Fair Access to Credit Scores Act of 2010

Mr. President, I am tempted to ask the minority leader, while he is on the floor, whether he might help us proceed to overcome the objections of Senator Vitter and achieve the promotion that was offered 6 months ago but since has been blocked for a distinguished soldier. I guess I will withhold on that and wait for another moment.

But let me indicate quickly--and I will be happy to respond to a question then--the Outfall Canals/Pump to the river, which my colleague is so significantly criticizing the Corps of Engineers for--let me read specifically:

The Corps will conduct a supplementary risk reduction

analysis as part of the detailed engineering feasibility

study, including the NEPA compliance documentation, for

options 2 and 2a, if Congress appropriates funds for the

study.

Congress has actually voted on these funds through the Appropriations Committee and said: No, we would not do that.

So my colleague knows that holding up the promotion of a soldier is not going to achieve his ends. The Appropriations Committee has already voted.

I am happy to yield to the Senator from Virginia for a question.

Mr. President, I would say to the Senator from Virginia, there are no reasons with respect to this person's military service. I have not heard any reasons from the Senator from Louisiana. He is not holding up his promotion because he thinks the man is unfit or didn't earn the promotion; he is holding up the promotion because he says he is demanding other things from the Corps of Engineers.

Despite my irritation, let me say I don't dislike my colleague from Louisiana. I intensely dislike what he is doing, and I expect most informed soldiers in this country should dislike what he is doing because I believe it puts a soldier in the position of being a pawn as between the demands of a U.S. Senator and some agency.

I will go through at some point--the Senator, I know, is leaving this afternoon, and that is why I, as a matter of courtesy, told him when I would come to the floor. But at some point later when others aren't waiting, I will go through and describe the issues, responses to the issues, because the rest of the story is much more compelling than the half story given to us by the Senator from Louisiana.

The Ouachita River levees, the authorization for that Ouachita River and tributaries projects specifies that levee work is a nonfederal responsibility. Congress has not enacted a general provisional law that would supplant this nonfederal responsibility and allow the corps to correct levee damages not associated with flood events.

As much as a person--as someone here--doesn't like that answer, that is the answer. Again, my colleague is saying--if you strip away all the bark, my colleague is saying: I demand we spend more money on something that will give us less flood control. Well, look, the Senate Appropriations Committee has been confronted with that, and the Senate Appropriations Committee said: No way, we are not going to do it.

One final point, and then I will come back at some later point and the Senator from Louisiana will respond and I will respond to him and, hopefully, someday he will decide there are other ways for him to achieve the means to an end rather than use the promotion of this dedicated soldier as a pawn in this effort he is making.

This Congress has appropriated $14 billion to help the people of New Orleans and Louisiana. How do I know that? Because I chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds these things. I chair that subcommittee. I have been willing and anxious to help the people of Louisiana and New Orleans. I have been willing to do that because I saw what they were hit with: an unbelievable tragedy. I saw it. But I think it is pretty Byzantine to come to the floor and hear the relentless criticism of the Corps of Engineers that has stood with the people of Louisiana and New Orleans, and even today is helping rebuild with that $14 billion. I think there is a time when you wear out the welcome of certainly this Senator and others who have been so quick and so anxious to help, and you wear out the welcome of agencies such as the Corps of Engineers when you suggest somehow that they are a bunch of slothful bureaucrats who can't do anything right.

I have seen people wear out their welcome, and I tell my colleagues this: This exercise in using this soldier as a pawn in this little game, trying to misread the law and the authorities of the Corps of Engineers to demand that they do what they can't do in order to satisfy one Senator, it is the wrong way to do business in this Senate.

I have not convinced my colleague to release his hold and allow, after 6 months, this soldier's career to move forward. I know this is just one. There are 100 of them on the calendar. This is one, but it is one that is unusual. It is one that is unusual because one soldier's career that has been recommended for promotion by Republicans and Democrats alike is being held up by only one person. I have not heard one other person come to this Chamber and say: I think it is a good idea to use a soldier's promotion as a pawn to try to get what I want. There is not one other person who has done that, and I don't think there is another Senator who would do it. If there is, let's hear from them.

I will come back later. I know my colleague wishes to speak. Had he wanted me to yield, I certainly would have yielded, even though he would not yield to me. There are certain things we shouldn't do around here. Again, I don't dislike him, but I certainly dislike what he is doing because I think it is so fundamentally wrong and undermines the kinds of circumstances in which we have always evaluated the merit of promotions for soldiers who have served this country.

I yield the floor.

Let me just quickly say I intend to work with everybody in this Chamber who comes here to work in good faith to solve problems. But in my judgment, it is an unbelievable mistake to use the promotion of soldiers as a pawn in these circumstances.

I would say that as chairman of the subcommittee that funds all of these projects and all of these issues, I have been pleased to send all of that money--$14 billion--down to Louisiana. But as I said, my friend is fast wearing out his welcome. I think my friend might want to learn the words ``thank you,'' thank you to this Chamber, thanks to the rest of the American people who said to some people who were hit with an unbelievable tragedy: You are not alone. You are not alone. This country cares about you and is going to invest in your future. But I also think thank you to the Corps of Engineers. It is quite clear they have probably made some mistakes in all of our States. It is also clear that it would be a pretty difficult circumstance for a State or for people in any State to fight these battles without the experience and the knowledge and the capability of the Corps of Engineers.

I just think from time to time constructive criticism is in order. I think also from time to time a thank-you is in order. I also think in every case--in each and every case, the truth is in order. I will go through and in every single circumstance describe where the Senator from Louisiana has said the Corps of Engineers has the authority and has the funding, and I will show him that he is dead wrong, and I think he knows it.

But if this impasse continues, my colleague, Senator Reid, the majority leader, does have the capability to take 2 days of the Senate's time to file a cloture motion, and my expectation would be that the vote would be 99 to 1 because I don't know of one other Member of the Senate who wants to hold up the promotion of soldiers in order to meet demands that a specific Federal agency cannot possibly meet.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, are we in morning business?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for as much time as I may need.

Madam President, I have come to speak about the New START Treaty--Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty--with the Russians. I wish to talk about that in some detail.

A week ago, I and other colleagues were in Russia at a site near Moscow looking at a facility that we in the United States are funding to try to make this a safer world, to safeguard nuclear materials and nuclear warheads in the Soviet Union. I wish to talk a bit about this program as it relates to this new START Treaty.

Some of my colleagues have expressed concern and are determined that they are not necessarily supportive of the START arms reduction treaty unless other things are done. I wish to talk about that just a bit.

First, I will describe the unbelievable succession of something we have been doing called the Nunn-Lugar program, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. We talk about what doesn't work and what fails, but we don't talk so much about what does work. I will do that for a moment.

I ask unanimous consent to show three things I have had in my desk drawer.

This is a wing strut from a backfire bomber, a Soviet backfire bomber. This is a bomber that would have carried nuclear weapons that would threaten this country as a potential adversary. This is from this airplane. As you can see, this airplane, this backfire bomber, doesn't exist anymore. We didn't shoot it down. I have the wing strut because we sawed it up as part of an arms control and reduction treaty reducing delivery vehicles. This bomber don't exist and carry nuclear weapons because the Nunn-Lugar program helped dismantle that bomber under agreements we have had with the Soviet Union and now with Russia.

This photo is of a typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine the Soviets had. It carried missile launch tubes. This is a missile tube from that submarine. You will see that these tubes don't exist in the submarine anymore. They are now scrap metal. This is copper wire that comes from that Soviet submarine that used to prowl the seas with nuclear weapons threatening our country. This ground-up copper wire from that submarine was not because we sank the submarine but because we have a program by which we reduced the delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. We and the Soviets--now the Russians--have agreed to a systematic reduction of weapons and delivery vehicles.

This photo is of a missile silo in the Ukraine. This is an SS-18 missile silo. It was blown up as part of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. This is what is left of the scrap metal.

I have a hinge here from this particular site in the Ukraine that housed a missile that had a nuclear warhead aimed at our country. Instead of a missile being on the ground in the Ukraine, there is now a field of sunflowers. A field of sunflowers is now planted where a missile that carried a nuclear warhead once existed.

This is unbelievable success, in my judgment, and something we ought to celebrate. With the help of the Nunn-Lugar program Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are now nuclear weapons-free. Albania is chemical weapons-free; 7,500 deactivated nuclear warheads; 32 ballistic missile submarines gone; 1,419 long-range nuclear missiles gone; 906 nuclear air-to-service missiles gone; 155 nuclear bombers gone. We didn't shoot them down. We didn't destroy them in air-to-air combat or undersea warfare. We paid some money in a program called Nunn-Lugar with the Soviets and Russians to saw the wings off bombers and grind up the metal in submarines and take out missile silos in the Ukraine with missiles aimed at our country. Therefore, it is a safer world. The question is, How much safer and what more do we need to do?

I have previously read a portion of something into the Congressional Record. I will do it again ever so briefly.

On October 11, 2001--not many Americans know this--1 month after the 9/11 attack, George Tenet, Director of the CIA, informed the President that a CIA agent, code-named ``Dragonfire,'' had reported that al-Qaida terrorists possessed a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal. According to Dragonfire, the CIA agent, this nuclear weapon was now on American soil in New York City. That was 1 month after 9/11. The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did Russia's arsenal include a large number of 10-kiloton weapons? Yes. Could the Russian Government account for all the nuclear weapons the Soviets built during the Cold War? No. Could al-Qaida have acquired one of those weapons? It could have. If a terrorist had acquired it, could they have detonated it? Perhaps. Smuggled it into an American city? Likely.

So in the hours that followed this report on October 11, 2001, 1 month after 9/11, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists then called the ``problem from hell.'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would elicit a retaliatory strike in greater measure and therefore perhaps destroy both countries, the al-Qaida terrorist organization had no return address and had no such fear of reprisal. Even if the President were prepared to negotiate, al-Qaida had no phone number to call.

This comes from a book that was published by Graham Allison, a former Clinton administration official. I first learned about the incident from a piece in Time magazine, on March 11, 2002. The book that describes the detail of it is pretty harrowing. It is a pretty frightening prospect. I will not read more of it. I have read a fair amount of it.

After some while, it was determined that this was not a credible intelligence piece of information. But for a month or so, there was great concern about the prospect of a terrorist group having stolen a nuclear weapon, smuggled it into an American city, and being able to detonate it. Then we were not talking about 9/11; we were talking about a catastrophe in which hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people would be killed and life on Earth would never be the same. When and if ever a nuclear weapon is detonated in the middle of a major city on this planet, life will change as we know it.

That brings me to this question of nuclear reduction treaties and the work that has gone on. We have about 25,000 nuclear warheads on this planet. I have just described the apoplectic seizure that existed in October of 2001 because one CIA agent suggested he had credible evidence or a rumor that one terrorist group had stolen one small 10- kiloton nuclear weapon. Think of the angst that caused for about a month, which most Americans don't know about. But that was one weapon. There are 25,000 on this Earth--25,000 nuclear weapons. Russia probably has around 15,000.

This is not classified, by the way. This is from a recent estimate by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Most people say it is accurate. The United States has 9,400. China has 240. France has 300. Britain has 200.

The loss of one to a terrorist group--the detonation of that nuclear warhead in a major city would change life as we know it on planet Earth. So the question is, What do we do about that? We struggle to try to accomplish two goals--one, to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to others who don't now have it, to prevent terrorists from ever acquiring it, and working very hard to accomplish both even while we again try a systematic reduction of nuclear weapons from the 25,000 level and particularly among those that have the most nuclear weapons. We understand it is very difficult to reach these agreements, and when reached, it is very difficult to get them agreed to, get the support by what is necessary in the Senate.

About 95 percent of the nuclear weapons are owned by the United States of America and by Russia. There are a lot of groups in this world that are very interested in acquiring one nuclear weapon with which to terrorize this planet.

We are now operating under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, known as the Moscow Treaty. It requires the United States and Russia to have no more than 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons--there are many more than that; I am talking about deployed in the field--by 2012.

The Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty we are now operating under does not restrict any nuclear delivery vehicles at all--airplanes, missiles, and so on--and it does not have any verification measures and it expires in 2012.

A few weeks ago in Prague, the Czech Republic, President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed a new strategic arms control treaty. It is called START. I compliment the administration for successfully completing this treaty. I was part of a group in the Senate that continued to meet with and review with the negotiators the progress of their work. Their work was long and difficult, but they reached an agreement with the Russians.

It limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, which is 30 percent lower than the Moscow Treaty under which we are now operating.

It limits each side to 800 deployed and nondeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers--these are all delivery vehicles-- equipped for nuclear armaments. That is one-half of what the START treaty allowed.

It sets a separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs and SLBMs and deployed heavy bombers that are equipped for nuclear weapons.

The treaty, in addition, has a verification regime, which is very important. You can have a treaty with someone, but if you cannot verify and inspect, then you have a problem. This treaty with the Russians has onsite inspections and exhibitions, telemetry exchanges, data exchanges and notifications, and provisions to facilitate the use of a national technical means for treaty monitoring.

This, in my judgment, is a good treaty that will strengthen this country. It will reduce by 30 percent the number of strategic nuclear warheads that Russia could possess and target at the United States. It allows our country to determine our own force structure and gives us the flexibility to deploy and maintain our strategic nuclear forces in a way that best serves our own national security interests.

The new Nuclear Posture Review, as my colleagues know, says the United States will maintain the nuclear triad of land-based missiles, ballistic missile submarines, as well as bombers. The Obama administration has said as long as nuclear weapons exist, this country will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal to deter any adversary and to protect our allies.

This new START treaty gives us an important window into Russia's strategic arsenal and to ensure that Russia will not be able to surprise us and try to change that balance.

This treaty contains no limits on our ability to continue developing and fielding missile defenses. Our country is doing some of that. Frankly, I have some questions about the cost and the effectiveness of some of what we are doing. Nonetheless, there is no limitation on that in this treaty.

As was done in the case of START, Russia has made a unilateral statement regarding missile defenses. Its statement is not legally binding and does not constrain us in any of our U.S. missile defense programs.

In my judgment, this treaty is very important. It is a very important first step--only a first step--because much more needs to be done. But it is important in terms of enhancing our security and world security. This will bolster, in my judgment, the Nonproliferation Treaty. It demonstrates that the United States and Russia are living up to their part of the deal under the NPT to begin reducing arms. I think it will strengthen Washington's hand in a tighter nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially at the May NPT conference.

Some Senators have said, as would be the case, I suppose, with any treaty: We are concerned about this because we think it weakens America's hand; we think it cuts our nuclear arsenal too deeply. I think they are wrong on that point. They are wrong. We have plenty of nuclear weapons. Not enough nuclear weapons is not among our problems; we have plenty. So do the Russians. We can blow up this planet 150 times and more. We have plenty of nuclear weapons. The question is, How do we and the Russians and others begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and, most important, how do we stop the spread of nuclear weapons?

Let me put up a chart that shows what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last month:

I, the Vice Chairman, and the Joint Chiefs, as well as our

combatant commanders around the world, stand solidly behind

this new treaty, having had the opportunity to provide our

counsel, to make our recommendations, and to help shape the

final agreements.

This is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He says he and the Joint Chiefs believe this represents our country's best national security interest.

Here is what some others are saying. Douglas Feith, not particularly unexpected. I can pretty much guess what he will say on anything dealing with security if I saw his name tag, I guess. Doug Feith, a former Defense official under the previous administration, says:

Since the administration is so eager for [the treaty], the

main interests of conservatives--

Meaning him and his friends, neo-cons among other things--

will relate to modernization. Republicans are interested in

the U.S. nuclear posture, the political leverage they have

will be the treaty . . . One of the hot issues is going to be

the replacement warhead . . .

What does he mean? We are going to use this treaty as leverage to force the government to develop a new nuclear warhead program called the RRW, the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

I am chairman of the subcommittee that funds that program. We stopped funding that warhead. That warhead was an outgrowth of the Congress deciding we are not going to fund the provision before it for another nuclear warhead. We remember the provision: Now we have to build earth- penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons. That was the thing about 5 years ago.

The Congress said: We are not going to build earth-penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons. There is no end to the menu of nuclear weapons some people want. We are not going to do that. That morphed into Reliable Replacement Warhead, RRW, that was to begin replacing our existing stock of warheads in a big program with the Navy, Air Force, and so on. We stopped that as well. We did not stop it because we did not have the money or anything like that. We stopped it because it is not necessary.

We have a process by which we certify that the current nuclear stockpile works, that it is effective. We have a process by which we do that. We have a lot of interest by other groups that have weighed in on the science of this, saying our existing stock of nuclear weapons will last much longer than some had suggested without spending hundreds of billions of dollars for replacement. Yet some will never be satisfied.

Here are statements by some Senators who also will want to use the ratification of this START treaty as leverage. One Senator said:

Well, I can tell you this, that I think the Senate will

find it very hard to support this treaty if there is not a

robust modernization plan.

That is the need to design and build new nuclear weapons.

Another one said:

The success of your administration in ensuring the

modernization plan is fully funded in the authorization and

appropriations process could have a significant impact on the

Senate as it considers the START follow-on treaty.

And another one:

My vote on the START treaty will thus depend in large

measure on whether I am convinced the administration has put

forward an appropriate and adequately funded plan to sustain

and modernize the smaller nuclear stockpile it envisions.

As chairman of the Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, I can tell my colleagues that the proposed budget for nuclear weapons, which is in my subcommittee, for fiscal year 2011 from this administration is more than enough to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons; sufficient so that any Chairman of the Joint Chiefs can say with confidence and authority whose requirement it is to certify each year, that we have a nuclear arsenal that can be maintained as reliable and safe for the long-term future.

The National Nuclear Security Agency, the agency that oversees nuclear weapons, would see a 13-percent or $1.3 billion increase under this President's proposal. There are some who have argued this budget increase and planned future increases may not be sufficient to maintain the current stockpile. But that is just not the case. If we look at the budget request, the administration's budget request includes $7 billion for nuclear weapons activities. That is an increase of $624 million in this coming year. It invests significant money in what is called life extension programs. The nuclear weapons in our arsenal are not just the old nuclear weapons. We spend money all the time on life extension programs to make sure they are reliable.

I can go on and talk about the budget. The fact is, this President has sent us a budget that does what he thinks is necessary for the life extension programs and the additional funding. At a time when we have significant financial problems, he is proposing additional funding in this area.

This is a quote from Linton Brooks, who was the NNSA Administrator from 2003 to 2007 under George W. Bush, in February of this year:

START, as I now understand it, is a good idea on its own

merits, but I think for those who think it's only a good idea

if you only have a strong weapons program, I think this

budget ought to take care of that.

Coupled with the out-year projections, it takes care of the

concerns about the complex and it does very good things about

the stockpile and it should keep the labs healthy. . . .

That is what he said. That is important to understand when my colleagues come to the floor of the Senate and say: I don't know that I can support arms reductions because we want to make sure we have more money spent on nuclear weapons to build a whole class of new nuclear weapons.

Understand, there is nothing partisan here. The person who last headed this agency under George W. Bush said this budget takes care of that. It will give us the confidence we need.

The September 2009 ``Report on the Lifetime Extension Program'' by the JASON Program Office, which is a very respected group of scientists, said this:

JASON finds no evidence that accumulation of changes

incurred from aging and life extension programs have

increased risk to certification of today's deployed nuclear

warheads.

Simple.

Lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for

decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using

approaches similar to those employed in the life extension

programs to date.

We have people around here who are just unbelievably anxious to get moving to begin building an entire new class of nuclear weapons. Yet we have evidence from the science of nuclear weapons that the existing stock of nuclear weapons can be maintained with life extension programs for decades. Why would we do that?

I wish to make a concluding point. I wanted to talk about the START program because it is so important to the future of our relationship with Russia. But much more important than that, it is important for the world.

I pulled out of my desk a wing strut from a backfire bomber and ground-up copper from a Russian submarine. I have taken a hinge from a missile silo in the Ukraine that had an SS-18 with a nuclear warhead aimed at the United States. I have all those in my desk just to remind me every day there is a way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons: reduce the delivery vehicles without having air-to-air combat, without firing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and without detonating nuclear warheads. It is the kind of program we have engaged in, the Nunn-Lugar program, the Global Threat Reduction Program, and it is also treaties such as the START treaty.

If it is not our responsibility and if it does not fall on our shoulders to provide the world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, who else is going to do that? Who else? If you read the book by Graham Allison or understand the consequences of both 9/11 and also October 11 of the same year and the report by a CIA agent code named Dragonfire, that a terrorist group had stolen a 10-kiloton weapon and would detonate it in an American city, if that doesn't send chills down your spine for the future of this world, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your system.

We have to understand if we do not back away from this difficult specter of a new world in which terrorists are trying very hard to acquire nuclear weapons--they don't have to acquire very much. They have to acquire the equivalent of perhaps a 2-liter bottle of highly enriched uranium. Think of one of those 2-liter Coke bottles at the gas station that sits on the counter the next time you go past, 2 liters of soft drink. Think of 2 liters of highly enriched nuclear material to produce one nuclear weapon.

Some of my colleagues, at least some folks kind of made light of, and some commentators on the radio made fun of the very large group of foreign leaders that was called to this town a week ago to deal with this question of how we get our arms around and begin securing loose nuclear materials that exist around the world. That was nothing to laugh at. That was a historic opportunity by this administration, a big deal by this President to say: You know what. That leadership is our responsibility, and we are going to call leaders from all around the world to talk about these loose nuclear materials that can be acquired by a terrorist organization and made into a bomb, and we are going to secure these materials. We are spending money to do that. We are spending money in our budget to do that. But this President said: Let's work much harder. Let's rededicate ourselves, and not just us, let's all of us rededicate ourselves to gather and secure the loose nuclear material and prevent access to that material by a terrorist organization.

Again, this responsibility falls to us. It is our responsibility to lead, to help stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It is also our responsibility, hopefully, to lead toward where the nonproliferation treaty insists we go; that is, to fewer and fewer and fewer nuclear weapons on this planet.

I understand we will not and should not disarm unilaterally. I fully understand that. But I also understand that

having 25,000 nuclear weapons stored in various locations on this planet is not healthy for the long-term prospect of life on Earth. So it is our responsibility. It is an important step, a step only in the direction because it is not the giant step. But an important first step is to ratify this START treaty.

The Russians and the Americans worked very hard to construct a treaty that I think has great merit and will provide for a safer world. Following the ratification of this treaty, then there is even more work to do, much more work to do. But this is the step along the way that is important for all of us to embrace.

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

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

Mr. President, I commend the Senator from New Mexico for drawing our attention to Earth Day. It has certainly become a national, if not global, observance that calls to mind the relationship we have with this Earth that we live on and our responsibilities. We are now considering legislation involving carbon and the impact of carbon on the environment and on this planet. There are some differences of opinions on the floor of the Senate about whether this is a challenge and, if it is, how to address it.

Early next week, three of our colleagues are going to step forward with a proposal. Senator John Kerry has spearheaded an effort, working with Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Bingaman, to come forward with an idea of clean energy. He will be joined by Senator Joseph Lieberman and Senator Lindsey Graham. It is a bipartisan effort.

What they are seeking to do in this bill is certainly consistent with the goals of Earth Day and our national goals: First, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to encourage domestic energy sources that are renewable and sustainable so we can build on our future; second, to create jobs, which is our highest priority in this Congress with the recession we face. We understand the reality that countries such as China see a great potential for building solar panels and wind turbines and a variety of different forms of technology to promote energy efficiency and to promote the kind of clean energy approach that we should have as part of our future. Third, of course, is that we want to do something about pollution--carbon emissions, the impact they have on our lungs and on our atmosphere.

I think this is a noble agenda. It is an ambitious agenda because it engages the entire American economy. We want to be sure we do the right thing, the responsible thing, when it comes to clean energy and our future but not at the cost of economic growth and development. I happen to believe a case can be made that absent our effort, we are going to fall behind in the development of industries that have great potential.

There was a time that the two words, ``Silicon Valley,'' sent a message not only to America but to the world that we were leading in the information technology development arena. I cannot even guess at the number of jobs, businesses, and wealth that was created by that information technology leadership in the United States. Now we need to seize that leadership again.

It is frustrating, if not infuriating, to think that 50 years ago, Bell Labs in the United States developed solar panels. Now, of the 10 largest solar panel producers in the world, not one is in the United States. That has to change. It is something of a cliche, but I say it in my speeches and it resonates with people, that I would like to go into more stores in America and find ``Made in America'' stamped on those products.

When it comes to this type of technology--solar panels, wind turbines--there is no reason we can't build these in the United States so that we are achieving many goals at once: a clean energy alternative, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, creating good- paying jobs in industries with a future, and in the process doing the right thing for Mother Earth. Earth Day is a time to reflect on that.

I have often spent Earth Day back in Illinois, downstate with farmers, and I can't think of any class of people in America closer to Mother Nature every single day of their lives. Most of them are not all that comfortable with these so-called environmentalists. They think they are too theoretical and not grounded in the reality that farmers face in their lives. But I have tried to draw them together in conversation, and almost inevitably they come up with some common approaches.

Whether we are talking about soil and water conservation or reduction of the use of chemicals on the land, all of these things are consistent with both environmental goals and profitable farming. So I look at our stewards of the agricultural scene in America as part of our environmental community who can play a critical role in charting a course in making policies for the future.

Mr. President, I hope that soon we will be moving to financial regulatory reform. It is a Washington term known as Wall Street reform, or basically trying to clean up the mess that was created by this last recession. This is a bill that is controversial. It has been worked on by many committees in the Senate. Senator Blanche Lincoln in the Agricultural Committee took on a

big part of it. Most people are surprised to think of Wall Street and the Ag Committee at the same time, but those of us from Chicago are not. We have a futures market which has been in place for almost a century, starting with the Chicago Board of Trade, and it deals in futures--derivatives, if you will--that are based on agricultural commodities and currency and interest rates and a certain index. That operation in Chicago is governed and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The jurisdiction of that, as it started with agricultural products, has been relegated to the Agriculture Committee.

Senator Lincoln met this week and did an outstanding job of reporting a bill on that section of the bill related to derivatives and futures regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was successful in reporting the bill from her committee, with the support of Senator Grassley of Iowa making it a bipartisan effort. Another Republican Senator expressed an interest in helping as well. So I give her high praise in this charged political atmosphere in which we work in this body. It says a lot for her that she can put together this type of bipartisan coalition.

At the same time, Senator Dodd, in the Banking Committee, has been working on a bill as well, trying to bring the two together on the Senate floor and have a joint effort to deal with this issue.

Now, why are we doing this? Well, we are doing this for very obvious reasons. We know that leading into this recession, Wall Street and the big banks in America got away with murder. At the end of the day, the taxpayers of this country were called on to rescue these financial institutions from their own perfidy.

When we look at the things they did in the name of profit, it turned out to be senseless greed. At the end of the day, many people suffered. As a result of this recession, $17 trillion was extracted from the American economy--$17 trillion in losses. Mr. President, $17 trillion is more than the annual gross national product of the United States. So if we took the sum total value of all the goods and services produced in our country in 1 year, we lost that much value in this recession. It was the hardest hit the American economy has taken since the Great Depression in 1929.

Of course, a lot of it had to do with bad decisions. Some individual families and businesses made bad decisions. They borrowed money when they shouldn't have. They got in too deeply, bought homes that were too expensive. They might have been lured into it, but they made bad decisions. The government made some bad decisions. We thought, as a general principle, encouraging home ownership was great for our country; that the more people who own a home, the more likely they will make that home a good investment for themselves, and the more likely they will be engaged in their neighborhood and their churches and in their communities, and the stronger we will be as a nation. That was the starting point. So we opened up opportunities for home ownership, reaching down to levels that had not been tried before, and, unfortunately, that went too far.

The private sector was to blame. When we look at so many people who were lured into mortgages and borrowing far beyond their means, we see there was also a lot of deception going on. People were told they could get a mortgage and make an easy monthly payment and weren't told their mortgage would explode right in front of them, as the subprime mortgage, in a matter of months or years, would have a monthly payment far beyond their means. They weren't told there was a provision in that mortgage which had a prepayment penalty that stopped them from refinancing, and that they were stuck with high interest rates from which they couldn't escape. They weren't told that just making an oral representation about their income was not nearly enough; that they needed to produce documentation about their real net worth.

These so-called no-doc closings, which became rampant in some areas, led to terrible decisions, encouraged by greedy speculators in the financial industries. So the net result was that the bottom fell out of the real estate market and $17 trillion in value was lost in the American economy. Most of us felt it in our 401(k)s, in our savings accounts, and in our retirement plans. We saw it with businesses that lost their leases and lost their businesses and had to lay off their employees.

The President was faced with 800,000 unemployed Americans in his first month in office. That is an enormous number of people. The total today is about 8 million actively unemployed, with 6 million long-term unemployed. It is huge, and it affects every single State. In my State, there is over 11 percent unemployment. In Rockford, IL, it is close to 20, and Danville about the same. I have visited those communities, and I can see the pain and the sacrifices that are being made by people who have lost their jobs.

So the President came in and asked us to pass a stimulus bill, which we did. It was some $787 billion that was injected into the economy in an effort to get it moving again, providing tax breaks for 95 percent of working families and middle-income families across America. It was a safety net for those who had lost their jobs, not only in unemployment benefits but also COBRA or health insurance benefits, and finally an investment in projects such as highway construction, which would create good-paying American jobs right now and produce something that would have value for our economic growth in the years to come.

At the same time, though, as we go through this painful process of coming out of this recession, we have to make changes in Wall Street and the financial institutions to guarantee that we would not face this again. That means taking an honest look at some of the practices that are taking place today, and that are legal today. We got into this thinking--and I was part of it; most of us were--that if we had an expanding financial sector in the United States, it would expand jobs and opportunities and business growth and global competition.

Unfortunately, it went overboard. Many financial institutions, which are now being called on the carpet, took the authority given them by the Federal Government to an extreme. That is what we are trying to change. We want to make sure there is some accountability on Wall Street and with the big banks, so that we understand what they are doing and that their investments don't end up being a gamble where people can lose their life savings or investments.

We want to make sure as well that we empower consumers in the United States. This bill that is going to come before us has the strongest consumer financial protection ever enacted into law in the United States. We are going to create an agency which is going to protect and empower consumers--protect them from the tricks and traps and shadowy agreements and fine print stuck in mortgages and credit card statements, in student loans, in retirement plans, and all of the things that people engage in daily in their lives where one sentence stuck in a legal document can end up being someone's downfall.

We want to protect consumers from that and empower consumers to make the right decisions, so that there will be clarity in these legal documents that can bring a person's financial empire to ruin. That kind of clarity and plain English is going to be guaranteed by a Federal group that is going to keep an eye on the financial industries.

Some of these large banks are fighting us. They don't want to see this happen. They do not believe there should be this kind of consumer financial protection. But we are going to fight to make that happen so consumers across America have a fighting chance when they enter into agreements, so that they will have a legal document they can understand and one that they can work with, and then they will have an agency to back them up.

Currently, we have only had one Republican Senator vote for this kind of reform--Senator Grassley of Iowa voted for it in the Agriculture Committee version that came out of Senator Lincoln's committee. But on the Banking Committee, not a single Republican would vote for it. I hope they will have a change of heart.

I understand there are negotiations underway, but I hope the negotiations don't water down the basic agreement in this bill. We need a strong bill. We need a bill that meets the test of what

we have been through as a nation. After all of the suffering that has taken place--the businesses lost, the savings lost, the jobs lost--for goodness' sake, let's not come up with some halfhearted effort. Let's stand up to the Wall Street lobbyists who are going to try to water down this bill and tell them no. We are going to call for a vote on a bill that has some teeth in it, something worth voting for, something that will guarantee that we will never go through this kind of recession ever again in our economy.

I think we owe that to the American people, and I hope that next week, come Monday afternoon at 5 o'clock, when this Senate convenes for a vote, I hope we have a strong bipartisan vote to move forward on this whole idea of Wall Street reform. I believe that is in the best interests of our country. I commend Senator Dodd and Senator Lincoln. I urge them to come together, bring their two bills together, and to come up with an agreement that can lead us into this kind of happy day where we have this kind of legislation.

Mr. President, I thank you for allowing me to speak in morning business, and if there is no one seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, last month, my State was hit by the worst nonhurricane floods in the history of the State, at least in the last 200 years.

Our Governor has preliminarily assessed the damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which is a significant figure for the smallest State in the Union. This disaster came at the worst moment for my state. Rhode Island is struggling with an economic collapse that has left it with a 12.7-percent unemployment rate and decimated State and local financial resources.

Indeed, many of the homeowners and businesses who were hit hardest by the floods were among those already struggling to make ends meet. I toured the State, along with my colleague, Sheldon Whitehouse, and met with constituents from Cumberland to Westerly, from the north to the south, as they worked to clean their homes and businesses. We could see the turmoil, as well as their physical and emotional strain and stress. They are tired. They are frustrated, and they are asking for our help. I admire the spirit of people who are willing to pitch in and help their neighbors, and that was evident throughout the crisis. This significant blow came on top of the economic blows we have already suffered. A flood like this is difficult in good times and it is truly trying in bad times, as we have seen in Rhode Island.

I wish to commend FEMA and all the professionals in emergency management who have come to Rhode Island for their help in the recovery. They are doing a marvelous job. The speed of the response, including from Secretary Napolitano, has been tremendous. She was up there on Good Friday looking at the flood damage. The FEMA teams were on the ground. Deputy FEMA Administrator Rich Serino was there. He visited the damage with me. This is emblematic of the commitment of the FEMA task force. It is not only FEMA. It is also the Small Business Administration. The regional EPA director was there, the regional small business administrator was there. We had representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers and the district engineer.

The most emblematic story was told to me in Washington by a Rhode Islander who was visiting. She was a visiting nurse. She said her sister was at home on Easter. She had some flood damage. The doorbell rang, and it was FEMA. They said: We work 7 days a week. Here is the estimate of the damages, and we will be able to help you in this way.

Even with this dramatic and effective response, the damage was widespread. It covered every corner of the State. This was the first time we have seen, in my lifetime and going back a long time, not only surface water coming over the banks of rivers--there are some areas that perennially flood, similar to anywhere in the country--this was groundwater. We had been so saturated with rain for weeks and weeks. When the final deluge came, there was no place to hold the water. It came up through cellars, through sump pumps, through everything. There were very few parts of the State, very few homes unaffected by at least minor basement flooding; in some cases, very major water damage.

The story of the Pawtuxet River is an example of what transpired. Let me also say that in my course of traveling around, I was reeducated in the development of northern industrial communities. I am looking at the Senator from New Hampshire. The development started with a mill on a stream for water power. Then they built mill cottages around that. Those mills are still there. Those cottages are generally occupied today by relatively low- or moderate-income people. The mill owner, I recall now, put his house on the top of the hill, not around the mill. So that is Rhode Island. That is Massachusetts. That is Connecticut. That is New Hampshire. When these waters flood, you perennially get some communities that see damage from surface water. This is the first time we saw this incredible groundwater as well.

We are a community of rivers and mill villages. The Blackstone River is where the American Industrial Revolution began, the Pawtuxet River in Cranston, the Pawcatuck River, the Pocasset River in Johnston and Cranston--they all were above flood stage. The Pawtuxet River, in my hometown of Cranston, on March 15, crested at a record high of 15 feet. Remarkable. Neighborhoods along the banks flooded as homes and businesses were evacuated. I toured those neighborhoods later in the week and saw the damage. Again, along with Senator Whitehouse, I worked to support a major disaster declaration which was promptly granted. The people of Rhode Island appreciate President Obama very quickly supporting a major disaster declaration, not only for individuals but also for public entities, the cities and towns. This is something he did with great speed and great efficiency. I thank him personally.

Actually, the initial flooding was around March 12 or 13. Then we got the second deluge. It was a two-stage event. As the rains were falling, one woman profiled on local television looked in exhaustion at the new furnace she just installed. In anticipation of the second flood, there was an attempt to move vehicles, furnaces, et cetera around, to shore up or raise equipment on factory floors. But the rapidity and extent of the rain was such that the flood was there before many people could react.

Let me try and give a sense of the damage. This horizontal axis runs south-north under the overpass. This is Route 95, the principal interstate running along the east coast. It was shut down for two days because of flooding. The road was completely inundated with water, completely covered. Then, in the next picture, this is the city of Warwick's wastewater plant, totally engulfed in water. In addition to that, the city of Warwick is also home to our airport. So for 2 days, when you got off a plane, you saw a sign that asked you to respectfully use restrooms someplace else or the Porta-John because the airport could not use their toilets. The whole city asked their citizens to suspend flushing for 2 days. So this impact is something we have never witnessed before. The next photograph is the Warwick Mall, one of the major shopping centers in the State of Rhode Island. It is totally engulfed in water and the inside is flooded. These are stores and retail establishments. They are still trying to reopen it. This facility employs about 1,000 people. They are still out of work. When you a have 12.7-unemployment rate and 1,000 people can't work because they have been flooded, that is adding excruciating pain to something that is already difficult. I must commend the owner of the mall, Aram Garabedian. Aram is indefatigable. Nothing is going to defeat him. Immediately, he was in here cleaning up. It is on the road to recovery and return, but this has been a blow economically to the State. As I said, in Rhode Island, because of our small size and community, there are five or six principal malls. Essentially, 20 percent of our mall sector is out of business.

The next photograph is typical of the property damage. This is in my hometown of Cranston. Notice the sign: ``Give this land back to the river.''

The river decided for a moment to reclaim it. This is the result of the surface flooding and the subsurface water coming up. This looks like the entire inside of the home has been destroyed and removed. Here is a hot water heater, a toilet. Although the house is standing, what is inside is basically a shell. This is a homeowner who now has to rebuild their house, essentially, and replace water heaters, toilets. One of the issues we have is that in some of these areas, because of the subsurface flooding, they are not a flood zone. Unless they have recently borrowed money on a mortgage, there is probably little requirement for them to have flood insurance. Typically, in these communities, the houses have been occupied for 20, 30, 40 years by one family. They have either paid off the mortgage or they don't require flood insurance. So many people, frankly, don't have flood insurance. Then, of course, there is going to be wrangling with the insurance companies because, in some cases, where it was just subsurface water, that does not fit their definition of a flood. So depending on your policy, or if you have coverage, there are thousands of homes in Rhode Island that are significantly damaged. The owner has no resources to rebuild unless he gets some assistance. Again, FEMA has been very good for temporary assistance, but we have to look more long term.

Finally, this is Hopkinton, RI, which is part of our rural area in the west. This photo shows the scope of the flooding there. This structure is totally surrounded by water. I was in other parts of this area, in another community, Charlestown. There was a bridge that was closed. As you walked across the bridge on the other side, because of the water moving under the ground, it looked as if someone had dropped a 500-pound bomb. It was a huge crater. Now the town has to rebuild the bridge. Of course, they don't have the money to do so.

All this is indicative of the situation in Rhode Island. A further point. This photograph was taken a week after the flooding. Notice it is sunny. This is a week after the flooding. These owners couldn't even get to their building after a week. This could have been worse in this particular locale because farther upstream there is a dam, the Alton dam. It was overtopped and the waters were going over it. There was so much concern that it was in danger of collapsing that there was an emergency evacuation order for the town of Westerly, which is a sizable community to the south on the coast. They were afraid the dam would give and a major metropolitan area, in Rhode Island terms, would be engulfed with water. Luckily the dam held, and the damage was significant but restricted to flooding along the Pawcatuck.

Within the context of jobs, too, several of our facilities and factories were knocked out. Bradford Printing and Finishing has already let go of its employees. They were underwater. They are still trying to literally get back to work. It has been closed for cleanup. Again, workers are on the street, not because they don't have demand for their product. It is because they can't get to the machines where they are flooded. Another company in northern Rhode Island, along the Blackstone River, Hope Global, an extraordinary CEO Cheryl Merchant, they were flooded in 20005. I was there. I had to take a boat into their factory. This time, in anticipation, they literally lifted the equipment. This is a major producer of OEM for the auto industry, webbing and belts, seatbelts, et cetera. They pushed up all that heavy equipment. The water came in, but it didn't reach the equipment. They are back in production, but the preparations and the cleanup are about $1 million. It is hard for the manager of the plant to explain to the board of directors why they are going to spend $1 million every 5 years just to keep the equipment dry.

We have to do something in terms of mitigation. Even in the best times, FEMA would have been necessary. But we are in a very difficult situation. The State is, as we speak, trying to fill a $220 million shortfall in this year's budget. Again, this is a State where $220 million is a significant part of the budget. It is not a rounding error. They are already anticipating a $400 million shortfall next year in the 2011 budget. The bond rating has been lowered once in the last several weeks. It may be lowered again, if this economic distress and this flood damage can't be, in some way, mitigated and supported in terms of cleanup or reconstruction.

Frankly, my constituents know--and we all have seen similar scenes of flooding from the Midwest, from the Southwest, from the Central part of America--every time, at least in my recollection, this Senate has stood and provided support for those communities.

I have supported emergency expenditures for flooding in communities elsewhere in the country, except really up in Rhode Island because we have never had an experience before of this nature, of this size, of this scope. They, frankly, do not begrudge the aid because, as I sense and as my colleagues and constituents sense, someday we might be in that position where we are going to have to ask for it. Well, we are in that position right now. So for everyone who has been here--and it is a significant number--and asked on behalf of their constituents for help because of a devastating flood, I am joining those ranks. We will have an opportunity, I hope, in the appropriations process through the supplementals to provide additional assistance to the State of Rhode Island, for my constituents to deal with this situation, both the economic distress and the physical damage from this flooding.

So, Madam President, I again thank you for the opportunity to talk about what happened, and I will be back again because, as we have responded to the needs of other parts of the country, we ask that we be given the same treatment.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

Madam President, earlier today my staff brought to my attention an article that had just come out on Reuters. I read it and felt an outrage and dismay and decided I was going to come to the floor and speak about it.

Today, an investigative story published by Reuters details how WellPoint, a medical insurance company--as a matter of fact, the Nation's largest health insurance company, with 33.7 million policyholders--used a special computer program to systematically identify women with breast cancer and target their health policies for termination--in other words, an effort to specifically target women with breast cancer and then drop their health insurance. I would like to ask every American to read this jaw-dropping story. Instead of providing the health care for which these seriously ill women have paid, WellPoint subjected these paying customers to investigations that ended with WellPoint's administrative bureaucrats canceling their insurance policies at their time of greatest need.

Under attack by both cancer and WellPoint, these women were left ailing, disabled, and broke. Let me give you a few examples.

Yenny Hsu, a woman from Los Angeles, was kicked off of her insurance policy after a breast cancer diagnosis because WellPoint said she failed to disclose that she had been exposed to hepatitis B as a child. Now, that has nothing to do with breast cancer, but it did not stop WellPoint from terminating her coverage.

In Texas, a woman named Robin Beaton was forced to delay lifesaving surgery because WellPoint decided to investigate whether she had failed to disclose a serious illness. The serious illness in question was a case of acne. WellPoint delayed her surgery for 5 months, causing the size of the cancerous mass in her breast to triple. By the time they finally dropped their investigation, she needed a radical double mastectomy.

Another loyal, paying WellPoint customer who faced this situation was Patricia Relling of Louisville, KY. Ms. Relling was an interior designer and art gallery owner who never missed a payment. But that did not stop WellPoint from canceling her insurance in the middle of her fight with breast cancer. WellPoint abandoned her at her weakest moment, forcing her to pay enormous medical bills on her own. This woman, who was once a highly successful business owner, is now subsisting on Social Security and food stamps.

Meanwhile, WellPoint made a profit of $128 million by stripping seriously ill Americans of their insurance coverage in this manner, according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is likely a low estimate because WellPoint refuses to provide a total number for rescissions across the company's subsidiaries. WellPoint earned a $4.7 billion profit in 2009--a $4.7 billion profit in 1 year. Angela Braly, the CEO of WellPoint, received $13.1 million in total compensation in 2009. This was a 51-percent increase in her salary over the prior year.

WellPoint is not alone in doing this to people, but they are an egregious offender. According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

WellPoint and two of the nation's other largest insurance

companies--UnitedHealth Group Inc and Assurant Health, part

of Assurant Inc--made at least $300 million by improperly

rescinding more than 19,000 policyholders over one five-year

period.

According to Health Care for America Now, these large companies--the big, for-profit American medical insurance companies--have seen their profits jump 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. All during this period, they have doubled premium costs. So they have made huge profits in 7 years, and they doubled premium costs.

Time and time again, our for-profit insurance corporations have demonstrated that their hunger for profit trumps any moral obligation to their customers. This latest story is just the latest example of the kind of outrageous behavior we have come to expect from certain medical health insurance companies.

The health insurance reform law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama will end the practice of unfair rescission and discrimination because of preexisting conditions. But we must clearly be vigilant in order to ensure that the law has teeth and is heavily enforced. We cannot turn our backs for 1 minute because left to their own devices, I truly believe these companies will look for ways to throw paying customers to the sharks for the sake of profit. These are strong words, and I am not known for these strong words. But the more I look into the large, for-profit medical insurance industry of the United States, the more I am embarrassed by it.

A situation unfolding in my own State now is further proof of this. On May 1--that is 9 days from now; it is 1 week from Saturday--more than 800,000 Californians who hold insurance policies issued by WellPoint's Anthem Blue Cross subsidiary will face rate hikes of up to 39 percent.

I have received deeply personal letters from literally hundreds, if not thousands, of Californians whose lives are going to be devastated by these rate increases. We have 12.7 percent unemployment. We have over 2.3 million people unemployed. We are very high in house foreclosures, people can't find jobs, and at the same time the insurance premiums are being jacked up. This is terrible because many of these people had a premium increase almost as large as the 39 percent that is going to happen on May 1, last year, and then they know they face it again the next year.

I cannot say that all of this is responsible for these premium increases, but in my State alone, 2 million people in the last 2 years have gone off of health insurance. That is 1 million people a year who find they can't afford health insurance. So they have gone off of it, more on Medicaid, and many have no coverage whatsoever. This is at a time when this same company is reaping billions of dollars of profit. So what do I conclude? There is no moral compass. There is no ethical conduct.

These are families with children. They are students or the elderly. One woman had been a client of Anthem for 30 years. She had never been sick, and she got sick. Cancer survivors, small business owners, they are about to be crushed.

WellPoint will tell us that these premium rate hikes cannot be avoided. They will tell us that others are to blame: hospital charges, prescription drug prices, the rising cost of medical care. They blame the government. They blame the economy. But the fact is, they are making money, and billions of dollars of money.

If there was any doubt about whether corporate greed has anything to do with WellPoint's plan to jack up rates on customers, I think today's story by Reuters answers the question definitively.

In order to prevent these kinds of unfair premium rate hikes on Americans, I have introduced a bill that would establish a health insurance rate authority. It would give the Secretary of Health the mandate to see that rates are reasonable. Two days ago, the HELP Committee held a hearing on this bill. The chairman of the committee, Senator Harkin, made some very strong statements in favor of it, as did other Democrats. The Republicans who spoke, of course, opposed it because they are in a mode where they oppose virtually everything right now, but they opposed it.

So here is what my bill would do. It would give the Secretary of Health the authority to block premiums or other rate increases that are unreasonable. In many States, insurance commissioners, as the Presiding Officer knows, already have this authority. They would not be affected. Commissioners have the authority in some States--in some insurance markets they have it--and in others they do not. In about 20 States, including my own, California, companies are not required to receive approval for rate increases before they take effect. So my legislation would create a Federal fallback, a fail-safe, allowing the Secretary to conduct reviews of potentially unreasonable rates in States where the insurance commissioner does not already have the authority or the capability to do so. The Secretary would review potentially unreasonable premium increases and take corrective action. This could include blocking an increase or providing rebates to consumers.

Under this proposal, the Secretary would work with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to implement this rate review process and identify States that have the authority and capability to review rates now. States doing this work obviously should continue. This legislation would not interrupt or effect them. However, consumers in States such as California and Illinois and others--about 20 some-odd States--would get protection from unfair rate hikes.

The proposal would create a rate authority, a seven-member advisory board to assist the Secretary. A wide range of interests would be represented: consumers, the insurance industry, medical practitioners, and other experts.

I think the proposal strikes the right balance. As the Presiding Officer knows, we have worked with the administration in drafting it. We worked with the Finance Committee. We worked with the Secretary of Health. We tried to get it into the Finance Committee's health reform bill. We were not able to do so. The President took this bill and put it in the reconciliation bill. Unfortunately, the Parliamentarian found that its policy implications overcame its budgetary savings, and therefore a point of order would rest against it. So it was dropped at that time. So we are trying again. It is necessary.

Nine days from now, 800,000 Californians will get up to a 39-percent increase in their premium rate. It is greed, pure and simple.

So the legislation I have introduced provides Federal protection for consumers who are currently at the mercy of these large, for-profit medical insurance companies whose top priority is their bottom line. The bottom line for us is we have a duty to protect the American people from this kind of greed and this kind of lack of any moral compass.

If these companies were having a hard time, I would say: Look, it can't be helped. But they are not. They have enjoyed something no other American business has, and that is an antitrust exemption. Only Major League Baseball has an antitrust exemption. So

they are able to go all over the country and merge and acquire insurance companies in order to control market share. Once they control market share, they then begin to boost rates. Therefore, over the past 7 years of doing this, they have developed a 428-percent increase in their bottom line, which is their profits.

If a CEO thinks it is OK to deprive women of their health coverage when they become seriously ill with breast cancer, we can't trust them to do the right thing, period. This ought to be convincing to every Member of this body, whether it is this side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle, that we need to move to see that there is a reasonable, prudent system where people don't have to endure when they have breast cancer and they go in, that they are going to lose their medical insurance. This Reuters story points it out chapter and verse today, and I have indicated several stories.

So, in my view, it is time for Congress to step in and fix this rate hike loophole in the health insurance reform law. We have to put patients before profits. We have to protect the American people from this kind of a lack of moral compass and candidly unchecked greed. I hate to say that, but that is the way I see it.

I will likely attempt to put this as an amendment to the regulatory reform bill. As I say, the matter has had a committee hearing, and in view of the fact that 800,000 people face these rate increases a week from Saturday, I think we need to take some action.

I would implore Anthem to understand and to not raise these rates. They have postponed this rate increase once before; they certainly can do it again.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I note the presence of my colleague and friend from Alabama, the former chairman and now ranking member of the Banking Committee on the Senate floor, and I will be very brief. We have heard the proposal by the majority leader, the objection by the minority leader, and the announcement that there will be a filing of a cloture motion which will mature, I think, on Monday around 5 o'clock or so when a vote will occur.

Let me briefly express, first of all, my thanks to Richard Shelby, my colleague from Alabama. For many months--going back more than a year, actually--we have been working together now on this. Over the last 38 or 39 months that I have been privileged to be chairman of the committee, we have sat next to each other. There have been some 42 proposals that have come out of the Banking Committee over the last 38 months, and I think 37 of them are now the law of the land.

There have been a wide range of issues, including things such as flood control, but also dealing with port securities, with risk insurance, with housing issues, with credit cards--all sorts of issues that our Banking Committee has wrestled with in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

So before another word is said, before another amendment is filed or another motion made, let me say thank you to Richard Shelby and my other members of the committee for their cooperation and the work we have done together on that committee. Very few votes that have occurred have been negative votes. We had a few of them that happened; that is understandable from time to time. But, by and large, we have worked together.

I want our colleagues to know, but also I think most of us want the American public to know, that despite political differences, the fact that we come from different parts of the country doesn't separate our common determination to see to it that we put ourselves on a much more solid footing than, obviously, we were at the time this crisis emerged. We want to never again see our Nation placed in economic peril as it was over the last several years, with as many jobs and homes lost and retirements evaporating, health care disappearing because of job loss. We have been dealing with all of the problems: small businesses collapsing, credit shutting down, capital not available for new starts and new ideas.

So we have put together a bill. Granted, it was not a bipartisan vote in committee, but as I am sure my colleague will recognize, much of what is in this bill today is different than the one I offered in November. I am not going to suggest that my friend from Alabama and others loved every dotted I and crossed t, but I believe he will acknowledge that there is a lot of cooperation represented in this bill, trying to come to some common territory so we can say to the American public: Never again will you be asked to spend a nickel of your money to bail out a financial institution. The presumption is failure and bankruptcy. We want to wind you down in a way that doesn't jeopardize other solvent companies and the rest of our economy in the country. We want to make sure consumers get protected, when they have a place to go--when a product they buy fails, there is a place they can go. We recently saw an automobile company where the accelerator jammed and people were put at risk. There was a recall on that product because it placed people at risk. Nothing exists today that allows for a recall of a financial product that puts you at risk. Our bill tries to do that. We try to complete an early-warning system so we can pick up economic problems before they metastasize into major issues. There are other pieces of it as well.

We are working to come to a common understanding of how best to achieve those goals and results. My hope is, because of the magnitude of the bill, we

can get to a debate and discussion. My experience over 30 years in this Chamber is that we never get to a resolution of issues until we have to. As long as there are sort of discussion groups going on in various rooms of the Capitol and meetings that we have--that is all helpful and can help us understand issues better, but the only way we get to a resolution of conflicting ideas, in the final analysis, is to be on the floor of this Chamber, where Members bring their ideas and we work on them together. We try to accept the good ones or modify them to make them fit into the structure. The bad ideas we try to reject when we can. But you have to be here.

Senator Shelby and I, as hard as we work, we know we don't represent 98 other people in this Chamber. Other Members who are not members of our committee or who are members of our committee certainly have every right to be heard on this bill and to express their ideas as to how we can do a better job of achieving what we are trying to achieve. But we need to get there. If we don't even have the chance to start this process, you can't ask the two of us to resolve it for everybody. It is too much. We can try to come close and we can try to reflect the views of our respective caucuses and the American people, but don't expect us to sit there and write a complete bill to deal with an entire meltdown of the financial sector of our Nation. We can help get there. We have good ideas on how to achieve it. But we need this body to function. It cannot function as long as we are debating whether we can even get to the bill.

We have spent more than a year on this, and over a month ago we finished our work in the committee. It was voted out of committee. It wasn't a bipartisan vote, but we moved forward. Now we have a chance for this body to act on the product that came out of committee, which will be before us. Where we can get agreement and some changes, we will have a managers' amendment or a substitute or whatever procedural way necessary to try to accommodate those, reflecting the ideas of our colleagues. Others can bring their ideas to the debate. We need to have that. That cannot occur until we are actually here doing it.

I urge my colleagues, principally, I say, on the minority side but not exclusively--I think there are those on the majority side as well-- everybody can play hold-up and say: If I don't get my way and if you don't do what I want, then I will object to getting to the bill. If that is the case, who wins on this matter? Certainly not the American people, who expect a little more out of this Chamber than whether each 100 of us insists upon our own agenda. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. This is not an executive body. We are coequals here, even those in the leadership. We have a right to be heard.

My colleague from Arkansas, chairman of the Agriculture Committee-- they marked up a bill dealing with derivatives and other matters, as they should. There is jurisdiction of that matter in their committee. We did the same. We have some jurisdiction over the subject matter. We need to harmonize the rulemaking on that subject matter.

I hope that on Monday afternoon, Senator Shelby and I will continue working with each other, as will our staffs today, tomorrow, and over the weekend, to try to come to some understanding on some of these matters. I am not going to tell you to count on the two of us to solve all of our problems. We cannot.

I ask everybody, let's get to the debate. The American people cannot tolerate us doing nothing, waiting around to see if another crisis comes and whether we can respond to it. That is unacceptable.

About 5 on Monday, we need to have the votes to go forward. The two of us will sit in our respective chairs and present our ideas and talk and discuss how these ideas can emerge, and we will invite our colleagues to come to the floor to debate, discuss, and offer their ideas, and we will try to make this an even better bill. We think we have a good one, but we also know that anybody who suggests to you that they have written the perfect piece of legislation, be wary of them. I have never seen a perfect bill in 30 years--maybe a Mother's Day resolution or something, but aside from that, don't count on perfection to be offered here. It is anything but perfect. I hope we get to that moment.

We have had our discussions over the last week, and I will continue talking about the substance of our bill. We cannot turn into a petulant organization here that screams at each other. We need to get about the business the American people sent us here to achieve. With the relationship I have had with my friend from Alabama, I remain optimistic we will get the job done.

Legislative processes are not the most beautiful things to watch. It is what our Founders designed, what those who have come before us have been able to use to achieve some of the great successes of our Nation on many different matters.

We are now confronted with another great challenge as to whether we can step up and resolve the kinds of issues that would avoid the kind of catastrophe we almost witnessed in our Nation. That is our job. We are chosen by the citizens in our States to represent not only their interests but our fellow countrymen's interests as well.

I look forward to the vote on Monday. I hope we may not have to have it, that we can proceed to the bill and let Senator Shelby and I and the committee members and others do the work and shape a good bill.