S. 2153Senate110th Congress (2007-2009)In Committee

Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act of 2007

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SenateIntro Referral Latest Action

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (text of measure as introduced: CR S12781)

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee

October 4, 2007

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SenateIntro Referral

Introduced in Senate

October 4, 2007

SenateIntro Referral

Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S12780-12781)

October 4, 2007

SenateIntro Referral

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (text of measure as introduced: CR S12781)

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee

October 4, 2007

Floor Debate

19 members

What members said about S. 2153 on the floor

+14

8 Republicans10 Democrats1 Independent

Sen. Russell D. FeingoldD-WI · Jun 25, 2008

Mr. President, I ask I be added after Senator Gregg. Mr. President, I strongly oppose H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. I will vote against cloture on the motion to proceed. This…

Mr. President, I ask I be added after Senator Gregg.

Mr. President, I strongly oppose H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. I will vote against cloture on the motion to proceed. This legislation has been billed as a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. We are asked to support it because it is supposedly a reasonable accommodation of opposing views.

Let me respond to that as clearly as possible. This bill is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. This bill will effectively and unjustifiably grant immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program, a program that more than 70 Members of this body still know virtually nothing about. This bill will

grant the Bush administration, the same administration that developed and operated this illegal program for more than 5 years, expansive new authorities to spy on Americans' international communications.

If you don't believe me, here is what Senator Bond had to say about the bill:

I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get.

House minority whip Roy Blunt said:

The lawsuits will be dismissed.

There is simply no question that Democrats who had previously stood strong against immunity and in support of civil liberties were on the losing end of this backroom deal.

The railroading of Congress began last summer when the administration rammed through the so-called Protect America Act, or PAA, vastly expanding the Government's ability to eavesdrop without a court- approved warrant. That legislation was rushed through this Chamber in a climate of fear--fear of terrorist attacks and fear of not appearing sufficiently strong on national security. There was very little understanding of what the legislation actually did. But the silver lining was that the law did have a 6-month sunset. So Congress quickly started working to fix the legislation. The House passed a bill last fall. The Senate passed its bill, one that I believed was deeply flawed, in February.

As the PAA 6-month sunset approached in late February, the House faced enormous political pressure simply to pass the Senate bill before the sunset date, but the reality was that no orders under the PAA were actually going to expire in February. Fortunately, to their great credit, the House stood firm in its resolve not to pass the Senate bill with its unjustified immunity provisions. The House deserves enormous credit for not buckling in the face of the President's attempts to intimidate them. Ultimately, the House passed new legislation in March, setting up the negotiations that have led us here today.

I think it is safe to say that even many who voted for the Protect America Act last year came to believe it was a mistake to pass that legislation. While the House deserves credit for refusing to pass the Senate bill in February and for securing the changes in this new bill, the bill is still a very serious mistake.

The immunity provision is a key reason for that. It is a key reason for my opposition to the legislation and for that of so many of my colleagues and, frankly, so many Americans. No one should be fooled about the effect of this bill. Under its terms the companies that allegedly participated in the illegal wiretapping program will walk away from these lawsuits with immunity. They will get immunity. There is simply no question about it. Anyone who says this bill preserves a meaningful role for the courts to play in deciding these cases is just wrong.

I am a little concerned that the focus on immunity has diverted attention away from the other very important issues at stake in this legislation. In the long run, I don't believe this bill will be actually remembered as the immunity bill. I think this bill is going to be remembered as the legislation in which Congress granted the executive branch the power to sweep up all of our international communications with very few controls or oversight.

Here I am talking about title I of the bill, the title that makes substantive changes to the FISA statute. I would like to explain why I am so concerned about the new surveillance powers granted in this part of the bill, and why the modest improvements made to this part of the bill don't even come close to being sufficient.

This bill has been sold to us as necessary to ensure that the Government can collect communications between persons overseas without a warrant and to ensure that the Government can collect the communications of terrorists, including their communications with people in the United States. No one disagrees that the Government should have this authority. But the bill goes much further, authorizing widespread surveillance involving innocent Americans at home and abroad.

First, the FISA Amendments Act, like the Protect America Act, will authorize the Government to collect all communications between the United States and the rest of the world.

That could mean millions upon millions of communications between innocent Americans and their friends, families, or business associates overseas could legally be collected. Parents calling their kids studying abroad, e-mails to friends `` serving in Iraq--all of these communications could be collected, with absolutely no suspicion of any wrongdoing, under this legislation. In fact, the DNI even testified that this type of ``bulk collection'' would be ``desirable.''

The bill's supporters like to say that the Government needs additional powers to target terrorists overseas. But under this bill, the Government is not limited to targeting foreigners outside the United States who are terrorists, or who are suspected of some wrongdoing, or who are members or agents of some foreign government or organization. In fact, the Government does not even need a specific purpose for wiretapping anyone overseas. All it needs to have is a general ``foreign intelligence'' purpose, which is a standard so broad that it basically covers all international communications.

That is not just my opinion. The DNI has testified that, under the PAA, and presumably this bill, the Government could legally collect all communications between the United States and overseas. Let me repeat that. Under this bill, the Government can legally collect all communications--every last one--between Americans here at home at home and the rest of the world.

I should note that one of the few bright spots in this bill is the inclusion of a provision from the Senate bill to prohibit the intentional targeting of an American overseas without a warrant. That is an important new protection. But that amendment does not prevent the indiscriminate vacuuming up of all international communications, which would allow the Government to collect the communications of Americans overseas, including with friends and family back home, without a warrant.

I tried to address this issue of ``bulk collection'' several times, working in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and ultimately on the Senate floor in February, when I offered an amendment that would have required that there be some foreign intelligence purpose for the collection of communications to or from particular targets. The vast majority of Democrats supported this effort, but, unfortunately, it was defeated. So the bill today we are considering does not address this serious problem.

Second, like the earlier Senate version, this bill fails to effectively prohibit the practice of reverse targeting and this is; namely, wiretapping a person overseas when what the Government is really interested in is listening to an American here at home with whom the foreigner is communicating. The bill does have a provision that purports to address this issue. The bill prohibits intentionally targeting a person outside the United States without an individualized court order if ``the purpose'' is to target someone reasonably believed to be in the United States. But this language would permit intentional and possibly unconstitutional warrantless surveillance of an American so long as the Government has any interest in the person overseas with whom the American is communicating. And, if there was any doubt, the DNI has publicly said that the Senate bill--which contained identical language as the current bill--merely ``codifies'' the administration's position, which is that the Government can wiretap a person overseas indefinitely without a warrant, no matter how interested it may really be in the American with whom that person overseas is communicating.

Supporters of this bill also will argue that it requires the executive branch to establish guidelines for implementing this new reverse targeting requirement. But the guidelines are not subject to any judicial review. And requiring guidelines to implement an ineffective limitation is not a particularly comforting safeguard.

When the Senate considered the FISA bill earlier this year, I offered an amendment--one that had actually been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee--to make this prohibition on reverse targeting meaningful. My amendment, which again had the support of the vast majority of the Democratic caucus and was included in the bill passed by the House in March,

would have required the Government to obtain a court order whenever a significant purpose of the surveillance is actually to acquire the communications of an American in the United States. This would have done a far better job of protecting the privacy of the international communications of innocent Americans. Unfortunately, it is not in this bill.

Third, the bill before us imposes no meaningful consequences if the Government initiates surveillance using procedures that have not been approved by the FISA Court, and the FISA Court later finds that those procedures were unlawful. Say, for example, that the FISA Court determines that the procedures were not even reasonably designed to wiretap foreigners rather than Americans. Under the bill, all of that illegally obtained information on Americans can be retained and used anyway. Once again, there are no consequences for illegal behavior.

Now, unlike the Senate bill, this new bill does generally provide for FISA Court review of surveillance procedures before surveillance begins. But it also says that if the Attorney General and the DNI certify that they don't have time to get a court order and that intelligence important to national security may be lost or not timely acquired, then they can go forward without this judicial approval. This is a far cry from allowing an exception to FISA Court review in a true emergency because arguably all intelligence is important to national security and any delay at all might cause some intelligence to be lost. So I am really concerned that this so-called exigency exception could very well swallow the rule and undermine any presumption of prior judicial approval.

But whether the exception is applied broadly or narrowly, if the Government invokes it and ultimately engages in illegal surveillance, the court should be given at least some flexibility after the fact to determine whether the government should be allowed to keep the results of illegal surveillance if it involves Americans. That is what another one of my amendments on the Senate floor would have done, an amendment that actually garnered 40 votes. Yet this issue goes completely unaddressed in the so-called compromise.

Fourth, this bill doesn't protect the privacy of Americans whose communications will be collected in vast new quantities. The administration's mantra has been: Don't worry, we have minimization procedures. Minimization procedures are nothing more than unchecked executive branch decisions about what information on Americans constitutes ``foreign intelligence.'' As recently declassified documents have again confirmed, the ability of Government officials to find out the identity of Americans and use that information is extremely broad. Moreover, even if the administration were correct that minimization procedures have worked in the past, they are certainly inadequate as a check against the vast amounts of Americans' private information that could be collected under this bill. That is why on the Senate floor joined with my colleagues, Senator Webb and Senator Tester, to offer an amendment to provide real protections for the privacy of Americans, j while also giving the Government the flexibility it needs to wiretap terrorists overseas. But this bill, like the Senate bill, relies solely on these inadequate minimization procedures.

The broad surveillance powers involving international communications that are contained in this legislation are particularly troubling because we live in a world in which international communications are increasingly commonplace. Thirty years ago it was very expensive, and not very common, for most Americans to make an overseas call. Now, particularly with e-mail, such communications happen all the time. Millions of ordinary, and innocent, Americans communicate with people overseas for entirely legitimate personal and business reasons. Parents or children call family members overseas. Students e-mail friends they have met while studying abroad. Business people communicate with colleagues or clients overseas. Technological advancements combined with the ever more interconnected world economy have led to an explosion of international contacts.

Supporters of the bill like to say that we just have to bring FISA up to date with new technology. But changes in technology should also cause us to take a close look at the need for greater protections of the privacy of our citizens. If we are going to give the Government broad new powers that will lead to the collection of much more information on innocent Americans, we have a duty to protect their privacy as much as we possibly can. And we can do that without sacrificing our ability to collect information that will help us protect our national security. This supposed compromise, unfortunately, fails that test.

I don't mean to suggest that this bill does not contain some improvements over the bill that the Senate passed early this year. Clearly it does, and I appreciate that. Certainly, it is a good thing that this bill includes language making clear, once and for all, that Congress considers FISA and the criminal wiretap laws to be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance can be conducted in this country--a provision that Senator Feinstein fought so hard for. And it is a good thing that Congress is directing the relevant inspectors general to do a comprehensive report on the President's illegal wiretapping program--a report whose contents I hope will be made public to the greatest degree possible. And it is a good thing that the bill no longer redefines the critical FISA term ``electronic surveillance,'' which could have led to a lot of confusion and unintended consequences.

All of those provisions are positive developments, and I am glad that the ultimate product seemingly destined to become law contains these improvements.

But I just can't pretend somehow that these improvements are enough. They are nowhere close. When I offered my amendments on the Senate floor in February, the vast majority of the Democratic caucus supported me. While I did not have the votes to pass those amendments, I am confident that more and more Members of Congress will agree that changes to this legislation need to be made. If we can't make them this year, then Congress must return to this issue--and it must do so as soon as the new President takes office. These issues are far too important to wait until the sunset date, especially now that it is set in this bill for 2012, another presidential election year.

But let me now turn to the grant of retroactive immunity that is contained in this bill because on that issue there is no question that any differences between this bill and the Senate bill are only cosmetic. Make no mistake: This bill will result in immunity.

Under the terms of this bill, a Federal district court would evaluate whether there is substantial evidence that a company received ``a written request or directive . . . from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community . . . indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful.''

But we already know from Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's committee report last fall that the companies received exactly these materials. That is already public information. So under the exact terms of this proposal, the court's evaluation would essentially be predetermined.

Regardless of how much information the court is permitted to review, what standard of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs are permitted to play, the court will essentially be required to grant immunity under this bill.

Now, proponents will argue that the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the companies can participate in briefing to the court. This is true. But they are allowed to participate only to the extent it does not necessitate the disclosure of classified information. The administration has restricted information about this illegal program so much that, again, more than 70 Members of this Chamber alone don't even have access to the basic facts about what happened. So let's not pretend that the plaintiffs will be able to participate in any meaningful way. And even if they could participate fully, as I said before, immunity is a foregone conclusion under the bill.

This result is extremely disappointing on many levels, perhaps most of all because granting retroactive immunity is unnecessary and unjustified. Doing this will profoundly

undermine the rule of law in this country.

For starters, current law already provides immunity from lawsuits for companies that cooperate with the Government's request for assistance, as long as they receive either a court order or a certification from the Attorney General that no court order is needed and the request meets all statutory requirements. But if requests are not properly documented, FISA instructs the telephone companies to refuse the Government's request, and subjects them to liability if they instead still decide to cooperate. Now, there is a reason for this. This framework, which has been in place for 30 years, protects companies that act at the request of the Government while also protecting the privacy of Americans' communications.

Some supporters of retroactively expanding this already existing immunity provision argue that the telephone companies should not be penalized if they relied on a high-level Government assurance that the requested assistance was lawful. But as superficially appealing as that argument may sound, it completely ignores the history of the FISA law.

Telephone companies have a long history of receiving requests for assistance from the Government. That is because telephone companies have access to a wealth of private information about Americans-- information that can be a very useful tool for law enforcement. But that very same access to private communications means that telephone companies are in a unique position of responsibility and public trust.

And yet, before FISA, there were basically no rules at all to help these phone companies resolve the tension between the Government's requests for assistance in foreign intelligence investigations and the companies' responsibilities to their customers.

So this legal vacuum resulted in serious governmental abuse and overreaching. The abuses that took place are well documented and quite shocking. With the willing cooperation of the telephone companies, the FBI conducted surveillance of peaceful antiwar protesters, journalists, steel company executives, and even Martin Luther King, Jr.

So Congress decided to take action. Based on the history of, and potential for, Government abuses, Congress decided that it was not appropriate--not appropriate--for telephone companies to simply assume that any Government request for assistance to conduct electronic surveillance was legal. Let me repeat that: A primary purpose of FISA was to make clear, once and for all, that the telephone companies should not blindly cooperate with Government requests for assistance.

At the same time, however, Congress did not want to saddle telephone companies with the responsibility of determining whether the Government's request for assistance was a lawful one. That approach would leave the companies in a permanent state of legal uncertainty about their obligations.

So Congress devised a system that would take the guesswork out of it completely. Under that system, which was in place in 2001, and is still in place today, the companies' legal obligations and liability depend entirely on whether the Government has presented the company with a court order or a certification stating that certain basic requirements have been met. If the proper documentation is submitted, the company must cooperate with the request and will be immune from liability. If the proper documentation has not been submitted, the company must refuse the Government's request, or be subject to possible liability in the courts.

The telephone companies and the Government have been operating under this simple framework for 30 years. The companies have experienced, highly trained, and highly compensated lawyers who know this law inside and out.

In view of this history, it is inconceivable that any telephone companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program did not know what their obligations were. It is just as implausible that those companies believed they were entitled to simply assume the lawfulness of a Government request for assistance. This whole effort to obtain retroactive immunity is based on an assumption that doesn't hold water.

That brings me to another issue. I have been discussing why retroactive immunity is unnecessary and unjustified, but it goes beyond that. Granting companies that allegedly cooperated with an illegal program this new form of automatic, retroactive immunity undermines the law that has been on the books for decades--a law that was designed to prevent exactly the type of actions that allegedly occurred here.

Remember, telephone companies already have absolute immunity if they complied with the applicable law. They have an affirmative defense if they believed in good faith that they were complying with that law. So the retroactive immunity provision we are debating here is necessary only if we want to extend immunity to companies that did not comply with the applicable law and did not even have a good faith belief that they were complying with it. So much for the rule of law.

Even worse, granting retroactive immunity under these circumstances will undermine any new laws that we pass regarding Government surveillance. If we want companies to follow the law in the future, it sends a terrible message, and sets a terrible precedent, to give them a ``get out of jail free'' card for allegedly ignoring the law in the past.

I find it particularly troubling when some of my colleagues argue that we should grant immunity in order to encourage the telephone companies to cooperate with Government in the future. They want Americans to think that not granting immunity will damage our national security. But if you take a close look at the argument, it does not hold up. The telephone companies are already legally obligated to cooperate with a court order, and as I have mentioned, they already have absolute immunity for cooperating with requests that are properly certified. So the only thing we would be encouraging by granting immunity here is cooperation with requests that violate the law. That is exactly the kind of cooperation that FISA was supposed to prevent.

Let's remember why. These companies have access to our most private conversations, and Americans depend on them to respect and defend the privacy of these communications unless there is clear legal authority for sharing them. They depend on us to make sure the companies are held accountable for betrayals of that public trust. Instead, this immunity provision would invite the telephone companies to betray that trust by encouraging cooperation with illegal Government programs.

But this immunity provision does not just allow telephone companies off the hook for breaking the law. It also will make it that much harder to get to the core issue that I have been raising since December 2005, which is that the President ran an illegal program and should be held accountable. When these lawsuits are dismissed, we will be that much further away from an independent judicial review of this program.

Since 9/11, I have heard it said many times that what separates us from our enemies is respect for the rule of law. Unfortunately, the rule of law has taken it on the chin from this administration. Over and over, the President and his advisers have claimed the right to ignore the will of Congress and the laws on the books if and when they see fit. Now they are claiming the same right for any entity that assists them in that effort, no matter how unreasonable that assistance might have been.

On top of all this, we are considering granting immunity when more than 70 members of the Senate still--still--have not been briefed on the President's wiretapping program. The majority of this body still does not even know what we are being asked to grant immunity for.

In sum, I cannot support this legislation. I appreciate that changes were made to the Senate bill, but they are not enough. Nowhere near enough.

We have other alternatives. We have options. We do not have to pass this law in the midst of a presidential election year, while George Bush remains President, in the worst possible political climate for constructive legislating in this area. If the concern is that orders issued under the PAA could expire as early as August, we could extend the PAA for another 6 months, 9 months, even a year. We could put a 1- year sunset on this bill, rather than

having it sunset in the next Presidential election year when partisan politics will once again be at their worst. Or we could extend the effect of any current PAA orders for 6 months or a year. All of these options would address any immediate national security concerns.

What we do not have to do and what we should not do is pass a law that will immunize illegal behavior and fundamentally alter our surveillance laws for years to come.

I have spent a great deal of time over the past year--in the Senate Intelligence Committee, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on the Senate floor--discussing my concerns, offering amendments, and debating the possible effects of the fine print of various bills. But this is not simply about fine print. In the end, my opposition to this bill comes down to this: This bill is a tragic retreat from the principles that have governed Government conduct in this sensitive area for 30 years. It needlessly sacrifices the protection of the privacy of innocent Americans, and it is an abdication of this body's duty to stand up for the rule of law. I will vote no.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Sen. Bernard SandersI-VT · Apr 9, 2008

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business. Madam President, last Saturday, I…

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, last Saturday, I held two town meetings in Vermont on the collapse of the middle class, and both of them were very well attended. Our guest speaker was Elizabeth Warren, who is a professor of law at Harvard Law School and one of the leading writers in this county on economic matters.

In preparation for that meeting, I sent out an e-mail on my Web site just asking people in Vermont to tell me their personal experiences regarding what is happening to the middle class. We have done that in the past and, frankly, I expected we would get a couple dozen responses. What happened was really astounding to me and speaks about what is going on in the economy in this country today. Over a period of a few days, we have now had some 500 responses, mostly from Vermont, but also I do a national radio show, and we made a similar request nationally, and we have had some from out of State. They are mostly from Vermont, some from out of State, but a total of some 500 responses.

What was absolutely astounding was the nature of these responses. They were so powerful, so overwhelming, that, in fact, they were sometimes difficult to read. Person after person wrote with amazing honesty and with an articulateness which comes from telling the truth. They were not giving a great speech, as we often do here in the Senate, talking about everything under the Sun. They were talking from their own hearts. They were talking about what it means to be trying to raise kids, trying to send your kids to college, trying to pay your fuel bills, fill up your gas tank when you get to work--amazing stories. We are going to post many of them on our Web site.

What I want to do this morning, because I think it is terribly important that the Senate hears from ordinary people to get a sense of what is really going on in America, the struggles people are having-- maybe it is a good idea we hear from the people rather than just campaign contributors, rather than just lobbyists. The language I heard that came to my Web site was extraordinary. So what I want to do this morning--I have the feeling I will be doing it more than once--is just have you listen to what people have to say, reading exactly the words they have written to me.

Let me begin by reading an e-mail that came from a small town in northern Vermont. I am going to do my best to disguise the identities of the writers. But this is from a small town near the Canadian border. This is what this writer says.:

My family has been squeezed for years now. My husband and I

have two children. My husband works full time and has a

degree. He works 60 miles away from home, and has tried to

find a new job closer but has been unable to do so. I tried

for 2 years to find a job, when I could not find a job I went

back to school. I am hoping that my degree will help our

family.

The price of gas and oil now consumes 30% of our disposable

income. We have cut back on groceries, and recently was only

able to get groceries because my parents were nice enough to

give us money. We are going to buy a woodstove because we are

afraid we will not be able to afford oil next year. We do not

qualify for LIHEAP. My husband got a raise last year that

disappeared on Jan. 1st when the cost of our health insurance

increased. We have to have reduced cost lunch for our

children, we cannot afford to put our children on his health

insurance plan, and luckily they are on Dr. Dynasaur--

Which is the SCHIP program in Vermont--

but now we have to pay a premium where we didn't last year.

We have stopped doing any fun things. We have not been able

to go out to eat in a long time, or to bring the kids to see

a movie. There are no treats. I am praying that after I

graduate I will be able to find a job to help my family out.

Of course when I go back to work both my husband and I will

have to start paying our student loans, and this payment will

amount to about $500 per month. But what other option do we

have? I couldn't find work. He can't find a better job closer

to home.

Both my husband and I have degrees, we did everything

right, we are not doing better than our parents when they

were our age.

If it wasn't for our parents we would be worse off. Our

parents have helped us with oil. My parents gave us $600 last

year to pay for our oil, my husband's parents helped us with

car repairs so we wouldn't go into debt. My parents have

given us grocery money and bought our kids school clothes. I

don't know what we would do without our parents.

This is demoralizing, my husband keeps asking when will we

be able to actually afford to support our own family? I'm not

sure what the answer is.

Thank you for listening.

That is a letter from a woman in northern Vermont.

This is a letter from a woman in north central Vermont whose job, it turns out, was outsourced. This is what she writes:

My husband and I are in our mid-fifties. At this time of

our lives we should be at our peak earning power, putting

money away for our retirement. Two years ago, we were, but

now we are making about $42,000 between us and struggling

through this Vermont winter.

I was an international IT manager, making a nice salary

then. I spent 14 years getting my AS, BS and then my Masters

degree from Champlain College.

Which is a college in Burlington, VT.

We were comfortable, and able to go on a nice vacation

every couple of years. Then the company I worked for for 18

years outsourced its entire IT operation to India. I received

a layoff package, but at my age it took me a while to find a

job for one third of my previous salary, and that job is not

even in my field--I am an accounting technician now.

My husband was laid off from a job as an electrician's

assistant and he is now working in a hardware store. He makes

$3 less per hour now.

Both of our moms are near 80 and live with us. We also help

to take care of our next-door neighbor, who is 83. We are

struggling to keep up with our bills. Fortunately when we

refinanced our home several years ago, we took a fixed

rate mortgage. Even so, our heating, gas and even grocery

costs are rising so quickly and our salaries are not.

When I was younger, I found it easier to regroup from a

loss like this, but then everyone wanted to hire me when I

was younger. I thought the government was ``of the people, by

the people and for the people,'' but it seems to me that it's

mostly ``of the people, by the lobbyists and for the rich.''

By the time we get to retirement, maybe when we're 70 at this

rate, Social Security and Medicare will be gone and we'll be

on our own. I feel as though our government has sold us out

and even if we elect a new President who cares for the

people, it will take too long to recover for us to reach a

comfortable place again.

Thank you for listening Senator Sanders.

This is a very brief e-mail that we received from a small town in central Vermont:

Between my retirement & SS [Social Security], I get a grand

total of $804 a month. My last oil delivery was over $600 for

the month of March.

That's my story--and I'm stuck with it.

Thank you, Senator, for trying to ``make it better.''

This is from the wife of a logger in northern Vermont. A lot of people in the State of Vermont earn their money in the woods. They go out and they cut trees.

This is the toughest time I have seen since I was a child.

My husband is a self employed logger and has an excavation

business. The way the economy is has really hit in both of

his employment very hard. The price of logs have dropped

drastically and no one is building.

He has extremely high blood pressure but some how we can't

receive any help. We do have catamount blue health insurance

that we pay $250.00 a month for but that does not cover some

of his medicine nor does it cover all hospital bills. We have

exhausted any savings we had but still have a small IRA but

cannot touch that with out being penalized. We have had to

refinance our home of 34 years and I have just started a job

but it requires me to travel 35 miles one way to work and

with the price of gas it is almost a hopeless case.

I'm sure there are other people in worse shape than us, but

I have to wonder why the government is not helping the

working person? The only thing I guess a working person has

is pride.

Is it worth it?????? I'm really beginning to wonder!

This is from a 57-year-old working widow, again from the central Vermont area. This is what she says:

I have no--

Underline ``no''--

disposable income. Like many Vermonters I drive a long way to

my job and consider myself lucky to have one and like most

jobs in Vermont it does not pay as well as the same job in

other areas of the country. My roundtrip mileage is 60 miles

per day. I invested in an America made hybrid in 2004 which

gets between 25 to 30 mpg [miles per gallon]. Also, the

organization I work for does not reimburse me at the federal

rate for the miles charged to them. I have to have more and

more money each week to pay for that week's gas and then wait

to be reimbursed. It really is a tough squeeze and some of my

co-workers are in tighter spots.

I was fortunate to have locked in fuel oil last Spring at

$2.46/gallon for 800 gallons. This is to supplement wood

burning. However, I fell on the ice in December and hurt my

shoulder which makes lifting wood difficult therefore I

turned the thermostat back to 60 and live that way. Now the

thermostat is back to 50 and the burner only comes on to heat

hot water. I stopped using hot water to wash my clothes over

a year ago and just use cold water. I don't notice a

difference.

I have not had a vacation except a long weekend in years.

At 57 and a widow and a woman, I can look forward to living

in poverty. I am thankful for the things I have and pray that

I can hold onto them. I have first hand experience that there

are many, many Vermonters that have much less and are falling

through the cracks. They do not have enough food to eat and

are ``too rich'' for fuel programs.

I have a friend who is legally blind and lives on less than

$800 per month. She lives in Senior housing so her rent is

subsidized but she still has to pay for utilities and food.

How does she buy food and clothing on this pathetic amount of

money?

How can we be the richest nation in the world and allow

this to happen?

I vote. I give to charities when I can albeit small amounts

but how can I move mountains? I pray for peace and justice

because I don't know what else to do and I am thankful for

what I have and for what I am able to do.

I appreciate your keeping important issues before the

public.

As I said, these are stories from Vermont. But we have received similar-type stories from all over America. Let me conclude with four stories from families in States other than Vermont.

This is from a young man in Tulsa, OK:

Thank you so much for allowing me to tell the story of how

our family is being squeezed by the current economic

conditions in our country. . . .

In December of 2000, I started work for my current company

at the ``bottom rung of the ladder.'' I was changing careers

yet again and the old saying ``you can't start at the top''

certainly applied. I have since worked my way up from a

starting position, part time at $7.65 an hour, through 3

promotions and into a management position in the mid $30k a

year salary range. That used to be an ok salary here in

Oklahoma. Not anymore.

The rising cost of fuel, food, utilities and other

necessities has turned my ``ok'' salary into a near poverty-

level experience for my family. In addition to the above

mentioned costs, I experienced a $102 per month increase in

my portion of the premium for my ``employer provided'' family

health coverage.

I don't get it. I work hard, every day. I show up on time

every day, give it everything I have and never back off and

somehow everything except my salary is going up at an

alarming rate. My parents taught me that no matter what, if

we worked hard enough and never gave up, we'd get somewhere.

It seems these days, that doesn't hold true anymore.

Please encourage your colleagues in D.C. to do something,

and hurry. I am doing all I can and it just isn't enough.

This one is from a young engineer in Gladstone, OR:

I am a 26-year-old college graduate with a master's degree

in mechanical engineering. I have been working for two years

as an engineer in the Portland, OR metropolitan area, and

though I consider my compensation for my job to be

appropriate for my level of education and expertise (about

$60,000 a year), I am still struggling to make ends meet in

this economy.

Despite the fact that my home mortgage payment has remained

stable, I am finding that the average price of energy and

commodities has increased such that I can no longer afford to

contribute to my 401(k) retirement plan, and I am living

month-to-

month with only about $200 in savings. I pay about $300 for

gasoline, $200 for heat, $100 for electricity, and about $400

for food every month. This is fully twice as much as I was

paying for the same expenses just 2 short years ago. Ouch!

My situation is ironic and a bit frustrating. Whereas I now

make over four times what I made as a graduate student, I

live with the same quality of life as I did in college. I

cannot afford vacations or extravagant purchases, and I am

burdened as so many people are these days with a persistent

worry about getting sick or injured and stuck with a medical

bill that I cannot afford.

I realize that I am nobody special in terms of how hard I

work or how much I pay for food and gas or how ``sad'' my

story is, and that is why I write to you. I am moved by the

stories of how these middle-class families are surviving, and

I can sympathize with them in terms of some of the financial

worry they are experiencing. It is hard for me, it must be

incredibly difficult for them.

Thank you for your time and thank you for your service as a

U.S. Senator, and thank you for providing a forum like this.

This is from a 30-year-old man from the Pacific Northwest who feels the American dream has failed him. This is what he writes:

I was raised in extreme poverty. My mom had a 9th grade

education and my father dropped out in 6th grade. My brother,

3 years my senior, dropped out of high school in 1996, the

year I graduated. I never knew a house; we grew up in one and

two bedroom apartments. I also never knew I was raised in

poverty until adulthood--when I tried to transcend this state

of economic marginalization.

I was the first of my family to graduate high school. Four

years later I entered junior college; transferred to a

private four-year institution and earned both an

undergraduate and graduate degree. I also earned $70,000 in

student loan debt. At that point, I had never earned more

than $7,000 in my life.

Three years after college, I purchased my first home. You

guessed it--my loan was predatory and was one of those ARMs.

This was the first home ever purchased in the Ryan family. As

you know, to truly gain a firm stance in the middle class,

one must own property.

I earned $50,000 in 1997, more money than I've ever known.

Yet I still have to charge my groceries or medications. My

ARM matured and my mortgage raised $300 over night. The first

home in my family is likely to go back to the bank and I'm

falling short of the finish line in the race out of poverty.

I'm now in credit card debt just to buy the essentials and

my student loan debt haunts me most days of my life. I feel

disillusioned by the ``American dream and the American middle

class.'' If you graduate, if you go to college, if you . . .

then you will rise above the poverty line. Let me tell you,

Mr. Sanders, I feel more impoverished today than I ever have.

Why? Because when I was poor, I didn't have nearly $100,000

of debt; essentially making me indentured to my country. That

isn't freedom.

Finally, an e-mail from a woman in California in a city near San Francisco. This is the last letter:

Both my husband and I have faced significant pay cuts the

last year. We feel grateful to still have jobs, however. Many

of our friends our age have no jobs and have been out of work

for many months with no prospects in sight.

We have 3 children and live in the high-cost San Francisco

Bay Area, where we were born. A combined income of $100,000

to $150,000 doesn't go very far at all here when a modest

townhouse costs almost $600,000 and everything else is

proportionately more expensive. (The difference in the cost

of living across the country is never taken into account by

politicians planning tax breaks and should be . . . )

Our oldest daughter completed 2 years in Ameri-Corps after

graduating from the University of Vermont where she got a

Bachelor's degree in environmental science and conservation

biology. Some of her student loans were forgiven by Ameri-

Corps, but not many. Now she works for an environmental

consulting firm in Boston but her wages are so low she can

barely support herself and we are still paying $350 per month

on her student loans that remain. We will owe $350 a month on

those loans for the next 30 years--she has close to $70,000

left to pay off.

My husband is almost 61 and I am 52. We have nothing saved

for retirement. One small IRA we have will be cashed out this

year to pay for a new roof on our townhouse. We can barely

meet our mortgage payments, property taxes and pay our bills.

We live month to month.

Over the past year we have cut out many of the extras we

used to consider necessities. My husband felt extremely

guilty running up a charge card to buy much needed clothes

for himself for work. He had not bought clothes for himself

in about 5 years.

Our home is now worth less than the loans we have on it.

There is no money to replace our old rug, (or even have it

professionally shampooed), no money to fix our broken clothes

dryer, no money to repair our bathroom sink, no money to take

even a modest vacation for a few days. The list goes on and

on.

We no longer have what we once considered a middle-class

standard of living. Now we are nearing retirement years

realizing we will have to work (if we have jobs) until we

die. How could we ever exist on Social Security alone in this

area? It would be impossible since we will not have our home

even close to paid off.

I have never felt so despondent about the state of our life

and our family's prospects for the future. We have slid down

the economic ladder one rung at a time. I used to believe if

we worked hard enough we would be rewarded for our work--but

no longer believe that. We are working harder than ever and

now make far less money. I see no improvement in our

financial well-being in the future whatsoever.

I am beyond anger. I have no more tears. I only have two

questions that no one seems to be able to answer.

Mr. President, I think it is appropriate to end on this note, and this is what she says:

I have only two questions that no one seems to be able to

answer. Is everyone in Washington so far removed from the

plight of our country's middle class that they cannot see

what we are going through? Or do they see and simply not

care?

I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wanted to say a few words in support of the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act, an amendment to the housing bill offered by Senators Cantwell and Ensign. Before I begin, let me thank Senator Cantwell for her determined efforts to ensure that we don't stand by while our renewable energy industry and energy efficiency industry lose jobs due to expiring tax policy.

In these times of economic uncertainty, while we work to create new jobs in the green economy of the future, we must also make sure we do not lose existing jobs in the small green economy we already have, and Senator Cantwell, along with many of my colleagues, has made that a priority. I thank her for that.

The clean energy tax stimulus amendment which the Senate is expected to vote on later today and which is based on a stand-alone bill introduced last week, which I am strongly cosponsoring, extends financial incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency that would otherwise expire this year, and that is something we must make absolutely sure does not happen.

More specifically, the amendment would extend for 1 year the current production tax credit--commonly called the PTC--which supports the generation of electricity from renewable energy such as wind, biomass, and geothermal. Additionally, the amendment would extend for 8 years the business investment tax credit which provides financial help for larger scale fuel cell and solar investments and the residential investment tax credit that helps homeowners by giving them the tax credit for up to 30 percent of the cost of a solar PV unit and up to $2,000 for the installation of solar hot water heaters.

Finally, in terms of energy efficiency, the amendment we will vote on today would extend for 1 year the current credits for energy efficiency improvements for heating and cooling systems, windows, and other qualified residential property, and it also extends the tax credit for building homes that are energy efficient. In addition, the amendment extends tax credits for the purchase of energy-efficient appliances.

As you know, wind energy is the fastest growing source of energy throughout to entire world. Unfortunately, in our country today, the wind industry is seeing a dropoff in investment which will quickly lead to the loss of thousands of jobs. This is totally absurd. The American people want to move to sustainable energy. They want to move to wind energy.

There are businesses out there prepared to build and install wind turbines. Yet we are not providing them the help they need to help us deal with global warming and also to create many good-paying jobs. Every month that passes without a production tax credit extension diminishes the industry's capacity to create jobs, spur economic growth, and produce electricity that helps us reduce global warming. In fact, the American Wind Energy Association projects that the rate of growth in American wind power will decrease by more than 70 percent between this year and next in the absence of an extension of the production tax credit. This is totally absurd. All over the world, countries are growing good jobs in terms of wind, and we are on the verge of losing jobs despite the fact that the American people want to move us toward sustainable energy. What we are doing contrasts sharply with the current trend of dramatic wind power growth that could otherwise be expected to continue. People want sustainable energy, people want wind power, and here we are sitting back, not providing the help the people in the wind industry desperately need.

If we do not extend the PTC, we will waste a tremendous opportunity to preserve existing jobs, create many thousands of new good-paying jobs this year alone, and build, in addition, another 5,000 megawatts of new wind energy, which will spur another $10 billion in economic activity.

Let me say a few words about the solar tax credit. The investment tax credit is responsible for an estimated 6,000 high-quality jobs that were created in the solar sector in 2007 alone, and another 9,000 to 12,000 are expected in 2008 if Congress sends the signal that this tax credit is here to stay. That is, of course, exactly what we must be doing.

Without an extension of the ITC, some have estimated that we would lose over $8 billion in investments that would have been made, leading to a net loss of almost 40,000 jobs in the solar photovoltaic sector alone in 2009.

The ITC has real implications also for utility-scale solar projects. I have talked to people in the solar thermal plant business, talked to some of the major utility companies. We have a potential in this country to produce an enormous amount of clean, relatively inexpensive electricity through solar thermal plants which are now beginning to move in the Mojave Desert, in

Nevada, in New Mexico, and Arizona. It turns out that based on the geography of the Southeast, there is enormous potential for dozens of solar thermal units that could produce a significant amount of electricity that our country needs. That electricity could be produced at a reasonable cost, in an effective way, emitting virtually no greenhouse gas emissions. It is sitting there waiting to happen, and our job has to be to help those people in the utilities that want to move forward. Without an extension of the ITC, these types of projects will be in jeopardy or, in fact, face a significant delay.

Additionally, we are seeing a new solar powerplant located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, AZ, and scheduled to go into operation by 2011 which would not go on line without the benefits of the ITC. The 280- megawatt facility is expected to generate revenue of over $4 billion, bringing over $1 billion in economic benefits to the State of Arizona and enough electricity to power 70,000 homes. The solar thermal unit being planned by Pacific Gas and Electric would provide electricity of 553 megawatts for over 400,000 homes.

All of this is sitting there waiting to happen, and all over the world people are wondering, What is the U.S. Congress doing to stimulate this type of activity? Today is our day.

Let's take a quick look at the importance of extending the PTC and the ITC, but let's not forget that extending these credits has a ripple effect on other sectors of the economy. For example, the American Council on Renewable Energy estimates that for every job created in renewable manufacturing, there are an additional three high-quality jobs created to design, install, operate, and maintain the renewable energy infrastructure.

So I think it is pretty clear that we must act today to, at the very least, extend some of the current renewable energy and energy- efficiency tax credits. I myself hope we are going to go a lot further than this, but what we have to do is an absolute necessity.

Let me conclude once again by thanking Senator Cantwell for her leadership on this issue. This is enormously important. The rest of the world is moving in order to deal with global warming, in order to create good-paying jobs. We have to pass this legislation today, and we have to go beyond that in the future.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding its adoption the Landrieu amendment No. 4389, as further modified, be further modified with the changes at the desk.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the unanimous consent agreement, the Murray amendment No. 4478, as amended by the Mikulski amendment, be agreed to.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Sen. Thomas R. CarperD-DE · Apr 9, 2008

Mr. President, I rise today to encourage our colleagues to support the passage, hopefully later today, of the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, the legislation that has been on the Senate floor for…

I like to think of this legislation not in isolation but as the third piece, if you will, of a series of steps that have been taken to try to stabilize our economy, to restore confidence in our economy, and to infuse liquidity into our financial system.

The first was really a series of steps taken by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has acted in an extraordinary way, not just in monetary policy and trying to lower the Fed funds rate but also in encouraging Federal banks to act and now investment banks to take advantage of the discount money, to borrow money when they need it, for the Federal Reserve to be willing to take and swap, if you will, highly liquid Treasury securities for very illiquid mortgage-backed securities that a lot of our banks are holding in their portfolios, allowing those swaps to take place to infuse liquidity into the banking system to encourage banks to begin lending money again.

The Federal Reserve is involved, as we all know, with JPMorgan Chase to engineer their takeover of Bear Stearns to prevent it from going into bankruptcy and probably creating a domino effect that would have brought down other financial entities and maybe made a bad situation even worse.

Those are some of the things the Federal Reserve has done. The Presiding Officer is different, he is not as old as me, but I have never seen the Federal Reserve take these kinds of steps as we enter into a period with this kind of uncertainty. But that is the first series of things that has been done, needed to be done, and is being done by the Federal Reserve. I applaud their action.

The second piece is the stimulus package we voted on and debated here a month or two ago and passed. Sometimes when stimulus packages are agreed to by Congress and the President, it takes so long to debate the package that by the time the effect actually takes place, we are coming out of the recession and it can have the overstimulative effect providing inflationary pressures. In this case, I think what has happened is the Congress and the President agreed in a timely way on our stimulus package, and it will have a modest effect on our economy, probably in the second half of this year. Some have said it will raise gross domestic product by as much as 1.5 percent by the second half of the year. I think the most important thing that came out of the adoption of the stimulus package was to send a clear signal to people, taxpayers and others, businesses, that around here, when the chips are down, Democrats and Republicans, Congress and the President can still agree on a series of actions to help boost the economy, to give the economy a little bit of a jump start.

The third piece in this process is the legislation before us this week and last. I call it a housing recovery package. There are a number of elements to it that are meritorious. I wouldn't oversell this package. This by itself is not going to save the day and prevent all foreclosures and bring the housing market back overnight or within a couple of weeks or months. But it is a third of a series of steps that will be helpful. It is going to be followed within the next maybe 2 months with a handful of other steps that I will talk about in a few minutes. Let me talk about some of the elements I think are most beneficial in this housing recovery package that is before us today. The centerpiece is FHA modernization.

The Federal Housing Administration was created about 75 years ago. It was born during the Great Depression. Out of the FHA came the possibility for home ownership for a lot of people who otherwise would never have become home buyers. People wonder, where did we get the 30- year fixed rate mortgages. They were a creation of FHA, a legacy of FHA. As recently as 6, 7, 8 years ago, probably 15 to 20 percent of mortgages were guaranteed or insured by the FHA, 15 to 20 percent. Last year the number was about 5 percent. We dropped, in roughly half a dozen years, from 15 to 20 percent of home mortgages insured by FHA to last year about 5 percent.

Where did those mortgages go? Where did people go for financial help to buy a home? A lot of them went to places they should not have gone. A lot of them ended up being induced or seduced and convinced to use a different kind of a financing. They used exotic adjustable rate mortgages, some of them with no money down, no principal payments for an extended period of time. Some of these exotic adjustable rate mortgages called for very low interest, seductive teaser rates which may have been 2, 3, 4 percent at the beginning and would later go up by reset within a couple of years to be 7, 8, or 9 percent. A lot of folks ended up signing on to this deal and didn't realize there is a penalty for trying to refinance out of an adjustable rate mortgage, making it very difficult. I suppose the borrower and maybe the mortgage broker or the lending institution that was involved, everybody expected housing prices to continue to go up; they had for years. As long as housing prices continue to rise, everybody comes out of the hole. If somebody is unable to make payments, they sell the house, do it for profit and pay off their mortgage. Not many people thought about what happens if prices, instead of going up, all of a sudden come down. They have come down, and in some places they have come down a lot.

Part of our legislation is designed to encourage people to take a second look at FHA. For folks, especially first-time home buyers or people who have less than perfect credit, the FHA in the past has been their avenue to become homeowners. We wanted to make sure it is an option that is there for the 21st century.

Without getting into a whole lot of detail, let me say, of all the pieces that are part of this bill, the most important one is FHA modernization. I will mention a couple of those elements that I think are helpful. One of those takes the FHA loan limit starting at

the end of this year to $550,000. Instead of being $420,000, it takes it up to $550,000. In Delaware, you can get a perfectly good house for $420,000. In some places in New Jersey one can get a perfectly good house for $420,000. In some places in New Jersey you probably can't. A lot of places in California, Florida, Connecticut, home values are such that for $420,000, which is the FHA loan limit that will be in effect next January 1, you can buy a cottage, but if you want to think about buying a three-bedroom house with a garage and a bathroom, you can forget about buying anything close to that for $420,000. What we want to do is address the needs in high-cost housing areas so that FHA will still be relevant in those States, as well as in States that have more modest housing costs.

The second element of this bill that is good is that the bill seeks to streamline the bureaucracy of FHA. We hear a good deal about that from banks and from realtors, that the bureaucracy is inappropriate for the 21st century. We have streamlined it. We do that in the context of this legislation.

Another element that I believe is helpful is, we are going to make more available counseling assistance to people who need it as they are looking for a place to buy and to consider their options. There is a new pilot credit scoring program that will be created. It is designed to increase access to credit for borrowers who may have a history of making required payments on time but haven't established a sufficient credit rating to enable them to be considered as serious home buyers.

Those are some of the pieces of the FHA modernization portion of this bill. It is maybe the most important thing we are going to do.

A second important element of this bill deals with community development block grants. We appropriated this year around the country, I want to say, roughly $4 billion to communities, State and local governments, moneys they can use to help develop their communities. We want to make sure that some additional moneys--in this case, another roughly $4 billion--might be made available to State and local governments to help communities that have been hit hard by foreclosures and delinquencies. The money could be put to use in many communities around the country.

A third element of this bill that I believe has merit deals with housing authorities. Housing authorities currently are able to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds. The proceeds of those tax-exempt revenue bonds are used in probably every State in the country to allow people to become first-time home buyers and to realize a low interest rate. They do this with moneys raised by tax-exempt revenue bonds. The proceeds of these same bonds can be used by housing authorities to build multifamily, affordable housing as well. The proceeds of these bonds cannot be used, though, to assist in refinancing of subprime loans. With this legislation, we say you can do that, too. State and local housing authorities can use the proceeds of these tax-exempt revenue bonds. In fact, we allow them to issue another $10 billion worth and a permissible use is to help folks to refinance out of these subprime loans that they have gotten themselves into.

Another element of this bill is actually one offered by our colleague Senator Isakson from Georgia. He has been good enough to let me advise some changes in his earlier proposal. Let's use the situation here. We have 100 desks here, and we will assume for this example that these are not desks but homes in a community. Maybe there are two or three of these homes where the families have run into trouble and cannot keep up with the mortgage payments. The homes have gone into foreclosure and they are decaying, the grass is growing, the shrubbery is not cut, trash not removed. Those homes are destroyed and beginning to decay, and they bring down the value of the other homes in the community. Senator Isakson suggested that we allow a tax credit to be used for someone who will come in and buy a home in foreclosure and live there. He proposed that that person be provided by the U.S. Treasury a $5,000 tax credit. To buy a foreclosed home and to agree to live there, $5,000 for year 1, $5,000 for year 2, $5,000 for year 3, is a pretty expensive proposition. That would certainly get people's attention and encourage them to buy homes in foreclosure, but it is a serious hit on the Treasury.

I urged him--I am sure others did as well--to make the proposal a little more modest. What he has done, I think prudently, is to say, in the same situation, a home in foreclosure, to encourage people to come in and buy homes in foreclosure so they don't bring down the values of other properties, that they will get a tax credit but year 1 is $3,500 and year 2 is another $3,500; $7,000 in all as a tax credit from the Treasury to the person making that purchase. It is more modest. There is an impact on the Treasury, but it is not nearly as great as would otherwise have been the case. It is a good proposal.

Another idea in this legislation that makes a lot of sense deals with people who are in some distress--maybe they have lost their job, they have sickness in the family, they are finding it difficult to pay their bills, they are getting behind on their mortgage payments. They are not sure what to do, and sometimes they end up turning to people who take advantage of them, shysters who take advantage of them. And rather than helping them with their problems, to work their way through it, they take advantage of the distressed homeowner.

There are nonprofit entities. They work under a broad umbrella of something called the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. The shorthand title is NeighborWorks. And the idea there is to have these nonprofits provide counseling assistance. They are not trying to take advantage of home homeowners in distress. They want to help them find the best option for themselves and their family. We provided, I think through HUD's budget, about $200 million initially. That money has been used. Under this legislation we provide about another $100 million, maybe more. I think an amendment by Senator Murray would take that up a bit higher. The idea is to make sure that when people are in trouble and they turn to someone for help, they will turn to someone who is really going to help them. This is a good proposal as well.

Senator Reed of Rhode Island has offered an amendment that has been made part of the package that seeks to address complex paper disclosure. When you buy a house, you have all these papers. You sit down with a realtor. It is pretty confusing stuff, even for people who are pretty smart. Senator Reed has come up with some suggestions that would protect a person who is going through the forms, trying to understand what they are signing on to. Without going into a lot of detail, his ideas have a great deal of merit and are part of the package and ought to be.

As to another element of the package--I say this as a veteran who served in the Navy during the Vietnam war and came back; they had to protect us--to protect others who have served in our Armed Forces since, we have something called the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act.

The idea is to try to make sure our soldiers and sailors-- particularly when they are deployed overseas--and their families are not taken advantage of. We have given them, if you will, a break in making sure they are not taken advantage of by those who are, for example, lenders who loaned money to them.

Right now, the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act--say I am deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. I come back from my year or 15-month deployment. My home cannot have been foreclosed on. My family and I live in the home, and we had a hard time making our mortgage payment. Maybe I gave up my regular civilian job and took a much lower paying job, was called up for Active Duty in the military, and I have been unable to keep up with my mortgage payments.

Under the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act, my home could not be foreclosed on for at least 3 months while I am away and for 3 months from when I come back from that deployment. This legislation would extend that by an additional 6 months. I would be protected for 9 months, my family would be protected for 9 months, after my return to, hopefully, get back on our feet to be able to meet our financial obligations.

Also, this provision provides returning soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines with 1 year of relief from increases in mortgage interest rates. Where these adjustable rate mortgages are resetting, the military personnel get an extra year.

The final part of this provision is that the Department of Defense is required to establish a counseling program to ensure veterans and active servicemembers can access assistance if they have seen financial difficulties. Again, the idea is for folks who are in distress--in this case, military personnel--who are homeowners, that they could actually get access to advice from people who have the best interests of the veterans at heart.

Those are some of the provisions, not all of the provisions. There are other provisions dealing with standard property deductions and to allow folks who do not itemize to take a standard deduction--$500 for single filers, $1,000 for joint filers. It is in this legislation.

There is an extension of net operating loss carry-back that will help some of the homebuilders who are in trouble. There were concerns raised. I think Senator Gregg raised the concern yesterday--and there are other concerns about it as well--that the cost to the Treasury is considerable. The cost over 10 years, I am told, is about $6 billion, so it is not inconsequential. But we also know among the companies that are undergoing real distress right now are those that build homes. This is designed to try to extend some relief to them.

Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho and I have offered an amendment which has been accepted by both Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby on behalf of the majority and minority sides that tries to help homeowners who are in distress in another way. A lot of people do not know in this country we have something called the Federal Home Loan Banks. There are 12 of them across the country. Together they make up the Federal Home Loan Bank system. A primary job they have is to raise money they then turn around and lend to smaller financial institutions, principally for home ownership, to make home ownership more affordable.

Delaware is in the Pittsburgh Federal Home Loan Bank region. A lot of financial institutions--banks, savings and loans--work with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. They get loans, if you will, below market-rate loans, from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh.

But one of the requirements under Federal law is these Federal Home Loan Banks have to contribute 10 percent of their net income into an affordable housing fund. The affordable housing fund is used by local entities, local financial banks, local financial entities, banks, thrifts, in order to provide home ownership opportunities for, in a lot of cases, first-time home buyers or low-income home buyers. It is a good program. We use it a lot in my State. It is used to leverage money from State and local governments. It is used to leverage money from nonprofits, from for-profits, from banks. It is a real good thing.

The problem with this affordable housing program fund is none of the moneys in this program can be used to help subsidize or refinance-- somebody who is in one of these adjustable rate mortgages that is resetting. They need to refinance and get out of it and maybe get into a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. This is affordable housing money. It is compiled. It is built up. It is about a third of a billion dollars this year. It cannot be used to help folks refinance out of a mortgage they have no business being in. This amendment that has been accepted will allow that to take place.

My friend, Senator McCaskill of Missouri, along with Senator Kohl and myself, has offered an amendment. I understand it has been accepted, and we are grateful for that. That amendment seeks to protect folks who have taken advantage of reverse mortgages.

One of the nice things about being a homeowner with equity in your home, in a lot of cases when you reach an older age and maybe your home is paid off, you ought to be able to live off the equity of your home for the rest of your life. In some cases, people who are in that situation do not get very good advice, and they are duped into making investments with the equity of their home in ways that really do not help the homeowner trying to live off the equity of their home for the rest of their life. It helps them less than maybe someone who is a scoundrel trying to take advantage of them.

So Senator McCaskill's amendment, that Senator Kohl and I have joined in sponsoring, allows HUD to use a portion of the mortgage insurance premiums collected under this program to adequately fund counseling and disclosure activities. So the idea there is to make sure people have good advice. If you think about it, that is a theme of almost every element I have talked about in this bill. Many of the elements of this bill are designed to make sure that consumers, homeowners, purchasers have access to good advice, someone who is going to be there for them and not take advantage of them.

I said this housing recovery package is the third step so far of three steps we need to take. The first step is action by the Federal Reserve; the second step, our stimulus package; the third step is our housing recovery package; a fourth step, that I hope will follow in the next month or two--certainly before we get to the Memorial Day recess-- is when the Senate Banking Committee takes up another measure that will consider a Hope proposal, one that Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank have been working on that has a lot of merit to help people, families whose mortgage is underwater; that is, they owe more than the value of their property, find a way to get out of that situation.

The lenders, the investors, the homeowners themselves will probably take a little bit of a financial haircut, but by doing that they would be able to stay in their homes and maybe end up with a little bit of equity in their homes in the end.

A number of us--Senator Martinez and I and Senator Schumer and Senator Jack Reed--have been very much interested, along with some of our colleagues, in trying to make sure we have a strong independent regulator for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. That ought to be part of our next package. We need to license mortgage brokers to make sure they have the kind of training and the kind of regulatory structure under which to operate, to make sure the appraisals that are written on a lot of homes are actually worth the paper on which they are written.

So there is a lot that can be done and should be done, and my hope is we will have the opportunity to take those up, have hearings as appropriate in the Banking Committee, and mark them up before the Memorial Day recess and literally have them on the Senate floor to debate by the Fourth of July. That would be good for our country, and that would be the fourth step, if you will, to help stabilize our economy, to begin to restore some confidence in our economy, especially in the housing sector of our economy, and to make sure we put some liquidity back into our financial system and our banking system where it is needed.

But the last thing, and maybe the most helpful, it would do is to clearly demonstrate to folks around this country that this place still works, that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground, work with the administration, and do what is in the best interests of our country, our citizens, and our families.

None of what is done in the legislation that is before us today is designed to reward bad behavior. For people who have been borrowers and bought homes as a speculator, where they were interested in buying it to watch the price go up, to simply flip it, flip the house, and take advantage of these exotic adjustable rate mortgages to do that, to work the system, and to look for some short-term profit, we are not interested in helping.

With all due respect, we are not interested in borrowers who have misbehaved or mortgage brokers or investors who have misbehaved. That is not what this is about. This initiative is to restore confidence in the system, liquidity in the system, and to say to people: The system-- our legislative system, our political system--still works, and it works for the interests of people who need our help.

That said, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Sen. Christopher J. DoddD-CT · Jun 25, 2008

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, if I may, I will inform Senators as to where we are on the housing bill. Most of my colleagues…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, if I may, I will inform Senators as to where we are on the housing bill. Most of my colleagues know that we voted for cloture yesterday with a substantial vote of 83 to 9--not something that occurs with great frequency, getting that kind of strong, bipartisan support for the housing bill, which Senator Shelby and I have spent weeks crafting, with the support of our members on the Banking Committee. The most recent vote was 19 to 2, on a committee with 21 members, where we ended up with strong, bipartisan support to deal with the foreclosure crisis in this country, to reform government- sponsored enterprises, and to provide for an affordable housing program. That is not to mention other provisions that came out of the Finance Committee, under the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, to deal with mortgage revenue bonds, tax incentives, first- time home buyers, and counseling services. As well, we have expanded the numbers to assist individuals who are seeking to stay in their homes and are trying to achieve workouts with lenders at a cost that is affordable for them.

There are many aspects of this important bill. There is no more important issue before us today than dealing with our economy. One need only look at the headlines of the major newspapers in the Nation this morning saying that consumer confidence is the lowest it has been, according to some, in 40 years. The prospects people see for themselves and their families are very low. That in itself is a source of great concern, and it ought to be to every Member of this body--that our fellow citizens don't see a very bright future for themselves and that we need to take some steps on energy and health care costs and housing. We have 8,400 people every day filing for foreclosure. That ought to alarm everybody. We need to take some steps to allow people to work this out and stabilize this cascading housing problem.

When you have home values falling by the hour and you have problems with the lack of new starts, unemployment rates occurring, with it spreading to student loans and commercial lending, this problem has at its center the housing crisis and foreclosure crisis all across our country, and it is not localized in one or two areas.

The fact we have been able to put together a major proposal that addresses this issue, and yet as we stand here, I am stymied because one Senator has decided this bill is not going to go forward--one-- because it takes unanimous consent for us to move to the bill.

We already worked out a number of amendments on this bill. People have ideas they want to bring to it, and I welcome those. We wish to get to those ideas, even take the agreements we have reached with Republican and Democratic Senators. One Senator is saying: You can't do that. Again 8,000 more people are about to lose their homes today, but one Senator has said: No, I am sorry, but my bill is more important than the 8,000 of you yesterday or the 8,000 tomorrow who will come up.

We are trying to get this bill done. There are several other Senators, Democrats and Republicans, who have ideas they wish to bring to this debate. Some we can agree to, some we cannot. But they deserve a debate and a vote on their idea. I welcome the opportunity to have that conversation with them. In many cases, we will try to work them out if we can. Where that is impossible, then this body has a right or obligation to vote them up or down, whether or not to accept those ideas.

We had very constructive conversations with the House of Representatives. I am very grateful to Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has welcomed our work here as we try to work out the differences between the House-passed bill and our bill, which are not substantial, in my view. We ought to come to some agreement on those differences. Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts, chairman of the Financial Services Committee in the House, has been working with us so we can resolve these differences. I had hoped before we left for the Independence Day recess we would have been able to send a bill to the President for his signature. What greater signal could we send, as I said yesterday, to the American people than this Congress--highly divided, partisan beyond belief in too many cases--was able to come together on an issue that affects so many of our fellow citizens. We are this close to doing it. But I cannot offer an amendment today or invite Members to resolve their differences because one Senator has decided we should not do anything except his bill.

Unfortunately, that is how this institution works too often. As people know, I have been sitting here patiently for the last day and a half, along with Senator Shelby, trying to resolve these matters. We have to wait until the end of this day. We will go another 5 or 6 hours doing nothing, sitting around in quorum calls and listening to speeches until we run out the clock and then have an opportunity to get to these issues.

I know there are people who care about Medicare. They care about the supplemental appropriations bill. People care about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The majority leader has laid this out in clear, concise terms that we need to deal with these matters before we leave, and we are going to do it the hard way or the easy way. But it requires cooperation. It requires people being able to put aside their differences and let us get to the matters before us.

No other issue is more important. I apologize for getting emotional about this issue, but it is awfully difficult to go back home when people are facing gasoline prices that have gone through the ceiling, they are watching their fellow citizens lose their homes, the values of theirs, if not losing them, are declining, joblessness rising in the country, and they are wondering why we cannot manage to get anything done on their behalf.

While we cannot solve every problem, here we have a collection of bills worked out in one package, crafted by Democrats and Republicans coming together, and we cannot even get to debate the issue or bring up ideas other Members have on how we might improve this legislation.

I wanted to inform my colleagues as to why we have not been able to get much done here. It is not for the lack of leadership by Harry Reid. He has been leading and asking the other side to work with us to get this job done. As he said last evening, there are moments, we all understand, when partisan politics take over. There are other moments when you have to set that aside, and this is one of those moments.

So my urging at this moment at 11:15 this morning is, would this one Senator reconsider what he is objecting to and allow us to get to this matter. That Senator has had four different opportunities to vote on his bill. I happen to support his bill, by the way. I think I am a cosponsor of it. If not a cosponsor, I certainly have been supportive of it. I also understand there are other issues with which we have to grapple, and the housing issue is a major one for us.

We are right on the brink. In a couple of hours, we can resolve this matter, vote on it, send it to the House, and hopefully they will agree, and send that bill to the President. We can do that literally in the next 2 or 3 hours if I can only get an opportunity to raise these matters on the floor of the Senate.

I am deeply grateful to the majority leader who has done everything conceivable to make this happen. What we are lacking is the kind of cooperation required to get this bill done. This is not a bill I would have written on my money, nor would Senator Shelby. There are 100 of us here. We all have our ideas on how we would frame these matters. But we are elected to a body that includes 99 other Members, and you have to sit down with each other and work to achieve anything. When you refuse to do that, you make it impossible to step forward.

My urging at this hour of the morning is let us get to this bill, allow these Members--Democrats and Republicans--to have their ideas brought up, resolved, or voted on so we can conclude this work, send it to the House, and hopefully to the President of the United States for his signature.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time the Senate spends in quorum calls during today's session count toward the time postcloture.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, before our colleague leaves the Chamber, I commend him for his statement. I had a chance to listen to part of it before coming to the floor of the Senate. This is a long-held view of my colleague when it comes to civil liberties and the rule of law. I commend him for remaining consistent in that insistence. He is absolutely correct that this is not a choice between security or liberty. In fact, I argue, as he has, that when we begin to retreat on the rule of law, we become less secure as a people. We have learned that lesson painfully throughout history. This is the time for us to be vigilant, both in terms of our security and also when it comes to our rights. This is an issue that ought not divide people based on our determination to deal with terrorism or those who wish to do great harm to our country but to recognize that historically, when we have been motivated by fear and have failed to stand up for basic rights, we have made horrendous mistakes. When we have stood up for our rights as well as insisting on our security, we have done our job as a generation, as previous ones have as well.

This is one of those moments history will look back upon. Why did we say that 17 phone companies that relied on a letter and not much more than that decided for over 5 years to invade the privacy of millions of Americans and would still be doing it today but for a whistleblower who revealed the program? Why did they not seek the FISA Court, as 18,748 other cases that been submitted and only 5 examples when they were turned down seeking a warrant since 1978? Why in this case did the Bush administration decide to avoid that normal process and go with a simple letter, without any legal justification I can determine, and get that kind of reaction? Why should we not know that? Why should not the American people know that? What happened here?

That is what the Senator is insisting upon. We will not know the answers to those questions if we, as a legislative body, by a simple vote here, declare that the courts have no business examining the legality of this action. We will avoid that responsibility by casting a vote to keep this immunity process in place. I will be joining him. In fact, I will be offering the amendment to strike the immunity provisions, to do our job when it comes to dealing with FISA, to modernizing it, but not to grant immunity to 17 phone companies.

Quest, to their great credit, when they were given that letter, said: We need more legal justification. They did

not engage in this program. Not all phone companies did. But the ones that did bear the responsibility to determine whether what they did was legal. We will never know the answer to that if the Senator from Oregon and I do not prevail on our amendment.

I commend him immensely for his statement.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I see my good friend from West Virginia on the floor. While I have some disagreement with him on the effort he has made on the FISA bill, I commend my friend from West Virginia. He has the thankless task of heading up the Intelligence Committee, which is a difficult job. I wish to acknowledge that and recognize that. My respect for him and the work he is doing and trying to do on this issue is something I respect immensely. Unfortunately, we don't agree on one aspect--at least one aspect--of this bill, but that in no way diminishes my respect for the effort he has made to try to produce as good a bill as he can under the circumstances. You only have to try and manage a bill around here to understand how difficult that can be, as someone who is engaged right now in this housing proposal.

Senator Shelby and I have spent weeks putting together a bill that has enjoyed almost unanimous support in our committee--19 to 2--coming out of the Banking Committee. We had the vote of 83 to 9 the other day on a cloture motion to deal with a proposal we put together covering everything from mortgage revenue bonds and tax incentives for people to buy foreclosed properties, not to mention the GSE--the government sponsored enterprises--reform, an affordable housing program in perpetuity to assist rental housing opportunities in the Nation, as well as the HOPE for Homeowners Act to deal with the foreclosure crisis. Here we are now approaching the late afternoon of Wednesday. We had the cloture vote yesterday morning, about 30 hours ago. We have yet to have one amendment I can deal with because one Senator is insisting that his bill be paramount, that we disregard the efforts we have made to listen to ideas, to take additional suggestions that have come from other Members to incorporate as part of this bill.

Senator Kohl of Wisconsin has a very good proposal which we have worked out. Senator Sununu has made a proposal as well and we have been able to modify it and work with him to be a part of it. Senator Isakson has made a proposal we are working on to deal with a date in this bill that could make a difference. Senator Bond has a proposal we are working on dealing with disclosures. Senator Kohl and Senator Nelson are working on a proposal dealing with 401(k)s. All of these ideas have to be held in abeyance because one Senator won't even let us consider these matters on the floor, to bring them up and to deal with them.

It is awfully difficult to understand, when you consider that between 8,000 and 9,000 people every day are filing for foreclosure in this country. This is the center of our economic problems in the Nation.

The Wall Street Journal reported today in a banner headline that consumer confidence in this Nation is at the lowest point it has been since the late 1980s, early 1990s. A report yesterday actually takes it back to 1967. We are also told that home values are declining by the hour in this country. The Case-Schiller Index indicates that home values may decline by as much as 30 percent over the next 2 or 3 years. This is affecting student loans, it is affecting municipal finance, and it is affecting commercial borrowing. We are literally in a stall with the economy growing worse and the level of optimism and confidence of the American people declining at a rapid rate.

There is nothing more important we could do before adjourning for the next week to go home for Independence Day than to deal with this bill. We could literally complete this housing bill in about an hour. That is about all it would take to consider the amendments we can agree to, to adopt the ones we have, and then move this bill off this floor, out of this Chamber to the point that I think the House may accept what we have done, and send the bill to the President for his signature.

What better message to send to those who are facing potential foreclosure, of losing their most important and valuable asset that the overwhelming majority of Americans will ever have, not just in financial terms, but in the context of having a home for their families. This is something most Americans wish for their children, wish for their grandchildren, wish to have themselves, that idea of a home where you grow up and live. The fact that between 8,000 and 9,000 people--not on a weekly basis, not on a monthly basis, but every single day--every day we are home next week, every day we are gone from here, remind yourselves that another 9,000 people are beginning to file foreclosure and losing their homes. Neighborhoods collapse, values in these neighborhoods go down, and we see the continued suffering that goes on in our country, all because I can't even bring up and allow consideration of some amendments on this bill.

We have been at this now since January, trying to put this together and here we are in late June and still unable to get even consideration of amendments or to vote on some we may disagree with. There are many others of our colleagues here who have some ideas. I failed to mention Senator Voinovich. We have proposals from Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow involving important projects in their State, not to mention Massachusetts as well. There are a number of other things included in this legislation providing the kind of support for those who are out there, including counseling to people going through foreclosure or who could go through foreclosure. All of these elements could make a difference; the community development block grants to mayors, county supervisors, and Governors that could provide some targeted help in neighborhoods that have foreclosed properties.

We learn from screaming headlines on a daily basis--you need not hear my voice; just listen to what is going on in almost every State in the country. Now the States of California and Nevada are particularly hard- pressed, as well as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio are seeing these numbers at record levels. The State of Nevada, in fact, I think, on a per capita basis has the worst foreclosure rate in the country, what that State is going through and the people are suffering from in that jurisdiction, with 10, I am told, centers around the State trying to help people hang on to their homes if they can.

Here we have a proposal that would provide that kind of relief, a system that would allow for workouts where people could have a new mortgage they could afford to pay, as well as paying into the program at some cost, and the lenders taking, of course, a significant cut in what they would otherwise be getting. But it would allow us to keep people in their homes.

So in those States that are feeling this particularly, I want them to know there are those of us here--and they ought to know the majority leader of this body, Senator Harry Reid, has been on the forefront of trying to get this bill up, trying to allow us to vote on it to get the job done. I wish to thank him for that, as the chairman of the Banking Committee, to have a majority leader who understands this priority is at the top of our list. I am deeply grateful to him for making it possible for us to get as far as we have.

But to know we are down here with a few remaining hours before we will be leaving for a week or 10 days; knowing that in that period of time, unnecessarily, in my view, more Americans may end up paying that awful price, watching their home value decline, watching them possibly lose their homes; that idea of being able to build that equity and provide for your children's education, to contribute to your retirement, to deal with an unexpected illness in the family where that equity could make a difference, all of that is eroding because we can't get off the dime because we have a colleague who wants to insist that his proposal be paramount, that we drop everything else and deal with that bill. I say that respectfully. I have been here 27 years and this happens periodically. But at this moment, at this time, facing the worst crisis in housing since the Great Depression, this is not the kind of reaction we ought to be getting.

I am going to come here periodically as long as we are here to talk about this. I will make unanimous consent requests, or the leader will, to try and

let us move on this. When objection is heard, then that Senator ought to have the courage, in my view, to stand up and express that objection on why we can't deal with this housing bill. Even if you disagree with the bill, allow us to vote. Allow your colleagues to offer their amendments. They need to explain to the American people why it is that after all of this effort, with an 83-to-9 vote yesterday, that Democrats and Republicans want to do something about housing, but we can't get a bill up and can't consider these outstanding amendments.

I apologize to my colleagues for this, but they ought to know what is going on and why it is. Members have asked me: Why aren't we voting? Why can't we bring up these matters? The reason is because I need unanimous consent to do so and one Senator can object, and because they object, none of these other amendments, Republican or Democratic amendments, can be considered or modified, even, in this context. So that is why we are here and where we are. If people are wondering why, after this long time, despite the efforts of bringing people together, we are not managing to get this bill done, that is the reason. My hope is that common sense and reasonableness may prevail in the coming hour or so that will allow us to get to this. But if we are unable to do so, then that is the reason.

With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

I thank my colleague and agree with him on several fronts. The first is that I commend Attorney General Cuomo for his aggressive pursuit in ferreting out fraudulent appraisal practices. Law enforcement has said repeatedly that unscrupulous appraisers are the ``enablers'' of mortgage fraud.

Appraisers, seeking new business, are eager to ``hit the number'' needed to make sure a mortgage is approved. If they fail to give the lenders and brokers the appraisal needed to close the loan, they simply don't get any more referrals from those lenders. As a result, appraisers were inflating their estimates of house value, adding to the frenzy that created the housing bubble.

The guidelines negotiated by Attorney General Cuomo with Fannie and Freddie, and approved by OFHEO, seek to ensure that this kind of pressure cannot be brought to bear on appraisers. They are designed to ensure independence and address the significant evidence of collusion between lenders and appraisers that Mr. Cuomo uncovered.

I understand there is great concern about the process for the reforms the attorney general is demanding. I also understand that some people don't like the new standards which will affect the practices of the lenders that sell their mortgages to Fannie and Freddie.

As a result, I agree with my colleague that the Federal banking agencies have a role in this process. These agencies already have regulations in place that set forth appraisal standards for their lenders. However, the appraisal fraud over the past couple of years, and the attorney general's action, should serve as a wake-up call to the regulators that their standards must be revamped and their enforcement stepped up.

Amendment No. 4984 Withdrawn

Sen. Mary L. LandrieuD-LA · Apr 9, 2008

Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment I have offered with Senator Wicker from Mississippi. Our amendment is pending. It is germane. We hope to have a vote sometime soon on this amendment,…

Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment I have

offered with Senator Wicker from Mississippi. Our amendment is pending. It is germane. We hope to have a vote sometime soon on this amendment, if we can move past this present standstill.

I want to just put up some numbers to try to explain our situation in Louisiana. I have used this chart before. This chart is the underlying reason for the bill that we are on because these are the top 10 districts in the country, according to the official data, where these foreclosures are taking place.

As you can see, there are about 40,000 distressed properties in and around Detroit; about 10,000 in Stockton, CA; 30,000 in Las Vegas; about 51,000 in San Bernardino, CA; about 23,000 in Sacramento; about 27,000 around the Cleveland area--and it goes on. These are the top 10.

Now, this data is readily available. I am sorry I do not have more than just the top 10. But I used this chart to make my point about our situation still in Louisiana and on the gulf coast.

You can see, the percentage of households in Detroit is about 5 percent; the same with Stockton, CA, and Las Vegas is 4 percent. That is a real crisis in those areas. It seems like a small percentage, but if you are in a neighborhood where there is a concentration of these kinds of homes, the problem is--and what we are trying to solve, those of us who are supporting this bill; and I am supporting this bill--to try to provide some additional community development block grant funding because not only are we trying to perhaps come up with State- based local solutions that might help these particular families, but the real tragedy, in my mind, is those families around these homes who did absolutely nothing wrong. They took out a 30-year mortgage. They have paid their mortgage every month. They did not enter into any flimflam kind of agreement.

But the problem is, as homes collapse around them and become vacant and are foreclosed on, these homeowners who did nothing wrong, who have most of their net worth tied up in the value of their home, are seeing, through no fault of their own, their property values plummeting.

Now, if you are a young person, and you are a homeowner in this situation, you might have time to ride it out. But if you are a senior getting ready to retire, or if you are getting ready, in middle age, to send your two children to college and were hoping to refinance your home to do that and had planned for 20 years--this was your plan to send your kids to college. You did not get to go to college, but you have saved and scrimped and worked hard, and you were going to refinance your house to send your children to college. Guess what. Your kids do not go to college because your neighbor took out a subprime loan, and it is causing your property value to plummet.

Now, I know the President does not understand why community development block grant moneys are important. He does not understand a lot of things. But some of us do understand why we need to help people in these neighborhoods.

So I am just explaining that while the numbers are very high, and these percentages are startling, I want to show you what our numbers look like in Louisiana because if these look bad, ours are terrible.

It is not because we had foreclosure problems. It is not because we have subprime--in fact, our State does not really have the same problem that California and Nevada are facing. But we had our own sets of catastrophes, and that, of course, was in the storms of a few years ago, Katrina and Rita, that hit the gulf coast--both just historic in their devastation.

We are still having a housing crisis throughout the gulf coast, really from Alabama to the southern part of Texas, as people struggle with the impact of those storms. In New Orleans and Saint Bernard and in the southeastern portion of Louisiana, our situation was even further complicated when the Federal levees that should have held did not. They failed, and people who had never had an inch of water in their home had 14 feet and lost everything they had worked for their entire lives.

So in St. Bernard Parish we see not 5 percent, not 4 percent but 54 percent of the homes are empty or devastated. In Cameron, LA, not 4 percent or 5 percent but 46 percent of the homes; in Plaquemines Parish, 44 percent; in Orleans Parish, 78,000, almost 80,000, out of only 122,000. That is an extremely high percentage almost 42 percent of households that are still damaged or destroyed.

Now, what has been done to help these homeowners? Some have been able to collect their insurance, but very few people have collected all of what they thought they were due. Some have collected a modest grant we gave from this Congress of an average of $60,000. Some have received-- that is about the average for homeowners. But I would contend that a $60,000 to $75,000 to $85,000 grant and some insurance proceeds they were able to receive does not, by any means, get these homeowners back to where they need to be.

So we have tried to pass additional legislation that might help and have been unable to move anything substantial through the Housing Committee. However, we now see an opportunity on this floor on a housing bill that is attempting to reach communities that are in distress--ours is in distress for a different reason, not, as I said, because of failure to pay or because of delinquency or foreclosure. We see an opportunity, by making a very modest change in the underlying bill, to help these homeowners. This would make it clear, with the amendment I offer with Senator Wicker--our amendment would simply say that in the community development block grant portion of this bill, that it be allowed to be used not just for homes that were foreclosed but for homes that were conveyed to local land banks.

To deal with this situation, we have created in Louisiana--or are in the process of actually creating--parishwide authorities that are done at the local level; they are called land banks. They have other names for them, such as redevelopment authorities. They exist throughout the country. It is not anything new. But we are finding we may need to be supporting these kinds of land banks as properties are conveyed back to the Government--not in every case, but some people are making choices. They don't want to rebuild in that place; they would rather take their grant money and build somewhere else. That piece of property is then conveyed back to our State land bank, and our land bank is trying to move these properties back to local parish-based land banks so these neighborhoods can be redeveloped with some sort of rhyme and reason to them; so it is not hit or miss but that there is some sort of local planning. We are being required to build better and stronger and smarter. We are trying to actually live up to that challenge by being smart about the way we redevelop.

I see the ranking member of the committee on the floor, the Senator from Alabama, who is familiar, of course, with some of the devastation that occurred because some of it, unfortunately, happened in Mobile-- not to the extent it happened in the southern part of Mississippi and Louisiana. But what I am saying to the Senator from Alabama is that with one modest change that actually is germane, according to the Chair, and does not cost anything, we would simply allow our portion of whatever comes to Louisiana and Mississippi--not a dime more than what is already in the bill--to be used for land banks associated with the redevelopment of these kinds of properties. I am afraid, if we don't make this change, it might put Mississippi and Louisiana and, frankly, Alabama and parts of Texas in the position of not being able to use their community development block grants for the problem they have.

So in this whole country, some States have problem A. In other States, we have problem B. I am trying to make sure our problem is met with this amendment. It is not adding anything; it is an allowable use of our community development block grant, and it will go a long way to help.

Now, we estimate--I don't know if the Senator from Alabama has these numbers--that for our State, based on the formula that is in the bill, Louisiana may get somewhere between $90 million and $100 million, but we don't know until that formula is promulgated by the Secretary of HUD, but we estimate that based on the formulas in the bill. So we want to make sure the $90 million or $100 million can actually

be used to help these homeowners because they are technically not in foreclosure. They are in various stages of legal status, but they are not necessarily in foreclosure.

So that is the purpose of our community development block grant amendment. I would most certainly appreciate it if the leadership would take a look at it. Again, it is amendment No. 4447. It doesn't cost anything. It is scored at zero. I have a great partner in offering this amendment, the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Wicker. So that is the community development block grant amendment.

I wish to take a moment to also talk about the mortgage revenue bonds, which is part of the financing part of this bill. As my colleagues know, this bill is basically made up of two different sections. One is a housing section and then one is a tax section. In the tax section of this bill, one of the ways the Finance Committee wants to try to alleviate some of the problems around the country is to allow the issuance of some additional mortgage revenue bonds. We have done this for years and years and years. Before I was a Senator, I was the State treasurer. I used to issue these bonds in my State. They are a very good tool to promote home ownership, which we believe in at home in Louisiana, and I am sure everyone else does as well. It gives opportunities to build affordable, low-income housing where there is a real need throughout the country, particularly now in the gulf coast.

One of the things I am very concerned about--I don't know if the Senator from Alabama or the Senator from Utah, who is on the floor, experienced this in their States, but we have a real shortage of affordable housing for seniors, as more people want to live independently, but they don't necessarily want to live in a 2,000- or 3,000-square-foot home by themselves. They would like to move somewhere closer to maybe where their family is, and they would like an affordable rental unit. Some people would like to buy a condo, but to people of a certain age bracket, a condo is not something they grew up with, so an affordable rental is a more comfortable situation for them. We can't find a lot of senior housing down in the gulf coast right now. Most everything we had was literally washed away or flooded or destroyed.

So the great thing about this particular provision coming out of Finance is these revenue bonds could be used for this kind of building. Again, the other amendment I have, No. 4404, does not have a score. Actually, it has a minor score of $3 million. It is very minor compared to the other costs of this bill. It is de minimis, a $3 million cost. What it will do is it will allow us to be able to again use our bonding authority--not anything more, not anything additional, but to use our bonding authority to address the problem we have with these properties.

I wish to show some pictures. This is a neighborhood--I am sorry I can't identify where this is, and it was some time ago. Most of this debris has been picked up throughout the gulf coast, but in many places, while the debris is gone, these structures remain as they are here: abandoned and destroyed until property owners figure out what they are going to do.

Here is another picture we have used. I am not sure, again, where this is, but houses such as this are still throughout the gulf coast area; a lot of it has been cleaned up. Maybe this home has been gutted, but it is basically down to its 2 by 4s, and it is basically sitting there in neighborhood after neighborhood. This is actually a home in St. Bernard Parish in a community called Chalmette.

I wish I had better pictures to show the blocks and blocks of devastation that still exist. When I say devastation--it is cleaned up, on many of the lots the grass is cut, but there are no homes there, there is no neighborhood there. The library is not yet back, the Post Office is not yet back, and people are still struggling to rebuild their neighborhoods.

So I am imploring the leadership handling this bill to please take a look at amendment No. 4404. Please take a look at amendment No. 4447. The cost in one case is nothing. The cost in the other is a de minimis $3 million, but it will help tremendously to make this bill, we hope will pass, applicable to the situations in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, whose people are still struggling 2\1/2\ years after this devastation.

Basically, that is the gist of my remarks. We have another amendment pending relative to the tax credit, but I will hold my remarks on that. But these two amendments we are hoping we can get included in any kind of modified package. Again, I have bipartisan support. It does not increase the cost of the bill, and it would go a great way to make sure this bill, if it does get passed--I know there is opposition in the House and I know the President is opposed to this bill, so this bill may never see the light of day. I am very clear about that. But if it does, at least let the people of Louisiana and Mississippi use the money that is being allocated to us anyway for the problem we have--not the problem everybody else has--because we simply have a different problem. I hope my colleagues would recognize our situation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it looks as if we are getting to the end of this debate on housing, and it has been a good one.

I come to the floor before we move to the final stages of this debate to thank my colleagues for their extraordinary help in putting into this bill, which is a major piece of legislation--attempting to help communities throughout the country deal with the added rate of foreclosures, the spiraling downward of so many neighborhoods due to a variety of different circumstances--and I think it is important that the Senate act today.

I particularly thank the chairman of this committee, Senator Dodd, for his patience and his tenacity in getting us to this point and for putting in many good provisions into this bill that will be a help to homeowners, to communities, in some instances to lenders, who got themselves into difficulty because, again, our goal is to try to reinvigorate the housing markets, to stop the slide. Particularly, in the case of Louisiana, we still have a significant housing crisis that did not start with the foreclosure crisis but started when 250,000 homes were destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

This Congress has been generous at times in helping us to try to come up with ways to deal with this unprecedented situation. I am very grateful for the amendment that was adopted overwhelmingly last week by a vote of over 70 Members of this body to say that our Road Home grants, which is what they are called in Louisiana--they are called Homeowner Assistance Grants in Mississippi--but those grants that have been provided by this Congress to help people rebuild homes that were destroyed when insurance proceeds were either not available or not enough. This is from small towns such as Waveland, MS, to very large cities such as New Orleans, LA; places such as Lake Charles, LA, to small little communities such Creole, LA, on the southwest side.

So it is affecting urban and rural places in my State. That amendment we adopted last week will be a significant help to homeowners trying to use those grants to get back into their homes. Until that amendment passed, this grant, if you will, was taxable. With the amendment we placed on the floor of the Senate, those grants will be treated as nontaxable, basically.

I wish we could get this bill to the President's desk before April 15. We are going to move it off the floor today. It has, of course, to go to the House for negotiations and eventually get to the President.

I am very hopeful this bill--generally in its current form, with, hopefully, some improvements, as it continues to move through the process--can get to the President's desk quickly because our people on the gulf coast--particularly in Louisiana, but on the gulf coast--who received help 2 years ago through community development block grants are feeling a real pinch right now because they are now paying $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 in taxes on those grants at a time when they can least afford it.

I cannot tell you how many people stop me when I go home and say: Senator, if you could do one thing for us, please tell them we cannot pay tax on these grants we have received--which have been minimal, helpful but minimal, in their efforts to rebuild hundreds of thousands of homes.

Let me say for the record--and I am very proud of Habitat for Humanity. I am the cochair of the Habitat for Humanity caucus here. I have been on many builds throughout the country. Habitat for Humanity, which has not stopped working since the rain stopped--and I see the Senator from Connecticut on the Senate floor--and which has had thousands of volunteers every day coming to their sites in Louisiana, has only completed 162 houses--162 houses--and they are the largest homebuilder in New Orleans. We lost about 250,000 dwelling places throughout the state of Louisiana. So I am here in an uphill battle.

I appreciate my colleagues bearing with this speech over and over again, but I can only say, if your cities or your communities were as devastated as the ones I am representing, you would be here, too, trying every way you could to bring every little bit of help and big help to them.

So I am grateful that finally we got a housing bill to the floor after 2\1/2\ years. Finally, we got a very significant addition to some tax relief. I will say that in further reading of this bill, I am encouraged--the Senator from Connecticut is here--that the $140 million to $150 million in extra mortgage revenue bonds that will come to our State will be a help. I think in further reading of the bill, the underlying bill actually will work for us. So I am very pleased.

I think we will continue to work on the $95 million to $100 million that will come to our State in the underlying bill to help land banks. We are establishing and have established NORA in New Orleans and other land banks, perhaps in St. Bernard, Cameron, Lake Charles, perhaps in Plaquemines, perhaps in St. Tammany and Jefferson Parishes, which are the hardest hit parishes. I think this bill allows for support of those land banks. So that is another $95 million to $100 million that may come for that purpose, and we have been looking for some help in that regard.

So, overall, this bill will address many issues in Louisiana with the additional help we have received through these amendments. I am very pleased that we have made progress.

Again, I wish to thank the Senator. He has been more than generous with his time. I know this has been difficult because there are 50 of us who are asking him for special help and attention. But he has been down to our State. I am hoping he will come back and walk through some of these neighborhoods.

Finally, I will say that this is quite an interesting and wonderful-- if you can say that--experiment going on in the United States of America, because the question is, when a community of 60,000 people is wholly destroyed, which happened in St. Bernard Parish, the parish south of New Orleans, is it possible for the Government to rebuild it? If so, how and how quickly and how well? There are nonprofits and there are universities, from Harvard University to Stanford to LSU to some of the top social scientists in the country right there on the gulf coast, because in their minds, in this century, there has not been a devastation like this in modern times.

So there are some interesting questions: How does a neighborhood come back? Do you build the churches first or the schools or the libraries? How important is water and electricity relative to the scheme of things in terms of rebuilding neighborhoods? How do you do it with community planning in a democracy where every neighbor's voice has to be treated the same? So these are some exciting times. We are just making the best of a very desperate situation and trying to do the best we can to rebuild our communities.

I want to end with thanking all of the volunteers, all of the nonprofits, all of the businesses that have stepped up. I thank the Senate for acting on at least a very significant portion of this

tax relief for homeowners who are still putting the pieces of their lives and their fortunes back together--regardless of how modest some of those fortunes may be--neighborhood to neighborhood. But people are really trying to put their homes and their lives back together. So I thank the Senator from Connecticut.

I understand we are going to move now to the managers' package. Again, we have some significant portions taken care of in this bill. I am looking forward to being able to let the State know that another $140 million, $150 million worth of mortgage revenue bonds that I personally hope will go to affordable, low-income housing, workforce housing, and particularly for seniors who have been so devastated by the loss of their homes, and again, the support that may come out of this bill for our land banks as we think of new and innovative ways to get this property back on the private rolls, redeveloped in a way that creates excitement and vibrancy in neighborhoods from New Orleans East to Lakeview to the Lower Ninth Ward, all the way to lower Packwood Parish, which is about as far south as you can go in Louisiana.

I thank the Senator from Connecticut, and I yield the floor.

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Introduced in SenateIssued October 4, 2007

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. 2153

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

October 4, 2007

Mr. Reed introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

A BILL

To amend the Truth in Lending Act to enhance disclosure of the terms of home mortgage loans, and for other purposes.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act of 2007.

Enhanced mortgage loan disclosures

Section 128(b)(2) of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1638(b)(2)) is amended—

(1)

by inserting (A) before In the;

(2)

by striking a residential mortgage transaction, as defined in section 103(w) and inserting any extension of credit that is secured by the dwelling of a consumer;

(3)

by striking shall be made in accordance and all that follows through extended, or;

(4)

by striking If the and all that follows through the end of the paragraph and inserting the following:

(B)

In the case of an extension of credit that is secured by the dwelling of a consumer, in addition to the other disclosures required by subsection (a), the disclosures provided under this paragraph shall—

(i)

state in conspicuous type size and format, the following: You are not required to complete this agreement merely because you have received these disclosures or signed a loan application.; and

(ii)

be furnished to the borrower not later than 7 business days before the date of consummation of the transaction, and at the time of consummation of the transaction, subject to subparagraph (D).

(C)

In the case of an extension of credit that is secured by the dwelling of a consumer, under which the annual rate of interest is variable, or with respect to which the regular payments may otherwise be variable, in addition to the other disclosures required by subsection (a), the disclosures provided under this paragraph shall—

(i)

label the payment schedule as follows: Payment Schedule: Payments Will Vary Based on Interest Rate Changes; and

(ii)

state the maximum amount of the regular required payments on the loan, based on the maximum interest rate allowed, introduced with the following language in conspicuous type size and format: Your payment can go as high as ___ , the blank to be filled in with the maximum possible payment amount.

(D)

In any case in which the disclosure statement provided 7 business days before the date of consummation of the transaction contains an annual percentage rate of interest that is no longer accurate, as determined under section 107(c), the creditor shall furnish an additional, corrected statement to the borrower, not later than 3 business days before the date of consummation of the transaction.

Civil liability

Section 130(a) of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1640(a)) is amended—

(1)

in paragraph (2)(A)(iii), by striking not less than $200 or greater than $2,000 and inserting $5,000, such amount to be adjusted annually based on the consumer price index, to maintain current value; and

(2)

in the penultimate sentence of the undesignated matter following paragraph (4)—

(A)

by striking only for and inserting for;

(B)

by striking section 125 or and inserting section 122, section 125,;

(C)

by inserting or section 128(b), after 128(a),; and

(D)

by inserting or section 128(b) before the period.