’s vice president of veterinary services, who spoke at the company’s San Diego park on Wednesday.

Dr. Dold, Mr. Taylor and others point out that only one trainer has died in a whale encounter at SeaWorld parks, though Tilikum has been associated with three deaths. One of those was at another park, and one involved a man who somehow wound up in his tank at night.

On watching “Blackfish,” Kelly Flaherty Clark, who works with Tilikum as the curator of trainers at SeaWorld’s Orlando park, said she was stunned by the presentation of her testimony at an Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing, at which SeaWorld was cited for violating trainer safety — claiming it was selective in a way that did not accurately represent her views.

“We sleep and breathe care of animals,” said Ms. Clark.