A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the proceeds of qualified mortgage bonds may be used to provide refinancing for subprime loans, to provide a temporary increase in the volume cap for qualified mortgage bonds, and for other purposes.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today has been a fairly significant day here in the Congress. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have flown back to the United States from the country of Iraq, and they have reported to both the Armed Services Committee and also the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have not had a chance to listen to their testimony--I don't serve on either of those committees--but I know the news will carry the testimony, and I

am sure I will see portions of it and will certainly read their testimony tomorrow morning, but I wanted to make this point.

While General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have come here today and I am sure have talked about the progress that results from the surge--although there has been a substantial amount of violence, and tragically, I believe 11 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq just in the last few days--I think there is no question that the extra soldiers, the additional 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers they took to Baghdad and to the streets of Iraq, dampened down the violence some. Yet there is so much discussion about Iraq and so little discussion about something else that matters a great deal to our lives.

This is the 2,400th day since 9/11, and 2,400 days later, Osama bin Laden is still at large, the same Osama bin Laden who boasted the day after 9/11--a day when thousands of innocent Americans were killed-- Osama bin Laden boasted about having engineered the murders of these Americans. Two thousand four hundred days later, he is not only at large, but he is reconstituting the leadership and the al-Qaida force, including building training camps to train additional terrorists.

Now, Mr. President, are some moments in history where I just remember where I was. I remember where I was as a very young boy when John F. Kennedy died. I remember the day. I remember the day astronauts walked on the moon. And I remember 9/11 very clearly. And it occurred to me on 9/11 that surely our country bring those who were responsible to account. When thousands of Americans were murdered and al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, boasted about having engineered that murder, it occurred to me that Osama bin Laden is not long for this world, or at least Osama bin Laden will certainly be brought to justice and get his due rewards for murdering so many Americans. Yet, 2,400 days later, that has not happened. Now, one might ask the question: Why? And does it have to do with the detour into Iraq?

I want to point out that in July of last year, the last time a National Intelligence Estimate was given to us by all of the combined intelligence services in our Government, here is what they said:

Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist

threat to the homeland.

Let me read that again. That is the assessment of our National Intelligence Estimate in our country, the official assessment.

Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist

threat to the homeland. We assess the group has protected or

regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability,

including a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered

Tribal Areas, operational lieutenants, and its top

leadership.

Al-Qaida is the most serious threat to us, No. 1. No. 2, it has regrouped and regenerated key elements of its attack capability. No. 3, it is in a safe haven in Pakistan.

Now, who would have guessed that 2,400 days after our country was attacked, an attack that Osama bin Laden boasted about having engineered, that there would be 1 square inch of ground on this planet that would be called a safe haven for someone who murdered over 3,000 Americans? Who would have believed that to be the case? Not me. Almost certainly I would have thought he would have been brought to justice.

Here is an October 3 story from last year by Griff Witte of the Washington Post. It quotes top military officials in Pakistan talking about al-Qaida.

``They've had a chance to regroup and reorganize,'' said a

Western military official in Pakistan. ``They're well

equipped. They're clearly getting training from somewhere.

And they're using more advanced tactics.''

This is from CIA Director Hayden, a week ago, on ``Meet the Press'':

It is very clear to us that al-Qaida has been able, over

the past 18 months or so, to establish a safe haven along the

Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed

before; that they are bringing operatives into that region

for training.

Now, I have flown over that Afghan-Pakistan area. I have been in an airplane at 20,000 feet and looked down. I understand there is no boundary. You don't know where Afghan ends and Pakistan begins. I understand it is a tough area, tribally controlled areas. But what I don't understand is how, 2,400 days later, we are told by our top intelligence officials that the greatest threat to our homeland here in America is al-Qaida and its leadership--the greatest threat to our homeland is al-Qaida and its leadership--and they are in a safe haven, quote-unquote. There shouldn't be 1 acre of ground on this planet that is safe for those who murdered Americans on 9/11.

So what happened? What has caused this to happen? Well, this country took a detour. President Bush told the American people and Secretary of State Colin Powell in a presentation to the world and the United Nations told us about the alleged threat posed by the country of Iraq. He made the case for a military attack against the country of Iraq. They made the case that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. They got no argument about that. Saddam Hussein was in many ways a brutal dictator. There were football-field-size graves that were unearthed in Iraq with thousands of people who had been murdered by Saddam Hussein. So there is no argument about Saddam Hussein.

The fact is, there are a number of bad leaders in this world. That doesn't mean we go invade their country.

After 9/11 the case was made that Iraq was a threat to the United States of America. They said Iraq was trying to get yellowcake from Niger and build a nuclear capabilities; Iraq was buying aluminum tubes for the purpose of reconstituting its nuclear capabilities; Iraq has mobile chemical weapons laboratories to produce weapons of mass destruction, which threatened this country.

That is all pretty ominous. Colin Powell, at the request of President Bush, showed all the evidence to the world. Then, of course, in the years since discovered that evidence was false. The yellowcake from Niger was from a forged document. Yet it purported to tell the world that Saddam Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear capability by buying yellowcake from Niger--a forged document. No one has ever described to us where that forgery came from.

The aluminum tubes, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, and others sat idly by while in their offices they received reports from other parts of our Government saying those aluminum tubes were not for a reconstitution of nuclear capability. That information was withheld from Congress and the American people.

Mobile chemical weapons laboratories? That came from a man named Curveball; a man named Curveball. Curveball was an informant who was being held by the Germans. Curveball used to be a taxicab driver in Baghdad, largely considered a drunk and a fabricator by the German authorities. This country, this administration, this President, and this Secretary of State used Curveball as an example and a source--a single source, mind you--to describe mobile chemical weapons laboratories that existed in Iraq and therefore threatened this country.

It turns out it was not true. It turns out that thin thread, one person held by German authorities--again, considered to be a drunk and a fabricator, a former taxicab driver from Baghdad--was cited as a source, just an unidentified source to the entire world, to support the contention that what Saddam Hussein was doing in Iraq threatened this country.

So the President, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley, and especially, of course, the neocons--Vice President Cheney, Douglas Feith--all of them. They all got what they wanted. This country went into a detour, and the detour was right into the middle of Iraq. It was going to be a very simple operation, last only a very short amount of time. The fact is, we have been there now fighting in Iraq longer than the Second World War lasted, and we have reports today by the top general in Iraq, General Petraeus, a U.S. general, and by the U.S. Ambassador, Ambassador Crocker--both good Americans--who come to us to describe progress, progress in Iraq.

I don't know how progress is being measured. I hope we have a lot of progress. I hope we have enough progress so we can begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

But the fact is, Saddam Hussein is dead. He was executed. The Iraqi people had the ability to write a new constitution and then vote for it. They had the ability to vote for a new government, which they have. And they had the ability to receive two-thirds of a trillion dollars from the American taxpayers, which we have spent in Iraq

and a smaller amount in Afghanistan. We have spent $16 billion of that training military and police capability for able-bodied Iraqis. Four hundred thousand able-bodied Iraqis have been trained for military and police work.

The question remains now, in my judgment, if 400,000 Iraqis who have been trained by using $16 billion of our money, and been trained by our people, if they don't have the will to provide the security in the country of Iraq that is their country, not ours, then we can't stay there 2 years or 4 years or 20 years or 100 years, as some have suggested. We must begin to bring troops home and say to the Iraqis: This is your country, not ours. This is your responsibility, not ours. You have a new government. We spent the money to train able-bodied Iraqis. Now you have to have the will to take back your country.

My point about Iraq, however, is that we will not only have been detoured in terms of two-thirds of a trillion dollars-plus, we have been detoured here and bogged down in a long-term civil strife in Iraq that has been deadly for this country and deadly for the Iraqis at a time in which the greatest threat to America and greatest continuing threat to our homeland comes from al-Qaida. Don't take that from me. Take that from the top military experts in our Government.

If that in fact is the top threat to our homeland, why, 2,400 days after 9/11, is Osama bin Laden in a safe haven? Why is there a safe haven anywhere on Earth for Osama bin Laden? That ought to be the question that is asked today. That ought to be the question that is answered for the American people.

I think all of us understand that the terrorist threat exists. It remains, and likely will remain for some time, but we didn't eliminate the terrorist threat and didn't address the terrorist threat by sending soldiers to Iraq. The purpose of sending soldiers to Iraq was to respond to what we now know to have been largely untrue, the threat that Iraq represented a threat to our country. But we do know now, as a result of our National Intelligence Estimate, that Osama bin Laden is a threat to our country. We knew that on 9/11. We knew that on the day he killed 3,000-plus innocent Americans. Everybody knows that. You don't need some intoxicated former taxicab driver from Baghdad to tell us that. We know Osama bin Laden is a threat. We now know that 6 years after he engineered the 9/11 attack that our intelligence estimate says he or his al-Qaida organization is the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland.

Were there any hearings today on Capitol Hill asking questions of the people who are supposed to be doing this, What kind of progress are you making? Are you really going after him? Is this job No. 1? Or is all the spotlight on the same spot, that is Iraq, while Osama bin Laden over here in northern Pakistan is rebuilding training camps, recruiting new terrorists, and reconstituting his al-Qaida leadership to once again remain the most serious threat to this country's homeland?

My only point is there is nothing Republican or Democrat or conservative or liberal about any of this. This is all about common sense. What is the greatest threat to this country? The National Intelligence Estimate says it is the al-Qaida leadership. So what are we doing about that? Is there any progress?

Were there any hearings today asking whether there is progress? Were there any hearings asking whether we are bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, calling in officials who ought to be working on this? It seems to me, after 2,400 days the American people have a right to expect some answers.

Again, I think it is good that we have hearings today. We will no doubt read about the hearings, the testimony of General Petraeus who, by all accounts, is a wonderful American soldier. I met Ambassador Crocker when he was Ambassador in Afghanistan. He is a good American diplomat. We will no doubt hear a lot of discussion about what they said today.

All the talk today is about Iraq. That is a very important subject. But I assume what will not be discussed today is anything about the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland, and that is the person and the leadership and the organization that engineered the attack that murdered thousands of innocent Americans on 9/11. I hope those hearings are held soon. I hope this administration gives us a report from time to time on what we can expect.

Will there be another 2,400 days? Another national intelligence report telling us that the person who engineered the 9/11 attack is in a safe or secure--by the way, that word has been used as well--safe haven or secure haven? There ought not be anyplace safe or secure on this Earth for those who engineered the 9/11 attack, but it certainly has been safe and secure for 2,400 days.

My hope is we will not be on the floor of this Senate talking about another 2,400 days. We should be focusing on bringing to justice those who perpetrated the 9/11 attack. That goal, in my judgment, has taken a back seat to the detour that took us to Iraq all these many years, and I hope that will change soon.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, in just another couple of minutes, there is an amendment I believe has been filed to the underlying housing bill. I want to make a comment on it. It is an amendment that would extend the renewable energy tax credits. It is a very important amendment. I wish we would extend the renewable energy tax credits for a lengthy period of time. I am not sure if that amendment will be considered germane. If it is, we need to pass it. But I want to make this point.

This country has a history now going back to 1992 with respect to renewable energy for wind energy through the production tax credit and things we put in place to encourage renewable energy. We have a history of kind of a pathetic and anemic response to all this.

Let me describe what we did with oil. Once we decided we wanted to encourage people to look for oil and gas, we were at it. In 1916, Congress put in place deep, aggressive tax credits and incentives for people to go drill for oil and gas. So for almost 100 years our country's policies have been for going out to drill for oil and gas. God bless you, we are going to give you some big tax breaks. We want you to do that. That has been America's policy: find more oil and gas.

In 1992, the Congress put in place a provision that said: Now we want to encourage renewable energy. With oil we put in place permanent, robust tax incentives that have lasted almost a century. What did we do with renewables? When it came to renewable energy, it was kind of a pathetic, lackluster response. It was temporary and short term. We would extend it a little bit here and then we let it expire. We have extended it five times, and let it expire three times. What a pathetic response.

What this country has an obligation to do with respect to wind and solar energy and the basic renewables is to say to this country and developers: Look, here is where America is headed. For the next decade, here is where we are going, and you can count on it because this is America's policy. We ought to do that.

We are doing 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years at a time, but the production tax credit ought to be extended for 10 years. We should say here is where we are headed, and you can count on it. We are not going to want to be 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years from now 70 percent dependent on the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Iraqis and Venezuelans for our oil. That makes no sense. Yet the only way we are going to get out of this box is to say we are going to begin providing renewable energy in a very aggressive way. But we don't do that with the incentives we put in place. We just start and stop, stutter-start, stop, and every time we stop for a year, the whole investment cycle blows off. It goes to zero. So you have all kinds of projects on the shelf that sit there and never get deployed.

In solar, for example, we are way behind in solar because you can't do solar and put a tax incentive in for 1 year. You can't do that. It takes a number of years to get a solar project up and running. You can, if you get a short-term

wind turbine up perhaps. You can have a shorter time line on that. But even with that, it seems to me that for wind or solar or any number of these renewable technologies, this country has a responsibility to get serious about becoming less dependent on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq and all those countries.

The Lord did something really interesting: He put oil over there under the soil and put all the demand over here, with the blessings of a country that expanded and produced a great economy. You know we put little straws in this Earth every day and we suck oil out. We suck 84 to 85 million barrels of oil a day out of this Earth, and we use one- fourth of it here in the United States, 21 million barrels a day, and 60 percent of it comes from off our shores. If you don't think that is a dangerous dependency, then there is something wrong. I think that is dangerous and we have to fix it. How do you fix it? You make a commitment to renewable energy. My colleague from the State of Washington was on the floor, Senator Cantwell, who has dedicated a lot of her time and effort to this subject, and I commend her for it.

You know, you have to focus around here on so many things. Senator Cantwell has focused substantially on these issues. I wished to work with her. I want whatever she is proposing to succeed. We are working together in the Energy Committee. I am also the chairman of the Water and Energy Appropriations Subcommittee.

We need to do a lot. But, most importantly, we need to get this Congress on the side of policy that this country can be proud to say: We are going to make a commitment for the next decade, here is where we are headed in America. We are in support of renewable energy. You can count on us because we are going to put policies in place that will tell you we are in support of it.

We cannot keep doing what we have been doing. It is unfair, unfair to this country. So my hope is that when we consider this amendment, that we can approve it. But my hope is we will go much further this year. The minimum we should do on the production tax credit is a 5-year commitment--minimum.

I have a bill that says we ought to provide the PTC for 10 years. You know, it is one thing to talk about these things, it is another thing to be serious and enact public policies that demonstrate to the country and the world you are serious. We have not done that on renewable energy. It is time, long past time we do it. I hope perhaps we will support with the first step tomorrow.

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

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I thought I might take a couple of minutes toward the close of the day and share with my colleagues where we stand on the matter of the housing proposal we have been on since the middle of last week. I wish to again thank Majority Leader Reid. Without his leadership, we would not be here. We would not be in a position to actually do some things that are critically important to work our way out of this mess our country is in when it comes to the foreclosure crisis, the problems Americans are facing, not to mention the contagion effects that are moving this issue beyond housing into other aspects of our economy. It was Majority Leader Reid who reached out to the Republican leader, suggesting we try to get together, Democrats and Republicans, on a compromise proposal to move to and then deal with other issues where we could, where there was some consensus, to then be able to meet with the other body to see if we couldn't resolve outstanding questions dealing with the issue of housing and foreclosure.

As I have said over and over for the last week since Senator Shelby and I spent that 24 hours we were given--not a great deal of time, considering the number of issues involved in this question--to come back with a package that represented Democrats' and Republicans' common points on this question, there were a lot of issues Democrats wanted, that I wanted, there were issues Republicans wanted that the other side was not willing to agree to, and that was the charge we were to avoid, to come back with a package on matters we could agree on, which is not always easy in a Senate that is divided 51 to 49, where the margins are narrow and the differences are significant. But nonetheless, we did that.

This package includes positive provisions. One, we are going to get an FHA modernization bill. That has been kicking around for a long time. We took those loan limits from, I think it is $362,000 up to $550,000. There were some 19 States that would have been excluded from the FHA program or at least parts of States that would have been excluded, such as California, my own State of Connecticut, candidly, Massachusetts, New Jersey, many States, New York. There are pockets in these States where even the average cost of a home is higher. So the loan limits went up. FHA modernization does other good as well, an important point.

The issue of counseling, last year we appropriated $42 million nationwide for counseling services to deal with the housing crisis-- hardly enough to deal

with the demands people had on counseling. Senator Bond and I offered an amendment last year and got $180 million for counseling services which we thought contributed, and it did, to assisting groups across the country, nonprofits to work with those facing foreclosure or in highly distressed mortgages to work out those differences.

I would have liked to have added $200 million more to the counseling program. That is a proposal Senator Murray, who cares deeply about this issue, Senator Schumer, who cares about the issue, and others wanted to bring up. When we sat down to negotiate that issue, there was little or no appetite for any additional money in the counseling area. So we compromised between the 200 and zero and came up with $100 million. I would have liked more. But again, we were directed and asked by the leadership to try to develop a set of consensus ideas. Again, there may be other amendments--there was on this--to add additional funds to it.

We provided money for community development block grants to assist communities that have a lot of distressed properties or foreclosed properties. I have made the case over and over what this can do to a community and neighborhood. When you have a single foreclosed property, the value of every other home in that neighborhood or the surrounding area can decline in value immediately. What you don't need is more supply out there. Right now we are overloaded with supply. It is one of the reasons why the market is not doing as much in correcting this problem, because of the oversupply of housing. So when we do what we can to clean up housing, to get it back on the market and hopefully get people into that housing, it not only benefits the people who get to purchase a home, but it also does a lot to increase the value of the surrounding homes, not to mention, of course, stabilizing a declining property tax base, which supports police, fire, social services, all the other issues that are adversely affected when you have a foreclosed property or properties in your neighborhood or community. So that was a major achievement in this bill.

I would have liked some additional funds for community development block grants. It is a very good program. It works very well. To target these resources into that area is something we can applaud in this legislation.

We also have offered some tax credits for people who move into foreclosed properties. It is a 2-year deal. It involves about $3,500 a year in tax credits. The idea is to get this property back on the tax rolls, to get people into the property so, again, you stabilize neighborhoods before you end up with further declining values and erosion in these areas, blight, all the other problems that happen.

How big a problem can that be? Let me tell you how big that can be. I have one community in my State that I have talked about where there are 6,000 foreclosures in a city of 100,000 people. Let me tell you what that looks like in a city. Imagine if you end up with 6,000 boarded-up properties in a city of 100,000 people or less. Obviously, the value of every other home in that city is going to be adversely affected. So while people said: I don't think you ought to be providing a tax credit to get owner-occupied people into these homes, well, you can make a case for that, but I think we all benefit if we can get someone into that property, clean it up. That is taxes coming into the community. The value of surrounding homes I think are benefited from it. So again, I think that is a good provision. It was offered here. It has to be foreclosed property. You have to live in the house for a period of time. It doesn't invite speculation or involve new properties. It is foreclosed properties.

We also had a number of provisions to deal with veterans. Again, I thank Senator John Kerry, Senator Dan Akaka of Hawaii, Senator Coleman, among others, Senator Sanders of Vermont. All had ideas on how we could assist our men and women in uniform who are facing not only the difficulty of being in the military service today, potentially serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also facing potential foreclosures. We have done a lot in this bill to make sure they are not going to be adversely affected.

It may not seem like much or a lot of people, but the fact that we could do something to help mayors and local governments with foreclosed properties, as well as providing some way for people to get into these homes, is a positive step, not to mention the FHA modernization, the mortgage revenue bonds, $1.6 billion, not exactly a small amount of money, designed specifically to get people into fixed rate affordable mortgages that they can work out. That is going to be a tremendous asset to people.

There are some related matters we probably have to deal with in the Tax Code so it could be even more potent, but it is a major accomplishment in this bill that is something we can applaud again and celebrate as being very helpful. In fact, this is the $10 billion in mortgage revenue bond authority included in this proposal.

There are other provisions in the bill. Frankly, there are some that go too far. I am the first to admit it. But I was asked to try to put something together. In doing so, I wished to have a provision in here that I cared deeply about and that is the home preservation idea, where we could forestall the ability of people. In the ultimate situation, where you provide money to mayors to clean up, why not stop foreclosure in the first place. I have talked about it since January. There is, I think, sort of a growing constituency that understands this and has offered some ideas on how to be supportive. But I couldn't get my own idea in this bill as the negotiator. I tried to convince my good friend from Alabama and others this was a provision I thought we ought to have in this bill.

He has some very legitimate questions about it. A good set of hearings probably will accomplish it. This Thursday, we are going to have a hearing on this idea and other ideas in the Banking Committee and a hearing the following week as well because we would like to have a couple hearings on it. My hope is that at the conclusion, we can have a markup and, along with some other provisions the Presiding Officer is aware of, as a member of the committee, we can bring back as a package, hopefully, in a bipartisan way, that we can move through this Chamber that will contribute some answers to this economic crisis that has as its center the foreclosure crisis.

My own provision is not part of this package as much as I wanted it and argued for it. But I couldn't get it included at all. So there are things I would have liked to have had in this bill that are not here.

There are some things in this bill that I think go too far. I will be the first to admit it. But I have learned over the years that if you wait for the perfect, you don't get much. In this body with 100 Members, with very different views on a lot of these matters, you do your best. Particularly when you are divided 51 to 49, it is hard to develop that kind of consensus. But that is what it is, and that is how you get legislation passed. You begin to have to move on it. That is why I am urging my colleagues and I am grateful for the vote on cloture. I don't like to cut off debate for anyone on matters where certain amendments may not then survive a postcloture motion. But we need to come to some closure on this.

I would say to the Presiding Officer as well that there are about 15 or 20 amendments that are going to be worked out, I think, that various people have offered in addition to what is in the core provisions here that we are working hard on, the adjoining staff, to try to accommodate where we can. So in addition to the core provisions, there are other ideas that have come forward that we hope to have included in this final product that we can produce, hopefully, by tomorrow.

But we are pretty much done with the debate. We have debated this a lot. People know or can find out whether their amendments are germane or survive postcloture or would avoid an objection being filed against them. If that is the case and they want to come over and let Senator Shelby and me talk about them and listen to people's ideas, it is still possible some additional ideas can be included.

I have been told there are some people who are just going to object to anything that comes up. I would wish that would not be the case, but that is a right Members have. They have the

right to object to anything because it takes unanimous consent to bring up these matters. If you do not get the consent, it does not come up. So I know the Democratic leader, working with the Republican leader, is trying to convince those Members who have blanket objections to anything to remove those objections and to allow some of these ideas to come up to be considered as part of this package.

We then have to go through the process of meeting with the other body. Congressman Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the House, is working on a similar package or related package. I am never going to get there to work out some differences, some of the different ideas that may become a part of this legislation, if I do not leave here. We cannot solve this problem by talking to ourselves. We are going to have to sit down and talk with people who have different points of view on this if we are going to come up with some common answers.

So that is sort of the status of play here at 6:30 this evening. There is no reason why we need to exhaust 30 hours. There is a lot of other work to be done in this body on other matters. This is not the only issue that is before this Congress.

So my hope would be that tomorrow morning, for those who have additional ideas who want to come over, for those who are waiting to see if we can get some answers, that we do that. I am prepared to spend the time to try to work things out where we can and to say to those where we cannot work it out: I am sorry, I cannot accommodate every Member who has an idea on this bill. Beyond that, we need to come to closure and move on. My hope would be we would not have to wait until 9 p.m. tomorrow night to arrive at that point.

I am more than happy to yield back time under the 30 hours, as I am confident Senator Shelby would be, but we do not want to do that without giving our colleagues an opportunity to be heard on these matters.

So I will urge colleagues in the morning, if they would come over and bring their ideas or at least if they have amendments to bring them up. We can vote on some of these. Some may carry, some may not, but allow us to move forward and have a final vote on this package and then go back to work in the committee to bring out these additional ideas we have been talking about, as well as to get to a conference with the other body to try to resolve what is in this bill and what they will offer themselves.

With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Kohl and Carper as cosponsors to amendment No. 4489, as submitted by Senator McCaskill.

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

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so I may offer an amendment.

Mr. President, I am most surprised to hear my colleagues on the other side object to my request to call up an amendment, to have it called up and be heard. I thought the Senate was here to do business. I think it is reasonable as part of doing that business that we should address the largest item in this bill that involves passing a cost on to our children, which is the net operating loss proposal.

Now, the way this net operating loss works is that homebuilders--that is who it is directed toward, although anybody can take advantage of it; I do not think it is limited to the homebuilders who built all of those homes and made these massive amounts of money by offering people subprime mortgages which they then took the proceeds from over the last 4 or 5 years, which subprime mortgages have now caused this Nation to go through a massive contraction and which have created one of the largest bubbles in the history of Government, in the history of commerce. Those folks, having made a huge amount of money--I mean massive amounts of money, and, in fact, in the last quarter, they were the largest earning sector in our economy--those folks are now asking that they get an additional $20 billion bailout, $20 billion bailout by allowing them, now that they are losing money, to go back and take a tax deduction of their losses against the gains which they had in prior years.

This is as if you said to someone in business, say somebody running a

small grocery store: OK, if you make money for 4 years, make a lot of money, and then you find you cannot compete or you have made some business error in your judgment and you lose money for a couple of years, we, the Government, are going to come in and give you insurance so you never lose money. You are able to go back during the years when you made money to recover the taxes you paid and use it today to give you profits.

My goodness, I think Adam Smith would be rolling over in his grave to hear this concept of economics. This is Komisar economics where nobody can lose, except for the taxpayer in the next generation who has to pay this bill. Remember, this $20 billion is going to be paid by somebody because it is being spent around here in the operation of the Government. And who is going to pay it? Well, it is obviously not going to be the homebuilder, the large corporations which ran up these huge profits. They are actually going to take that money in, take it in as income. No, that is going to be paid for by John and Mary Smith, John and Mary Smith working for a living today, or their children because it will go on the Federal debt--$20 billion on the Federal debt as a result of this little piece of chicanery.

It is unbelievable that we would claim this was a stimulus to begin with. In fact, if we are in an economic slowdown and if that economic slowdown is tied to the housing industry, none of these revenues will benefit that economic slowdown because they do not come in this year. They will be claimed this year, and they will be reimbursed next year. I think the estimate is that almost all of these recovery costs, recovery of taxes owed and paid as a result of getting this extra loss carryback, will occur in the next budget year, 2009. So, as a practical matter, it is not going to help in the next 6 months, which is when all of the major economists who have discussed this issue say we need some stimulus in the economy. No, it is not. It is simply a bonus payment from one group of people, the American taxpayers and their children, hard-working Americans, to another group of people, the speculative housing industry that ran up these huge expansions in the housing inventory over the last 3 years and then sold them in the subprime market in a way which many people have said in many instances were not appropriate, that they took advantage of the borrowers and then took those proceeds in as income, paid taxes on them, and now they want their taxes back because they are suddenly losing money.

Well, if you made money for 3 or 4 years--and a lot of money--you should not have a bonus given to you during the years when you are not making money simply because you happen to be one sector of this economy called the housing industry. In fact, just the opposite should happen, quite honestly. The market should be allowed to work here relative to the large housing manufacturers.

There is some legitimacy for doing something about homeowners who got hit with a subprime mortgage which is resetting at a rate that is astronomical on them today and they are willing to pay and could pay for and maintain their home if they had a reasonable mortgage rate. There is some reason for arguing those folks might and should get some support, or at least some assistance so they can stay in their homes, they can continue to pay their mortgages.

But there is no practical commercial argument which justifies taking tax dollars from working Americans and paying them to homebuilders because homebuilders suddenly start to lose money--after they had great years. It is not like this has been a distressed industry over a long period of time. This is an industry which has always been cyclical.

This cycle was a creation of their excess, nothing else. They were greedy. They built a lot of homes the market did not need. They sold them to people who could not afford them. They sold them with instruments which were totally inappropriately structured: the subprime mortgages. Then they took all that profit, and they used it. But, unfortunately, they had to pay taxes on that profit. So now they want their taxes back, and they want the American people to subsidize them on it.

Well, under no color of an open market, of a capitalist system--of even a marginally capitalist system; I do not think even France would accept this as a concept--should somebody who made a huge amount of money, created a speculative bubble, benefit from the taxpayers when that bubble bursts.

Yes, the people who were harmed inappropriately, the folks who bought those subprimes and did not understand the nature of them and maybe were misled relative to the nature of them, they justifiably could have some support, as long as they are the primary owners of that home and it was not bought for speculation and they are able to support a reasonable mortgage rate. Maybe there is some way to adjust that.

But this bill does not do that in this area. This net loss carry-back is simply a gift--pure and simply a gift--to one segment of our industrial community which participated in a very lucrative few years and now is having a hard time, created the problem which we now confront, and now wants to be given a gift. Unfortunately, this gift has to be paid for, as I said before.

We are going to run, this year, it looks like, a deficit somewhere of around $400 billion to $420 billion. That is the deficit we are going to run. That is up from a deficit which was under $200 billion last year. That is a huge increase in our deficit.

Now, who pays a deficit? Who pays for a deficit? Well, our children pay for it. All this goes on to our children's backs. They are the ones who pay the cost of paying off the debt, which is borrowed in order to finance a deficit.

So why would we want to say to them: OK, future Americans--young people coming through school today, going to college, thinking about starting a family, thinking about maybe having children and sending their kids to college--why would we want to say to them: We are going to stick you with a $20 billion bill so we can take care of the large housing manufacturers in this country who basically created a major disruption in our economy by putting on the market a massive inventory of homes we did not need and then using practices which were at the margin to draw people into buying those homes through subprime mortgage lending?

Why would we say that to them? How can we possibly, as a government, justify doing that to the next generation? But that is what we are going to do with this bill. We are putting $20 billion on their backs. Where is the money going? It goes into the pocket, primarily--at least that is the game plan; it is not specifically written so--it will be taken advantage of solely by manufacturers of homes. And I suspect there are going to be some other industries which will suffer losses in this economy that may take advantage of it. But it was written primarily to take advantage of the homebuilder industry, which is obviously an honorable industry, but it is also an industry which goes through cycles.

In this cycle, there is no reason we should be stepping up with this special gift to that part of our economy when we do not have any money to make the gift with, when we have to borrow the money to pay for the gift.

So that is why I have offered this amendment--or tried to offer this amendment. Now, it seems to me if everybody is so comfortable with this legislation and this idea of a net loss carry-back being extended and expanded, they should be willing to vote on this amendment. Is there no courage on the other side of the aisle? Are the sponsors of this concept afraid to vote and stand up for this bill with this proposal? It appears so.

I am not offering an alternative. I am just saying let's have an up- or-down vote on whether we should give a $20 billion gift to one segment of our commercial society at the expense of the next generation that has to pay the debt for this bill. I am just saying, stand up and be counted, so to say, as to whether you are for or against this amendment.

So, again, I will renew my request. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that my amendment relating to net loss carry forward, which strikes the provisions of the net loss carry forward, be called up.

Well, I guess that makes the point. It is too bad. I would hope people would ask why. Why can't we have a vote? What is the fear out there? Are we so concerned about this segment of our industry that we are not willing to vote up or down on whether this type of a $20 billion event should occur? I hope not. It seems to me it is reasonable that the Congress should vote on that. The Senate should vote on that.

Mr. President, $20 billion is a lot of money. Do you know $20 billion would run the State of New Hampshire for 5 years? This is a lot of money. This is big-time dollars. Twenty billion dollars is going to cost our children a lot because it compounds with interest. You just do not borrow it. You borrow it and have to pay interest on it. Of course, the interest gets paid to the Chinese or the Indians or the Saudis because they are the ones who probably buy the debt.

So not only do we end up with a $20 billion bill we pass on to our kids, but we end up with our kids having to pay interest to the Saudis or the Chinese to support that debt. Also, that one segment of our society which participated in the robustness and the excitement of large economic expansion, and maybe inflated that expansion rather dramatically, does not have to bear the burden of their excesses.

Well, as I said, Adam Smith would be a little stunned to find this is the way the market has worked and the Government of the United States-- which is allegedly the Government of a capitalist system--functions. So I will probably renew this request later on because it does seem to me, since this is by far the single biggest spending item in this bill, or tax item in this bill, it should have an up-or-down vote and an open debate.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time as I might consume but probably in the neighborhood of 8 or 9 minutes for anybody else who might be wanting to speak.

Today, President Bush submitted the Colombia Trade Promotion Trade Agreement Implementing Act to Congress. This bill, as the title implies, would implement our pending trade agreement with Colombia, which the administration and Colombia signed in November 2006.

This is an important agreement that deserves our support. Some of the economic reasons for supporting this trade agreement are that the economic rationale is obvious. In my view, the economic rationale is undeniable. That is because Colombia is a beneficiary of two of our unilateral trade preference programs: The Andean Trade Preference Act, and the Generalized System of Preferences.

Now, all this means is Colombia already gets duty-free access to U.S. markets for the vast majority of its goods. Now, meanwhile, less than 3 percent of our exports to Colombia, and not a single U.S. agricultural export, receives duty-free treatment from Colombia. Our exporters face Colombian tariffs as high as 35 percent for nonagricultural goods and even much higher tariffs for agricultural goods.

The Colombian trade agreement would thus eliminate this disparity or, as we like to say so often, level the playing field for American exporters, thus giving American workers the same access to Colombian markets that their workers get to the U.S. markets; in other words, being fair, leveling the playing field.

Now, the U.S. International Trade Commission has found that leveling the playing field will increase our exports to Colombia by $1.1 billion per year. That is as a result of eliminating the duty on goods. That means real benefits for American farmers, for American manufacturers, for American service suppliers.

One of the chief benefits is it will help keep good-paying jobs in the United States. So I would ask my colleagues and the American people to think about this whole proposition about the Colombian Free Trade Agreement this way: Either we maintain the status quo or we create new opportunities for American exporters.

At its heart, that is what this debate is all about. Last year, exports accounted for more than 40 percent of our total economic growth. We should be doing everything we can do to grow our exports even further. That is what we did last December when the Senate voted by this wide margin of 77 to 18 in favor of a free-trade agreement with Peru.

The Colombian trade agreement is very much like this Peru agreement, and the Colombian market is bigger than the Peru agreement. If it makes sense to approve the Peru agreement, it makes even more sense to approve the agreement with the country of Colombia.

Economic considerations are not the only reason to support the Colombian agreement. I say this because too often we measure trade entirely in economic terms. But there are a lot of ways to measure trade other than in dollars and cents. Because in this instance and in so many instances, trade agreements are about an important national security priority.

There is one very specific reason for doing this with Colombia. Because as my Senate colleagues know, Colombia is a strong Democratic ally in a very dangerous neighborhood. For many years, it has been under assault from the FARC, a group of narcoterrorists fighting to overthrow the democratically elected Government in Colombia. It is increasingly under pressure, as Colombia is, from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. You have seen a lot of this in the news in the last month.

President Chavez of Venezuela is using oil wealth to divide Latin America. He is trying to lure allies to his Socialist vision and, most importantly, to promote his anti-U.S. agenda. He is fiercely opposed in this process to anything that Colombia's President Uribe does in cooperating with the United States or even having a friendship with the United States.

There have been troubling reports that President Chavez may be working with the FARC. Last month, he tried to create a diplomatic crisis over a border incident that did not even involve Venezuela. He took the side of the FARC against the Colombian Government. At a challenging time such as this, the United States has a responsibility to provide strong, principled leadership. Our agreeing to the Colombian Free Trade Agreement is one way of showing strong, principled leadership in support of a friend in South America.

We must stand by our allies. We must help to promote economic stability, security and, most importantly, the rule of law, whether it is in trade or nontrade areas. President Uribe has made it clear that one of the most important steps we can take in this regard is then to help him, through our implementation of the Colombian Trade Agreement that levels the playing field for America, for America's manufacturers, service providers, so we can get our products into Colombia on the same basis as Colombian farmers or manufacturers or whatever have been able to get their products into this country without duty.

Our leaders in Latin America are watching us in this process. They see our approach to Colombia as a proxy for the overall attitude toward Latin America. If Congress rejects this trade

agreement, or if we were to refuse to vote on it, our allies in Latin America might well conclude that the word of the United States is no good. That will not help Latin America, and it surely is not good for our country.

I know some of my colleagues have concerns about this agreement. One of those concerns is the issue of violence by Colombia or within Colombia against labor leaders. Anti-union violence has been a serious problem in Colombia for years.

If the Colombian Government were ignoring this issue, that might be reason to oppose this agreement. But Colombia and President Uribe are not ignoring the issue. To the contrary, Colombia has made massive strides in its fight against anti-union violence. Moreover, I have yet to hear a convincing reason why voting down the Colombian agreement or refusing to vote on it will help to reduce violence against labor leaders.

If we want to help Colombia reduce violence, and if we want to assist in the demobilization process, we should be doing what we can to enhance economic growth and create new opportunities for a legitimate economy. One way we can advance that objective is to vote to implement the Colombian trade agreement.

Now, the one other concern I have heard is the administration should have waited to submit the agreement until it reached a procedural agreement with the congressional leadership. The fact is, we have been waiting for Congress to take up this issue for over 10 months. On May 10 of last year, there was a great, grand deal made about our bipartisan compromise on trade that would pave the way for the continuation of pending trade agreements, including the Colombian agreement, including Peru, which has been passed, and including Panama, which still is on the agenda.

Now, since May 10 of last year, there has been no action on Colombia. This inaction violates the compact between the legislative and executive branches of our Federal Government on trade. The administration negotiated the Colombian trade agreement under the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authorization of 2002.

Under the trade promotion authority procedures, the administration has an obligation to consult with Congress during the course of the negotiation and to conclude an agreement that meets the negotiation objectives specified in that statute, the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2002.

Now, the administration has done all those things required by that act. The administration even went further by reopening the agreement to implement the enhanced labor and environmental provisions that were demanded by the new Democratic majority after the elections of 2006, which was their right to do.

These agreements then on labor and the environment were part of the May 10 bipartisan trade deal. Colombia has agreed to accept those provisions. But the trade promotion authority places a firm responsibility on Congress as well, the responsibility to process a trade agreement for an up-or-down vote once it has been concluded.

Congress has had over 10 months to engage the administration and commence that process. In that time, we have not even had a hearing on the Colombian trade agreement. So the time for that process ran out.

Now, this is the position the administration is in. In order to preserve sufficient time under the trade promotion authority to assure a final vote this year, the President has now submitted the agreement and implementing legislation to this Congress. But that does not mean Congress must vote tomorrow.

Today's action by the President starts the 90-day legislative clock in the House and Senate under that Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Agreement of 2002.

So there remains plenty of time to work together on a bipartisan basis to reach consensus. For example, I am engaging in intense discussion with the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus of Montana, on a consensus bill to reauthorize our trade adjustment assistance programs. We will certainly continue that effort. Trade adjustment assistance is the top priority of Senator Baucus on the trade agenda this year. I have agreed to work with him to advance his priority that I also have an interest in advancing. But my priority is implementation of the Colombian trade agreement. I expect to see a vote on that as well. I think Congress can address both priorities. I think Congress can meet both responsibilities. I think Congress can accomplish them in a bipartisan way.

It is time to stop playing politics with our Nation's vital economic and foreign policy interests. It is time to level the playing field between the United States and Colombia on free trade. That level playing field is going to benefit the United States. It is not going to benefit Colombia much more, although it will benefit them some. American workers deserve a fair opportunity to sell our products and services abroad. Colombia deserves recognition for the tremendous progress it has made over the past few years. It is time for Congress to demonstrate leadership and to meet our responsibility in the economic and foreign policy areas.

The United States-Colombia trade promotion agreement deserves an up- or-down vote this year. This debate will continue. I hope that before the end it becomes more of a dialog than a debate because I think dialog is what foreign trade is all about.

This issue is too important. The stakes are too high. We must find a way forward, and we need to find it together. I think we will.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to commend the hard work of Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby for putting together a bipartisan package of housing provisions.

If we have learned anything from the current economic situation, it is the need for improved oversight of the lending industry. There is a need to restore investor and consumer confidence in the housing market. Although this bill goes a long way to helping families and communities deal with issues related to foreclosure, there's still a critical component missing--regulatory reform of government-sponsored enterprises.

I would like to take a moment to remind my colleagues what precipitated the need for Congress to consider GSE regulatory reform.

In May 2006, OFHEO published a special report detailing egregious management and accounting scandals that highlighted a corporate culture of greed and corruption. I would like to read a few excerpts from the summary of that report:

Fannie Mae senior management promoted an image of the Enterprise as one of the lowest-risk financial institutions in the world and as ``best in class'' in terms of risk management, financial reporting, internal control, and corporate governance. The findings in the report show that risks at Fannie Mae were greatly understated and that the image was false.

During the period covered by the report--1998 to mid-2004--Fannie Mae reported extremely smooth profit growth and hit announced targets for earnings per share precisely each quarter. Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the Enterprise's senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management. A large number of Fannie Mae's accounting policies and practices did not comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP.

The Enterprise also had serious problems of internal control, financial reporting, and corporate governance. Those errors resulted in Fannie Mae overstating reported income and capital by a currently estimated $10.6 billion. By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders.

Earnings management made a significant contribution to the compensation of Fannie Mae chairman and CEO Franklin Raines, which totaled over $90 million from 1998 through 2003. Of that total, over $52 million was directly tied to achieving earnings per share targets. Fannie Mae consistently took a significant amount of interest rate risk and, when interest rates fell in 2002, incurred billions of dollars in economic losses.

The Enterprise also had huge operational and reputational risk exposures.

Fannie Mae's Board of Directors contributed to those problems by failing to be sufficiently informed and to act independently of its chairman, Franklin Raines, and other senior executives; by failing to exercise the requisite oversight over the Enterprise's operations; and by failing to discover or ensure the correction of a wide variety of unsafe and unsound practices.

The board's failures continued in the wake of revelations of accounting problems and improper earnings management at Freddie Mac and other high profile firms, the initiation of OFHEO's special examination and credible allegations of improper earnings management made by an employee of the Enterprise's Office of the Controller.

Senior management did not make investments in accounting systems, computer systems, other infrastructure, and staffing needed to support a sound internal control system, proper accounting and GAAP-consistent financial reporting. Those failures came at a time when Fannie Mae faced many operational challenges related to its rapid growth and changing accounting and legal requirements. Fannie Mae senior management sought to interfere with OFHEO's special examination by directing the Enterprise's lobbyist to use their ties to Congressional staff to generate a congressional request for the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban development, HUD, to investigate OFHEO's conduct of that examination; and insert into an appropriations bill language that would reduce the agency's appropriations until the Director of OFHEO was replaced.

While I will concede that the Enterprises have made great strides in cleaning up their acts, Congress must enact regulatory reform to ensure that such deliberate and egregious practices can never happen again. This legislation achieves that objective and it is high time we take action to pass it.

If we really want to assist our fragile markets, we cannot forego the opportunity to include meaningful and comprehensive GSE reform in this housing package. I have spent the past five years advocating for GSE reform, first as Secretary of HUD and now here in the Senate. There has been a great deal of talk about reforming GSEs, but we haven't closed the deal.

The junior Senator from Delaware and I are offering this amendment because we believe the housing legislation before us represents the best opportunity for Congress to pass GSE reform.

There has been a great deal of uncertainty lately in the housing market, and as one of the most reliable resources for homeowners, we cannot afford to let the future of GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to remain equally as uncertain.

The combined obligations of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks exceed $6 trillion. The Fed's bailout of Bear Sterns last month would look like a drop in the bucket compared to what would happen

if one of these institutions were to fail. This is a risk we simply can't afford to take without giving the U.S. taxpayer every opportunity to ensure safety and soundness--a world-class regulator gives us that.

Last year, the House passed a bipartisan GSE reform bill, and our amendment mirrors that legislation. This amendment is broadly supported by those within the financial sector as well as the Treasury Department and OFHEO. It contains the essential components necessary for overhauling GSE oversight and for providing stability and strength to our housing finance system.

And given Congress's recent action raising conforming loan limits and OFHEO's decision to lower Fannie and Freddie's capital requirements, GSE reform is more critical than ever. We passed an economic stimulus package that increased the maximum size of a mortgage that Fannie and Freddie can purchase this year to almost $730,000 in high-cost areas, and recently OFHEO lowered their capital surplus requirements from 30 to 20 percent.

While I agree that these were necessary steps given the current market conditions, I am very concerned about the additional risk Fannie and Freddie will assume given these changes.

I am committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the GSEs and regulatory reform is critical to that effort. In terms of current regulation, OFHEO has done a great job with the tools at its disposal, but the problem is the regulator needs greater powers--like those of other Federal banking regulators. We need a world-class regulator to ensure the GSEs continue to operate in a safe and sound manner and that they remain focused on their affordable housing mission.

One of the most important elements of this proposal is the creation of a new regulator that is both politically independent and funded outside of the appropriations process. In order for this regulator to be credible, they cannot be subject to the annual budget machinations of a committee or the political influence inherent in Washington.

Part of its broad responsibility would be to ensure a more coherent regulatory framework, better enforcement, and a more consistent and aggressive effort on affordable housing. The regulator would have the ability to monitor the agency's portfolios--and direct the enterprises to acquire or sell any asset in order to maintain risk consistent with their missions. The regulator would also have the ability to set both minimum and risk-based capital levels for the GSEs--in other words, the amount of capital an enterprise would be required to hold would be directly related to the amount of risk they have undertaken.

The regulator would posses enhanced enforcement powers and be able to provide prompt corrective action, including the authority to set and enforce prudential management and internal control standards. It would also have the ability to put a GSE into receivership, and exercise a role in the authority over safety, soundness and mission. Finally, it would have a say in new product review and approval.

I know many of my colleagues have concerns that this legislation does not go far enough in its regulation of the enterprises or that the inclusion of an affordable housing fund is nothing more than a ``political slush fund.'' Funds would be allocated to and distributed by the states, rather than the GSEs, under a formula to be developed by