Floor Statements

Madam President, let me commend our two colleagues, Senator Tester and Senator Hutchison, for this proposal. As I said several times yesterday, I think this is a very sound contribution to this bill for the very reasons outlined this morning by Senator Hutchison and Senator Tester earlier--reducing the cost to our community banks at a time when obviously they are all feeling tremendous pressures under this economy. So I am a strong and ardent supporter of their proposal, and I am confident it will be overwhelmingly supported by our colleagues.

Let me quickly add we are going to be moving on after that vote to the Shelby, et al., amendment regarding consumer protection and complete replacement for the title. My colleague from Texas has written to me along with Jay Rockefeller regarding the Federal Trade Commission's interests, and we have worked that out, I believe, to the satisfaction of my colleagues on the Commerce Committee. But I draw to the attention of Members the amendment we will be voting on does great damage to the FDIC's rulings and abilities in this legislation. I urge people to take a good look at what we are going to be asked to support, as it deprives the FDIC of some of the very authority and rulemaking that I think we want to preserve in our legislation. So I will address the Shelby amendment after the Hutchison-Tester amendment is disposed of.

But let me say in response to the minority leader, one of the strongest features of what has happened to our country over the last several years is we have had seven different Federal agencies that have divisions on consumer protection. They have been around for a long time. The reality is, most of them were asleep at the switch and were treated as second-class operations within their prudential regulator to such a degree that even though we mandated legislatively to protect home mortgages and people, they never even promulgated a single regulation in this area. Small businesses watched credit card rates go through the ceiling. Many people who rely on that ability are watching their rates jump from 5 percent to 22 percent, which is not uncommon.

So the idea that this has been a division between bureaucracy in Washington and what happens on Main Street is a complete aberration. We have seen 7 million people lose their homes, many of them because they were lured into deals they never could afford at the fully indexed price. We saw the outrage expressed by consumers and we saw consumer credit cards again where rates exploded, making it difficult. There are all sorts of features.

This bill covers only financial products and financial services. That dentists and butchers and retailers on the street are going to be affected by this is a complete myth, totally so, and the provisions of the bill couldn't be more clear about it. There are no new regulations. We are taking existing consumer laws, things such as truth in lending, fair credit. Some legislation goes back 50 years to protect consumers and others from the kind of activities people have to worry about every day, in terms of making sure they are not going to be abused by people who would take advantage of them. The question is whether anybody is going to enforce any of this. So by setting up this agency in the Federal Reserve, we are giving them independent rulemaking authority, appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate as an operation, and then working in consultation with prudential regulators so we don't end up with a conflict between the safety and soundness requirements of our financial institutions and the consumer protection issues.

In the absence of this, what we are confronted with every year is having to draft legislation to deal with one consumer problem after another, and we all know how long that can take, if it ever gets done at all. In the meantime, we see what happens to average citizens who have paid dearly.

As to the whole shadow economy, community banks are right to be annoyed. Here they are located on one street corner, and they have a payday lender on the other corner completely unregulated. Here they are as a community bank having to go through a regulatory process to make sure things are working right and yet the shadow economy operating maybe 100 yards away and no protections. Under this proposed amendment, we require assessments of community banks to pay for the regulation of the nonbanks. Here they go again. Another cost. Our bill does none of that. The cost of the consumer protection agency comes out of Fed money; no assessment, no appropriations to support it. This one requires an assessment. Here we are

going to adopt an amendment, the Hutchison-Tester amendment, which reduces the cost to 98 percent of consumer banks, and the next amendment adds an assessment onto them. We have to be a little bit consistent about this.

So that is what the Shelby amendment does. There is an assessment in his bill on community banks, on the nonbank community. So while nonbanks will pay some, the other ones do. We don't do that in our bill. I think there are so many assessments out there already. That shouldn't be the case. We consolidate so you get clarity, not seven agencies telling you what consumer regulation you ought to follow or not. They deserve clarity in thought so there is a consistent line of what is occurring out there and that consultation and cooperation with prudential regulation so we don't have the conflicts.

We spent a lot of time going through this. This amendment, the provision of the bill, is one that was worked on, by the way, on a bipartisan basis as we were drafting it so we could have this feature of the bill.

Again, I am willing to listen to ideas on how we can strengthen this and make it more clear against some of the accusations that we are reaching into Main Street on this legislation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not reaching into it at all. Obviously, any proposal deserves to be looked at again and other ideas that can tweak it and make it look better. But the idea that we are going to level assessments--the FTC gets damaged, in my view, as it is presently written. I think people need to read carefully what they are going to be asked to vote on in the Shelby amendment and then walk away from it. It is worse than the status quo in many ways. It takes a huge step back. If there is anything we have learned in the last 2 years, it is those small businesses, those people out there who rely on the flow of credit, the access to capital, to see to it there is going to be someone watching out on a consistent basis to what happens to them, we believe we have a very strong provision in our legislation.

Senator Tester is here to close on the amendment. I apologize for drifting off into this other area. I see my colleague and friend from Massachusetts. But I know Senator Tester wishes to be heard on the Hutchison amendment. So I apologize to my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first of all, if I may, let me acknowledge the contribution of the Presiding Officer, my colleague from New York. Everyone brings value to this Chamber from time to time based on what they have done in their earlier lives. I thank her immensely for bringing her background and experience to this critical debate we are having. She spent a lot of years working in this area of the law, knows it well, and I have come to appreciate her counsel and advice and thoughts on all of this, and I want to acknowledge that, if I may.

Madam President, as I said at the outset, there are four major pieces of this bill of ours, and I will add a fifth, obviously, dealing with the derivative section that was worked on by the Presiding Officer as a member of the Agriculture Committee, Blanche Lincoln being the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. Title VII of this bill deals with that section. The Banking Committee side deals with the four other major parts of this bill, and they are, No. 1, end too big to fail; No. 2, set up an early warning system--and I am being simplistic in describing these--deal with the derivatives and the so-called exotic instruments; and have a strong consumer protection feature to this bill. Those are the four points.

We have resolved, I believe to virtually all of our satisfaction, the too-big-to-fail argument. We did that yesterday. And again, I thank my colleagues, particularly Senator Shelby and others, for helping us work through that to come to a conclusion that ends the debate as to whether the bill before us ends too big to fail. I think that in itself would be justification for supporting the legislation--knowing that if we adopt this legislation, as I am hopeful we will, and Lord forbid we are confronted with another major economic crisis, we will not be faced with the choices we were in the fall of 2008 where the American taxpayer wrote out a check for $700 billion to bail out major financial institutions that were on the verge of collapse. We were told that if they did so, the financial system of our country, and possibly globally, would melt down, to use their words. What we wanted to avoid was ever being put in that position again, where you had the implicit guarantee that the Federal Government would write that kind of check. We have done that now in this bill, so let's check that box. Too big to fail is over with, and this bill takes care of that. We need to pass the bill, and we need the President to sign it so that it becomes law. But as of right now, we are far closer to resolving that issue than ever before.

The derivative section of the bill and so forth--I know people are working on this and working with Senator Lincoln and others on that section of the bill. I respect immensely their efforts to make sure we can arrive at a compromise. We think we have good provisions in the bill, but I think all of us recognize other ideas and thoughts are always welcome. So that is being worked on.

The sort of radar, the look-ahead approach to our legislation, I don't think there is any debate about, so that box has sort of been checked. Maybe someone has some amendments on what they would like to do to strengthen it but not the idea that we have an early warning system so that we pick up these problems far earlier than we did or were willing to acknowledge as they were developing within the residential mortgage market as early as 2005 and 2006, beginning to explode in 2007, and then, of course, watching the events of 2008, culminating in the fall with the decisions we had to make in order to stabilize the financial system in our country. Had we had that early warning system--more than just one set of eyes at the Federal Reserve, which did, to put it mildly, a very inadequate job of picking up what was occurring in the real estate bubble--we would never have found ourselves in the situation we did in our country in the fall of 2008.

We believe the early warning system will be a major step in limiting the kinds of problems we have seen in the last couple of years. It does not stop the next economic problem. There will be another economic crisis. Future generations will deal with that. There is nothing in this bill that prohibits us or guarantees us that we have once and for all avoided economic crises. First of all, we are no longer in total control of that within our own country. How many more headlines do we have to read about Greece and what is occurring there--the riots in the streets today because of the economic decisions they are making to stabilize their country. These are already having an effect globally. So while we can do a lot to minimize what happens here, we recognize today that we live in a far more interconnected world that poses its own set of risks.

Nonetheless, I think the fact that we have established, on a bipartisan basis--and again, our colleagues Mark Warner and Bob Corker, along with other Members, did a great job, in my view, in crafting that part of our bill. So I think we have done a good job there, and I see very little dissent about it.

The fourth piece, the consumer protection, is the one in which we are now engaged. This is a debate that I believe is worth having over the next hour or two and then vote. Let me say to my friend from Alabama, the author of the amendment, and his cosponsors that we have to come and debate this stuff. I am here and will be glad to engage in the debate, but I have one other colleague here right now involved in this question. This is a major part of the bill.

People have told me over and over again that this is a big issue for them. I am willing to accept their determination. I think it is a big issue too. But we have about 100 amendments people want to offer, and we have about 39 legislative days between now and the end of this Congress, with an awful lot to do.

Now, I can't get there for you. I can't get your amendments up if others insist upon elongated times on the consideration of their amendments. We have all been debating consumer protection for years now, particularly over the last 18 months. There is no reason to have a protracted debate on this question. My Republican friends have offered a substitute to my bill on this issue, and I welcome that substitute. We need to now debate it and then vote on it and move on to the next issue.

Madam President, I am delighted to see my good friend, who just arrived to engage in this discussion. So let me address this issue of consumer protections in terms of both what we have in the bill, reading the language of it, and what the alternative would do.

Let me first of all say that I listened to my friend from Nebraska, Senator

Johanns, a wonderful member of our committee and a person I have come to respect very much. He has been very productive and very helpful in the Banking Committee.

But the idea, to use his language, that we are covering florists and accountants and lawyers and dentists--nothing could be further from the truth. I guess the old adage is, if you say something often enough and repeat it often enough and if it goes unchallenged, it becomes a fact. It is not a fact. In fact, it is anything but a fact. I know they wish to use that argument to try to pass their amendment or to defeat the sections of the bill I have included, but I cannot say it any more clearly to my colleagues. I believe it is section 1027 of the bill. You have all got copies of the bill on your desk. Read section 1027 when you come to the floor. It is not complicated legislative language. It says specifically the only reason you would be covered by the consumer protection language in this bill is if you are significantly involved in financial services or financial products.

I realize the word ``significantly'' is what people want to work on, and I am willing to listen to some ideas as to how we can define that word ``significantly.'' That is not a bad point. I understand that. But don't tell me it covers a florist under any definition of the words ``significantly involved in financial services and products.'' It excludes retailers and merchants across the country. Again, I am willing to debate all sorts of language here but don't make me debate completely false allegations about what is in the bill.

At any rate, we have been working on our bill for a long time. My compliments and thanks to my colleague from Alabama for the efforts yesterday and so forth. But this is a very important part of the bill. We have worked to create an early warning system, as I mentioned, and of course too big to fail, but consumer protection is critical because it goes to the very heart of what we are trying to do. In fact, it was consumers, small businesses, families, individuals, farms that were adversely affected. Wall Street did fine, as we have seen. Some people lost some jobs along the way. A couple of these large institutions did collapse. But we have heard about the bonuses that went to top executives. The buildings are still there. They have been making record profits over the last couple of years. But what happened to those millions of people who had a home that now is gone? What happened to those 8.5 million jobs? Gone. What happened to those retirees in our country who watched 20 percent of their retirement evaporate? What happened to those people who still have a house but the value of that home has declined by 30 percent in the last year and a half? I don't know what you call them; I call them consumers, the average person in our country who did not do anything except try to hold body and soul together, got lured into a bad deal by people who were unregulated and were willing to convince them they could buy a home they never could afford, knowing that the fully indexed adjustable rate mortgage was going to wipe them out.

I talked about Dolores King, who was the first witness I brought to our committee 3 years ago, in January or February of 2007. She was a retiree in Chicago who worked as a librarian for 30 or 40 years. Her husband had died. She had about a $30,000 or $40,000 credit card debt and some unscrupulous broker came in and convinced her she needed to rewrite her mortgage and an adjustable rate mortgage would work for her. She lost everything. She lost her home--70 percent of her fixed retirement income went to pay that mortgage.

So when people tell me you cannot get consumer protection, when that automobile company a few weeks ago had to recall its cars because the accelerator got stuck, they got recalled. Did Dolores King get her mortgage recalled because it was faulty, when she lost her home? That is what consumer protection does. If you are in the business of financial services and products, having someone watch out for the average citizen ought not be such a radical idea when we talk about financial reform.

We have this in a way, on a bipartisan basis, I might add, that sets up an independent consumer protection agency housed at the Federal Reserve. Its director is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It has the authority to write rules on consumer protection in the financial services area where financial products are involved.

Then of course it has examination and enforcement authority--only for those institutions that have assets more than $10 billion--for enforcement; otherwise, it is done at the local level. The rules are the same. We don't write any more rules. The rules are there. They have been around in some cases for 50 years--truth in lending, fair credit, RESPA--all of these laws in place. All we are saying, can someone enforce them and examine institutions and determine whether they are living up to them?

Right now there are seven agencies that have a consumer protection division. For a huge part of our economy, no one is watching them. One of the very legitimate complaints our community banks make: We get regulated but that guy down the street, that payday lender, no one is watching out what he is doing every day, and we are disadvantaged. Our bill stops that. If you are a payday lender, you are under the same rules that banks would be under--at least have someone watching out there. That is a major step forward. We recognize a major part of our economy's collapse or near collapse was in the shadow area of our economy. Our legislation fills those gaps.

We understand, or should understand, how important having an independent agency with rulemaking authority is. Again, the issue is-- wait a minute, you have to be careful, Senator, because you have safety and soundness and the prudential regulators have to be considered in all this. That is a legitimate point. I don't disagree with that, although I think sometimes the accusation that there is this great conflict is exaggerated. Our bill says the prudential regulators have to examine and look at the rules coming out. If they vote, two-thirds of them, and say that rule creates a conflict or some problem, it does not go into effect. There is not another agency in government that can have its own regulations or rules vetoed by another group of regulators. That was a suggestion, again, by Republican colleagues to include in our bill, to provide the kind of safeguards against potential conflicts of interest between safety and soundness and consumer protection.

Again, that today with seven agencies tasked with consumer protection, not one of which did the job to anyone's satisfaction in the lead-up to this crisis, ought to be justification alone for what we are trying to do. Our legislation will have an independent director appointed by the President and confirmed by this body, as I said. They will have a dedicated independent budget paid for by the Federal Reserve Board.

The proposal we are being asked to vote on adds additional assessments to banks and to nonbanks. We just got through adopting the Tester-Hutchison amendment regarding assessments, to reduce the assessments on community banks. If you adopt the Shelby amendment, you are going to add assessments on again. Here we vote on one hand to take them away, and now with an amendment--this asks to put them back on and is asking our community banks for additional assessments to cover the activities of nonbanks. I thought I heard my colleagues say around here we ought to be more sensitive to what is happening at the community bank level. Yet this amendment my colleagues are going to be asked to vote for does the opposite. So be very careful when you get up and vote for this amendment to explain why, later, if in fact it gets adopted, this bill does, why we are adding assessments to those banks.

Our bill will have an office of financial literacy to ensure consumers are able to understand the products and services being offered, which was a major problem in the last crisis, and a national toll-free consumer complaint hotline so Americans have somewhere to go when they need to report a problem.

Our bill will make us empowered to write consumer protection rules governing any institution, bank, or payday lender that offers consumer financial services or products, and only those businesses that do that. In short, we are ending the alphabet soup of distracted and ineffective regulators and

replacing it with one single, empowered, focused cop on the consumer protection beat.

Again, a complaint, I think legitimately, is when you have seven agencies with consumer protection jurisdiction--I think the lack of clarity is important. My colleagues should understand that. My colleague from Alabama has come out with a Republican substitute for the consumer protection bureau. I am surprised. I know my friends were not going to agree with the consumer protection provisions as strongly as some of the ones in my bill, and in some of my more pessimistic moments I thought they might want to maintain the status quo, but this is worse than the status quo. This is a major step back. This substitute actually goes backward, making it easier for unscrupulous lenders to rip off the American public, businesses, and families. It is a stimulus package for scam artists, that is what it is, this amendment; nothing short of that. For the life of me, I cannot understand, after months of hearings, months of analysis, months of discussion regarding the fact this financial crisis started with a failure of consumer protection, anyone would think that the right solution is less consumer protection. Yet that is exactly what this amendment does.

It is as though we are in a deep hole and we spent a full year debating how to get out and our Republican friends' solution is: Keep digging.

I am going to walk through the provisions of their substitute but, in short, here is why it is simply unacceptable.

First, when it comes to writing new consumer protection rules, the Wall Street substitute--and that is what it is--relies on the same regulators who screwed up the country in the first place. Why would you ask them to do it again?

Second, when it comes to enforcing rules, their plan actually makes things worse, reducing regulators' ability to stop rip-offs and leaving American families even more vulnerable.

Third, the Republicans' substitute wants to raise taxes on community banks and credit unions to pay for the regulation that will not even happen.

Fourth, they want to make it easier to sell Americans mortgages they cannot afford which, if you have been paying any attention at all to what has been going on in the last 18 months, is the very reason we got into this mess in the first place, making it easier to sell Americans mortgages they cannot afford.

Fifth, to top it all off, this substitute eliminates the provision of any consumer protection proposal that targets discrimination in lending. How on Earth could anyone be against ending discrimination in lending? Yet that is also a part of this substitute.

If you look at how we got into the crisis and you conclude that the answer is to weaken consumer protection, you are doing it all wrong. Let me go into a bit more detail, and then I see my colleagues want to be heard as well.

The first important change in the Republican substitute is, instead of having an independent agency write consumer protection rules, it puts the task in the hands of the same distracted and ineffective regulators who failed so badly in the first place.

What would that mean for the consumers? Here is a preview. One of those regulators has already demonstrated itself to be anticonsumer, opposing proposed rules to keep credit card companies from retroactively raising interest rates on outstanding balances.

I can speak firsthand. I am the guy who wrote the credit card bill. The agency that fought me on it now is going to be tasked with the job of protecting people from it. For the life of me, of all the agencies you could have picked to run this in your bill, you picked the one agency that has fought us on credit card reform. It is stunning to me that someone would actually write a substitute tasking this agency, knowing this was the agency that did so much damage, was opposed to the idea that we put limits on interest rates to be charged on outstanding balances. That is not putting consumer protection at the heart of our financial system, that is putting consumer protection in the backseat, where it has been for far too long.

That is not the worst of it. The Republican substitute limits enforcement powers to ``large nonbank mortgage originators.'' Large nonbank mortgage originators--other finance companies will avoid enforcement unless they demonstrate a ``pattern or practice'' of consumer abuses. In other words, their version of the consumer protection agency will not be allowed to prevent abuses committed by commercial--or banks, or payday lenders, check cashers, credit card companies, debt collectors, car dealers who are involved in the finance business, and a wide range of the worst actors in the subprime mortgage industry, until it is already too late for potentially thousands of consumers to be protected. It is as though they want to create a police department that is allowed to enforce laws against littering. Maybe they will cut down on littering, but to leave the same regulators to deal with the rest of the financial sector, they are essentially turning a blind eye to every other kind of crime out there. In fact, it is like legalizing those crimes by eliminating the Federal Trade Commission authority to police unfair and deceptive financial practices in these other sectors. The substitute is worse than the status quo, and the status quo is very bad indeed.

Meanwhile, the substitute raises taxes on potentially any nonbank financial services company. It allows the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to raise assessments on banks, including community banks and credit unions. In fact, their plan would ask credit unions to pay for the regulation of their nonbank competitors--the same competitors who will be getting a free ride, exempted from any Federal oversight whatsoever.

Our plan is to have the Federal Reserve pay for enforcement. Their plan is to have community banks pay for enforcement, and then do not have the enforcement, of course. That is a tax increase they don't need and one that our depository institutions, so critical to rebuilding our economy, cannot afford.

The amendment also prohibits the establishment of strong mortgage underwriting standards. We all know how important it is to establish better underwriting standards. If we had rules in place 2 years ago that required banks and mortgage lenders to make loans only to people who could show that they have the ability to repay them, we would not be in this mess--if that had been the case.

The amendment before us would prohibit the new division we have proposed to create from issuing commonsense rules like these. If you had to pick one thing in this bill to undermine and ensure that we have another financial crisis, in my view, this would be it.

The substitute also eliminates as an objective of the new consumer division the goal of eliminating discrimination. I believe this goal is essential to restoring America's faith in our markets.

In short, I find it impossible to work with this proposal. There are ideas I am willing to listen to, that we might define ``significantly'' and things like that. That is fine. I understand that. But this approach does more damage than you can imagine.

Again, to go back to what I said at the outset, we have spent a lot of time talking about what happened to the big firms on Wall Street and what happened to large institutions and large manufacturers. The root cause of the problem we are in began because there was a total disregard for small businesses and families and individuals out there; that they could take advantage of them, as they did, because they could sell off--they could get paid immediately, they securitized these crummy mortgages out there, leaving that home owner in a situation they could never afford to sustain, and the house of cards came tumbling down. And it all began--it all began--with that problem.

I say, respectfully, this proposal goes right at the heart of the very issue we must address in this bill, in addition to all of the other aspects we are talking about. There is no more very important vote we will cast, in my view, in this debate than this one. If we walk away from providing the safeguards for the average American--I do not care what their politics are, what their ideology is, anything else, they deserve to know in this debate, at long last, they are being considered, that watching out for them is part of this.

The outrageous case that this somehow reaches into retailers and merchants is highly offensive to me. It is the last thing I would ever suggest to my colleagues, that we somehow get into the business as Federal regulators of poring over florists and dentists and butchers and accountants and lawyers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This goes after those businesses involved in financial services and products. It does so in a way that provides clarity, provides an opportunity for those institutions to be regulated, to know what rules they have to follow, and who is in charge of insisting that they meet those obligations.

So with that, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. My hope is we will vote fairly soon. Again, we have hundreds of amendments that people want to be heard on, and we do not have all of the time in the world to deal with it. So we have to move on on these issues.

I think people understand the debate. They can read the amendment. I urge you to read 1027 in our bill, the section dealing with consumer protection, dealing with who is covered. Then we will have a vote.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 789, the nomination of Larry Robinson to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere; that the nomination be confirmed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that any statements be printed in the Record; the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Madam President, before turning to my colleague from New York, let me say how fortunate I have been as chairman of the committee to have Senator Bennet as a member of our committee. I want to thank him immensely. He is a new member of the committee, but, again--like the Presiding Officer, like my other colleague from New York--I cannot tell you how valuable it has been having people who understand this issue and who bring to this Chamber a previous life rich with the experience of understanding these issues. So let me thank the people of Colorado for having the Senator here. What a difference the Senator has made in the consideration of this legislation.

Some of the newest members of the committee--and I think my colleague, the senior Senator from New York, would acknowledge this-- some of the newest members of our committee made some of the most valuable contributions to this product, which is further evidence that you do not have to be here that long. In fact, sometimes maybe the shorter time you are here, you bring that kind of fresh experience from our States and across the country.

So I did not want the moment to pass without expressing to Michael Bennet of Colorado my deep, deep appreciation. I say to the Senator, I thank you for your leadership, your thoughtfulness, and the contributions you have made not only to this product but to others during your tenure.

Thank you.

Madam President, I will respond more fully a little later because my colleague and friend from Minnesota is on the floor to be heard, but I just wish to say that a lot of work went into this bill on consumer protection.

You don't have to wait 10 or 15 years to find out what can happen. We have watched painfully what can happen over the last several years, when the very people--the prudential regulators--should have been standing and saying: No-doc loans are wrong and dangerous. In fact, it was consumer groups that warned about the real estate bubble. We were being told everything was safe and sound because people were making money, and it looked like it might go on forever.

Of course, everyone has 20/20 hindsight looking back as to what occurred. But had we had in place someone saying: No-doc loans, no downpayments, adjustable rate mortgages at fully indexed prices are going to cripple people's ability to meet those obligations, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. None of the seven agencies that have jurisdiction over consumer protection were doing their job very well.

I will address more specifically the alternative idea being suggested, and let me also say I have never claimed our proposal on consumer protection is perfect. I acknowledge the word ``abusive'' does need to be defined, and we

are either talking about striking that word or defining it better. Deceptive and fraudulent cover the ground pretty well, but I thought abusive was a pretty good explanation point. Because it was abusive, in common language.

So I will come back later, but I wished to acknowledge that we have a number of organizations that have endorsed this bill of ours, strongly support our committee bill, ranging from the Americans for Financial Reform, the Consumers Union, Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Watchdog, and AARP.

Of course, we are all familiar with the group representing older Americans. In fact, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at this point, a letter from AARP, opposing the Shelby substitute on the consumer protection title.

So major groups, ones that are consumer oriented as well as those that watch out for older Americans--many of whom have to pay mortgages, are on fixed incomes--are worthy of note.

Again, I wish to thank my colleagues for their comments and thoughts on this amendment, and I will address more of that later, but I will yield the floor.

Amendment No. 3808

If my colleague would yield quickly, I appreciate everyone wanting to make my bill stronger. We have a pretty good bill here, but every

bill could use a little improvement, I admit.

I want to compliment the Senator from Oregon, a member of the Banking Committee. He has been a very valued member of the committee. I mentioned earlier--I say to the majority whip--in the committee meetings we have had, it is by seniority, and so I have this cluster of new members down at the end of that committee table. The Senator from Illinois and I have been in that position at those tables over the years. But Senator Tester, Senator Merkley, and Senator Bennet kind of occupy those last three seats on the Banking Committee.

I say that with great respect to all the rest around the committee. Those three new members on the committee have added tremendous value to our debates, and in particular, the Senator from Oregon has been wonderful in his concern about mortgages, prepayment penalties, what has happened to the 7 million foreclosures in our country, the 8\1/2\ million jobs that got lost in our Nation, why we need to address this issue, and why it is so critically important.

I want to make one more point about this Shelby amendment that may be lost on our colleagues, and that is in our bill there is no assessment on a nonbank or a bank, but there are assessments in this amendment. We just went through the Tester-Hutchison amendment to actually lower the assessments on community banks. What a great irony that the next amendment--there will be those having supported the earlier amendment to reduce cost--sets assessments. In fact, it asks community banks to have assessments on the nonbanks out there in order to pay for their consumer bureau within the FDIC.

So for those who are concerned about the burdens on community banks-- and I think it is a legitimate concern, one I think the Hutchison- Tester amendment did a great deal to alleviate--we are going to turn right around on these institutions that are struggling to stay alive to serve their communities and add a financial burden to them. So for all those reasons the Senator from Oregon mentioned, plus that one, the Shelby amendment deserves to be defeated.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me briefly express my gratitude to my great pal and friend from New Jersey, Bob Menendez, once again. We look around. There are 100 of us here. I do not often acknowledge these things, but if I had to pick one of our colleagues to be in my corner as an advocate, I would pick Bob Menendez every time. He is a strong advocate. When he is focused and passionate about a matter, as he is on this one, there is no better advocate in the Senate. He has been a great member of our committee and a great help over the last few years where we have worked together on a number of bills coming out of the committee.

His understanding of this issue is exactly right. I say, there are ideas people can offer on which they can make a case that they strengthen our particular provision. But I say, respectfully, this is such a step backward, it is even hard to imagine someone could actually conjure up an amendment that would step us this farther away from even the status quo.

I thought I might get an amendment that would strike this and leave the world as it is. Senator Thune made that argument, that somehow this is not broken, leave it alone. Yet there is not a person I know of in the country who does not recognize this problem all began because there were unscrupulous brokers, there were people willing to put ratings on bundled securities that were worthless, there were bankers willing to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, pushing out mortgages they knew people could not possibly afford, luring them into it by promising them they could meet all their obligations.

To suggest the system is not broken--you would almost have to have been living on a different planet over the last few years not to recognize what happened because consumers were forgotten. Safety and soundness, we were told, were in great shape. Institutions were making money. This was a very stable situation.

We had a hearing almost 3 years ago in our committee. It was in June of 2007. A guy by the name of David Berenbaum from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition came before the committee. Let me quote, if I can--this is 3 years ago--from his testimony:

For the past 5 years, community groups, consumer protection

groups, fair lending groups, and all of our members in the

National Community Reinvestment Coalition have been sounding

an alarm about poor underwriting--underwriting that not only

endangered communities, their tax bases, their municipal

governments, their ability to have sound services and

celebrate home ownership--but [underwriting that] was going

to impact on the safety and soundness of our banking

institutions themselves. Those cries for action fell on deaf

ears, and here we are today.

I remember my colleague from New Jersey, almost 3 years ago--I remember his words--I do not have them written down in front of me, but I remember them very clearly. I say to the Senator, your words that day were: This is going to be a tsunami. It was the first time I heard those words used to describe the looming foreclosure crisis.

We were told then there would be maybe 1 million, maybe 2 million foreclosures. Now we know the number is in excess of 7 million that have occurred--not to mention job loss and the like.

The consumer people were arguing for underwriting standards. It was the safety and soundness regulators who were refusing to acknowledge we did not have underwriting standards or were refusing to acknowledge we needed to do something about it. So I wanted to commend my colleague.

Right.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator.

The last point I want to make on the amendment is, under this proposal, any person who is subject to one of the enumerated statutes could be assessed--under this bill, in section 1015(a)--and this amendment, by the way--talk about a bureaucracy, it is a long amendment--but in 1015(a), it says:

The Chairperson shall establish, by rule, an assessment

schedule--

So we are going to assess now these various institutions that are already burdened with assessments--

including the assessment base and rates, applicable to

covered persons subject to section 1023. . . .

I know this sounds like a lot of gibberish, but what is section 1023? What does it say? Section 1023 talks about nondepository institutions subject to consumer laws--just consumer laws. One of the complaints about our underlying bill--which is totally false--is that florists and butchers and dentists and accountants and lawyers would be subject to the provisions of this act. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the language in our bill makes it explicitly clear that you must be significantly involved in financial services or products. That is the language of our bill.

Section 1023: Nondepository institutions subject to consumer laws could be levied with assessments. That is your florist, your butcher, your dentist, your accountant, your lawyer. So as to those who argue against my bill and argue for this alternative--in fact, explicitly in here, at least as I read this--it could very well impose assessments on the very people they claim are affected by our legislation.

Again, I invite my colleagues to read it. It is not a speech I am reading. I am reading from the proposed amendment. That section 1023-- specifically, you can look it up in here; it is a section of the bill-- it speaks about nondepository institutions subject to consumer laws. And the definition, accordingly, is the very people who are not financial institutions, who could be levied with those assessments.

So for all those reasons, respectfully, I would urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. I do not claim perfection in our underlying consumer protection language. We think we have a very strong bill. I am always anxious to hear from people who think they can make it stronger or better in some way. Fine. But to propose a whole new

regulatory structure here, with new people coming on, at great cost, with no power whatsoever to do anything about the very problem that confronts us, seems to me to be the height of what we are trying to avoid: creating a bureaucracy that does not do much. That, it seems to me, is what the American taxpayers want us to avoid.

With that, we have completed on our side the debate against this amendment. Unless there is some further comment, then I would ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment and call for a vote.

Mr. President, before calling for the vote, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a vote with respect to the Shelby amendment No. 3826, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote; further, that the previous order with respect to the Sanders amendment remain in effect, and provided that after the Sanders amendment has been called up and reported by number, Senator McCain be recognized to call up an amendment relating to GSEs; that after the McCain amendment has been reported by number, the Senate then resume consideration of the Sanders amendment.

Mr. President, again, before we get to this vote, let me make this appeal. We are going to have this vote, and then we will go to the Sanders amendment and then to the McCain amendment. Again, we are going to try to go back and forth and move along. The number of amendments now has increased to over 150. I say to my colleagues, there are actually more amendments on the Democratic side than the Republican side--not many more but more. I urge my colleagues, if you have very like minded amendments, it may be in your interests to combine these ideas in a single amendment--maybe rally around one that actually makes the point, to either extract from the bill or add to the bill because we all realize we are not going to be on this bill forever, and I want to accommodate as many people as I can and have the kind of discussion we just had on this amendment. But to do that in the timeframe we have is going to require cooperation and some indulgence on the part of people to not be demanding.

To the extent you have an amendment up, let's try to get to it and have a good discussion but not too long so we give other people a chance to be heard as well. I make that plea to everyone involved.

With that, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 3826 to Amendment No. 3739

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, let me give my colleagues some idea of how we are going to proceed.

Senator Sanders has the next amendment. We entered into a unanimous consent agreement a few minutes ago. Senator Sanders has asked for 80 minutes to be equally divided on his amendment. We then turn to the McCain amendment. I am hoping we get a time agreement on that amendment as well.

There are 141 amendments, about equally divided between us. I want to accommodate everybody as much as I can. If some people take too much time, it means others do not get a chance to offer their amendments.

I make a request of my good friend Senator Shelby to inquire, before we get to the McCain amendment, what kind of time agreement we can have on his amendment. Then my intention is to go to a Democratic amendment and possibly a Republican amendment tonight.

There are going to be votes tomorrow. I am letting my colleagues know we will have votes tomorrow. I gather Monday and Friday of next week are nonvote days. If we have 141 amendments and Members want to be heard--and I want to give them time to be heard and have good debate-- obviously we cannot go on forever.

I will be happy to.

Yes, he has.

If everybody demands more time, everyone suffers. There is not unlimited debate. With 141 amendments equally divided between us, we have to provide time for people. I cannot do that if people insist on unlimited time or more time. We know these issues pretty well. It is not as if it is a new bill.

I agree. I say to my friend the Republican leader, we spent 24 hours on one amendment. We have to do better than that. I cannot accommodate people if we are going to spend a day on one amendment. It just does not work. All amendments may not be equal, but all Members are, and all Members deserve an opportunity to be heard.

I appreciate the majority leader's point of trying to consolidate if several Members have the same idea about something. Maybe it can be brought together in one amendment rather than five--I say that to both Democrats and Republicans--as a way of moving the process along, and we can have a good discussion. I cannot spend 24 hours on one amendment and accommodate people. It just is not going to happen. That is my point.

I will take advantage of the moment to say that I will be here all weekend. We are not going to have votes on the weekend. I will be here all weekend. For people who would like to have amendments and would like us to consider them, Senator Shelby's staff will be around and my staff will be around to work on their amendment to see if we can accommodate it, modify it, or talk about it. I will spend Saturday and Sunday here all day for people to go over their products so maybe we can expedite things next week as well.

Senator Sanders.

I will just take 30 seconds. I will speak longer on this a little later. But let me thank our colleague from Vermont. He is a remarkable individual who brings great intelligence and passion to this cause. He does not get involved in every issue that comes up on the floor of the Senate. I admire that. Some believe they have to have something to say about everything.

But when Senator Sanders gets involved with something, you better believe he does it with a great deal of conviction and passion and purpose.

I am a cosponsor of this amendment he has just modified. I think it is absolutely correct. On the transparency issues, there are no excuses. When as much American taxpayer money has been exposed as has been, we have the right to know where it is going and who is involved in it. There was a concern about whether the independence of the Fed would be compromised. He has guaranteed in his language that is no longer an issue whatsoever. I thank him for it. It is a great amendment.

I know Senator Grassley wants to be heard, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. President, I see my friend from Arizona.

Can I ask the Senator, did he lay down his amendment? I am unclear.

Let me say to my friend from Arizona--and he is my friend-- I have no intention of immediately tabling anyone's amendment. I have not done that at all in the process. I think most Members appreciate I have been trying to make sure everybody has a chance to be heard and to work out amendments where we can so we can move along.

You can also understand my dilemma, in a sense. We have 100 Members here who basically all have amendments on which they want to get heard. Everyone thinks their amendment is pretty important, and I respect that. All I am trying to look for are some time agreements so we can say: How long do we need? So we can then set up a schedule whereby, with some predictability--Members want to go home tomorrow. Are we going to have votes tomorrow? Are we going to have votes on Monday?

I am just trying to have a schedule so I can accommodate as many people as I can so they can be heard on their matters. That is all I am seeking. I am not trying to shortcut anybody, although I would ask for reasonableness on time so everybody gets a crack at what they would like to do. That is all I am inquiring.

I thank the Senator from Arizona.

We have Senator Sanders' pending amendment, on which I think we have reached a lot of consensus. I would like

to see us get a vote on it. I know there are some issues that are--I will not mention them at all, but my hope is my colleagues might let us go to this. Is there any chance of that at all? Would someone get back to me and let me know it we can--

I urge a vote on the Sanders amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Is there a sufficient second?

I would like to be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, as I recall the unanimous consent agreement, there were 5 minutes. Is there time allocated? I do not believe there is any opposition to this amendment; therefore, if there is any, we yield back the time.

I say to the Senator, did you want to be heard on the Cantwell amendment?

I am sorry.

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.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by our colleague from Maryland, which would protect whistleblowers.

We have all learned, over the many months of discussions since the collapse and fall in 2008, of the culpability of the credit rating agencies--in terms of what was sold in the market place, relying on the reputation of the credit rating agencies and their classification of these bundled mortgages. We have had a lot of discussion about how best to do this, to rein in the credit rating agencies so we get far greater reliability and due diligence out of them.

One thing for certain that would clearly help is the Cardin amendment. It may not solve all the problems with the credit rating agencies, but it is going to be a major opportunity for us to be able to break down the bales that exist.

A significant part of our bill improves, we think, regulation. This bill contains several provisions that will make rating agencies more transparent, accountable, and accurate. That will increase the SEC's regulatory performance, and that will reduce investors' reliance on ratings issued by nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.

Senator Cardin's amendment complements this provision in the bill, and I commend him for it. It adds employees of nationally recognized statistical rating organizations to a list of already protected whistleblowers. It is a valuable contribution to this bill, and I thank him for it.

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.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner, a member of the Banking Committee.

Mr. President, I join the Senator in opposition to the Brown amendment, but I wish to speak about the Ensign amendment.

We talk about rushing things through around here. I have heard that mentioned a lot over the last couple of days. This is going beyond rushing through. The entire 97 percent of all mortgages--97 percent of all mortgages in the country today--are going through the GSEs, Fannie and Freddie. Without them, there is no housing market in the country. So before we decide to do this without any alternative in place--and clearly one is needed. I take a backseat to no one on the idea we need to reform how the GSEs are functioning.

As I think my friend Judd Gregg mentioned the other day, this is far too complex an issue to include in this bill. We already have 1,500 pages. We never intended to deal with every financial issue in the United States, and particularly one where the housing market today is completely dependent on this. Adopt this amendment and, believe me, by tomorrow we will have an economic reaction in the country we won't want to believe.

So with all due respect, we will deal with this. I will have language in this bill that will absolutely guarantee we are going to take up this issue in the coming Congress. It has to be done. But to grapple with that and all of these other matters in the same bill is asking too much. It doesn't minimize the importance of the issue, but this evening, without any other kind of alternative in place, to adopt this amendment and then have the implications--97 percent of all mortgages in the United States go through the GSEs and without them there is no housing market--I urge my colleagues to reject the Ensign amendment.

If my colleague would yield, that is untrue. We passed legislation only last year on the GSEs.

I don't think I have any time left, do I?

I yield it back.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: We are voting first on the Ensign amendment, is that correct?

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.

Amendment No. 3733

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, there are no further votes today. As I understand it, there will be no votes tomorrow. But there will be a session tomorrow for Members to come and to be heard on the remaining parts of the bill or amendments we still have to consider.

I think we all heard the majority leader, Senator Reid, make the point that I made earlier; that is, I intend to be here all weekend. My staff and Senator Shelby's staff will be as well. So for those Members who still have amendments, we are more than happy to sit down and try to resolve and work together on those amendments to see if we can't reach agreement on some or at least to work with the authors of the amendments or their staffs. So we will be here to do that.

Let me just thank all Members again. Mr. President, it is Richard Shelby's birthday today--my seatmate on the Banking Committee, the former chairman of the Banking Committee--and I would just note that, even though he was late for his dinner with Annette, his lovely wife, we stepped aside around 4 p.m. this afternoon--the members of the Banking Committee, his staff, and I--and we brought out a nice cake for Senator Shelby. So we celebrated in the midst of the debate.

It is important for the people of the country to know that we have very strong differences--I had strong objections to the Shelby amendment today, and we debated that. Yet despite those very strong differences, and while we disagree with each other on substantive issues, we can enjoy each other's company on a personal level, on a civil level.

So let me, on behalf of all of us today, wish Richard Shelby a very happy birthday on this day. Again, I thank him for his cooperation and that of his staff.

I thank our floor staff today as well, working hard every day. They are here every day early in the morning and they stay here with us until late in the evening. So I want to thank them all for their tremendous work.

With that, Mr. President, I am all done, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``The Meaning of Marjah.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ensuring Fairness for Older Workers'' on May 6, 2010. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader. He

has shown remarkable endurance as well as patience over the last 2 years. The health care debate went on for more than a year, considering its beginning, and we finally ended up passing the legislation.

We have a lot of other matters to deal with--obviously, the economic crisis. We are now on the financial reform bill. My hope is--I am not making any procedural requests--based on conversations we had late last evening and again early this morning--and I think Senator Shelby shares this hope with me, and we are working as we speak here--that we might be able to have a vote on the Boxer amendment sometime around 11, 11:30, and a vote on Senator Shelby's proposal, on which I will join him, maybe around 12:30. Then we will be able to take up--not to have to vote on them but agree to them unanimously--the Snowe amendments. There is a Hutchison-Tester proposal that I have endorsed as well and that I think all of us believe is a good addition to the bill. My hope is that in the next couple of hours we will move forward and start the process. There are more controversial amendments Members want to raise. They should have the right to do that and have adequate time to debate their ideas.

I know this has been trying for people. People are exhausted. It has been a long Congress. We have taken on some major issues. People are understandably tired, and that situation can lead to the frustration people feel.

I noticed in this morning's headlines that the market declined by 2 percent yesterday, not because of something that happened here but something that happened thousands of miles away in a small country in the Mediterranean--again, an indication of how global our economic situation is, how precarious it is, where events in one part of the world can affect all of us. It is all the more important we try to establish some sound rules for the 21st century. The last time we established in a broad sense any rules for the structure of our financial institutions was almost 100 years ago, coming off the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Here we are at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and, as we painfully learned, we are in desperate need to reform the financial structure of our country, having seen what occurred over the last 2 years--the job losses, the home foreclosure numbers, the decline in home values as well as retirement incomes, the loss of household wealth. We don't need to hear the numbers. We have lived it.

The majority of Americans are still struggling today as we speak. They are anxious for us to respond to the situation with as much thought and care as we possibly can, to see to it that we don't leave our Nation vulnerable once again to the kinds of economic decisions and failures that caused our Nation to come to the brink of a meltdown financially. These are challenging times. I know it is difficult, and there are strong feelings about how to proceed. But that should not serve as a barrier to us doing our job, to making the decisions each of us was elected to perform.

Again, I appreciate immensely the patience of the majority leader and his staff and others and of my colleagues, many of whom have amendments they want to offer to this bill. I want to give them the chance to do that so they can be heard, both Democrats and Republicans. I am particularly grateful to Members who have sought ways to offer amendments we can agree to and accept as part of the legislation. That is a very constructive way to engage in the debate. There are other amendments people believe strongly in that will not be resolvable in the sense of accommodating them, in which case we will have to vote for or against to decide whether to include them in this financial reform package. But that process ought to go forward with civility, with the passion people have for the issue but with the civility to respect each other and the needs of this institution.

This is not the only matter this Congress needs to deal with. I know the majority leader has talked about unemployment benefits. They will still be needed in the coming weeks. We have the tax extenders which are critically important. We may have a Supreme Court nomination coming along. The President has sent up the names of three people to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, which will be very important as well considering the economic implications. We have appropriations bills. This is an important bill, but it isn't the only work the Senate needs to accomplish before we adjourn in the fall. My hope is that people will come, engage in the debate, allow for adequate time to be heard, and then decide to move yes or no on these matters.

Again, I am hopeful that within the next hour or so we will be able to get this process moving where we can actually start casting votes on ideas, particularly the one Senator Shelby and I will be offering.

I hope that in the minds of most, if not all, the too-big-to-fail proposition is no longer a question on this bill. I don't believe it is, anyway, but there are those who do. To the extent we can satisfy them with additions to the bill that will make that more clear, that is a great step forward. I am confident that can be done in the next hour and a half or so and then move on with the various other amendments people have on the bill.

In the meantime, I urge Members who do have amendments to come over, maybe start talking about their amendments, start educating the offices about what they want to do with their proposals. I have members of our staff here as well to look at the amendments and, where possible, if we can accept the amendment or modify the amendment and make it acceptable to us, certainly I reach out to my Republican colleagues to see how they feel about it, that might even move the process further along. Between now and the votes, this time ought not to be dead time but time people use as well to help us advance the cause of this piece of legislation.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, before my friend leaves the floor, I wish to thank him for his hard work as the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, with Senator Lincoln of Arkansas. I will quickly address a few points my friend has raised.

One I think all of us acknowledge--I certainly acknowledge--is that the GSE issue needs to be addressed. We reached the conclusion that it is such a huge issue, and there are only so many issues we can take on in a bill of this magnitude. Clearly, some language that would allow for some studies to be done or other matters that would help address the issue--I am open to some ideas such as those. To me, for us to try to take on the whole issue of how we reform government-sponsored enterprises--we need to do it. It is clearly an issue that must be addressed. I was concerned about how much we can actually take on in one bill dealing with the entire financial reform structure. I assure my colleague that I am prepared to at least support some ideas to get us moving in the right direction on GSE reform.

On the home mortgage area, underwriting standards, again, we are open to ideas. As the Senator may recall, a year or so ago we fought hard to include underwriting standards. The Federal Reserve has now actually written some. We are trying to get responsibility on both sides of that equation. We had lenders out there pushing a lot of stuff out the door, a sector of our economy--the shadow economy, as it is called--luring people in to take no-document loans, securitizing them and moving them along. And we saw the effects of that. I know there are people working on how we can manage to come up with good language that does not so restrain the ability of a lender to have some flexibility in those standards. Clearly, we want standards in place that everybody has to meet--the lender and the borrower--as we move forward to avoid the kinds of pitfalls that have occurred.

On consumer protection, the last thing we want is asking the dentist, the butcher, so forth--I know people have talked about being subjected to what we are talking about in financial products and financial services. Again, not imposing any new laws at all, but how do we make sure the seven agencies today responsible for those laws can be consolidated in a thoughtful manner?

Lastly, on derivatives, this is an area which is predominantly, although not exclusively, in the purview of the Agriculture Committee. As the Senator points out, when we are talking about futures contracts involving securities, there is clearly SEC involvement, and thus our committee has had some strong interest in the subject matter. Senator Judd Gregg, as well as Senator Jack Reed, has worked on that issue. There is work that needs to be done. We all understand that.

My hope is, on the subject matter which the Senator has explained and talked about--and I appreciate his comments this morning that this is a big and important area--that there be an effort to try to develop a bipartisan approach to all of this as we look at it. It is a complicated area of law. It would be to everyone's advantage if there was communication back and forth to come up with some ideas on which we might be able to achieve some strong bipartisan support. I know he is trying to do that. I encourage him to keep that up as we look ahead so we can end up with good answers. I am very grateful for his interest in the subject matter. I am hopeful this morning that we can move along in the amendment process and do our job. I thank the Senator from Georgia very much.

Mr. President, I see our colleague from Wyoming. If he is ready to go, I yield the floor.

If the Senator will yield for 30 seconds--I see my friend from Louisiana. I wish to give him time. But I wish to say to Senator Casey how much I appreciate his work. We worked together on this committee before I moved on to, I wouldn't say greener pastures, but I was a member of the Banking Committee. I am very grateful to him for his involvement. We

dealt with the housing issues and credit card issues and the like as well. I appreciate his comments very much, and I look forward to working with him, along with my colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Vitter, who is a member of the Banking Committee. I thank Senator Casey.

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

Mr. President, I just spoke with Senator Shelby on the phone. We have been working to reach agreement on the so-called too- big-to-fail sections of the bill. I spoke with him, and while he will be coming over shortly and we will have a vote on this early this afternoon, the leaders have to set the time, I presume, that after the respective lunches we will be able to vote on this and the Boxer amendment. I will leave it to the leaders before I make a unanimous consent request.

I want to describe briefly to my colleagues what we have agreed on to, hopefully, resolve this matter of too big to fail.

For over a year, Senator Shelby and I have been working on ways to end bailouts. We agree that ought to be done. We have had differences in other areas, but we have shared a commitment to ensure that taxpayers would never again be forced to bail out giant Wall Street firms that fail.

Last November, I asked our colleagues from Virginia and Tennessee, Senator Warner and Senator Corker, to produce an agreement on how best to resolve failed companies.

They did a tremendous job. I commend both of our colleagues. They worked hard, as did their staffs, to draft language as part of the underlying bill. The package they produced would create effective oversight for large firms and make these firms pay for the risks they pose to our economy and country. Their agreement put a mechanism in place to guarantee that when large firms fail, they fail. The management is fired, creditors and shareholders take losses, the company is liquidated, and taxpayers aren't on the hook.

This is a complicated area, and a number of my colleagues on the other side had raised some reservations. So I

spent the last few months working with Senator Shelby to clear up any misconceptions people may have had and otherwise address the concerns.

After weeks of negotiations--and, really, months if you consider all of the work that has gone on over the last year--I am proud to say the two of us have an agreement in this area. We intend to offer it as an amendment to the bill early this afternoon.

Let me go over the amendment, if I can. First, most of the provisions stay intact because we agree on the fundamentals of this bill. There will be an orderly liquidation mechanism for FDIC to unwind failing systemically significant financial companies.

Second, shareholders and unsecured creditors will still bear losses, and management will be removed.

Third, regulators will still have the authority to break up a company if it poses a grave threat to the financial stability of the United States. That is important.

Large bank holding companies that have received TARP funds will still not be able to avoid Federal Reserve supervision by simply dropping their banks.

Most large financial companies are still expected to be resolved through the bankruptcy process. The bill will continue to eliminate the ability of the Federal Reserve to prop up failed institutions such as

Mr. President, my colleague from Arkansas will speak soon. I want to say to the former chairman of the Banking Committee, my friend, I appreciate his comments. There are four major parts of this very large bill. They are too big to fail, the early warning system, consumer protection, and dealing with exotic instruments. There is a lot in the bill besides those major points, but those are the four major thrusts of the legislation.

I hope our colleagues will support this amendment as we vote shortly on it, and that it will help us reach agreement on what I argue is a major part, which is that we never want to see taxpayers again confronted with having to underwrite a failed institution. There has been a lot of hard work and negotiation to get here, and not just over the last couple of days, but weeks.

I particularly thank Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. They spent a lot of time on this issue, literally going back months on it. We would not be in this position today were it not for their labor and effort.

My colleague from Virginia is on the Senate floor, and he will want to say a few words. I thank Senator Shelby and our staffs for their efforts. I thank Senator Boxer too. She will have an amendment that strengthens this issue on too big to fail and taxpayers. We have more work to do, but this is a good beginning. I thank Senator Shelby.

Mr. President, I thank our colleague, the chairperson of the Agriculture Committee, for her work and the work of her staff and others and for her statement today inviting all of us to be involved in this process. I commend her. I thank her for the fine work.

I am going to propose a unanimous consent request that has been cleared by our respective leaders.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:45 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following calendar numbers: 728, 701, and 702; that prior to each vote, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that upon confirmation of the nominations, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table en bloc; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that the Senate then resume legislative session; that upon resuming legislative session, there be 4 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the Boxer amendment No. 3737; that upon disposition of the Boxer amendment, the Senate then proceed to a vote in relation to the Shelby-Dodd amendment, which is at the desk, with 4 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the amendment, with all time divided in the usual form, with no amendments in order to the amendments covered in this agreement, prior to a vote in relation thereto; further, that the Senate then consider en bloc the Snowe amendments Nos. 3755 and 3757, with no further debate in order with respect to the Snowe amendments and with no amendments in order to the Snowe amendments; that the next amendments in order be one from the Republican leader or his designee regarding consumer protection, and the Tester-Hutchison amendment No. 3749.

Mr. President, I see two of my colleagues who have been deeply involved. I mentioned them earlier in their absence. I thank Senator Corker and Senator Warner for their hard work. As I said, this goes back months, title I and title II of the bill. I have thanked them a lot already. They put in a tremendous amount of time with an awful lot of people on how best to draft this legislation. Everybody always has ideas and thoughts about all of it. I am grateful to both of them for their tireless efforts, and their staffs.

I yield the floor so each can comment.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, again, I thank my colleagues. I thank Senator Corker, Senator Warner, and Senator Shelby. A lot of work went into this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I yield back our time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, before they begin debate on the next amendment, I thank my colleagues. This has been a difficult time even getting to this point. I thank Senator Shelby and his staff and my staff and others. We have had a vote on the Boxer amendment, 96 to 1. We had a vote, 93 to 5, on the Shelby-Dodd amendment. We adopted two Snowe amendments in the last hour. That is a pretty good beginning on this bill.

I want to tell my colleagues I have received about 95 amendments to the bill that people will propose. I believe Members ought to be able to be heard on their amendments. This is something that will have to be self-imposed discipline, to some degree, but if Members will restrain themselves on time, more colleagues will get a chance to be a part of the bill and to be heard. If you ask for too much time, it will make it difficult. I just ask people to be considerate of each other. Most times, an amendment can be made--a big amendment--with an hour or two of debate and others less than that, maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes equally divided. Again, I am not suggesting some amendments are more important than others. If you bring the amendments to us for review, perhaps we can adopt some or make them part of a managers' amendment. We will both have to check them out. If we can do that, we can reduce the number significantly. I think we have some smart proposals. I cannot do that alone. My colleague will have to agree with that.

It would help us a great deal if we can move this along, and I say that respectfully. I don't know whether we have an agreement on when we might vote on this amendment. I will ask my colleague to give us some idea. I would like you to think about how much time you would like, and keep in mind your fellow colleagues who would like to be heard on their amendments.

Yes, I am glad to yield.

I hope we can stay away from filibusters and get everybody to have an up-or-down vote. This is a very important bill, and it is also about how this institution functions and whether we trust each other to be able to offer an amendment, have an adequate amount of time to debate, and then vote up or down. That is how we ought to function.

I hope this bill will not only produce a good product in the end but will also have the healing quality this institution needs. We have been through a lot in this Congress. We need to get back to acting like colleagues, respecting each other's opinions, having a good partisan debate but doing it in a civil fashion, having the consideration each person deserves to be heard, and having a vote up or down. I offer that as a suggestion on how we might proceed.

I will find out from my colleague.

My colleague from Montana wishes to speak.

My friend can call up his amendment.

Amendment No. 3749 to Amendment No. 3739

There isn't one. This amendment will be agreed to. It is not going to require a vote. Other matters will require debate and discussion. That was the only reason to do this--to get it in the queue--and at some point today there will be an agreement to accept that amendment. They just didn't do it yet. I don't have a particular queue lined up.

It is my intention to ask Senator Sanders to offer his, once we complete this--to be the next in line. I ask my colleagues to, instead of jumping up one after another trying to get in the queue, come and talk to us and let us orchestrate it in a way that will allow for consideration of various parts of the bill.

If my colleague will yield.

I just want to thank him for all his work. We have spent a lot of time in the last year or so on the health care debate, where we sat next to each other day after day going through all of that. We, obviously, go back a lot longer than that.

The Senator from Iowa and I arrived here on the very same day. The pages have oftentimes asked me when did I get here, and I have said: Thomas Jefferson was President when I arrived.

It wasn't quite that long ago, but we arrived together on the same day, 35 years ago, in the House of Representatives, and we have been great friends and colleagues.

No one cares more about not only his State but people all across this country who struggle. He is the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, affecting millions of Americans, and I have a family member who benefitted from Senator Harkin's work. I wish there had been someone around in the 1930s when she was born who might have stood up and recognized her talents and ability. Fortunately, she grew up in a family where they did some things and she ended up helping restore the American Montessori system of teaching as an early childhood development specialist. But had she been born under different circumstances, I suspect she would have been doing piecemeal work somewhere.

So there is a lot for which our country has to thank the Senator from Iowa. I appreciate his efforts on this amendment and thank him for his general concerns on the bill as well.

Mr. President, before our colleague from New Jersey leaves, let me thank him. He is a member of our Banking Committee, and a very valuable member. He has been tremendously helpful as we have worked together, through my 37 or 38 months as chairman of the committee, very closely on the housing issues, on the credit card legislation.

There have been some 42 measures that have come through the Banking Committee in the last 38 months, 37 of which have become the law of the land. That is a pretty good record out of our committee. It reflects the tremendous effort of members of that committee to help pull together sound pieces of legislation.

Senator Menendez has been critical in so many of those efforts. I want to thank him for that and I want to thank him for his ideas on this bill. We are hoping we get many of these amendments up and have a chance to debate them. But I thank him for his contribution already.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Texas, a member of our committee, Senator Hutchison. There are a lot of amendments people will offer that subtract or add provisions to the bill. Her amendment with Senator Tester and others is a very important piece. This could be a separate bill. It could be a freestanding idea. This would qualify as such an idea. Maybe it doesn't sound like much to people, but to consider the liabilities, that really gives a far more accurate picture of the financial condition of a smaller bank. Therefore, the assessments make so much more sense if you have a fuller view of how that institution is doing.

It is so painful, on Friday afternoons after 4 or 5 o'clock, every week, 5 banks, 6 banks, 10 banks--I feel so bad when I hear the names-- a lot of them in small towns in our country, maybe small amounts, some of them a little larger--you think about a small town where there might be one lending institution, maybe two but not much more than that--when one closes its doors, what it means to a community to lose that lending institution where everybody knows everybody and you don't have to have a computer printout to know whether Mrs. Hutchison or Mr. Dodd is going to be able to meet that obligation; they have known the family. They know how it works, to be able to help them by reducing the burden financially on them.

At the same time, we need to keep up that insurance because you want to protect depositors. However badly you feel--and I do every week when I read the names of the smalltown banks that have to close their doors--you want to make sure those customers can show up Monday morning and handle their finances. Shifting the burden a bit more to larger institutions that can afford to do so is a great idea.

As my colleague knows, I was prepared to accept it this afternoon. I don't have the right to do that on my own. If I did, if I were king for a moment, I would say: Let's accept the Hutchison-Tester amendment. I am confident we will.

I thank my colleague and Senator Tester for offering a very sound, very worthwhile proposal that will be a help to community banks.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, title IX of the bill--and I am not suggesting you are going to love every dotted i and crossed t, but in title IX of our bill we do cover rating agencies. Again, this is a complex area, and there are different ideas about how to do this. But the legitimate point made by the Senator from Minnesota about rating agencies is something we share, and in title IX we try to address ways in which we can get far more accountability out of these agencies.

I accept that argument, but I would not accept the argument there is nothing in the bill about rating agencies.

Mr. President, just on my own time, again, I don't necessarily expect agreement on everything, but I wanted to make the point that 40 pages of our bill deals with rating agencies. This isn't a page or two or a thought or two. There are sections that go in this bill from section 931 to 939, with subtitle C: Improvements on the regulation of credit rating agencies. Forty pages of this book deals specifically with ways in which we try to get greater accountability and reform in the credit rating agencies--a very important issue, one that obviously people have additional ideas about, and I accept that. There might be ideas that even strengthen this; I don't claim perfection. But I want to make sure people have looked at the bill before they get up and suggest there is nothing in this bill about it. Quite the contrary, there is a very strong section on rating agencies.

So, again, people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. With all due respect to my friend from Mississippi who has unfortunately left the floor, I wish to make the point to him that he might not like what I have written--we have written--but there is very strong language in here on getting that greater accountability out of our rating agencies.

With that, Mr. President, I notice at least one additional Member who perhaps is going to come over to be heard, so I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Thursday, May 6, after the opening of the Senate, the time until 10 a.m. be for debate with respect to the Tester-Hutchison amendment No. 3749, with the time equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that at 10 a.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote; further, that the Sanders amendment No. 3738 be the next Democratic amendment in order, and to clarify for the Record, the amendment would be called up upon disposition of the pending Shelby amendment No. 3826.

Mr. President, let me say this, if I can, while we are waiting to do the wrap-up here. We finished up on the series of votes sometime around 4 o'clock or 3:30 this afternoon. It is now 6:30. Other than some statements made by Members regarding various amendments, the pending amendment is the one offered by my colleague from Alabama dealing with the consumer protection part of the bill. I am anxious for us to debate that. I regret we didn't have any debate this afternoon.

I made the point that Members have amendments--and we have all been around--most people--long enough to know that with some 90 amendments, it is not going to mean every amendment people have will be offered. But to the extent that time is used effectively, we can maximize the number of amendments that can be offered. Whether you agree with our colleagues or not, they ought to be given the opportunity to offer an amendment and to debate it and get a vote. Again, that doesn't mean every amendment will be treated equally here, but I have been determined to try to make this work for as many Members as possible. But when 2 or 3 hours go by and not a word is spoken about a pending amendment, the hour will come--and I can predict the debate: You have not given us enough time to debate our amendments. I am keeping score privately about the times that have gone vacant when no one has talked on a pending amendment.

Tomorrow, after the disposition of the Tester-Hutchison, Hutchison- Tester amendment, I will be asking at that time prior to that vote for a time agreement on the pending amendment. My hope is it will be reasonable, take an hour or so to do that. I understand that. But I am not going to tolerate a whole morning wasted on that with all these other amendments. We need to have that debate and then move along. I say that respectfully.

We are not going to spend an endless number of days on this bill. There are a lot of other matters to be considered by this body. This is a very important bill, and it is important that we listen to the various ideas people want to offer to it.

I say this to my colleagues: Try to keep the time requests short. This was a good beginning today, but I would have preferred we could have used the last 2 or 3 hours to debate the pending amendment and then schedule a vote in the morning. I believe 2 or 3 hours to debate an amendment ought to be adequate. I recognize that not every amendment is considered as important as others. Prioritizing the amendments is important.

Senator Bernie Sanders has an amendment that will come up afterward. I cannot speak for him, but I asked him. He said he might take an hour. That is a reasonable request. He has an important amendment and wants to be heard on it. I hope Members will follow the Sanders example and be respectful of others so we can get many amendments in.

My hope is that tomorrow evening we will be here later. We are going to be here Friday, I gather. I do not make those decisions, but I have been led by the leadership to believe we will be here Friday. If I had my way, we would be here Saturday and Sunday to get the bill done. I will be urging the leader to keep us here as long as necessary to have a full debate on this bill. I am not sure I will succeed in those requests, but I want to make them.

Given the complexity of this bill and the interest Members have, if we utilize the time rather than sitting in quorum calls hour after hour--we will hear that bellowing that occurs: I never had a chance to be heard on my amendment. Why didn't I have time to be heard? The answer is going to be--I am keeping the record here--how much time I have been sitting around waiting for someone to come debate an amendment.

If I sound a little frustrated--it is a little too early in the debate to get frustrated, but I wanted to express it in advance of the real frustration that will come later on.

There will be no more votes this evening.

I see my colleague from Colorado is here. I am going to do the wrap- up and then allow my colleague to be heard.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I want to join my great friend from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, in his sentiments about David Obey.

I have known Dave Obey for 36 years. He had already been in Congress about 4 or 5 years when I got to meet Dave, when I arrived in 1975. He is a wonderful individual, with deep passions. He was the best ally you ever had if he was on your side, and he was a frightening opponent if he was on the other side. Having been on both sides of an argument with Dave Obey, believe me, I much prefer having him an ally on issues.

He is a notorious workhorse who showed up every day with his sleeves rolled up to fight for not only the little guy in his own district in Wisconsin but for people all across the country. Working men and women never had a better ally in the Congress of the United States than they did in Dave Obey.

He did not spare any of his emotion or rhetoric when it came to the defense of that working man and woman in our country during his more than 40 years of service. He has great passion. Nothing he disliked more than a bully, and nothing ignited his temper more than any injustice.

He loved his State, his family, and enjoyed a great joke when we would spend time with him in various committees and the marking up of bills. He and I worked together. We were involved, when in my earliest days in the House I was a strong backer of Richard Bolling from Missouri to be majority leader back in 1976 I think it was.

Gillis Long of Louisiana and I were the comanagers of Richard Bolling's campaign to become majority leader when Tip O'Neill was going to become Speaker and there was a contest over the majority leader's race.

The other great ally in that effort was Dave Obey of Wisconsin. That is when I first got to know Dave, in that battle for the majority leader. We lost that battle. Dick Bolling did not make it. Jim Wright became the majority leader in a very close contest, in fact, with Phil Burton of California. It was a 1-vote margin that determined the majority leader's race.

Richard Bolling dropped out after the second ballot, did not get enough votes. But Dave Obey and I and Gillis Long and a group of others organized to support Richard Bolling. That is when I got to know Dave. I was with him about a couple of weeks ago. Rosa DeLauro, the Congresswoman from the New Haven district in Connecticut, my former campaign manager, chief of staff for 7 years, was only the second woman to be the Chief of Staff of a Senator of the United States. She served with me for 7 years and went on to become a Member of Congress for the last 20 years herself.

Rosa sits on the Appropriations Committee and chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee. Dave Obey was at that event for Congresswoman DeLauro and gave some wonderful remarks on behalf of her that evening.

I join Thad Cochran in wishing Dave the very best. He served his State, his district, and his country with distinction and great patriotism. We wish him the very best.

Mr. President, let me commend the minority leader for his comments on Burma. It was a good education for me here to listen to it. I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a cosponsor to the legislation.

Mr. President, let me commend the minority leader for his comments on Burma. It was a good education for me here to listen to it. I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a cosponsor to the legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No 350, S. 3111.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee- reported amendments be considered; that a Leahy-Cornyn amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 5148, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 514, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.