A bill to provide enhanced authority to the Congressional Oversight Panel established pursuant to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Mr. President, I want to take 1 minute. Let me say to my colleagues, all of us would like to see the TARP money come back and we recapture all of it. The danger in all this right now, with the stress test coming out on Thursday, is to be utilizing the TARP money rather than having to appropriate more money, it seems to me, to utilize TARP money to buy toxic assets and make the capital investments is what we want to do. The last thing we want to do is come back here and vote for additional money. Here is a moment when it is critically important that we take advantage of the resources to continue the program, so that we buy the assets, invest the capital necessary to get us out of this mess. At the very moment we want to be doing that, we will be back here voting. I do not need to tell my colleagues, if we need new TARP money, how difficult that would be. To avoid going down that road, utilizing the money that has come back from these interests that have gotten their money makes a lot more sense to me, I respectfully say to my friend from South Dakota.

This amendment could not come at a worse time. We are going to need the capital for institutions that need help. They need help. I am not interested in them. I am interested in their ability to provide credit to homeowners, small businesses, and student loans. The credit system is frozen. We need to unfreeze it. If you deny the ability to invest these TARP dollars into buying assets and providing capital, it seems to me you slow down or set back that process considerably.

For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment. I thank my colleague for the intention behind it.

Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, we are waiting for someone to come with an amendment. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Let me first thank our colleague from California for her leadership on this issue. They are very commonsense, straightforward proposals that we think can improve the legislation.

And it is almost, in a way--I was thinking, as my colleague and friend was talking, it is almost sad that we have to have an amendment such as this. You would almost think that there has got to be some law someplace that would say what she is suggesting by her amendment would be covered.

In a way it is a tragic commentary on the times we are in, the idea where we have to say that, by the way, collusion is not permissible. I did not think it was anyway. But her amendment makes it certain in this legislation that that is the case.

I am not sure the of order, but the first comments my colleague gave regarding information about their mortgages, again this is pretty straightforward.

I see Senator Ensign is on the floor, and I will be brief, because I want him to be able to offer his amendment so we can move forward.

But the idea that you can find out who owns the mortgage is pretty straightforward. Those of us with a little gray hair on our head--and my colleague from California has none, I want the Record to show.

I do remember when I bought my first home, an old 1710 center chimney cape house in Connecticut. I went down to the Old Stone Bank and got a mortgage. I could go down every day for as long as that mortgage was around and look at it, see it, and pick it up if I wanted to and hold it and do whatever I wanted to do with that mortgage.

Today, of course, because the world has changed, people buy a home-- and, of course, put aside the issue of predatory lending and subprime mortgages and the rest--and that mortgage, within 8 to 10 weeks, on average, is sold off. It is securitized, as they call it. This is true of a lot of debt. It is student loans, it is credit cards, it is all kind of debt that gets securitized.

By the way, that is not a bad thing, because that provides liquidity, that provides assets for people so more people can afford to buy homes.

But the Senator from California has pointed out that you ought to know who that is. That seems to me a logical request. If that mortgage has been sold off, who owns it? So if a borrower wants to be able to do something with it, you ought not to have to go through and hire a private investigatory agency to find out who holds your mortgage.

So while we respect the idea that securitization can actually be beneficial to the community at large, if it deprives that owner of the mortgage the opportunity to determine who is the holder of that mortgage, obviously then we have lost something in the process. The Senator from California has proposed a very worthwhile amendment.

The New York Times story of April 24, 2009, notes:

Advocates wanting to engage lenders ``face a challenge even

finding someone with whom to begin the conversation,''

according to a report by NeighborWorks America. . . .

That is exactly what the Senator from California addresses with her amendment. With whom do you begin the conversation? The conversation ought to be with the person who is holding that instrument.

I endorse her amendment and urge my colleagues to do so as well.

Regarding the second amendment, the other amendment offered by Senator Boxer deals with the collusion

issue. I briefly addressed that previously by saying, in a way, I was almost sad to hear her offering the amendment. I was under the impression that was against the law anyway. The idea we are offering an amendment to further corroborate that collusion in these matters ought to be against the law. If it is not, it ought to be.

I commend the Senator from California and her colleague from Nevada for offering the amendment, along with Senators Pryor and Snowe. This amendment is clearly a step in the right direction from where we were last week. I do want to say the administration has some concerns. My colleagues know that. They have talked about them. I have listened to them.

I am not suggesting their concerns are illegitimate, but I believe the value of the amendment trumps their concerns. I think we have done enough to continue to move forward, and it is the right step to be taking. This is an important effort. I support the Ensign second-degree amendment to the Ensign-Boxer amendment however that amendment is described.

With that, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 1038 to Amendment No. 1018

Certainly.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. President, I am going to respond, if I may, to our colleague from South Carolina, Senator DeMint, who offered an amendment, No. 1026, a few minutes ago. Senator Barrasso and Senator Boxer were talking about the Environment Committee and the work that goes on there a little bit, and I digressed a little bit when that subject matter came up, but I want to bring it back to his amendment which we will vote on, I hope, in a few minutes--maybe a couple of amendments. I notify my colleagues we will try to get at least two votes together so we don't bring people over for just one vote, if we can do that.

The amendment of the Senator from South Carolina, as I think I understand it--but correct me here--would prohibit the Federal Government from either purchasing or converting preferred stock to common stock. This is not a mandate as in present law, it is the option of converting preferred to common stock.

Why is that an important issue? My colleague from South Carolina went on at some length to talk about the overriding issue, going back to last fall, as to whether there should be any program at all of the so- called Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that provided the resources to try to get our financial system on its feet again. That was a very significant debate. Seventy-five of our colleagues in this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans, agreed with President Bush at the time. Candidate Obama and our colleague John McCain, as well as many others, on a bipartisan basis, called for the support of that effort. They accepted the notion as we were told by the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Bernanke, along with the Secretary of the Treasury and others across the political spectrum, that acting at that point was critically important if we were going to stabilize this economy and try to get it back on its feet.

History will probably write for many decades to come about that decisionmaking process, of the wisdom of it or the lack thereof. I am confident as I stand here today that, while certainly not a well- managed program for a good many weeks, the absence of doing anything, just doing nothing at the time, I think would have created a far bigger problem, a far more serious problem, probably a problem it would be almost difficult to imagine how it would be overcome had that action not been taken. That in no way minimizes how the program was managed, for those who raised serious issues, and still is the subject of significant debate here.

My friend from South Carolina says the Treasury Department should not be allowed to convert preferred stock to common stock. Why is that an important issue in the context of what we are talking about?

First, understanding what preferred stock is, and common stock-- preferred stock is almost a debt obligation on which dividends are paid. The whole point is the value of it is in the dividend. With common stock, of course, the value changes based on how well the company is doing. If the company is doing well, the common stock goes up. If they are not doing well, the common stock goes down, unlike preferred shares. So in terms of what is real capital, what is real capital is common stock. Preferred shares are not seen as being real capital.

I gather we have had today, as the Presiding Officer knows we have every Tuesday, the respective two parties gather in our respective rooms to have lunch to talk about the issues of the day. I am told by several of my friends on the Republican side that Chairman Bernanke was the guest at the Republican Conference lunch today and answered questions from our Republican colleagues. I gather one of the questions was--and certainly it was a question he received from us when we met, either alone or together--why aren't banks lending more? We put all this capital up. Why aren't they putting more money out the door to small business and others to help our economy get moving?

I gather Chairman Bernanke expressed the same frustration, that the regulators are being overly restrictive, in some ways threatening these lending institutions, not doing enough to encourage them that they ought to step up and get that capital out, get that credit moving again.

My colleagues on the Republican side heard from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve today and raised a very good question, raised by one of my colleagues--I don't know which one it was who raised the issue--but a very good question: Why aren't the banks lending more?

It seems to me if we accept the DeMint amendment we are going to make the answer even more difficult because what our lending institutions need is obviously capital--whether private capital or otherwise, they need capital. This is not a requirement under existing law that is mandating converting preferred to common, but at a time when we want lending institutions to get more capital, allowing the Treasury to make that conversion where and if they see it as appropriate exactly addresses the question that was raised at the luncheon today: Why aren't banks lending more? Why aren't they providing that kind of assistance to small businesses and others?

This is not about the Government taking over these entities. I don't know of anyone who supports that idea. We are taking positions in these companies far larger than most of us would like, and I hope and I believe it to be the case that as soon as the moment is appropriate we are going to be selling this off and getting out of it as fast as we can. My colleague from South Carolina is correct--I think all of us agree with him--it is not the business of Government to become bank managers or to run automobile companies or to run commercial enterprises. This country has not grown and prospered and done as well as it has in two-and-a-quarter centuries because Government has run these entities. Quite the opposite.

But at a critical time such as this, when our economy is facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression, in almost 100 years, taking positions, getting capital moving on these legacy assets or toxic assets is absolutely essential if we are going to get back on track again.

I am not suggesting that every idea we have had is one that is working. But the idea of saying in this case you have no right, I am going to prohibit you, absolutely mandate that the Treasury Department cannot convert any preferred shares to any common shares, seems to me the kind of overreaching, in a way, in a moment such as that, that my colleague from South Carolina is arguing against and I agree with him. We should not be restricting, in a sense, the ability of people to have the flexibility to respond to a situation and allow this situation to improve.

There is a second reason. We are talking about TARP moneys here. What are TARP moneys? TARP money is taxpayer money. That is the American taxpayers' money. That is what TARP money is. We want to get back this money. We have been told these are loans. We hope they are, that we are actually going to get money back.

You don't get money back necessarily with preferred shares. You get it back with common shares. In any

case, if we are looking to see the Government realize any gain on the sale of its common shares after the economy recovers, as we all hope and believe it will, the Government's upside potential is far greater with common shares than it would be under an amendment offered by the Senator from South Carolina where we would not be allowed to convert preferred to common.

I want to make it clear I am not necessarily advocating this be the case, but I don't want to so restrict the Treasury from making those moves to adversely affect the taxpayer when we could have a far greater benefit if in fact there are common shares coming back in. If that company or entity improves its value, the taxpayer is the clear beneficiary of that if in fact we are holding common shares.

Not allowing the Treasury to make that conversion could directly have an adverse reaction for the American taxpayer who is expecting some return on this--not to mention, of course, the ability to get capital into these entities which is essential if lending is going to occur.

We can go back and debate September and October and I presume history will debate that. But we made that decision and these resources are being far better managed today than they were in the first 60 days or so of that program. Today, to restrict this Department, this Treasury from making these kinds of decisions would be a major blow at the very hour we are going to maybe need this capital in order to get these entities back on their feet.

Why is that important? It has little or nothing to do with the entities themselves. If that were the only argument, I would not be standing here and making it. It is not about the institutions we are getting the capital to, it is about the facilities, the businesses that require capital in order for credit to flow. So we spend a lot of time talking about the capital that goes into these larger institutions. The only reason we talk about it is because the financial system requires that if credit is going to move to small businesses, to homeowners and the like, when that small business shows up at their bank and says: Look, I have a great idea of expanding. I think the economy is improving. I would like to get a loan. I would like some credit. I have some people I need to hire. I have some inventory I need to purchase. I have some improvements to expand my space, and the bank says: I am sorry, we cannot. No capital. Well, if we adopt the DeMint amendment, that will be one of the reasons the answer is no because we absolutely prohibited the Treasury Department of our country from converting, where they think it is wise to do so, preferred shares to common shares. Not because we are requiring it but because we have the flexibility to do it.

When the American taxpayer wants to get a greater return on the investment we have made to get these institutions back on their feet again, and all we were allowed to hold was preferred shares paying a dividend instead of the common shares that could be the upside benefit to the American taxpayer, we would have to look back on this amendment and say: That is the reason we are not doing better than we ought to be doing.

That is really the argument I would give to my colleagues about why I think the DeMint amendment is an unwise move at this juncture. Again, it is more ideological. If you, in a sense, believe we should not be doing anything at all, let the market work its way through all of this--and there is a school of thought that embraces that. I happen to believe that is a dangerous policy to follow, in my view. I think many who looked at this issue from across the spectrum would agree. So that is the alternative. That is why I hope this amendment would be rejected when the time comes for a vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to work with our colleague from Rhode Island on this matter and strongly urge the support of this amendment as well. This is a good bill. We have an underlying bill that is a better bill because of what Senator Reed and Senator Bond have added to it. This is a value added to the issue.

It is one that our colleague from Rhode Island has been involved in for virtually the entire time he has been in the Senate, and cared about. His earlier partner, Senator Allard of Colorado, worked with him on the issue. Senator Allard retired from the Senate, so Senator Reed reached out to Senator Bond, who has a strong interest in housing issues, and became his partner, along with others. I am proud to call myself one of those partners, as chairman of the Banking Committee.

As we move forward, I know in my own State of Connecticut, we have had a 13-percent increase in homeless families in the last year and a half--that is really beginning in 2007 before this issue of foreclosures exploded in our communities. So I think those numbers are up beyond that.

The number of homeless children and families is now increasing. The fastest growing part of the population that is homeless is children in our country, and this is no longer just that person we see on a street corner who is struggling in their lives. Shelters are jam-packed. You can only stay so long. I know many of my colleagues have visited these facilities and seen families who, only weeks before, owned a home or had a place to live, are out of that situation and now are part of a growing number of people. So the timeliness of this legislation could not be more important. We are talking about trying to stop foreclosures.

What an important corollary to that to make sure we are simultaneously providing--Lord forbid people fall into that situation-- an opportunity to have decent shelter.

So I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for his leadership. I applaud those of his cosponsors. This amendment would consolidate existing HUD McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs and make several improvements to cost effectively end homelessness.

I have to take note because I mentioned McKinney-Vento. Both individuals are great friends of mine.

Stu McKinney was a Congressman from Connecticut for many years and took on the issue of homelessness. He passed away many years ago. He had a wonderful family. His son John is one of the Republican leaders in the Connecticut State legislature. His wife Lucy is a wonderful friend. Stu McKinney was a remarkable human being.

Of course, Bruce Vento was a great champion. I served with him in the House as well. McKinney-Vento, we throw these names around, but know that McKinney and Vento were two wonderful Members of Congress who cared deeply about what happened to people who fall on hard times.

We can add the name Reed to that group as well. I compliment my friend and urge adoption of his amendment.

Mr. President, I believe this request has been agreed to by both the majority and minority.

I ask unanimous consent that there now be 2 minutes prior to a vote in relation to the Ensign second-degree amendment No. 1043 to the Boxer amendment No. 1038; that prior to the vote, the Ensign amendment be modified with the changes at the desk; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Ensign amendment, as modified; that if the Ensign amendment is not agreed to, then the Senate vote in relation to the Boxer amendment; provided further that if the Ensign amendment is agreed to, the Boxer amendment, as amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that there then be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the DeMint amendment No. 1026, with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators Dodd and DeMint or their designees; that after the first vote in this sequence, the second vote be 10 minutes in duration.

I appreciate the Senator from Wisconsin raising this issue and I will be pleased to work with him to arrange such a meeting, and to ensure that the Treasury Department looks into the concerns raised in the Senator's amendment.

On behalf of Senator Feingold, I call up amendment No. 1032 and ask that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk; that upon modification, the amendment be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

Amendment No. 1038

Mr. President, briefly, let me thank my colleague from South Carolina. The reason I oppose this amendment is because we ought to have the flexibility. It is not a mandate. Today, the Treasury has the right to be able to convert preferred shares to common shares. There is a reason for that. The markets react in terms of real capital to common shares, not preferred shares. Preferred shares are a form of debt. If you are trying to get capital into lending institutions, which is critical to be able to provide loans, you need to have capital. Common shares allow you to make that determination.

Secondly, on the upside for taxpayers, and TARP money coming back, there is a greater likelihood we will benefit if we have common shares. I am not advocating that kind of conversion, but you ought to have the flexibility to move from preferred to common. You may want to bifurcate that in some of these tranches. The Senator's amendment would prohibit that in any case. I think that is the wrong move to make.

I oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Will my colleague yield?

I understand what my colleague from Rhode Island is talking about, but I must say our colleague from Oklahoma is making a lot of sense. He often does so. Who has jurisdiction over this? Does it depend upon the Federal property, where it is located? Which of the committees?

People say debates here don't have an effect on anybody. I will make a commitment to you as chairman of the Banking Committee, I will work with you on this.

I am intrigued by what the Senator is saying. I suspect a lot of other people don't disagree with what he is driving at here. We need to pull some people together to see if we might get something done.

At this late hour of the night I might not be listening to this debate were I not chairing the committee and managing the bill on the floor, but my colleague from Oklahoma I think has raised a very valuable point and it is worthy of our consideration and I would like to sit with him and see if I can't help.

I want to give my colleague from Rhode Island a chance to be heard but--let him offer his amendment.

Madam President, I rise and offer my support for the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island that repeals the requirement for the Secretary of the Treasury to liquidate warrants under repayment of obligations under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The Senator from Rhode Island I think has laid out the rationale for this, but the point is under existing law it was rather restrictive and required a specific action without consideration of what the values may be. What the Senator is suggesting is moving from a ``shall'' requirement to a ``may'' gives flexibility, which is exactly what we have been arguing for today in a number of these amendments, giving flexibility dealing with preferred and common shares--flexibility. Some of the other amendments earlier reflect on this flexibility, which is critical.

These warrants change over time. It doesn't suggest by holding back you will necessarily get a better value. It doesn't mean by releasing them earlier you will do better. It is obviously a judgment call and you want to give people the opportunity to make the judgment calls. The beneficiary of all of this ultimately will be the American taxpayer and that is ultimately what we are trying to achieve.

I think my colleague has once again offered a very wise and worthwhile amendment to this bill. It strengthens it, in my view. I thank him for it. I don't know if there is any objection to this at all.

As soon as that happens, we will move this along and see if we can't get this agreed to.

Amendment No. 1036

I want to mention a few words about the amendment offered by Senator Kerry from Massachusetts and Senator Gillibrand from New York and Senator Reid from Nevada, if I may.

This is a very good amendment. My hope is my colleagues will support it. We offered an amendment on earlier legislation dealing with rental properties that were affected under the Government-sponsored enterprise. Under that legislation, we prohibited those properties from evicting tenants who were current in their rental obligations when a property was foreclosed or purchased by a new buyer, the thought being, if a tenant is current in their obligations, they should not be evicted unless they are on a month to month, in which case at the end of the month the landlord would have that right. But if there are leases of longer duration, these tenants ought to be respected under the contracts they have.

I can say in my own State of Connecticut, we do not have a great supply of affordable rental stock. This is not unique in my State. I think this is true in most States. As you are watching more and more foreclosures occurring and as people lose their homes, the demand for rental stock is increasing. The cost of it is prohibitive. In the State of Connecticut--I believe these numbers are correct--I think you need an hourly income of close to $21 an hour to afford the average two- bedroom apartment. Obviously that could fluctuate to some degree, but that gives you some idea of the cost, and that is close to three minimum wage jobs, in effect, in a day to pick up that kind of income.

It is important that we do what we can to protect people in this situation. That is exactly what Senator Kerry does, in that the measure requires at least 90-days' notice for all renters in federally related housing, but would honor the full term of any existing lease unless a new owner will occupy the home. The amendment also amends the housing voucher statute to preserve section 8 contracts at foreclosure. These provisions would be in effect during the foreclosure crisis, sunsetting at the end of December 2012.

This is a very worthwhile proposal. We are protecting an awful lot of good people out there. Frankly, I am somewhat perplexed that there are those who object to this. It seems to me it would be in the interests of a new owner to want to keep people in paying rents, current in those obligations, rather than evicting them and beginning another process unless they are looking for some extremely--higher rents coming in. But it seems to me, given the amount of people out of work, given the declining value of properties, you are probably acquiring these properties at a lot less cost than the previous owner may have had which means the rents you would have to secure wouldn't have to be as expensive to maintain it.

At the very hour people are worrying about where they are going to live--we just heard a discussion by Senator Reed about homeless families. The largest increase in homeless families is children in our country.

Again, imagine that family tonight--10,000 tonight, as there were last night, as there will be tomorrow night and every night--who has discovered they are in such default their home is on the auction block or has been lost. That is a pretty compelling moment to know you have lost your home. It further compounds that problem by not knowing where you are going to live, where you are going to take your family--showing up tonight and looking at your children and suggesting you are going to move, going to have to find a different place to live.

What Senator Kerry is saying here, at least for tenants who are in good standing on their properties, they should not be affected because the property ended up in foreclosure through whatever rationale that may have happened to the landlord. It seems to me, putting people out on the street is not what we ought to be doing at a time such as this. Whatever your views are about whether these programs are working as effectively as they should, I think all of us agree the innocent who are being confronted with these decisions should not be left in a more precarious position than they are already in, and that is exactly what would happen in the absence of the Kerry amendment, the Kerry- Gillibrand-Reid amendment.

Once again the majority leader, Senator Reid, has taken a strong position on these matters and is making a difference, as he has, by allowing these matters to come up and being as supportive as he has of the various efforts we are making here to complete this work.

I thank Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, his colleagues Senator Reid of Nevada and Senator Gillibrand of New York, for offering this idea. It is one deserving of our support and will make a real difference.

People have asked whether this bill is going to make a real difference for real people. This amendment makes a real difference for real people, and is exactly what we ought to be doing. These were not the people who caused the problems they are in. These are the victims of what is occurring. If we care about what is happening to them, this is a wonderful way to say we understand it, we are stepping up and making a difference in their lives.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am going to make a series of unanimous consent requests dealing with modifications.

On behalf of Senator Reed of Rhode Island, I call up his amendment No. 1039 and ask that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

On behalf of Senator Grassley, I ask unanimous consent that his amendments Nos. 1020 and 1021 be modified with the changes at the desk.

On behalf of Senator Boxer, I call up amendment No. 1035.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

On behalf of Senator Schumer, I call up amendment No. 1031 and ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

On behalf of Senator Kerry, I ask unanimous consent that his amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I commend my friend from Iowa. He has been a consistent advocate over the years for transparency and accountability. I am pleased to work with him on these amendments. I am fairly confident the committee will accept these amendments as part of the underlying bill. It strengthens what we are trying to achieve. I regret we couldn't arrange to do that this evening while the Senator was here, but there are other powers that my colleague and I are well aware of that need to make sure they pour over everything before we go forward. I thank him for his counsel and his advice and this recommendation.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that no further amendments be in order to S. 896, and that on Wednesday, May 6, following a period of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 896, and proceed to vote in the order listed on the pending amendments, with no amendment in order to any amendment listed; that prior to each vote, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that after the first vote, any succeeding votes be limited to 10 minutes each: Senator Reed of Rhode Island No. 1039, as modified; Boxer No. 1035; Casey No. 1033; Grassley No. 1020, as modified; Coburn second degree No. 1042; Reed of Rhode Island No. 1040, as amended, if amended; Kerry No. 1036, as modified; Schumer No. 1031, as modified; Grassley No. 1021, as modified; provided further, that upon disposition of the listed amendments, the substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; the bill be read a third time, and the Senate then proceed to vote on passage of the bill.

First, let me commend Chairman Dodd for his leadership on this very important legislation that is going to address one of the most significant issues facing America today; that is, restoring the value in our homes, but also giving people the hope that they can stay in their homes and helping those people who are displaced from their homes to find adequate, suitable housing.

I hope to be able to offer an amendment which would address the issue of homelessness in the United States.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 1040 to S. 836 and ask that it be made pending.

This legislation is cosponsored by Senator Kit Bond, Senator Boxer, Senator Collins, Senator Durbin, Senator Kerry, Senator Lautenberg, Senator Levin, Senator Lieberman, Senator Schumer, and Senator Whitehouse. It embodies legislation I introduced earlier this year, along with Senator Kit Bond, the Saving the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act, known in short as the HEARTH Act.

I want to particularly commend Senator Bond for his support, help, and leadership in this effort. He has been an advocate for sensible housing programs, not only on the floor of the Senate but particularly in his duties as a member of the Appropriations Committee and as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

He has been a great leader in advocating for the sensible, sound, and efficient use of taxpayers' resources to help people to find affordable housing. I thank him very much for his assistance, along with all of the other cosponsors.

This legislation is endorsed by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, U.S. Conference of Mayors, the League of Cities, NACo, Habitat for Humanity International, National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies, LISC, Enterprise, National Low Income Housing Coalition, Corporation for Supportive Housing, the National Equity Fund, NAMI, the Housing Assistance Council and the National Community Development Association. It enjoys widspread support.

According to the Homelessness Research Institute at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2.5 to 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness each year. On any one night, approximately 672,000 men, women, and children are without homes.

While strides have been made to reduce homelessness over the last couple of years, the current economic decline has halted such progress.

Today I saw a front page article with a photograph in USA Today of a tent city going up. This is a phenenoman we thought was an artifact of history. Too often people are using any means to shield themselves from the elements.

Organizations such as Amos House, a shelter in my home State of Rhode Island, are seeing an increased demand for their services, while at the same time they are facing budget cuts and the economic downturn has curbed charitable donations.

I don't need to tell anybody in this Chamber how urgent this crisis is.

Across the country, we have already seen tent cities forming; shelters turning away people in need; and most major cities reporting double-digit increases in the numbers of families experiencing homelessness.

There is a tendency to view homelessness as something that happens to a few adults, men and women. But too many children are without homes.

As foreclosure and unemployment rates continue to rise, more families are being pushed out of their homes. Not everyone ends up on the streets. Some are able to move in with friends or family members, but they can not afford a home of their own and they can not find a job to get back on their feet.

America has not seen this level of displacement since the Great Depression and we simply cannot afford to ignore this problem.

That is why I am offering the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid

Transition to Housing, HEARTH, Act of 2009 as an amendment to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act.

The Banking Committee, of which I am a member, has worked long and hard on this legislation, which I believe has resulted in a very strong piece of legislation.

This amendment invests $2.2 billion for targeted homelessness assistance grant programs and provides local communities with greater flexibility to spend money on preventing homelessness.

While strides have been made to reduce homelessness over the last couple of years, the current economic decline has halted that progress and threatens to overwhelm it.

As a result of the recession, 1.5 million additional Americans nationwide are likely to experience homelessness over the next 2 years according to estimates by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. In Rhode Island, the latest numbers show homelessness is up 43 percent since February of 2008. And the number of shelter residents who cited foreclosure as their reason for becoming homeless tripled in the last 8 months.

This means more trauma for children and adults, more dislocation from schools and communities, and more of a drain on local community services.

In addition to the $2.2 billion for HUD homeless assistance programs, the HEARTH Act would also provide up to $440 million to be used to serve people who are not homeless yet, but are at risk of homelessness. That, I think, is in accord with the spirit of the legislation Senator Dodd proposed; to prevent people from losing their homes.

It would allow cities and towns to serve people who are about to be evicted, live in severely overcrowded housing, or otherwise live in an unstable situation that puts them at risk of homelessness. The money could be used to make utility payments, security deposits, and provide short- and medium-term rental assistance.

The HEARTH Act would increase the emphasis on performance by measuring applicants' progress at reducing homelessness and providing incentives for proven solutions like rapid re-housing for families and permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people.

This is a measure not only to provide resources but also to insist upon accountability.

Today, more families than ever are living on the edge, but the national safety net is not as big or as durable as it used to be.

This bipartisan legislation combines federal dollars with new incentives to help local communities assist families on the brink of becoming homeless. It is a wise investment of federal resources that will save taxpayers money in the long run by preventing homelessness, promoting the development of permanent supportive housing, and optimizing self-sufficiency.

Finally, I wanted to briefly talk about the definition of homelessness.

The HEARTH Act expands the HUD definition of homelessness, which determines eligibility for much of the homeless assistance funding, to include people who will lose their housing in 14 days; any family or individual fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, or other dangerous or life threatening situations; and families with children and unaccompanied youth who have experienced a long term period without living independently, have experienced persistent housing instability, and can be expected to continue in such status for an extended period due to a number of enumerated factors, such as a disability.

It also allows grantees to use up to an additional 10 percent of competitive funds to serve families defined as homeless under the Education Department homeless definition, but not so defined under the HUD definition. For areas with low levels of homelessness, up to 100 percent of funds may be used for such purposes.

The HEARTH Act also provides communities with greater flexibility in using funds to prevent and end homelessness. Whether it is the new Emergency Solutions Grant or the new Rural Housing Stability Assistance Program, that would grant rural communities greater discretion in addressing the needs of homeless people or those in the worst housing situations in their communities, this bill allows people to help people who are not technically homeless, and keep them from becoming so.

I recognize there have been tensions on the definition issue. All of us want to be sure that we are providing services to homeless children and families, and those at risk of homelessness.

Our amendment does not change the definition of homelessness in the No Child Left Behind Act for education programs that serve homeless children, nor does it seek in any way to hinder or limit these services.

In fact, our amendment strives to reach an appropriate balance to make sure that there are HUD funds available to help these families.

I hope that my colleagues can join Senator Bond and me, and support this important amendment.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his kind words and support. I do also recognize Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado. Wayne and I worked together on this legislation for a number of years. In fact, we sort of rotated between subcommittee chairman of the Housing Subcommittee. Consistently and in a very bipartisan

fashion, we worked together. We have been joined by Senator Bond whose leadership on the Appropriations Committee is remarkable when it comes to housing issues. We benefited immensely by the contributions of Senators Allard and Bond. I did not have the fortune of knowing Stuart McKinney. I knew him only by reputation. He was known as a sterling man who worked hard when the issue of homelessness was not as central to our consciousness as it is today.

Bruce Vento was extraordinarily decent. These two gentlemen sort of pointed the way. Now we have to take up the task and move it forward and further. I think we can with this legislation.

I thank the chairman for his support and urge all colleagues to join us in support of the amendment.

I suggest the absence of quorum.

Madam President, Senator Coburn has been working very diligently over the last several years to deal with the issue of property disposition. We have established over many decades now certain priorities to access Federal properties, and included in those are very low-priority agencies that provide shelter for homeless people. Prior to these, in my recollection of the distribution of the properties, is the right of State and local governments to buy property at a discounted price.

Madam President, as Governor, you have probably considered this option many times. It is my understanding that this underlying bill would exempt a number of the properties from the Federal Property Act provisions that would allow, in fact, State and local governments to access these properties at prices that are reasonable, particularly now, given the budget pressures of local governments. But, in addition, this 5-year pilot program would encompass the largest and potentially most valuable properties that are held in surplus by the United States.

It is far from a pilot program. What our colleagues in the House are talking about is a true pilot program--a limited number of properties to validate and really legitimize the approach Senator Coburn and others are suggesting. I know the Senator has been working very diligently and sincerely with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but this represents a version, an early version, I believe, that, at least in terms of discussion with others, has been changed somewhat.

One point I wish to make with respect to the underlying amendment that is important is that we are not attempting to deal with the issue of property distribution, which cuts across the entire spectrum of Federal properties--practically every agency in the Federal Government. That encompasses not only the rights--very limited rights--of homeless groups to acquire property but fundamentally the rights of State and local communities to acquire this property. In fact, for many State and local communities, this program is a major source of economic development.

Again looking at the Chair, who was the Governor of the State of New Hampshire, Pease Air Force Base was surplus property which is now a dynamic economic development tool. My guess, again, was that it was obtained by the State, probably using at least in part some of these powers. All of that would be altered in this pilot program that would give, in fact, public lands managers wide discretion to dispose of properties. Again, it is a pilot program, but it is so long term. Five years is not exactly a short-term, let's do an experiment, evaluate it, and see what can be done.

Our legislation, the underlying amendment, is the result of many years of bipartisan effort to deal with the issue of homelessness, not the distribution or disposition of public property. I think it would represent an extraordinary improvement in the current system. It is more efficient, it consolidates applications, it gives flexibility to local communities, and it deals with the problem that I think is equally compelling for the children of today. There are thousands of children who don't have a home. We have to be cognizant of the future. We have to take prudent steps--and I wish, looking back over the last 8 years, some of my colleagues on this side would have been much more prudent in their fiscal policies that took a surplus in 2001 and turned it into a huge deficit in 2008, 2009. So the ability to look ahead is not exclusive to one side of the aisle. But the legislation I have proposed, along with Senator Bond, represents a reauthorization of McKinney-Vento, which will give the States and localities better tools to deal with the current crisis of countless families who are without homes.

My concern is not only with the breadth of this amendment, with its focus on one part of a much more complicated puzzle, but also the fact that I think it could seriously jeopardize the passage of what is important legislation--the McKinney-Vento reauthorization.

I do believe, because of the Senator's efforts, because of his sincere and energetic and consistent advocacy of this, that this issue is resonating on both sides--both with our colleagues in the House and here in the Senate. I would be extraordinarily disappointed if we were to miss a great opportunity to fundamentally reform the program.

We worked with the Senator last Congress. We had bipartisan support, led by Senator Allard. We had, in fact, the clear endorsement of President Bush and the Housing and Urban Development Department under the Bush administration for our homelessness proposal, but it failed because this legislation, the Reed amendment, was embroiled in this controversy of property disposition which spans every agency of the Federal Government. It is not just HUD, it is the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior.

I think if we are going to do something this comprehensive, let's not single out the homelessness initiative as sort of the wedge or the fulcrum or the lever. Let's step back, work collectively, collaboratively, and pass legislation that will apply across the board and will do so in a principled and practical way. There is no opposition to that.

I would also note, as the Senator alluded to, that at an appropriate moment there will be a point of order raised on the legislation. But I would hope that, again, we could move through this proposed second degree, pass the underlying amendment, and not forget but in fact redouble our efforts to approach this in a comprehensive way. I know many colleagues--not only Senator Coburn but Senator Carper--are sincerely and enthusiastically interested in having reform of the way we dispose of property.

I am certainly also in a position to say personally that I think if we do

this, we have to take into consideration the equities of all the parties. This is not just about homeless groups that get grants, this is about State and local governments, this is about the way we have established over many years the disposition of Federal property. Can it be improved? Yes, it can. Should we improve it? Yes, we should. But I think to essentially target the homeless population as sort of the lever for this change is the wrong approach. So I would, at the appropriate moment, either myself or the manager, raise a point of order.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I do have another amendment which I would like to call up, but I see the Senator from Oklahoma is here, and he should have an opportunity to speak.

Madam President, there will be an amendment that I propose that will help qualify the status of warrants that are currently held by the Department of Treasury with respect to TARP. It will give the Secretary of the Treasury discretion to dispose of those warrants when he feels it is appropriate. Right now, under language that was adopted in the context of our debates over the recent amendments to TARP, there is a mandatory requirement for the Secretary to surrender or dispose of the warrants if the TARP funds are returned by a financial institution.

I believe the Secretary should have the discretion to hold these warrants if he thinks it is in the best interests of the taxpayers. The whole point of the warrants, and a point I insisted upon in the original legislation for the TARP bill last September, indeed a point that I found to resonate with many of our colleagues on the Republican side--Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Affairs Committee cited this specifically as one of the reasons why the TARP program could be supported--and that is, in addition to our investment in preferred stock which pays dividends, the Government would also have the right to obtain warrants; that would be the right to acquire stock in the future.

Interestingly enough, at the time we were debating the TARP bill, Warren Buffett, who was a very sophisticated and is a very sophisticated investor, made a preferred stock investment in a large financial institution and also received warrants. So this is typically how many of these deals are done.

At this juncture the institutions receiving TARP funds have the right at any time to pay it back. That is an issue that has been settled. It is the policy of the United States. But I believe the Secretary of the Treasury should have the discretion, because these are separate instruments, to hold those warrants, to maximize, if he can, the market price that he will receive on behalf of the taxpayers.

This, again, is an issue that was very critical to many of us in the initial adoption of the TARP legislation. We are not mandating that the Secretary of the Treasury surrender the warrants, nor are we mandating that he keep them. It will be discretionary. He and his colleagues have, and I believe must exercise, the judgment when it is an appropriate time to surrender these warrants or to take other actions under the contracts under which they were issued, to ensure value for taxpayers.

We have made very significant investments in the financial system through the TARP program. The premise, again, was that not only would the direct investment be repaid, but taxpayers would benefit from the recovery of these institutions. We are seeing that recovery now. We have a ways to go but we are seeing some encouraging signs. I believe, again, that having assumed risks, taxpayers should benefit from the rewards of a revived

financial institution and in that case we are simply making this discretionary with the Secretary of the Treasury so that he can judge whether and when the appropriate time is to surrender the warrants, to receive fair market price for the warrants, and to ultimately help benefit the taxpayers who have put up the money to deal with a huge financial crisis.

At the appropriate time I believe there will be a consent to move forward on this amendment. I hope it would be supported and adopted, but I wanted to make that point at this juncture.

Madam President, I believe they are working on an appropriate consent to adopt it.

Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, if the Senator could amend that to say Senator Boxer will be called on to talk about a couple of amendments following his remarks, I would really appreciate it.

I thank the Senator.

Guantanamo Bay

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

Mr. President, I will be offering two amendments, one of which is going to be second-degreed by Senator Ensign, a friendly amendment we have worked with him on. So we will have a vote on that amendment.

Then the final vote on the other Boxer amendment can be a voice vote without problem. But these are two amendments that are very important to the financial security of the country. One deals with the toxic asset purchase program, the other one deals with making sure our people can actually renegotiate their mortgages if they are in trouble. I will start with that one first.

It seems like common sense if you have a mortgage on your home, you ought to know who holds the mortgage. But in today's real estate market, where the original lender often sells the loan to another entity, you can lose track and not know who actually owns your mortgage. So we are doing a very simple amendment--and I thank Senator Dodd and staff, because they have worked so closely with us to draw this up in a good way. It is very easy: When your mortgage is sold or transferred, the homeowner must be informed who owns that mortgage. This is the way it used to be years ago. I remember many times receiving those notices but suddenly it stopped happening.

I want to give you the example of James and Mary Meyers, who took out a high-rate home loan with Argent Mortgage in 2004. Because the loan violated the truth-in-lending laws, they later attempted to exercise their Federal rights to cancel the loan. But the servicer, who happened to be Countrywide at the time, refused to identify who owned the loan. So by the time the Meyers discovered that the current noteholder was Deutsche Bank, the deadline for canceling the loan had passed. The court dismissed the Meyers' claim, even though it found that there were grounds, legitimately, for the Meyers to cancel the loan.

So this kind of hide-and-seek situation has real-life ramifications. It certainly does with the President's plan now that says, if someone has a mortgage that is under water, they can renegotiate, they have a chance. But if they do not know who holds the mortgage, it is a hollow kind of plan. We know that current law does require homeowners be informed when the servicer of their loan has changed. That is in the law. And Federal law does require that the servicer tell the homeowner the identify of the person holding their mortgage.

But servicers routinely ignore requests from homeowners for information on the noteholder. So this is pretty simple. Simply put, it is worth saying, if someone new is holding your mortgage, the servicer has 30 days to inform you as to who that person is.

While servicers are required to disclose this information, there are no penalties in the law for noncompliance and no remedies for a homeowner faced with a recalcitrant servicer.

The law has also failed to protect homeowners because there is no specific requirement that servicers identify the agent or party with the authority to act on behalf of the note holder.

The Boxer amendment provides borrowers with the basic right to know who owns their loan by requiring that any time a mortgage loan is sold or transferred, the new note owner shall notify the borrower within 30 days of the following: the identity, address, and telephone number of the new creditor: the date of transfer; how to reach an agent or party with the authority to act on behalf of the new creditor; the location of the place where the transfer is recorded; and any other relevant information regarding the new creditor.

To be clear, the amendment does not require borrowers to receive a notification every time a mortgage backed security with a slice of their mortgage changes hands. Those are transactions between investors and do not involve a change in ownership of the physical note.

This amendment only provides transparency and gives borrowers an additional tool to fight illegitimate foreclosures or to negotiate loan modifications that would keep them in their homes.

I do not understand why we have to have a vote on this. I know Senator Dodd has signed off on this. It is a very important amendment. I will read into the Record a list of those supporting this. It is a whole list of consumer groups. I want to list who has endorsed this amendment: the National Consumer Law Center, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, the National Association of Neighborhoods, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

This is a very narrowly targeted amendment with little cost to the industry. But the benefit to homeowners and communities would be absolutely enormous. So it is a simple amendment, common sense. I hope we will have an overwhelming vote for it.

I want to make my statement at this time, and however the chairman wants to dispose of the amendment, if it is accepted by voice, that is fine with me. But if we have to do to a rollcall because we cannot clear it, I ask that we have a rollcall vote.

Amendment No. 1038

The second amendment I will be offering is one that Senator Ensign will be offering a second-degree amendment to. It is a very friendly second-degree amendment. Again, I thank the Banking staff on both sides of the aisle for working with us--Senator Dodd, in particular--to make this a very good amendment.

What we are basically saying is, as we go into a new program which is the Public-Private Investment Program, which basically says that when we take toxic assets off the books of the banks, we want the private sector to come in and give a value to those assets, we do not want the Government doing it.

The private sector plays a very important role. What Senator Ensign and I believe is very important, and Chairman Dodd has agreed, is to make sure it is a very clean process, and there is not a process for collusion between the parties, and no chance to defraud, frankly, the taxpayers.

How could that happen? Hypothetically, you can have a bank that is trying to unload a toxic asset. They want the most they can get for it. They can go to a private party and say: Hey, between us, bid a little bit more for this toxic asset, we will give you a kickback later. They could not call it that. We will take care of you later. That is clearly a no-no. You cannot do that.

Under the Boxer-Ensign language, that would not be allowed. The Treasury would put forward regulations to make sure it is not allowed. We would give the TARP inspector general $15 million to perform audits of selected recipients so we can make sure we are following up with audits and making sure there is no collusion.

We would guarantee there is access to financial data from the Public- Private Investment fund that is necessary to perform these audits, and we would require regulations that are very clear, so that--listen to this--the private sector cannot use money they have borrowed from other Federal programs to pump into the system.

They might be able to use some loans, but we do not want 100 percent of that money being recycled again. In other words, they could take a loan from the Government, then they go buy an asset, and all of the money being used in the program is Government money.

The Boxer-Ensign amendment, which is endorsed by Senator Dodd, and I believe Senator Shelby, I believe has been signed off by both. If I misspeak, I am sure I will be told that. It is a very ``good government'' amendment.

It essentially says as we begin to buy these toxic assets from the banks, we are going to make sure there is no collusion, no fraud, no conflict of interest. We are going to give the inspector general the ability to get the information he or she needs to go in, perform an audit, and keep this program clean.

The last thing taxpayers want is another scandal that revolves around these banks and all of the things they did before. So this is an important amendment.

At this time, I think I have explained both of my amendments. I await hearing from the chairman as to a time to come back and speak for perhaps a minute to generally summarize both of them.

Again, my deepest thanks to Senator Dodd. He has worked so hard. Without his help, we could not be at this point on both these important amendments.

It turned blond.

Mr. President, my understanding is we are ready to go on the Ensign second-degree amendment. So is it not appropriate for me to send the Boxer amendment to the desk at this time?

I call up my amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I was listening to what my colleague, Senator Barrasso, said about the Environmental Protection Agency, and I know it is a little bit off the work Senator Dodd is doing, but I hope he won't mind if I take about 3 minutes to respond.

I think what is so interesting is that under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency drafted the endangerment finding. They found that pollution in the form of greenhouse gas emissions--this is the Bush administration--was absolutely an endangerment to the American people. That is the Bush administration.

You may say: Gee, why didn't I hear about that? I will tell you why. The EPA sent that endangerment finding, that proposed endangerment finding, over to the White House, and it was labeled, as you get your e-mails, ``proposed endangerment finding.'' There was advice immediately from the lawyers over at the Bush White House not to open the endangerment finding--not to read it, not to look at it, not to consider it, not to open it because, they said, once it was open, it was in the public domain and the public would learn that, indeed, climate change is an endangerment to the people of this country. We are talking about extreme weather events. We are talking about organisms that do not live in cold waters, but when the waters get warm, they carry disease to our kids. We saw a case in Arizona where that happened: organisms that never lived in these rivers and streams are now living there. Heat stroke. And that is not to mention the issue of the rising waters, that is not to mention the national security issues, and that is not to mention the fact that the way out of this economic mess is to say: We are going to look at this challenge and we are going to respond to it in a way that will create clean jobs, in a way that will lead us out of this morass and lead us to economic prosperity.

Anyone who has read Thomas Friedman's book ``Hot, Flat, and Crowded'' knows that the country that gets on top of this issue of clean energy and clean energy jobs will lead the world. So for my colleague to get up and say: I am holding up the Obama nominees--that is the party of no. That is the party of no, no, no. They want to keep this information from the American people.

Then they talk about lawsuits and the rest. Well, the fact is that the old EPA was sued repeatedly by community groups and environmental groups because they weren't following the law, and every single time, they lost. So the Supreme Court comes down on the side of cleaning up pollution. I am not afraid of lawsuits because the fact is, the people will win the lawsuits.

My message to the EPA is very simple. It is very different from Senator Barrasso, who is holding up qualified nominees--Republicans. They are Republicans they are holding up whom President Obama wants to put into his circle of advisers on the environment. This one particular woman I believe served, Senator Dodd, your State for Republican Governor Rell, and they are holding her up. They are holding her up.

Why? Because they want to continue being the party of no. No, don't open up the endangerment finding; no, don't trust the people with the information; no, don't think about making polluters pay; no, we are not going to go to clean energy and clean jobs and all the prosperity that will come forward with that. It is a sad day.

My friend and I, John Barrasso and I, are very good friends. We like each other. We work together when we can. But on this one he will admit and I will admit we do not share a common view. My view is that science should dictate what we do on the health front and the revival of this economy should dictate what we invest in here, so we invest in these high technologies and we create good, clean jobs. I am very sad to hear that my friend will be holding up, and saying no, to some good people.

I understand his point of view. He has every right to do it. But I hope we will file a cloture motion and I hope we will be able to say to the party of no: Please, there was an election. President Obama won. He deserves to have the people in place that he thinks will give him good advice. If you do not like the advice, then legislate against it. But don't hold up good people.

They are doing it every day. The party of no, no, no, no. The American people want us to work together for their benefit and the benefit of their children and their grandchildren. My message to the EPA is do not be bullied into not doing your job. The endangerment finding you have made provisionally is very close to the same endangerment finding the scientists made under George W. Bush. The difference is, this administration is not going to hide it from the American people. We are going to look at it and we are going to figure out a way to respond to it in such a manner that jobs will be created, exports will be created, technologies will come to the fore. To the party of no, I say look inside yourself. The days of the old energy are coming to an end. They are too polluting, they are too costly, they are subject to the whims of foreign dictators.

I remember when George W. Bush went over and kissed the Saudi prince--I was a little surprised at that--begging, begging Saudi Arabia: Oh, please, please, let us have more oil. And the price went up and up and up. Frankly, it was not until the Democrats here demanded that there be some remedy for price fixing--it was not until then that the prices started going down, because there was manipulation. We know that.

I am disappointed that Senator Barrasso, an important member of the Environment Committee--this is the Environment Committee he is from. It is not the polluting committee. Let's get on with our work. Let's do what is right for the health of the American people. Let's do what is right for the workers in America. Let's develop the technologies. Let's not stand up here, hold decent people up, don't let them get a vote, stop them because you are a little angry that, yes, you did lose the election; and yes, times are changing; and yes, you have to recognize that Lisa Jackson is not Stephen Johnson--who came from a pesticide background, for God's sake.

One thing I found as I look at this administration that I admire--and I do not agree with every single thing they do or say--but I have to say this, they are putting people in place who care about the issue they are supposed to care about. You remember what happened over there with, ``Brownie, you

are doing a great job at FEMA,'' and we had Hurricane Katrina. Brownie had come from the Arabian horses industry. That was his expertise.

Stephen Johnson, EPA, came from a pesticide background. That was his background to head up the Environmental Protection Agency.

Then you had others. You had Spencer Abraham, a nice man. He voted to eliminate the Department of Energy when he was a Senator, and he got to be put in charge of--you got it--the Department of Energy.

I have a great committee I am privileged to chair, but I am distressed that we have to file cloture and stop a filibuster on perfectly well-qualified people, some of whom are Republicans, who are being stopped here by my friend. It is discouraging. But I am optimistic and I know we will get these important nominees through, even though we have to take the time to fight a filibuster and file cloture and get 60 votes. I am convinced we can do it--in closing-- because the American people do not want us to be the party of no, no, no. They want us to be the Senate that is going to bring about positive change for the American people.

I say to Senator Dodd, thank you for your indulgence here.

Reserving the right to object, I wished to respond to Senator Reid and ask a question to the chairman. I have another amendment that has to do with simply letting a homeowner know when his mortgage has been sold. We have objection on the other side. I wished to make it clear to everyone, I am willing to take that on a voice vote and not have to go through a recorded vote. I wished to make that comment. I hope Senator Shelby and his side will allow us to move forward on that.

Mr. President, there is now 2 minutes equally divided on the Ensign amendment; is that correct?

Mr. President, I am here to say this is a very friendly amendment to the underlying Boxer amendment. I hope everyone will support it. I am very proud of the work we did in a bipartisan way. I thank our staffs for doing this. It is a very significant amendment. What we are saying is, as we begin this new program, this Public- Private Partnership to buy toxic assets from the banks, Senator Ensign and I wish to make sure there is no collusion in the dealing, that there is no conflict of interest as this goes by. We wish to make sure the inspector general has the funding required to audit this program in a timely fashion. I am very pleased we have had this bipartisan coming together because we were a little bit far apart. But we worked hard for actually a couple weeks on this.

I urge everyone to vote for the Ensign-Pryor-Boxer second-degree amendment, and then we will move for adoption of the Boxer amendment, as amended.

I yield back the time. I do not see Senator Ensign here, but I know he believes very strongly in this second-degree amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Reed amendment be the pending amendment.

Madam President, I call up my amendment to the Reed amendment.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I am going to spend a minute talking about the Kerry amendment. I am sitting over here listening to him. There is no question he is right on what should happen in terms of notifications on evictions. But we are about to make the same mistake we make all the time. That is a State issue. State laws apply, and we are going to pull that in and make it a Federal issue. Anybody who has any connection with Federal insurance, FHA, anything else, we are now going to start writing the laws on contract law in my State, in his State, and every other State. That is exactly how we got into the trouble we are in today.

I hope the American people will look at how we got where we are. We got where we are because we are putting our nose into States' business. We think we have a nexus, no matter what the problem is, we ought to be solving it, which means why have State legislatures anymore? Why have Governors? Why not solve all the problems?

Amendment No. 1042

Now to the amendment at hand. You cannot help but be discouraged about the Congress. We have all these grand ideas and new programs to expand the size and scope of the Federal Government, but we never want to pull it back in when it is not effective and when it is not working. So what do we do? We create a new program or we renew a new authorization, not looking at the facts, not looking at the downside consequences of it. What we do is just reauthorize it with a good goal in mind.

Helping homeless people is great for us to do. The McKinney-Vento Act in the past has made a great contribution to 250 homeless shelters in this country. But nobody pays attention to the fact that we spent $300 million and went through 30,000 properties to fund 250 homeless shelters.

The other thing that is not recognized is that we have all these pieces of property we cannot get rid of. It is actually 69,850 properties that the Federal Government owns that it is not using. Some of them need to be razed, but they are costing us billions every year to maintain because we have a bureaucracy that we cannot get through to sell the property.

We have $89 billion of cash sitting there right now--right now, $89 billion. That is conservative appraisal values today on properties. We could put that money into the Federal Treasury. That is $89 billion we would not borrow against our grandchildren if, in fact, we had a commonsense, cogent way to dispose of excess Federal properties.

All this amendment does is say let's create a pilot program for 5 years. Let's offset anything 100,000 square feet or less. Anything bigger let's go around it. We are not going to have 100,000-square-foot homeless shelters. And let's incentivize the agencies to get rid of their property by leaving 20 percent of the money they would get from selling those properties in the agency.

The GAO says one of our biggest at-risk programs is our real property management. Peter Orszag testified in his hearings on confirmation that it is a giant problem. So now we come up with an amendment that is common sense. It is a pilot project. All it does is say let's test it on a limited number of properties for 5 years and see if we can't move some of this property, can't lower the cost of Government for the American people, and let's do it in a way that is smart.

We have over 10,000 properties that need to be razed, need to be torn down, that we are expending tons of money to guard or protect or to maintain in a small fashion that is absolutely wasteful. Yet this body does not want to do that. It does not want to approach a commonsense program.

This does not do anything to homeless people. This does not take any opportunities away from them. There is a very set guideline in here on how they get to perform against the properties under the pilot project. But we are going to claim--because the homeless groups that support McKinney-Vento are not happy with it, we are going to claim we cannot do anything. So we are not going to accept this amendment. They are going to raise a point of order because it costs $20 million. But when CBO scored it, they did not count any of the funds coming from the properties.

It is a net gain of billions, and we are going to get a point of order. Why? Because we would rather satisfy completely an interest group than do what is best for the country as a whole. We would rather spend more money than save money. We would rather look good in one area than protect the future in the long term.

One cannot read this amendment and not say it doesn't make common sense for us to be doing it. It is absolute common sense. What the American people know, better than we do, is there is not much of that up here; otherwise, we would have solved this problem 4 years ago when I started offering amendments on it. But we don't want to do it. We don't want to take on the established, connected lobbyists and interest groups that say: No, we don't want that to happen.

We had an offer from the House to do five properties over 5 years. That was the offer from the House--5 out of 69,000 properties--69,000 pieces of property the Federal Government has that it wants to get rid of and we cannot do it because we are afraid we might miss one opportunity to put a piece of property in the hands of good people who want to do the right thing for those less fortunate.

Yet we sit here and we deny common sense. If we sold $89 billion worth of properties, compound that interest over what we are borrowing right now over the next 5 years. Think about how that could offset some of our difficulties today. If we just did half of it, what would happen? The first thing the American people would say is, Hey, they are starting to get it. They are starting to understand what we are going through, making priorities.

The risk of missing an opportunity for a homeless shelter versus getting rid of a high-risk problem that this Federal Government has-- not denying but maybe missing one opportunity as small compared to how it is going to impact the future homeless people in this country, who are going to be our grandkids who will never be able to afford to buy a home because we are strangling them with debt.

It will be fine to challenge this on a point of order. I will make a motion to waive the point of order. We can have a vote in the Senate about whether we are going to take commonsense actions that actually help our kids and our grandkids at the same time we are helping the homeless or we are going to say: No, we are not going to do anything new. We are not going to do common sense. We are not going to apply what the ordinary man would do with their own money. We are just going to reject it.

The fact that this is not even considered to be accepted in this bill is a

statement about this body that is unbelievable. There is no legitimate complaint with this pilot program. The only complaint is, those who lobby on the other side do not want it or the only complaint is they are afraid we will not get everything we want if you do that.

This Nation needs to learn right now; if we are going to get out of these problems, we are all going to have to sacrifice something. Everybody is going to have to sacrifice. That means we can't have everything we want. So the very idea that we won't address this issue at this time on housing, when we have a big, large, overburdening problem with real property in the Federal Government, says: What are we thinking about? Why does this not fit within the bounds of what we are supposed to be doing right now? Who are we going to hurt if we create a pilot program to get rid of properties over 100,000 square feet? How much money are we going to save just on maintenance every year? It has to be seen in the light of the whole picture, not just in the light of the homeless. If we fail to do that, we fail to think about the long- term benefits that will come from having common sense in real property reform. We ought to be doing this. We ought to be helping the next two generations.

I am reminded that I did 27 townhall meetings while we were on break. And I will never forget, this guy came up to me and said: I don't care what you do to me, quit hurting my children. Quit hurting my children.

Not accepting this amendment hurts everybody's kids. It is money we could save if we wanted to, but we won't because we don't have the backbone or the courage to do what is the best right thing for the country right now. I have no doubt we will do the politically expedient thing. We won't work on real property. We won't solve this big issue that costs us billions every year just in maintenance costs. We will do the easy thing.

I will have more to say about this as it is challenged on the point of order, and also before the vote, but I hope my colleagues start becoming partisan for our kids, partisan for our children. We can help the homeless and help our kids too. We can help the homeless and create a better future for our kids, but we can't if we won't take a risk. So my challenge to my colleagues is to at least look at the amendment and say: If it was my money, what would I be doing? And the fact is, if it was your money, you wouldn't be sitting on $89 billion worth of property that is costing us billions every year to maintain, that we are not using, and that we can't get through the process to get rid of.

With that, I yield the floor.

I appreciate Senator Reed's understanding of our effort, but the question arises: We have 69,850 properties. This isn't a big pilot. It only allows 750 properties to be disposed of. Think about that--750. It is barely over 1 percent. It is going to be $800 million to $1 billion, and we are going to block everything--a pilot--because it is too big, too expansive--750 properties out of 69,850. We don't think we ought to attach that now?

We put in extra provisions to make sure the homeless can have these, but most of them aren't good for anything. In fact, most of them will probably be razed. But the fact is, to say we can't do it--we have been saying we can't do it for 4\1/2\ years. Can't do it. Can't do it. When can we do it? And 750 properties to look at over a 5-year period is just 150 properties a year. How small does it need to be for us to have a pilot--out of 750, 150 properties a year? A total of 69,850. One hundred fifty, and we can't do that? And because we can't do that, that becomes a symbol for the rest of our failures. We can't sell 750 properties and protect the homeless while we do it and lower some of the burden of the excess real property this Government has. If we can't do that on this bill, a small number of properties, I am wondering what we can do.

It confounds me. It doesn't fit with any sort of common sense. It doesn't fit with any reason. It doesn't fit with any long-term view of how do we get out of the mess we are in. What it fits with is that we don't want to do it because it is hard. We don't want to do it because somebody might yell, somebody might scream. But how do we do the best right thing--not the best thing, the best right thing--for the country? I can tell you that letting another year go by when we have 73,000 properties and $98 billion worth of money and $8 billion a year to maintain it isn't the best right thing.

I am used to standing up and losing, but I am not going to stop putting forward ideas that we shouldn't be rejecting, that make a difference in the outcome for the future of this country. This doesn't have a liberal or conservative slant to it. It is just plain old, good old Oklahoma common sense, good old Connecticut common sense, good old Rhode Island common sense. The fact we would reject it says that our motives have to be somewhat suspect on the reasons we would reject it at this time, especially when we are in the trouble we are in.

It is so discouraging to go home and hear people say, why are you doing what you are doing? Why aren't we fixing this? Why aren't we making the small steps that create a big step that create a yard that create a mile that secures the future?

It is amazing to me that you can have a real objection to this amendment--not 150 properties a year. That isn't going to impact anybody except our kids in the long term, and it is going to impact them positively. But we are going to have a parochial reason why we might not do it? I think that is what I might have heard implied. A parochial protection? We are going to die of parochialism. It is going to kill us. Eighty-plus billion dollars sitting there and we could take and lower the impact of this tremendous downturn and make a difference. Yet we are going to say no.

As they say in Oklahoma--go figure.

I am happy to yield.

Homeland Security.

I appreciate the Senator's offer.

I am happy to take the Senator up on that offer as soon as I lose my amendment.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and bring up DeMint amendment No. 1026.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to explain this amendment. I appreciate the chairman allowing me to offer this amendment. It relates to what we call

TARP funds or troubled asset funds we passed last year.

If I can take my colleagues through a little bit of history on how this happened, at the end of last year, the President and the Secretary of the Treasury came to us and explained a very dire crisis, not only in the United States but the world, that the whole financial system was on the verge of collapse, and if we did not pass this $700 billion Troubled Asset Recovery Program, it was very likely we would have financial chaos and even depression in the United States and around the world.

It was a pretty stunning presentation. It curiously lacked a lot of facts. There were no PowerPoint slides or statistics or graphs. It was more: Trust us, we know this is going to happen. We need to pass this immediately.

What they were going to do with the funds--and Secretary Paulson was very specific--was they were going to take this money and buy troubled assets in financial organizations that were too big to fail, that if they failed, it would cause severe problems all around the world. We were being told that unless we pass this money and use it immediately-- and they were talking within 24 to 48 hours--to buy troubled assets, the financial system in this country so many depended on would collapse.

At this point, after hearing a number of stories, we started this time last year mailing out checks, mortgage bailouts, all kinds of spending programs. None of it worked. None of it had been done exactly like they said it would. I did not trust the whole process. This was a Republican President. I voted against it, but many of my colleagues voted to pass the troubled asset funds to buy toxic assets, troubled assets in this country and around the world.

It passed, and the President signed it. Not one of these troubled assets has been purchased. Not one. A funny thing happened. The world financial system did not collapse. The people who told us it would either did not have the facts or they were not telling us the truth.

What they did with the money was loan some to the banks. Some of the banks had to have it immediately, apparently, or they would fail. They were too big to fail. We had to have the money.

What our Government did was go to a whole lot of other banks that were doing OK and say: You have to take this too. If you don't take it, then it will be harder for these other banks to take it. We need to have this money spread around. They did not buy the toxic assets. They loaned it to banks and put a lot of pressure on other banks to take it. As soon as they did, we got more and more involved with their business, regulators on the banks' backs. Some of the banks want to give it back. Guess what. We won't let them unless they pass some kind of test.

The Government has moved closer and closer--it kind of reminds me of the children's story, ``The Gingerbread Man.'' It is was one of my favorite stories growing up. If you remember, an older couple did not have any children. The husband was out working in the garden. The wife was making some gingerbread. She had a little left over and made a gingerbread man and put him in the oven. An hour or so later, she heard some rattling in the oven, opened it, and out jumped a gingerbread man. The gingerbread man ran around. She couldn't catch it. It ran out of the house. The husband tried to catch him. All they heard from the gingerbread man was: Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.

Long story. The gingerbread man ran through the whole community. The townspeople were chasing him. The horses and the mules and everyone were chasing the gingerbread man, who kept saying: Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I am the gingerbread man.

The gingerbread man came to a wide river and not accustomed to swimming--gingerbread probably doesn't hold up real well in a river--he was stuck with all the town running behind him. Then appeared a fox that offered to give him a ride across the river. The gingerbread man was real suspicious. He knew that fox would probably eat him. The fox said: Don't worry, you can sit way back on my back on my tail way away from my mouth. No trouble, not to worry. Gingerbread man didn't have a lot of choice. He jumped right on his back.

As the fox got out farther and farther in the river, he sank a little deeper and deeper. Gingerbread man howled and jumped up a little closer on his neck. Out a little farther, the fox went down a little bit deeper. Gingerbread man jumped right up on his head. As he got close to the other side, he started sinking his head down and gingerbread man jumped right up on his nose, and as soon as he did, slap, gingerbread man was in the mouth and gone.

Gingerbread man is a lot like our free market system, free enterprise system, and what our whole free market system is in America--fast, dynamic, made our country exceptional and prosperous. Our banking system is the same way. Some of the greatest people in our communities are running banks.

With this TARP program, what we did is similar to a fox. We invited our whole financial system to jump on the back of the Federal Government. What they told us they were going to do they did not do, and each time the Government took another step, a different step, like the gingerbread man and the fox, the gingerbread man jumped closer and closer to the mouth.

What our whole free market system is doing now is sitting on the nose of the fox, the Federal Government, which keeps taking us deeper and deeper into this river. The Federal Government did not buy toxic assets. They kind of pushed loans out into the market. They said they had to do that.

Now we see where they are, telling us this does not look good on the books of banks for it to be a loan. So we are going to just change the balance sheet from a loan to an asset. We are going to turn these loans into common stock, equity, which will make the Federal Government owners in the banks, voting owners.

Folks, there is kind of a sacred line in this country we had not crossed. There is a separation between what the Government does and what the private sector does, and this Government does not own private companies. But just like this fox, we have been led into this thing with misinformation--I hope that is all it is and not outright deception--but we are at the point where the Government is now telling us they are going to own a lot of these banks. They will not let them give it back. They are going to convert it to ownership. All these private companies out there are going to be owned, in part, by the Federal Government.

What we are hearing from investors--Chairman Bernanke said it at lunch today--is when they are trying to get people to invest in financial institutions, what they are finding is a strange thing. The private investors, smart investors, do not want to get in bed with the Federal Government because they do not know what we are going to do. They have every reason not to know what we are going to do because we have yet to do what we said we were going to do with this $700 billion, which will ultimately be over $1 trillion, with which we are now playing in the private stock market.

As we pass this bill that is supposed to protect homeowners, I am offering an amendment. It is an amendment that would force this Government to do at least part or keep it from going further than it already has into the private sector. It would prohibit the Government from converting these loans, which are sometimes referred to as preferred stock now. It is not voting. It would prohibit them from converting this to common stock, to ownership, to equity in these banks.

It should not surprise anyone. We were told this would not happen in the first place. We were told the money was going to buy these toxic assets. This amendment would at least put up a firewall that says: You cannot go any further, fox; you cannot take over private enterprise in America.

A lot of my colleagues are going to give a lot of excuses why they cannot vote for this amendment, but I hope America is looking in at this and remembering that it was not this Government that made this country great, that made us exceptional and prosperous and good, that put us on the top of the world in a lot of ways, the envy of the world. It was not this Government. It was a limited government. It was free markets and free people.

This Government now has pushed and pushed and intervened in the private market to the point where it is not

working. We wonder why people are not investing and why the markets are erratic. Because no one knows what the Federal Government is going to do once it starts playing in the stock market in this country, once it starts arbitrarily converting loans that were for a crisis to own our banks, to own our private companies.

They took the TARP money and made loans to General Motors. What are they going to do with that? They are going to convert it to common stock so this Federal Government owns General Motors.

That is not America. That is not free markets. That is not free enterprise. That is not what we signed up for, and we shouldn't allow it.

This amendment is pretty simple: Government, you cannot go any further. Enough is enough. You cannot convert these loans to common stock. We are going to have a firewall between where you are now and where you want to go.

Folks, we cannot let them go any further. We have lost the line between Government and the private sector. The Government is not set up to manage things and control things. Everything we try to do, we mess up. What we are here for is to develop a framework of law and predictable regulations so free markets and free people can operate. We are not set up to manage auto companies.

I was in a meeting this morning talking about how we were going to manage General Motors and Chrysler. I have been in a lot of boardrooms because I have done a lot of strategic planning for private companies in my lifetime. It is so obvious, we do not have the capability to manage a dynamic, complex, global marketplace. That is central planning. That is what Karl Marx thought we could do. But every time it has been tried in the history of the world, it has failed because there is no way a legislative body and a large national government such as this can manage the private sector.

What happens, though, is we get involved, we make things worse, and then we say we need more government to solve the problem. We are doing that now with AIG, the largest insurance company in the country. We have gotten in, we own most of the stock, mismanagement is rampant, and we are talking about we need more government, we need more money. Folks, it doesn't work.

I would encourage my colleagues to consider what I think we are hearing from all across America: Enough is enough. We can't do this under the guise of one crisis after another. Let's stop this rampage of the Federal Government into our private lives, the free markets, the whole concept of America. Please support this amendment that would stop the conversion of loans--TARP money--into common stock. It is a simple concept. We shouldn't be able to excuse our way around this one.

I thank the Chair, I yield back, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if I could have my colleagues' attention, the next amendment is one that would prohibit the Federal Government from converting TARP loans to common equity. Millions of Americans are telling us that enough is enough. We were told that the TARP money would be used one way, and it hasn't been used that way. It has been used for loans. We cannot let it go further to let these loans convert to common stock.

I urge my colleagues to support at least some firewall between what the Federal Government does and the private sector. We didn't approve TARP funds so the Government could become common equity shareholders in banks across the country. Let's let them give this back when they are capitalized, but let's not get the Government in the business of owning banks.

My amendment would prohibit the conversion of these loans to common equity. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.