Floor Statements

Madam President, today I honor a renowned Vermont business, Cabot Creamery, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary on June 13, 2009.

From its humble beginnings in 1919, when 94 farmers founded Cabot Creamery for $5 per cow plus a cord of wood each, Cabot has grown into one of the strongest and proudest symbols of Vermont. With its cheeses distributed internationally, Cabot is the fastest growing cheddar supplier in the country. Naturally aged from two to 36 months, a process which gives these cheeses their superb taste, Cabot cheddar has won every award, including ``Best Cheddar in the World'' at the 22nd Biennial Cheese Championship. In fact, no other cheese company can make this claim.

For all its successes, the Cabot Cooperative remains firmly grounded in its history and tradition, using time-honored techniques to produce a superior product with no additives or preservatives that is enjoyed across the country; indeed around the world. Family farms remain the backbone of Cabot Creamery Cooperative, much as they have since its founding. As owners of Cabot, every cooperative member has a stake in its success and a say in its governance. Cabot has always valued democratic ideals, civic virtue, and a high-quality product.

Presently, Vermont's dairy farms are experiencing difficult times, with destabilized milk prices and a near monopoly control of milk distribution. For the members of the Cabot Cooperative, however, the milk market that Cabot makes available to its farmers continues to serve as a valuable return on their years of investment in the cooperative.

As Vermonters, we are deeply proud of our tradition of creating exceptional cheddar cheese. Therefore, I wish Cabot Creamery Cooperative continued success on its 90th birthday, and thank them for being an exemplary symbol of our State's commitment to quality and local democracy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Monday, June 8, 2009, at 5:30 p.m.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I think the American people are aware that our country is in the midst of a major health care crisis. That is not a secret to anybody. Forty-six million Americans have no health insurance and, importantly, even more are underinsured, with high deductibles and copayments. Further, some 60 million Americans, including many with health insurance, do not have access to a medical home of their own. In fact, according to the Institute of Medicine, some 18,000 Americans die each year from preventable diseases because they lack health insurance and do not get to a doctor when they should.

I can recall very vividly talking to several physicians in Vermont who told me how people walked into their office, quite sick, and when they asked why they hadn't come in earlier, they said: Well, we don't have a lot of money; we didn't have any health insurance. The result is that those patients died. That happens every single day in this great country.

When we talk about health care, we have to understand that access to dental care is even worse. On top of that, in our Nation, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. My State of Vermont borders on Canada, and it is not uncommon for people to go from Vermont to Canada to buy the prescription drugs they need at far lower cost than in America.

In the midst of all of this--the 46 million Americans without health insurance, people being underinsured, and people paying outrageously high prices for prescription drugs--at the end of the day, our Nation pays far more for health care per person than any other country on Earth. Far more. It is not even close. Yet despite the enormous

sum of money we spend, our health care outcomes--what we get for what we spend--lag behind many other countries in terms of life expectancy-- how long our people live, in terms of infant mortality, and other health indices.

According to a recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics--this is just one example--the United States ranks 29th in infant mortality in the world--29th in the world. We are tied with Poland and Slovakia for 29th in the world in terms of infant mortality. In all due respect to our friends in Poland and Slovakia, we should be doing a lot better than that because we spend a lot more on health care than they do in Poland and Slovakia.

Further, according to a study published in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the United States has the highest rate of preventable deaths among 19 industrialized nations. Although our rate has declined over the past 5 years, it is doing so at a slower rate than other countries. According to that study, if the rate of preventable deaths in the United States improved to the average of the top three countries, which are France, Japan, and Australia, approximately 100,000 fewer residents of the United States would die annually.

When we talk about health care, we are not just talking about individuals who suffer and die because they do not have health care. What we are talking about is that the high cost of health care--as President Obama makes clear all of the time--is a major economic issue as well. In our country today, we are now spending about 16 percent of our GNP on health care, and the cost of health care is continuing to rise at a very high rate, which becomes economically unsustainable. The fact is, General Motors, which recently declared bankruptcy, spends more money on health care per automobile than they do on steel, and that creates an economic climate in which America--our companies-- becomes noncompetitive with other countries around the world. But it is not just large corporations such as GM. Small business owners in Vermont and throughout this country are finding it harder and harder not only to provide health care for their workers but even for themselves.

In addition, a recent study found that medical problems contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 and that between 2001 and 2007, the proportion of all bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by nearly 50 percent. Interestingly, 78 percent of those who experienced bankruptcy as a result of illness were insured. They were insured. These are not people who did not have any health insurance. But it speaks to the inadequacy and the lack of coverage, comprehensive coverage, in many health insurance programs.

We as a Congress, for whatever reason--and I will suggest the reason in a moment--do not really spend a lot of time discussing why the American health care system is so expensive, why it is so inefficient, why it is so complicated. We do not talk about that very much. I fear that has a lot to do with the role private health insurance plays over the political process in this country. Let me be very clear. In my view, the evidence is overwhelming that the function of a private health insurance company is not to provide health care. The function of a private health insurance company is to make as much money as it possibly can. The truth is, the more health care a private health insurance company denies people, the more money it makes. If you submit a claim for coverage and they deny it, from their perspective that is a very good thing because they make more money.

Further, in pursuit of making as much money as they can, private health insurance companies have created a patchwork system which is the most complicated, the most bureaucratic, and the most wasteful in the world. According to a number of studies, we are wasting about $400 billion a year in administrative costs, in profiteering, and in bureaucratic billing practices. That is enough money to provide health care to all of the uninsured.

I know that is not an issue we are supposed to be talking about here on the floor of the Senate because we are not supposed to take on the insurance companies or the drug companies because of all of their power. But I believe, if we are serious about moving toward a universal, comprehensive, cost-effective health care system in this country, we have to talk about the very negative role private health insurance companies are playing in that process.

Administrative costs for insurers, employers, and the providers of health care in the United States are about one out of every four health care dollars we spend. In other words, for every $1 we spend, one quarter of that dollar does not go to doctors, does not go to nurses, does not go to medicine, does not go to therapies; it goes to administration. That is at the root of the problem we have in terms of health care costs in America. In California--one example--only 66 percent of total insurance premiums are used to cover hospital and physician services. One-third, $1 out of every $3, is spent on administration, billing, claims processing, sales and marketing, finance and underwriting.

The American people want their health care dollars spent on health care. I know that is a radical idea, but when people spend money on health care, they assume it goes to the provision of health care, not profiteering, not administration, not hiring more bureaucrats to tell us we are not covered when we thought we were covered. What the American people want is close to 100 percent of that dollar to go to health care and not bureaucracy.

While health care costs in America have soared, as everybody knows, from 2003 to 2007 the combined profits of the Nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. Health care costs are soaring, profits of the major health insurance companies have gone up by 170 percent from 2003 to 2007, and CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies averaged over $14 million per CEO. To add insult to injury, some of these health care profits are going directly into campaign contributions and into lobbying to make sure, in fact, the Congress does not move forward toward real health care reform, which, in my view, means a single-payer health care system.

That is where we are right now. We have the most inefficient, wasteful, bureaucratic system of any major country on Earth. Our health care outcomes, despite all the money we spend, are way below many other countries in the world. And we are not discussing the most important issue with regard to health care spending; that is, the role private health insurance companies are playing.

We are now in the beginning of the debate on health care. I am going to do my best to make sure that issue of the role private health insurance companies are playing in the system, the very negative role they are playing, is something that, in fact, we talk about.

With that, I yield the floor.

Would the Senator from Ohio yield?

I wish to thank him for his cogent remarks, talking about one of the most basic issues facing this country and that is health care. We are on the Veterans' Committee as well, and I know you spend a lot of time talking to veterans in Ohio. Has the Senator heard a veteran in Ohio tell you they want to privatize the VA?

Every time that issue is raised, the veterans say no.

My friend from Ohio is exactly right. If you talk to the people of this country, if you talk to the veterans and say: Do you want VA

health care to be privatized? Overwhelmingly, no.

In recent years, the Senator from Ohio, I, and others, have worked to substantially increase funding for federally qualified community health care centers all over this country. These are the most cost-effective ways of providing quality health care, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs, mental health counseling.

The people of this country want those. I hope we have success in expanding that program. But I get a little bit tired of hearing from some of our friends on the other side who tell us: Oh, people do not want government involved in health care. Well, you tell that to seniors. Tell them you want to privatize Medicare. Tell that to the veterans, that you want to privatize the VA.

The fact is, as the Senator from Ohio indicated, we are wasting tens and tens of billions of dollars every year in bureaucracy, in billing, in excessive CEO salaries through private health insurance companies. At the very least, the people of this country are demanding, and we must bring forth, a strong--underline ``strong''--public option within any health care reform program we develop.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Gail Hansen, a fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor.

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

Madam President, I am very pleased that we are finally taking up this very important legislation. Regulating tobacco through the FDA is an essential part of addressing public health issues related to tobacco use, and I fully support this long overdue legislation. The cost of smoking is estimated at $96 billion a year in health care costs. The human toll is even more appalling: 440,000 smoking-related deaths per year. Tobacco is responsible for one-third of all cancer deaths in the United States each year, and tobacco use is the most preventable cause of death in the country.

There are many important provisions in this bill, but this issue is primarily about our children. It is appalling that in Vermont, one in every six high school students smokes cigarettes, and nationally 20 percent--one in every five high school students--smoke. Every day, about 3,600 children between 12 and 17 years of age smoke their first cigarette; 1,100 of them will become regular smokers, and 300 of those will ultimately die from this habit. That is condemning over 100,000 kids every year to a certain early death caused by tobacco. No wonder that 70 percent of voters strongly support FDA having the authority to regulate tobacco.

Make no mistake, tobacco marketing and marketing to kids is big business. The tobacco industry spends about $36 million every day marketing and advertising its addictive products in the United States. That is over $13 billion a year. The multinational corporations that market tobacco are not spending that kind of money if they don't expect a big return. Some of these ads are not just trying to get older addicted smokers to switch brands, they are marketing to girls and young women to get them to start smoking and they are marketing to teenage boys to get them to start smoking. They are adding candy flavors to get young people to start smoking.

That our Nation's most vulnerable are subjected to these kinds of marketing campaigns of multimillion-dollar profit companies is a disgrace and an outrage. Can one imagine a company trying to addict our young people to a habit which will prematurely kill them? I am not quite sure what kind of morality exists on the part of people who do this. We are talking about an industry where the largest company, Philip Morris, brought in $18.5 billion in revenue in 2007 from their U.S. business alone and over $64 billion in total revenues internationally. The tobacco industry spent nearly $28 million lobbying Congress in 2008, and from 1998 to 2006, they spent over $248 million to prevent Congress from acting to protect the children and the citizens of our country from this addictive practice. Given these figures and the fact that profit margins are estimated at 46 cents per pack for Philip Morris, I cannot understand any argument against legislation to regulate the marketing, advertising, and product standards of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Tobacco has been considered more addictive than heroin. Let me repeat: Tobacco has been considered more addictive than heroin. In fact, there are a number of anecdotal stories of former heroin addicts who were able to kick their heroin habit but not their tobacco habit. It was just too hard to quit tobacco compared to heroin. Imagine that.

Tobacco companies are adding nicotine and other chemicals to their products to make these products even more addictive. And they are not regulated. Nobody regulates them. They can add whatever they want whenever they want. So we have multinational corporate executives in three-piece suits making huge amounts in compensation packages based on selling a killing and addictive product to the American people and to our children. We should be very clear when we take a look at these CEOs and understand that they are nothing more than high-priced and high- paid drug pushers. This Congress has spoken out repeatedly against those horrendous people, the lowest of the low, who are trying to get our kids into heroin and other drugs. We should look at these CEOs in the same way and say to them: How dare you try to sell addictive products to our kids, get them hooked into smoking cigarettes, and force them to end their lives prematurely and, in many cases, very painfully.

While one major part of this issue is stopping tobacco use before it starts, Congress will also need to take up the issue of cessation. About 70 percent of all smokers say they want to quit smoking, but tobacco is so addictive that even the most motivated may try to quit eight or nine times before they are able to do so. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to address what I see as an addiction that leaves hard-working people struggling to make ends meet with limited choices in terms of cessation programs. What we have to do as a nation--and I know it is outside the scope of this particular bill--is to make it as easy as possible for anyone in America who wants help in order to stop smoking and kicking the habit to be able to do so. We are not there right now. Sometimes it is complicated. Sometimes it is expensive. Sometimes people do not know how to access cessation programs. But I think that is a goal we must strive for.

Studies have shown smoking has become even more concentrated among populations with lower incomes and with less education. Why do low- income people smoke? Medical research

shows that being poor is, needless to say, extremely stressful. And as anyone who has ever been addicted to tobacco knows, being anxious, being stressful makes you reach for a cigarette.

We have a lot of work in front of us. I think this bill is a very good step forward. The bottom line is, this Congress has to, through the FDA, regulate tobacco. Our goal has to be for these companies to stop pushing their dangerous and addictive product onto our people, especially our kids. Our goal has to be to come up with programs to make it as easy as possible for people to get off their addiction.

So we have a lot of work in front of us. I think this bill is a very good step forward.

Having said that, Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Madam President, I am assuming today we are, in fact, going to vote on the credit card legislation, which is a very important step forward in beginning to address some of the outrages the large banks and credit card industry are perpetrating on the American people.

A few weeks ago, I asked folks on my mailing list to tell me what credit card companies are doing to them. Within 3 days, we had over 5,000 responses, and many of these responses were hair-raising. People have seen their interest rates on their credit cards double, triple. People are now paying 25 or 30 percent interest rates, which to my mind is unacceptable.

The issue we are dealing with on credit cards is something I have been involved in for many years. I was a member of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives in 2003. We introduced legislation entitled the ``Credit Bait and Switch Prevention Act,'' which deals with many of the same issues that, in fact, we are going to be dealing with today. So it has taken us a little bit of time to get to where we are, but I think it is a step forward.

What I do wish to say is, while the legislation we are passing today is important--and it is a very good piece of legislation; I congratulate Chairman Dodd for his work on it--it does not go far enough. One of the areas where it is not going anywhere near as far as it should be is finally addressing the issue of usury in the United States of America and making a moral determination whether it is acceptable, whether it is moral for banks to be charging Americans 25 or 30 percent interest rates and, in some cases, in terms of payday lending, significantly higher than that. Is that what we want to be doing as a nation? What I would like to do now is briefly read from what I thought was a very thoughtful article by Arianna Huffington in the Huffington Post, where she touches on the issue of usury, which is an issue we have to address.

This is what she says:

Throughout history, usury has been decried by writers,

philosophers, and religious leaders.

Aristotle called usury the ``sordid love of gain,'' and a

``sordid trade.''

Thomas Aquinas said it was ``contrary to justice.''

In The Divine Comedy Dante assigned usurers to the seventh

circle of hell.

Deuteronomy 23:19 says, ``thou shalt not lend upon usury to

thy brother.''

Ezekiel 18:10 compares a usurer to someone who ``is a

thief, a murderer . . . defiles the wife of his neighbor,

oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not give

back a pledge, raises his eyes to idols, does abominable

things.''

The Koran is equally unequivocal: ``God condemns usury.''

And it goes on to say that ``those who charge usury are in

the same position as those controlled by the devil's

influence.''

In other words, throughout history, and in all the major religions, usury has been condemned. What civilization has said is that it is simply wrong and immoral for those people who have

money to take advantage of those people who need that money by charging them outrageously high interest rates. In my view, interest rates of 25, 30, 35, 50 percent are outrageous and it is usury, and it is time the Senate address those issues.

Up until the late 1970s--

and I am quoting Arianna Huffington again--

America's laws followed suit, keeping interest rates in

check.

Then, in 1979, a Supreme Court ruling allowed banks to

charge the top interest rate allowed by the State where a

bank is incorporated as opposed to the borrower's home State.

Hoping to lure banks' business, States like South Dakota and

Delaware repealed their usury laws--and off we went.

That same year, Congress passed the Depository Institutions

Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which, among other

things, allowed federally chartered savings banks and loan

companies to charge any interest rates they chose--putting us

on the path that led us to today, where banks routinely gouge

their most vulnerable customers.

So here is where we are today. The bottom line is we are going to pass a bill that is long overdue. It is a good bill. I commend Chairman Dodd for his hard work. It is an important step forward in protecting consumers. But I am going to be back on this issue of usury. In the United States of America, we have to finally tell banks and credit card companies it is simply not acceptable to charge people 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates. We have to end that abominable practice, and I intend to be playing an active role in that.

I ask unanimous consent that the article to which I have been referring be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, for the past 5 months, I blocked consideration of the nomination of Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. As a strong supporter of President Obama, I took no particular pleasure in doing that. But given Mr. Gensler's history as a senior executive of Goldman Sachs for 18 years and the role Mr. Gensler played in deregulating the financial services industry as a senior Treasury Department official from 1991 to 2001, I did not believe Mr. Gensler was the right person at the right time to help lead this country out of the financial crisis we find ourselves in today. In my view, we need a new vision of what Wall Street should be--one that is not

obsessed with quick profits, bubble economies, and huge compensation packages for top executives. We need financial institutions which will invest in a productive economy and which will help create millions of decent-paying jobs as we rebuild our Nation and rebuild the middle class.

I am happy to say that last week I had a productive meeting with Mr. Gensler, the second meeting I have had with him. While Mr. Gensler is clearly not the nominee I would have chosen for this position, nor were his answers all that I would have liked, there is no question in my mind that he is a stronger nominee today than he was 5 months ago when I first met him.

In preparation for the meeting last week, I outlined a number of issues I wanted Mr. Gensler to respond to, and let me highlight some of Mr. Gensler's written replies for my colleagues.

In terms of strongly regulating credit default swaps and other derivatives--something Mr. Gensler opposed in the Clinton administration--Mr. Gensler now says:

I believe we must urgently move to enact a broad regulatory

regime that covers the entire over-the-counter- derivatives

marketplace. As a key component of this reform, we should

subject all derivatives dealers to: Conservative capital

requirements; business conduct standards; recordkeeping

requirements, including an audit trail; reporting

requirements; and conservative margin requirements. I believe

that the CFTC should be provided with authority to set

position limits on all OTC derivatives to prevent

manipulation and excessive speculation. Such position limit

authority should clearly empower the CFTC to establish

aggregate position limits.

Mr. Gensler also wrote to me saying:

I will work closely with Congress to pass legislation that

will mandate registration of hedge fund advisers. In

addition, I will work with agency staff to review all

previously granted exemptions from registration.

Finally, Mr. Gensler told me in writing that he supports:

. . . actions to close the ``London loophole'' and ensure

that foreign futures exchanges with permanent trading

terminals in the U.S. comply with position limitations and

reporting and transparency requirements that are applied to

trades made on U.S. exchanges.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record all of Mr. Gensler's written responses to me dated May 14, 2009.

Mr. President, needless to say, I am encouraged by the commitments Mr. Gensler made to me to regulate hedge funds, to make sure banks are not allowed to manipulate the price of heating oil and crude oil, and to prevent the enormous conflicts of interest that exist with respect to our energy markets, among many other things.

In addition, last week the Obama administration introduced a comprehensive plan to--for the very first time--significantly regulate credit default swaps and other over-the-counter derivatives. Exempting these investments from regulation was a huge mistake that led to the $180 billion taxpayer bailout of AIG, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and greatly contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Last March, I and a number of other Senators asked the President to support strong regulations on these risky investment schemes. The President's proposal accomplishes many--not all but many--of the goals we have been advocating. While this plan is not as strong as I would have written and may have loopholes in it that need to be closed, I believe we are headed in the right direction to make sure a financial crisis of this magnitude never occurs again.

As a result of the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of Wall Street, our country has been thrown into a deep recession which has caused intense suffering for millions of our people. We need to end the current era of financial deregulation which largely caused this crisis and move to a new Wall Street which understands the need for long-term productive investment and job creation rather than short-term profits, outrageous salaries, and a bubble economy. We need to break up financial institutions that are too big to fail. If a company is too big to fail, that company is too big to exist. We should do the same thing to the banking industry that Teddy Roosevelt did to break up the oil companies. And we should stand up today, on behalf of the American people, to our modern-day robber barons. Most importantly, we need to end the era of deregulation that has led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

While I am still not convinced that Mr. Gensler is the independent leader we need at this time to head the CFTC, the strong commitments he has made recently in support of serious regulations of the financial industry lead me to believe he now understands the direction we as a nation have to go. Mr. Gensler certainly is a knowledgeable person and he has the ability to do a very fine job if he is willing, in fact, to stand up for the American people and assume the courage, the great deal of courage, he will need to stand up to the very powerful financial institutions which have so much control over what goes on here in Congress. In fact, this may be Mr. Gensler's ``Nixon in China'' moment.

I hope this turns out to be the case, and I look forward to working with Mr. Gensler as he assumes the Chair of the CFTC.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 1062 and send to the desk the modification.

This amendment is being cosponsored by Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Senator Whitehouse. It is not being supported by the American Bankers Association and the other financial institutions that have spent $5 billion in the last 10 years to push their interests against the needs of the American people.

This amendment is, in fact, very simple. It says now is the time to end usury in the United States of America. Now is the time to protect the American people against 25, 30 percent or more interest rates on their credit cards.

It says now, when the American taxpayer is spending hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out Wall Street, they should not be lending the American people their own money at usurious rates.

When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available; they are engaged in loansharking. That is what they are engaged in, and we should be very clear about that. Now is the time to eliminate that behavior.

We picked a number, a maximum of 15 percent plus 3 percent, under extraordinary circumstances, not because it came out of the top of my head but because credit unions in this country have been operating under that law for 30 years. And you know what. It has worked well.

It was not the credit unions coming in here for billions of dollars in bailouts; they are doing very well. This law has worked for credit unions; it should work for large financial institutions. Let's stand up for the American people. Let's put a cap on interest rates, 15 percent plus 3.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment, once again supported by Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Whitehouse.

I move to waive that.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I make a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Madam President, I move to set aside the pending amendment so I can call up amendment No. 1062, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam, this amendment, No. 1062, is being cosponsored by Senator Harkin, Senator Durbin, Senator Levin, Senator Leahy, and Senator Whitehouse. Before I speak on this amendment, let me begin by commending the chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd, and Ranking Member Shelby, for introducing the underlying bill we are debating today that, for the first time, would seriously begun to crack down on big banks and credit card issuers that are ripping off millions of American consumers by charging outrageously high interest rates and sky-high fees. The American people are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough. This legislation begins--begins--to move us in the right direction.

I also commend President Obama for his leadership on this issue. Without his tenacious support for this bill, it is doubtful we would have the necessary votes to pass this important piece of legislation-- and we will have the necessary votes to do that.

Under the Dodd-Shelby bill, credit card companies will no longer be payable to raise interest rates at any time for any reason. Credit card companies will be banned from retroactively raising interest rates on consumers who are less than 60 days late in paying their credit card bills.

This bill also prohibits credit card issuers from increasing interest rates on consumers during the first year after a credit card account is opened, and it requires teaser rates to last at least 6 months, among many other things.

When I was the ranking member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee in the House, I fought to end the ``bait and switch'' practices of the credit card companies for years. It is something we worked on for a long time in the House. I applaud Chairman Dodd for putting a stop to some of the most egregious practices being perpetrated by the credit card companies today.

But while Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby deserve strong credit for standing up to the big banks and credit card issuers that oppose this legislation, in my view, this bill, as good as it is, does not go far enough. That is why I am introducing this amendment today. At a time when banks are receiving the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world, at a time when the Federal Reserve is providing banks with zero interest loans, those same banks are now charging consumers outrageous fees and sky-high interest rates on credit cards and other loans.

In other words, after taking $700 billion from the taxpayers, after getting zero interest loans from the Fed, what these banks are now saying is: Thank you very much, chump, we are going to take your money, and then we are going to charge you 25 or 30 percent interest rates.

All over this country, people are saying: Sorry, that cannot be allowed to continue.

That is why we are here tonight. Today one-third of all credit cardholders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent--more than double what they paid in interest in 1990. Nineteen years later, people are now paying double what they paid in 1990. According to a recent Business Week article:

Bank of America sent letters notifying some responsible

cardholders that it would more than double their rates to as

high as 28 percent, without giving an explanation for the

increase. What's striking is how arbitrary the Bank of

America rate increases appear.

In other words, they are doing it, and I know many people in Vermont call and they say: I paid my bills every month on time. Why are you doubling my interest rates? Essentially, what the bank is saying is: We are doing it because we can do it.

That is not acceptable.

Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other banks should not be permitted to charge consumers 25 to 30 percent interest on their credit cards while they are getting bailed out by the middle-class taxpayers of this country. The amendment I am proposing with Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Whitehouse would cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent, the same interest rate cap that Congress imposed on credit unions almost 30 years ago. Under our amendment, the Federal Reserve would have the authority to allow credit card lenders to charge higher rates if the Fed determines this cap would threaten the safety and soundness of financial institutions.

In other words, the time is now--not tomorrow, not next year, but now--to have a national usury rate. As a nation, what we must say is banks cannot charge people 25 percent or 30 percent. As I mentioned, this is not a new idea I pulled out of my ear. This, in fact, is what credit unions have been living under for the last 30 years. Do you know what. Credit unions are doing fine. I don't see them crawling in here asking for hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout money. They are doing fine with that regulation, and we should impose that same regulation on the private banks as well.

Establishing a national usury law is not a radical concept. Up until 1978, about half the States in our country had usury laws on the books capping credit card interest rates. While the State usury laws remain on the books in several States, they were effectively eradicated by a 1978 Supreme Court decision Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corporation, which concluded that national banks could charge whatever interest rate they wanted if they moved to a State without a usury law, which is, of course, what they did. South Dakota, Delaware, other States do not have usury laws, and that is where these companies moved.

Our amendment simply applies the same statutory interest rate cap on credit cards that Congress imposed on credit unions in 1980, capping interest rates at 15 percent.

The National Credit Union Administration has the authority to raise interest rates if it determines the 15-percent cap threatens the safety and soundness of credit unions.

It is also important to know that the concept I am bringing forth tonight is one that former Senator Al D'Amato, Republican of New York-- who was then chairman of the Banking Committee, by the way--advocated for in 1991, when he offered an amendment to cap credit card interest rates. The D'Amato amendment would have capped all credit card interest rates at 14 percent. Do you know what. That amendment won on the floor of the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 74 to 19. That was back in 1991. If that amendment received 74 votes in 1991, the truth is our amendment should receive even more because the situation

today is more egregious than it was in 1991.

Here is what the Republican Senator, then chairman of the Banking Committee, Al D'Amato said in 1991:

Fourteen percent is certainly a reasonable rate of interest

for banks to charge customers for credit card debt. It allows

a comfortable profit margin but keeps banks in line so that

interest rates rise and fall with the health of the economy.

He was right then. We are right now.

The Bible has a term for what we are seeing today. I see a lot of my friends coming to the floor and quoting the Bible. I don't often do it, but let me do it at this moment.

In the Bible quite often we see the term ``usury.'' Usury. It appears very often in the Bible. Because not only in Christianity, but in Judaism, in the Muslim world, there is a reprehension against people who lend money out at outrageously high rates. There is a strong sense that that type of activity is not moral.

In Dante's ``Divine Comedy'' there was a special place reserved in the seventh circle of hell for sinners who charged people usurious interest rates. So that is a warning for our friends in the credit card companies. Beware.

Today we do not need the hellfire and pitchforks, we do not need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law capping credit card interest rates. That is why I am proposing this amendment today.

I am not under any illusion that this amendment will easily pass. After all, the financial services industry has spent over $5 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying activities over the past 10 years in support of deregulation, and they are spending even more money today trying to prevent Congress from seriously regulating their industry. They are a very powerful force here in Washington. In many ways all of that money has got us to where we are today with the collapse of major banking institutions.

Let me conclude by saying this: On April 24, a few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to my Senate mailing list, and I simply said: Tell me how credit card companies are treating you. We did not know what kind of response we would get. But 3 days later, I had almost 1,000 responses, many from obviously the State of Vermont, but from people all over this country.

I took some of these responses and I put them into a booklet. Let me conclude by reading a few of those e-mails that I received.

Donna from Neptune, NJ, writes:

I want to know why consumers are not protected in any way

from these predatory lenders who were bailed out with my

taxpayer dollars and then turn around and raise my interest

rates from 7 percent to 27 percent because of ``difficult

economic times'' for the credit industry. This is outrageous.

I have not missed a payment and my credit rating is in the

high 800s. How can they keep getting away with this?

And Steven from St. Johnsbury, VT, wrote:

A couple of weeks ago, Bank of America sent us a letter

saying they were going to raise our interest rate from 7.3

percent to 24 percent. The letter stated we could get our

credit report to find out why. We received our credit report

and I still have no reason why they wanted to raise our rate.

We did opt out, kept the 7.3 percent and we destroyed our

card, but we do know what was wrong with our credit report.

On and on it goes, arbitrary acts on the part of credit card companies, raising rates to outrageous levels. There is a lot of frustration on the part of the American people as to what has gone on in Wall Street, and the fact of what has gone on here in Congress.

The American people want to know that we are fulfilling our constitutional responsibilities and representing the needs of ordinary people and not just major financial institutions that may make lots of campaign contributions and have their lobbyists out lining the Halls of Congress.

The time is now to say there must be a limit on credit card rates. The time is now to pass a national usury law. I hope very much we will have the support of our colleagues in going forward on this legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, today we celebrate the 75th birthday of Senator James Merrill Jeffords of Vermont, who was born in Rutland, VT, on May 11, 1934.

He is the son of Marion Hausman and Olin Jeffords. His father served as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.

Jim Jeffords went to college at Yale University and thereafter got a law degree from Harvard Law School. He served 3 years of Active Duty in the U.S. Navy and was in the Naval Reserves until he retired as captain in 1990.

In 1966, he entered the political world and was elected to the Vermont State Senate. Two years later, he ran for Vermont attorney general and was elected to that position. In 1974, he ran for Vermont's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and served for 14 years. In 1988, Jim Jeffords was elected to the Senate of the United States. He was reelected in 1994 and 2000. In 2006, he retired from public life.

Jim Jeffords' mother was a music teacher. Her work had a profound impact on his life. While in Congress, he cofounded the Congressional Arts Caucus. He also began the Congressional High School Art Competition, a bipartisan program that celebrates the talents of local high school students in congressional districts all across America. That program still exists and flourishes.

Jim Jeffords' work in both the House and the Senate was centered on education, on job training, and on individuals with disabilities, culminating in his strong support for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. He will be long remembered as a champion of education, and especially for providing new and rich educational opportunities for those millions of Americans with disabilities who in too many instances were ignored by our schools.

Jim Jeffords continued a long Vermont tradition, in the footsteps of his predecessors Senator Robert Stafford and Senator George Aiken, of serving on the Environment and Public Works Committee. When he assumed the chair of that committee, he provided early and courageous leadership on an emergent problem, which today we recognize as the central environmental issue of our time: global warming.

Early on, Jim Jeffords recognized that the buildup of greenhouse gases would change the climate of our entire planet. He said about it:

The climate is warming, it is due to human activity, and

only a change in human behavior will ensure that my grandson,

Patton Henry Jeffords, will not suffer the consequences.

But he not only recognized the problem, he set about finding a solution, drafting far-reaching cap-and-trade legislation which even today represents the single most important Federal route to reducing greenhouse gases and to lessening and hopefully reversing global warming. As we consider cap-and-trade legislation in this session, we will be continuing the work Jim Jeffords helped begin and which his foresight set on the national agenda.

In 2001, Jim Jeffords, in a move of great courage, left the Republican Party and became an Independent. This action changed control of the Senate, won widespread support in Vermont, and thrust this normally reserved and quiet man into the national spotlight.

On October 1, 2002, Jim Jeffords was 1 of 23 Senators to vote against authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.

I, personally, have known Jim Jeffords for 37 years, and I can attest to the warmth and affection with which he is held to this day in the State of Vermont. Unassuming, straightforward, and honest, he is respected not only by those who agreed with his views but by those who disagreed. His service has been a beacon of Vermont independence and vision, and so I join the rest of my fellow citizens in Vermont and the Senators in this body in wishing Jim a very happy 75th birthday.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about an issue that will be on the Senate floor next week, and that is the outrageous way that the credit card industry is treating millions and millions of Americans. Last week, 2 weeks ago, I sent an e-mail out to my mailing list, which is about 135,000 people, and I said: Tell me how credit card companies are treating you. Within a few days, we had 1,000 responses, many from Vermont but, in fact, from all over the country.

Essentially, what people were saying, as they described the treatment they are receiving at the hands of these credit card companies: We are disgusted that at the same time we as taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street and these large financial institutions, at the same exact time as the big banks are receiving zero interest loans from the Fed, the response of the credit card companies and the banks is to double or triple the interest rates we are paying on our credit cards.

The stories that came in were heartbreaking, appalling, and they spoke to the greed and the callousness of many of these financial institutions. We put a couple dozen of these responses into a little booklet called ``Enough is Enough, How Credit Card Companies Are Abusing Americans, Letters from Vermont and the Nation.'' They are available on my Web site at sanders.senate.gov.

What I want to do for the moment is read some of the comments we received from Vermont and around the country and also invite any viewer who has a problem to correspond with us and we will read them right here in the Senate. I think it is time that some of my colleagues in the Senate understood what is going on in the real world.

Yes, I do understand that the financial interests have put $5 billion into lobbying and campaign contributions over the last 10 years. And, yes, I do understand that despite the fact that they have pushed this country, through their greed and recklessness, into a recession, they still have enormous power on Capitol Hill. But maybe it is time that we started listening to the American people rather than the lobbyists from the large banks.

I will read a few of the comments, excerpts from some of the responses we received from all over the country. This is from Donna from New Jersey:

I want to know why consumers are not protected in any way

from these predatory lenders who were bailed out with my

taxpayer dollars and then turn around and raise my interest

rate from 7 percent to 27 percent because of ``difficult

economic times'' for the credit industry. This is outrageous!

I have not missed a payment and my credit rating is in the

high 800's. How can they keep getting away with this?

Well, that is a good question. How can they keep getting away with this? And they continue to get away with it.

This is from James in Highgate Center, VT:

I once had Bank of America charge me 27.99 percent interest

when I had only a $53 balance on one of their cards. I of

course paid it in full, then closed out the card to avoid

doing business with those crooks!

The next one is from Los Angeles, CA, from Jennifer:

I have personally had three separate credit cards raise the

APR to 29.99 percent--when I have paid my bills on time

(Citicard, Chase and [Bank of America]). Then just last

billing cycle, another card I am in perfect standing with

doubled my APR--no apparent reason (Chase).

Well, I think Jennifer raises a good question. What are we doing about it? How can companies get away with doubling or tripling the interest rates on people who have always paid their bills on time?

This is from Sheila in Wilder, VT:

I am tired of being the one who has to pay! The executives

of these credit card companies mess up and the little people

pay. The government messes up and the little people pay. Now

my oldest child is going off to college and I can't even get

financial help except for loans. Yes, more interest! So now I

have to pay more interest on my credit cards. When will I get

help?

Well, Sheila, I guess you will have to contribute a whole lot of money into the political system because apparently Congress is not listening to you.

Susan and John in Sea Cliff, NY:

Capital, Chase, and Bank of America all doubled and tripled

their rates despite a lifelong perfect payment record, with

no excuse (we phoned them) except that they could. This is

nothing but breach of promise and a flat-out theft. A good

reason for severe, retroactive rollbacks or simple seizure of

banks. . . .

Theft? Not bad.

Anne from Brattleboro, VT:

I live in a small town in Vermont. I feel that the credit

card companies need to have a ceiling on interest rates and

fees they are stealing from us. We pay for the bail out and

we pay the interest increases. They must think we are stupid.

And on and on it goes. This is just a couple of dozen. We received 1,000. There are millions of people out there who are sick and tired of being ripped off.

What is the solution? I think the House has made some progress. I guess the Senate committee is making some progress. Ultimately, what we have to do is call a spade a spade and say that when you are charging people 25, 30 percent in interest rates, that is usury. That is outrageous. It should be illegal in America.

As many people know, for a number of years individual States had usury rates. They said loans could not be made out above whatever the rate may be, depending on the State. Then what happened in 1978, the Supreme Court made a decision in the Marquette case which basically said if a credit card company did business in a State without any usury rates, other States could not stop them from charging any interest rates whatsoever. That is, in fact, what has happened.

I have introduced legislation and will bring up an amendment when we debate the credit card issue. I hope we can get some support in the Senate to pass a national usury law. The rate we have decided upon is 15 percent, with some exceptions. The reason we chose that as the ceiling is that is exactly what credit unions have been existing under for 30 years. A lot of people don't know that. But a credit union cannot charge 25, 30 percent interest rates. It is illegal for them to do that by law. So I think if we have a regulatory ethic with credit unions that has been working quite well for the last 30 years--credit unions are not marching into Washington for bailouts--I think we can apply it to the private sector as well.

What we are proposing is a cap on interest rates of 15 percent; under exceptional circumstances, which is currently the case for credit unions, another 3 percent. That would be it.

I think that is sensible legislation. Whether we can get much support here and take on the banking interests, I don't know. But I think it is what the American people want. I certainly hope we can pass legislation like that.

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

I need 5 minutes.

I thank the chairman for yielding. I want to congratulate him and his staff for the excellent work they have done on this budget, which I certainly will be voting for.

What I wanted to do is to take a brief moment to highlight a provision in the budget resolution that I introduced, along with Senators Feingold, Webb, and Bunning. That deals with the outrage that exists in our country at what happened last year and this year on Wall Street. I think, as most Americans know, as a result of the greed, the recklessness, the illegal behavior we have seen within some of our largest financial institutions, our country and, in fact, much of the world, has been plunged into a very deep recession which has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, their savings, and their ability to get a higher education.

A lot of people are suffering because of the greed and recklessness of Wall Street. In my view, the regulatory efforts of the last several decades, which I strongly opposed as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, have proven to be a grotesque failure.

The bottom line is, when you deregulate Wall Street, they do what we would expect that they do; that is, they do anything and everything they can to make as much profit as they can in as short a period of time as they can, no matter how recklessly they behave in the process.

They create a bubble. When that bubble bursts, as it surely would, the American people are left holding the bag in the midst of a very deep recession. In my view it goes without saying that we must restore regulations on Wall Street.

One part of that process is to bring about substantially increased transparency. It is beyond comprehensive, it is absurd, that trillions of dollars in credit default swaps and other exotic and complicated financial instruments are traded every single day with no public understanding about who owns these instruments or the impact these trades are having on the world's financial system.

I am happy to note that as one small step forward in terms of transparency, this budget resolution incorporates provisions that passed the Senate by a 59-to-39 strongly bipartisan vote. What that amendment does is quite simple: It adds the reality that in the midst of this financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has lent out over $2 trillion to financial institutions. If you were to ask the American people, if you were to ask any Member of this Senate, any Member of the House, who received that money, which financial institutions got it, and what the terms are that they received it are, nobody would be able to tell you. No one in this country understands it, because that has been kept secret.

What the provision that I introduced into the budget resolution does is simply say: We have got to make that public. The American people have a right to know who is getting those loans and what the terms are.

I am delighted that that provision is in the budget resolution. In my view, this is a small step forward in fighting for transparency within the Fed. It is a smaller step forward, overall, in beginning the reform measures that we need to create a new Wall Street, so that never again will we be placed in the position that we have been over the last few months.

I yield the floor.

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