Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 27; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there be a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3217, the Wall Street reform legislation. Finally, I ask that the Senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes this afternoon, if I may, to discuss further the efforts in financial regulatory reform.

I would be remiss if I did not note the contribution of the Presiding Officer to this effort. I thank him personally once again. He is a member of the Banking Committee and has expressed strong interest in this legislation and various parts of it, and I thank him for it.

Today I wish to talk about aspects of the bill. I have been talking about this bill on the floor over the last several days, issues such as too big to fail, which we aggressively address in our legislation. I talked about the efforts that have been made to try to forge a comprehensive bill, a strong bill. We have involved, we have invited virtually everyone interested to participate in the product. I am proud to say many did offer their ideas and thoughts as we tried to develop a proposal that was not only strong and broad based but attracted, again, a strong group of our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to this effort.

Over the days, we have spent a lot of time discussing the impact of Wall Street reform on large financial firms, big banks, investment banks, nonbanks, corporate executives, Federal regulators, and other power players in the financial sector--that has been the subject of a great deal of attention--and the complicated subject matters of derivatives--how they work, how they apply--shadow economies, black pools, systemic risk--all this language and discussion that sometimes can leave the average citizen feeling as though we are talking in a foreign language about these matters.

The question they ask is: How does this affect me? I am glad you are going to try to clean this up, but what is happening with all of this that has some positive impact on my life as a taxpayer, as a working American? I would like to know what is being done to see to it that my interests are going to be considered as you are trying to resolve all of these larger questions that somehow seem very distant to my concerns every day.

Today I wish to take a few minutes to talk about the impact of this legislation on millions and millions of our fellow citizens who are not financial wizards--and would be the first to tell you so--they are not big wigs on Wall Street, major players in large banks and financial institutions. They are people just trying to build a nest egg for their families, invest in their futures, maybe take a loan out to buy an automobile, a home, send a child to college because that child has done everything they have asked them to do over the years and now wants to go on to that educational opportunity and needs the resources to do so.

The stories are myriad. There are many. The demands are obviously clear. Unfortunately, as we know and many Americans found out the hard way over the last few years, our current financial system leaves consumers too often vulnerable to being deceived into purchasing risky products, if not outright ripped off by greedy Wall Street firms and others. After all, at the heart of the financial crisis that has cost our Nation so dearly were the subprime mortgages sold by unscrupulous lenders to Americans who did not understand their terms and who never, ever could have afforded them, and the lenders knew it. They knew going into it. Yet they lured them into those arrangements, with great damage done to individuals and to the economy as a whole.

Wall Street's unquenchable thirst for profits and utter disregard for ordinary consumers led to a pattern of greed and recklessness that darn near led to creating a complete collapse of our financial markets and our economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, around 8.5 million. Seven million homes have gone into foreclosure, many lost forever. Retirement earnings, as I have said over and over, evaporated in some cases almost instantaneously as a result of the collapse of our economy. Maybe more important than all of that--as hard as it is if you lost your home, your job, your health care--is they lost their faith and sense of optimism and confidence in our financial system in this country, that loss of confidence, that loss of optimism, that loss of belief that while you may make a bad bet on a stock, the system was sound and fair. It would treat you fairly, and you were not going to get hurt because we had a good system in place. That confidence, that faith has been lost. That may be more important than everything else I have mentioned in terms of the future strength of our economy and our country.

To add insult to injury, those same Americans then saw those same firms collecting billion-dollar bailouts at the expense of the taxpayer--and paying million-dollar bonuses to the same executives whose bad decisions put us in the mess in the first place and who would have been out of a job had the bailout not occurred.

The bailout allowed those financial institutions to survive and their expression of gratitude was to write themselves a huge bonus check and being able to do so only because in this Chamber we voted 75 to 24 to stabilize our financial system--a decision I believe was the right one. I think we made the right call in doing it, as difficult as it was. But at the end of all that, major executives in these companies then rewarded themselves as the head of these institutions because we-- mostly the taxpayers, by the way--came up with the resources to make it possible for those institutions to survive.

So the American people are angry and with good reason. But they are also wondering: Who is looking out for us? Whose job is it to make sure this doesn't happen again? While our current system pays lip service to consumer protection, those responsibilities are divided among some seven different regulators for whom consumer protection is just an afterthought, in too many cases, to their primary safety and soundness missions that they are responsible for as well. The result is, regulators put the interests of banks and large financial institutions, in too many cases, before the interests of the consumers who rely on those institutions for their long-term economic security.

If this sounds like a recipe for failure, that is because it is. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Michael Barr testified before our Banking Committee not long ago, and he said:

Today's consumer protection regime just experienced massive

failure. It could not stem a plague of abusive and

unaffordable mortgages and exploitative credit cards despite

clear warning signs. It cost millions of responsible

consumers their homes, their savings, and their dignity. And

it contributed to the near collapse of our financial system.

We did not have just a financial crisis, we had a consumer

crisis.

That massive failure could happen again. Today, we are in no different position than we were in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Nothing has changed. Yet we are on the brink of creating change that could make a difference in this very area. So today those massive failures are still lurking out there, and the same consumers who lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their retirement, lost their health care are in no different position should another crisis happen tonight or tomorrow. It is exactly the same system, exactly the same structure, exactly the same so-called regulators out there charged with protecting consumers from the kinds of problems that led us to the difficulties we are in today. Again, the financial products and practices being devised on Wall Street, even as we speak, will make it even more difficult in many ways. Are they safe? Are they exploitative? We have no idea, and neither do the American people because no one is looking out for them at this juncture.

Our legislation answers the question of who is looking out for ordinary Americans when they interact with our

financial systems. The bill we will present to our colleagues in just a matter of hours in this Chamber creates an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog with bark and with bite. This new bureau will not have any job more important than helping American consumers make smart financial decisions--because protecting, educating, and empowering American consumers will be their only job.

This bureau will have an independent Director, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It will have a dedicated and independent budget paid by the Federal Reserve Board. It will be empowered to write consumer protection rules governing any institution, whether it is a bank or a payday lender that offers consumer financial services or products. It will have a new Office of Financial Literacy to ensure that consumers are able to understand the products and services they are being offered and a national toll-free consumer complaint line so, for the first time, Americans have somewhere to go when they need to report a problem.

When I talk to people back in my home State, they understand it is their responsibility to make smart decisions about their family finances, and nothing in our bill suggests otherwise. That is the first line of defense, so we all bear responsibility to learn more, to pay attention, and to understand the financial arrangements we are getting into. I am not saying anything different. Unlike Wall Street, they are not looking to shirk that responsibility. They welcome that responsibility, but they would like to understand it better. What they need is clear, accurate information so they can make those good decisions and a cop on the beat to stop abusive practices when they occur. That is what our legislation, which will soon be before this body, does.

Our legislation finally puts consumers in control of their financial lives by requiring large financial institutions and credit card companies to tell them what they are selling in plain English so the purchaser doesn't need a master's in business administration to understand. It will finally put an end to the practices that have become almost standard operating procedure--skyrocketing credit card interest rates, the explosion of overdraft fees, predatory lending by mortgage firms, and more.

This Congress has taken steps to address these abusive practices, passing the Credit CARD Act, which was authored by the members of our committee--again, I thank the Presiding Officer for having been a part of that--and forcing large banks to change their overdraft fee policies.

But credit card companies continue to look for ways around the new rules, and history shows them to be pretty good at getting away with it as well.

Between 1997 and 2007--in that decade--credit card companies engaged a wide variety of, frankly, unethical practices--from so-called double- cycle billing and universal default to retroactive and arbitrary interest rate hikes. In that entire decade--a decade in which literally millions of our fellow citizens were overcharged or outright ripped off by these banks--there were just nine formal enforcement actions taken by the seven regulators in our national government. Let me repeat that. In that entire decade--when nearly every single citizen in this country could talk about one horror story after another, where rates were increased, fees were enlarged, and every gimmick and trick was used to squeeze every last nickel out of a consumer's pocketbook--there were only nine formal enforcement actions taken by the regulators at the national level.

There are stories similar to the one I heard from Mario Livieri of Branford, CT. Mario is a 75-year-old retired homebuilder who accidentally overdrew his account by $2. I am not making this up. Mario is 75 years old and a small business contractor. He overdrew his account by $2 and was charged $35. The bank took several days to notify him that the account was overdrawn. In the meantime, of course, additional minor purchases yielded three additional $35 fees, for a total of $140, which Mario Livieri was charged because he was $2 overdrawn in his banking account.

Unfortunately, that story by this individual in my State can be repeated millions of times all across the country. A $2 mistake made by a conscientious individual, and one that he was unaware of until notified later, and every subsequent purchase he made brought an additional $35 fee until he had a bill--before he discovered the mistake--of $140 because of being $2 overdrawn. That used to go on all the time, and in too many cases it still does. When Mario protested, the bank waived one of the four $35 charges, but they told him there was nothing he could do to fight the fees because the practice was perfectly legal.

Then there are the auto dealers that have been shown to take advantage of military servicemembers, the shady payday lenders that prey on minority communities, and a wide range of malicious actors who look to take advantage of American consumers. This bill that will be before this body, which passed out of our committee, puts an end to those abuses, and that is why it is supported by the Military Coalition, civil rights groups, consumer rights groups, and more. It is also why it is opposed by large financial institutions whose business strategies are based too often on taking advantage of their very own customers.

Let me take a moment to put an end to some of the malarkey we have been hearing from the Wall Street crowd. The large banks are paying for ads now claiming that this legislation will impose new restrictions on dentists and butchers and other Main Street merchants. That is not true. You and I know this. But that kind of falsehood that goes out across the country is exactly the kind of propaganda they are determined to engage in to undermine this legislation.

These rules we have crafted apply only to firms engaged in offering consumer financial services or products, not the butcher, not the laundromat, and not the dentist. An entity must be engaged in financial services or products. Just because your butcher lets you keep a tab or your dentist offers a payment plan doesn't mean these new rules apply.

Moreover, this legislation doesn't seek to strangle innovation in the financial sector. Quite the opposite. That innovation is part of what keeps America prosperous. We are not dictating what products can be offered any more than the Consumer Product Safety Commission directs what toymakers can invent. But just as the Consumer Product Safety Commission watches out for toys that could hurt children, the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will watch out for products that will hurt someone's finances so customers and consumers can make smart decisions.

The large financial institutions have tried to push this notion that this legislation creates an enormous burden on small community banks. Let me address that. How nice of them to look out for their competitors, the ones they have been trying to drum out of business for decades. But the fact is, the small community banks with $10 billion or less in assets will not see any regulatory changes. They will not be charged any fees or assessments. They will follow the same rules they follow today. Even better, these small community banks will be able to operate on a level playing field without the unfair competition from the underregulated or unregulated shadow banks that don't operate with any rules whatsoever.

So this legislation has many important objectives, from ending taxpayer bailouts to establishing an early warning system so future financial crises can be nipped in the bud before they threaten our entire economic system. But for millions of Americans who don't pay much attention to what goes on, on Wall Street, except when they have to write a check to bail out the firms that live there, perhaps nothing in this bill will impact their lives more directly than the new independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Finally, there will be a cop on the beat watching out for them.

The safety and soundness of our financial institutions are critically important. I am not arguing against that at all. But that is not the only consideration. As this real estate bubble was building up, we were told over and over that the system was safe and sound. Why? Because people were making money. It was growing in profits. What we failed to look at and understand

was it may have been safe and sound from that narrow perspective, but for the consumers who were relying on these financial institutions for their economic security, it was anything but safe and sound. With the establishment of this bureau, for the first time in the history of our country, we are saying that financial products ought to be no different than any other product consumers buy. There ought to be a place where someone can go when they have been deceived or defrauded in the use of these financial products.

If your lawnmower breaks or your car malfunctions, we get all sorts of reports, as recently seen with recalls of products because they are unsafe for a consumer to use. Why shouldn't that also exist if someone is out there purchasing a financial product that could put them in great danger--in fact, bankrupt them and ruin their life because they have been deceived and drawn into a financial arrangement because it was a quick profit-making operation for the lender, but it put the consumer at great risk--and ultimately causes, as we have seen in millions of cases, the ultimate financial ruin of individuals, families, and businesses. Thus, we have established a parity between physical products you may buy and financial products you may engage in.

Finally, Americans will be able to rely on clear and accurate information about their family finances. They will know that someone will be looking out for them. There is no better way to restore faith against the loss of homes, the loss of jobs, the loss of retirement-- all of which have occurred--and perhaps the greatest tragedy of all being the loss of faith in our financial system. We need to restore that. The absence of that will not make this get better. Every single other thing we do will not achieve its goal if Americans don't have confidence in our financial systems--the faith that it is there, it is safe; that they can be secure in the knowledge that when they deposit a hard-earned paycheck, when they buy an insurance policy, when they buy a stock, when they engage in financial activity, the structure, the system there is not unfair. It is not out there to deceive them, to defraud them, to take advantage of them, but to see to it they are protected. That is our goal in this bill.

My hope is that my colleagues will allow us to get to this debate. If you have objections or ideas, let's have that full-throated debate that has been the history of this Chamber on important matters that have come before us in the past. We ought not be denied that opportunity again on this bill.

But I wanted to take a moment to talk about the consumer protection efforts on this legislation, and I again compliment my colleague in the chair, the Presiding Officer, because he has been a champion in our short service together on this committee on the very issues I have addressed today, and I thank him for his commitment and passion for these issues.

I yield the floor, and I see my colleague and friend from Arizona, so I will not note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes, if I may this afternoon, to talk about an issue that has been the subject of much debate over the last number of days, and that is the financial reform bill that will be coming to the floor of this body in a matter of days--an issue that is going to confront us, as the circumstances presently exist, with Members having to make a choice. My hope is that before that occurs, we can reach some understanding that will allow us to have a strong bill that ends too big to fail, that protects consumers, and that builds the kind of architecture for financial services that will allow us to avoid the pitfalls that caused our economy to reach almost near collapse over the last several years.

The choice is going to come down to this: There are people who can vote to open this debate on financial reform legislation that will hold Wall Street firms--large financial institutions--accountable and prevent future economic crises such as the one from which we are just beginning to emerge or basically defeat this; to somehow walk out of this Chamber and leave us basically where we have been, and that is highly vulnerable--individuals, families, businesses, and the overall economy of our country once again exposed to the kind of vulnerabilities that brought so much hardship to our country.

They can, of course, block--as they are apt to do in some cases--any consideration of this bill and leave us in a place--a broken place-- where the status quo would again create the kind of problems I have described.

So one has to ask themselves a question: Who benefits if this bill to rein in Wall Street and large financial institutions is strangled by a filibuster, where it ends up that we can't even get to debate the bill? Who benefits from that? Well, certainly no one can make a case the American family would benefit. These families have seen millions of jobs lost and trillions in savings wiped out because a greedy few on Wall Street gambled with money that didn't even belong to them, causing the hardship we have seen in our Nation.

Certainly, America's small businesses do not benefit. These are the ones that have seen the flow of credit and capital literally dry up. How many of us in this Chamber, back in our respective States, have talked to owners of small businesses who cannot get a dime's worth of credit over the past several years in order to hire new people and survive during this economic crisis? I hear anecdote after anecdote after anecdote of businesses desperately trying to find credit in order to stay alive and survive. Yet because of the unchecked risk taking by financial firms that caused this economic crisis, credit is virtually gone. So American businesses--small businesses particularly--certainly are not benefitted if we are confronted again with the status quo and a perpetuation of the present set of rules.

Certainly, Madam President, the American community banks do not benefit at all. These are the ones who have found it difficult or even impossible to compete on a playing field tilted so heavily toward the largest firms and, frankly, financial firms that are unregulated.

One of the things our community banks and others--and I am not suggesting they love every dotted i and crossed t in the bill--are seeking is some consolidation of regulation. They want to see their competitors, who are not subjected to any regulation, be subjected too so they will also have to face the same set of rules.

The bill I have written, along with my Banking Committee colleagues, does just that. We consolidate the regulation so there is not the overlapping jurisdictions that exist, and their major competitors--the nonbank financial institutions--are going to be subjected to the same rules they are. That creates that level playing field our smaller banks need in order for them to compete effectively.

Certainly the American taxpayers are not going to benefit with the status quo. These are the people who were forced to bail out Wall Street in 2008. If this bill is blocked, they might be asked to do it again.

Now, I am not in the prediction business, but if some future Congress goes back to the American public, as we did in the fall of 2008, and asks them to write a check again for $700 billion because we failed to get this legislation through that would end too big to fail--the implicit guarantee that the Federal Government will bail you out if you are so large or so interconnected that you can't possibly fail--the American people, in my view, would reject overwhelmingly a request to ask them to write another check for that purpose.

Our bill, for the first time, writes into legislation an absolute prohibition that the American taxpayer would ever or should ever again be asked to do what they did in the fall of 2008.

But here is who would benefit if this bill is blocked: the same large financial firms that got us into the mess in the first place. They believe--and I presume they are right--that they can bolster their bottom lines if the status quo prevails; that they can continue to take outrageous risks, using other people's money, knowing that any profit is theirs to keep and any loss will be made up by the American taxpayer.

That is why we are faced with this prediction that 41 of our fellow colleagues will vote against us going to this bill on what they call the motion to proceed to the bill. The letter from the minority leader says: We have 41 votes to stop you from even debating this bill. Well, you explain to the American taxpayer--to small business, to the American family, and to others out there who are paying an awful price because of the mess of these very institutions that are today leading the charge against us getting to a bill--why the status quo is in their interest and their benefit.

Madam President, those who vote to block this bill are sending a clear message to American families, businesses, community bankers, and taxpayers, and that message will be: I am sorry, but we are not on your side. We are choosing another side of this equation.

Last month, my good friend, the minority leader, and the Republican Senator responsible for campaign fundraising participated in a meeting in New York with Wall Street executives. That happens all the time. Certainly, there is the right to sit down and talk with people, to represent labor and business, and we should do that. But nobody knows what was talked about at that meeting. Yet when our friend and colleague who chairs the campaign committee came back, right afterwards, all of a sudden we get this rhetoric about too big to fail; that we can't possibly go to this bill.

Now, I was born at night, Madam President, but not last night. I was born at night, but not last night. And don't tell me that miraculously these things happened and all of a sudden we find ourselves with 41 colleagues, many of whom I suspect are not overly enthusiastic about this game plan that says: Don't ask why; don't tell us what is in the bill. Just tell us we are going to line up and say no matter what anyone says or does or what they have tried to do, we are going to object to even going to this bill.

I firmly believe there is more than a small minority of my Republican colleagues who, frankly, find that argument objectionable. That is not to suggest they like this bill or agree with every position in it, but I know them well enough to know they are sick and tired of being told how they are going to have to vote on a procedural motion on a matter that I think deserves at least the support of our colleagues to begin that important debate.

What we do know, of course, about the opposition to going forward is that the Republican leadership returned armed with some very false talking points, talking points written by a political strategist with close ties to

large financial institutions, talking points that have been debunked by the independent media analysis and even Republicans such as FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair.

Let me point out the memo that suggested this game plan was written by a political strategist was written long before even one word was written on the bill. They were told how to fight a bill that didn't even exist out here by accusing the bill of leaving open the too big to fail, even though they knew--at least those who had read the bill-- those provisions had been written so tight that no one could possibly argue too big to fail would be allowed again.

The Republican leadership returned promising that every member of their caucus would vote to kill this bill before the debate even began. I know for a fact that Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, want to pass a good bill. My colleagues know me well, and they know my reputation over the years. I have never, ever passed a major piece of legislation in this body, in over three decades, when I have not had the cooperation and backing of a Member or Members on the other side of the aisle--never once on every major piece of legislation with which I have been involved. Here we are, at the brink of going forward with the single largest proposal to reform the financial services sector of our country, and we are divided here like a couple of petulant teenagers, instead of sitting around and coming together as I have offered for months, getting behind a bill and allowing us to go forward. It is long overdue that we grow up and recognize this is not some athletic contest, this is about whether our economy can get back on its feet, whether we can grow and prosper and create jobs, have credit flow and capital form so that businesses and wealth can be created. Nothing less than that is at stake in this debate and discussion, and all the more reason why we need to go forward, and go forward like adults, like Members of the greatest deliberative body--as we are told over and over--in the history of mankind, the Senate, to resolve these matters.

I have worked for hours with my colleague from Alabama, as he well knows, Senator Shelby, to the point that he has said--and I appreciate it very much and I compliment him for it--we are 80 percent of the way to a bipartisan consensus. In fact, I suspect if Richard Shelby were asked today whether that number were 80 percent, he would have even a higher number. Imagine being 80 to 90 percent in agreement, yet being told by the minority we cannot go forward. Do I have to write the whole bill? Is that when we can go forward? You have 80 or 90 percent of what you think is a good bill, but, no, no, we are going to stop any further debate. In all my years I have never heard of such an argument, whether I have been in the minority or majority, that I agree with 80 or 90 percent of what you have written, Senator, but I am sorry, we are going to stop even considering any further debate on the floor of the Senate.

I worked for many hours with the Senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker, to try to get to 100 percent, as he well knows. No matter what was said in the meetings between the Republican leadership and Wall Street executives, the fact is that the bill I will be bringing to the floor reflects not only bipartisan input but good common sense as well. If you look at what the bill actually does, it is clear that there is no ideology here, just one principle: Hold Wall Street and large financial institutions accountable so that American families and businesses can grow and thrive without fear of another economic catastrophe.

The bill creates an early warning system so that for the very first time in our Nation's history, someone will be in charge of monitoring our entire financial system, to look out for emerging products and practices and problems, not just here at home but even globally.

Again, I don't think you have to have a Ph.D. in economics to know what we have seen in the headlines and heard on our news shows a few weeks ago, that there were major economic problems in the small nation of Greece, and that all of a sudden the financial system of every other nation around the world was at risk. Or when that small exchange in Shanghai, China, began to decline by 12 percent a few years ago, every other exchange around the globe within hours was adversely affected.

That market, that exchange, represented less than 5 percent of the volume of the New York Stock Exchange. Yet because it declined by 12 percent one morning, every other exchange around the world reacted. What more do I need to say about whether our issues here are global in scope, not just domestic? Again, it is even further reason why we need to be able to pull together and create this bill that is essential so we have a warning system in place that looks out for and monitors products, practices, and even problems that can emerge in other parts of the world if they can pose the kind of risk that could bring our financial system to near collapse.

Under the status quo, of course, no regulator can see beyond the narrow silo of their own radar screen. We changed that. This now involves all of these prudential risk regulators sitting at a systemic risk council headed up by the Federal Reserve and Treasury here, so they can actually look over the horizon and act as a financial radar system. What is going on out there? Are there problems emerging in products or companies or nations that could bring our country to near disaster financially?

If we had had that in place back a few years ago, I would argue we might not find ourselves where we are today. So this is one of our provisions in the bill. What a pity it would be to lose the opportunity to create that kind of an early warning system. That is how the subprime lending sector was able to grow so large despite the dangers it posed to the economy and why no one was able to stop it before it precipitated a crisis. I do not believe members of the minority caucus want regulators to be unaware of emerging threats to our financial system.

The bill brings new transparency and accountability as well to financial dealings by ensuring that even the most complicated or obscure transactions are concluded in an open marketplace.

The Presiding Officer, of course, is well versed and talented, coming from the Empire State, and understands these issues. I believe that derivatives, for instance, are a very important instrument, critically important to economic growth and prosperity. They have become a pejorative, unfortunately, but my view has been let the markets work.

How do the markets work best? Markets work best when there is transparency, when buyers and sellers, investors, have an opportunity to see with clarity what these instruments are, what they are designed to do. Right now we have a shadow economy where some of these instruments operate in darkness, and that is one of the problems that created the financial mess we are in. Our bill opens up, sheds light, brings sunshine to these instruments so that taxpayers but, more importantly, investors and others can honestly understand what they are, what they are intended to do and how they work.

For the first time here we would force risky financial companies such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers that have operated the shadow banking system to be subject to proper supervision, again, so we have the ability to understand what they are doing.

Of course, under the status quo these dangerous giants that have been free to take enormous gambles in a single-minded quest for maximum profit and when they go down like the Hindenberg, taxpayers are left to clean up the rubble. I do not believe that members of the minority caucus want to leave the Lehman Brothers unsupervised until its collapse shakes the very foundations of our economy.

This bill I have before us beefs up the SEC oversight, it strengthens protections for investors, and gives shareholders a greater voice on how executives are compensated and how big their bonuses can get. Under the status quo, of course, the same executives whose mismanagement caused the collapse of financial giants get to collect ridiculous bonuses again. Kill the bill and there is nothing in here that would preclude the same kind of abuses, the outrageous gouging, if you will, at taxpayer expense by a handful of these executives who fail to understand--or if they understand, more outrageously

were willing to reward themselves for their own failures because the American taxpayers shored up their financial institution.

The Allen Stanfords and Bernie Madoffs of the world are able to rip off investors for millions while the understaffed and underfunded SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, fails to stop them.

I do not believe members of the Republican caucus want to leave these executives free to line their pockets with unearned billions or leave investors vulnerable to Wall Street predators and con artists. That is what happened. That is what went on. Our bill stops it. We need to be able to go forward with this bill.

Our bill requires full disclosures in plain English so that Americans can easily understand the risks and returns of any financial product, whether it is a mortgage or a student loan. Our bill creates an independent consumer protection agency, a watchdog with bark and bite, to protect consumers from the abusive practices that have become almost standard operating procedures--skyrocketing credit card interest rates, the explosion in checking account fees, predatory lending by mortgage firms, and so much more.

You do not have to educate the American people. You will hear it over and over from your own constituents. Listen to what they have been through with these increased interest rates, increased fees--every gimmick you can think of to pick the pocket of the American taxpayer who, today, necessarily needs to depend on credit cards in order to make ends meet in their families.

Of course, under the status quo, consumers trying to make smart decisions about their family finances are confronted with a sea of fine print and technical jargon and they are vulnerable to the predatory lenders, the greedy predators who have taken advantage of them. Our bill stops that. Our bill puts an end to that. If we do not get a chance to debate this and go forward, that would be the end of it. What a disgrace it would be to be confronted, as we were at the outset of this Congress, with the problems the American taxpayers have been through--8\1/2\ million jobs lost, 7 million homes in foreclosure, retirement accounts evaporated, small businesses failing, and we did nothing to stop it, despite the fact that 80 or 90 percent of what I have written in this bill is agreed to by many in the minority. But you will not even allow the bill to go forward to be debated. For the life of me I do not understand that logic.

In short, this bill protects the American consumers, American businesses, community banks, as I mentioned, and taxpayers from the very exact situation that occurred in 2008, an economic crisis brought about by Wall Street highjinks, large financial institutions and regulatory failures. Our bill creates a stronger foundation, I might add, on which we can rebuild the prosperity we have lost in our Nation over the last number of years.

I do not believe members of the Republican minority, our friends and colleagues here, want to kill this bill. I do not want to believe that. Unlike other matters we have debated over this Congress, this matter ought to be one where we can come together as I have tried to do, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, to craft a piece of legislation that reflected the myriad views embraced by the Members of this Senate.

We are on the brink of going forward and I will go forward with this bill. We can do it one of several different ways. We can go forward. I will bring this bill up. The leader, I am told, will offer a motion to proceed. My hope is we will not have to have a vote on that, that there will be enough common sense here that would say this is a good product even for those who do not like various provisions of it, and then do what we are supposed to do in this body--debate, offer amendments, try to improve the bill based on your own view of what constitutes an improvement. But let's act like the Senate on a major bill of this import here, instead of putting on the brakes, don't show up, don't say anything, just vote no, we are not going to debate this until you do exactly as I want you to do.

That is not the Senate that I think the American people expect to see work. My hope is, of course, that I will be right in that. My colleagues, many of whom I have worked closely with on many issues, do not want to be part of a blind, pointless effort here, just to walk away from this process. I believe they, our friends on the other side, are caught between the same commonsense principles that led many of them to spend so many hours helping us create this legislation, and the political deals that have led their leadership to demand they help to kill it.

As I said a moment ago, I have been in this body for some 30 years. I have served with many Republican colleagues for a long time. I have great friends, as my colleagues know, on the other side of this aisle, people who I believe care as much about this country as any other Member, and they want to be part of answers, solutions. They did not come here, they did not fight hard to get here, to say no. They came here because they wanted to be part of the answers to how we can get our country moving again.

Again, I am charged as the chairman of a committee to try to pull together a bill that reflects the disparate points of view, that listens to our colleagues here in crafting a piece of legislation that can work. I have tried to do that now for many months. I have come to the point where, frankly, we need to go forward in this body. I am confident, again, if our colleagues would give us a chance we can achieve the results they seek and I am hopeful they will when the motion to proceed occurs, and then engage in the kind of thoughtful, intelligent debate this Senate has a reputation of achieving and accomplishing.

I thank my colleagues for the work they have contributed to it so far. Let's not take all of that work and dash it on the rocks of procedural filibustering. We can do better than that. I am confident we will. I urge my colleagues to be supportive of these efforts.

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

Madam President, I rise with a heavy heart today to mark the passing of Marine LCpl Tyler Griffin.

Lance Corporal Griffin was just 19 years old when he died serving our country in Afghanistan. He was born and raised in Voluntown, a small, close-knit community of just 2,600 in eastern Connecticut that today is struggling with the loss of one of its finest young citizens.

He graduated from Griswold High School, where he played on the football team, and attended the Voluntown Baptist Church. Athletic and intelligent, he could have devoted himself to any career, but chose to serve his country with great pride.

Neighbors recall him as a community fixture who always had time for younger kids. One says that they always knew when Tyler was home on leave, because a Marine Corps flag would fly proudly at his house. His friends and neighbors remember him not only for the example he provided through his selfless service, but also for his kind manner and friendly demeanor.

He was the product of a community that took great pride in their courageous marine. Bill Martin lives next door to Lance Corporal Griffin's mother and stepfather. He told the New London Day that he would often see Lance Corporal Griffin running around the neighborhood, getting in shape for basic training. ``We'd see him out there on Route 49,'' Martin said. ``He'd always wave.''

In short, Lance Corporal Griffin was everything you would raise your son to be. I join his family, his neighbors in Voluntown, and all Americans in deep appreciation for his service and mourning for his loss.

Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I come to the floor now, and I came to the floor yesterday, in response to the campaign by those both outside and, apparently, inside this Chamber who are literally trying to kill the Wall Street reform legislation, and to tie that reform to that bill to bailouts.

I pointed out in those discussions yesterday that these arguments are straight out of Wall Street's playbook, written by political strategist Frank Luntz. As we all know, I submitted his political strategy that he offered months or weeks before even consideration of the bill, outlining politically how to defeat this legislation. So even before there was a bill, Mr. Luntz had a strategy on how to kill it. You merely have to look at the date of his memo to know what I am talking about.

Yesterday we heard a strategy, basically written by him, to avoid any accountability for the mess they have made of our economy. And if it seems strange to you, Mr. President, and others, that the minority leader is choosing to attack our bill for being too kind to Wall Street by reciting talking points written on behalf of Wall Street, well, you are not alone, obviously, if that seems strange.

Even stranger, of course, was the leader's insistence that this legislation is too partisan. Perhaps he has not spoken to my colleague and friend from Alabama, the former chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Shelby, with whom I have spent months working on building consensus, who said himself months ago that we had achieved a consensus on as much as 70 percent of the bill that will be presented to this body in a matter of days.

Perhaps the minority leader had not spoken to any of the Republicans on the Banking Committee, who joined with Democrats in bipartisan working groups that I asked to be formed back months ago, each of which of those groups achieved real and meaningful progress that is reflected in the bill that will be on the floor in a matter of days; not just amendments that will be offered, it is in the text of the bill of those working groups, Democrats and Republicans on the Banking Committee.

Perhaps the Republican leader had forgotten that as far back as February of 2009, I insisted that meetings with the Treasury Department, as they were still crafting their plan for reforming Wall Street, include Republican staff so Republican ideas would be in the proposal from the very beginning.

Well, this morning the McClatchy newspapers looked into the minority leader's accusations made in this Chamber yesterday morning, and frankly found them lacking. Please indulge me for a moment. I am reading from this morning's newspaper. Let me quote, if I can:

McConnell accused Dodd of drafting partisan legislation,

even though the banking committee Chairman has worked roughly

half a year with key Senate Republicans and incorporated many

of their ideas into his bill. McConnell also said the bill

contains controversial bailouts, but it doesn't.

And this from today's Associated Press report:

McConnell on Tuesday said his views on the financial

regulation package had been most influenced by the comments

of community bankers in Kentucky, his home state. Yet such

bankers are represented by the industry groups that most

favor setting up an advanced prefinanced liquidation fund for

large institutions--the Independent Community Bankers

Association.

The very community banks that insisted upon the $50 billion that the banks have to put up if they are going to be unwound, rather than taxpayers. So the very banks that my friend from Kentucky claims are advising him on his views have a different view than he does about the bill that is before us.

The newspaper article goes on. It says:

. . . McConnell has also complained that the Democratic

bill is partisan and the White House intervened to stop

Democratic-Republican negotiations . . . But Sen. Christopher

Dodd, Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee,

negotiated for months with leading Republicans and found much

common ground, only to see the vote in his committee unfold

along party lines.

Well, there you have it. Black and white. The attacks on the Wall Street reform bill are false. This legislation incorporates Republican ideas, Democratic ideas, and it definitely includes one idea that we all agree on: ending taxpayer bailouts. Just ask Sheila Bair, who is the Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the organization that comes in and puts an end to failing banks. Ms. Bair is also a Republican, former legal adviser to Senator Bob Dole, former majority leader, minority leader of the Senate, an appointee of the previous administration, the Bush administration.

Sheila Bair told the American Banker, in an article published this morning:

The status quo is bailouts. That is what we have now. If

you do not do anything you are going to keep having bailouts.

And nothing is what we will have if Members vote against allowing this bill even to come up for debate on the floor of the Senate. Sheila Baer goes on to say about this bill:

It makes bailouts--

This bill that we will have before this body--

It makes bailouts impossible. And it should. We worked

really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The

construct is that you cannot bail out an individual

institution. You just cannot do it.

I will be happy to yield to the Senator.

Let me thank my dear friend and colleague from California. She says it so much more directly and clearly than my efforts here to explain this. She is absolutely correct. This is the irony of ironies.

In fact, let me go further. The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by the Republicans. I did not come up with this idea. This was the idea that was brought up by the community bankers and Republicans who said that if there is an unwinding of a failed institution, the American taxpayer should not have to pay a nickel for that; it should be paid for by the institutions that put themselves in that position.

That is what we did. In fact, in the other body, they have a stronger provision with even more dollars involved. The irony of ironies, that a Republican provision in this bill, designed to insulate the American taxpayers from having to pay a nickel to unwind a failed institution, they are now calling somehow evidence that this is a bailout.

The only reason that money can be used is to bail out, rather to unwind that institution, if it gets in that situation.

Absolutely.

Correct.

I thank my colleague. I note, you only have to ask yourself--look, you do not have to have a Ph.D. in banking. Ask yourself this question: The idea of requiring these institutions to put up money in advance, so that if they fail they end up paying for the cost of unwinding----

Who would object to that? Who is objecting to this? I mentioned earlier, it was not my idea. This was brought to me by the Republicans. Sounds to me like the people who have to put up that money are probably the ones objecting to it. These are the large institutions that do not want to be assessed any cost associated with their mismanagement of an operation.

So it is pretty much as plain as the nose on your face. I am

even surprised we have to make the case. So I thank my colleague from California. I will try to complete these remarks. I know others have other matters they want to be heard.

I thank Sheila Bair from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Many of us know her, having worked with the Republican leadership for years as legal counsel, of course; being an appointee of the Bush administration. She talked about our bill today, saying this bill has been written specifically to end any notion of any kind of a bailout by the American taxpayer.

It makes [bailouts] impossible, and it should. We worked

really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill.

And she is right, working together.

The construct is you can't bail out an individual

institution--you just can't do it.

Our bill stops bailouts by imposing tough new requirements on Wall Street firms. Being too big and too interconnected will cost these firms dearly. And, should that not be enough, under our legislation regulators can use new powers to break up those firms before they can take down the economy. It stops bailouts by forcing firms to write their own funeral plans and to pay for their own liquidation in advance so taxpayers do not have to pay a dime. They shouldn't. If that is not enough, our bill stops bailouts by literally eliminating any possibility for the government to bail out these firms. These Wall Street firms believe that no matter how much we hate bailouts, if they are important enough, at the end of the day taxpayers will come riding in on a white horse to save them, just as they did under the Bush administration.

This bill kills the white horse. There is no white horse under this bill. When we pass it, as I hope we will, large institutions, big banks will know if they fail, they fail. Their management gets fired under our bill. Their assets will be liquidated under our bill. Their creditors lose money under our bill, and taxpayers don't pay for any of it under our bill. The bill stops bailouts.

To insist otherwise indicates that either the minority leader doesn't know what is in the bill or he chose to distort what is in the bill. Yet I read this morning in the Wall Street Journal that the Republican leadership is ``struggling to maintain a unified opposition,'' even going so far as to circulate a letter pledging that each Republican Senator will vote to filibuster this bill and keep it from even being discussed. I hope that is not the case.

I can't tell my colleagues, in my 30 years here, what a denial that is of everything I have stood for and worked for in countless pieces of legislation for three decades, to have Members of this body, who have spent hours with me crafting the bill I will offer, including their ideas, to then vote against even allowing this bill to be debated. I just know that cannot happen. I don't want to believe that 41 of my colleagues, many of whom have worked with me on this bill, are going to sign on to a commitment that they will not allow this bill even to be debated unless I agree to their provisions. I have never seen anything like that in my 30 years.

I have worked tirelessly for months to put together a bill that reflects various ideas. I know it doesn't satisfy everyone. I have been criticized by the left and the right on this bill. I understand that. But I have tried to put together a bill that reflected what I thought was commonsense, sound, good legislation. I pray the news I am hearing about 41 Senators--before most of these people have even read what is in the bill--signing on to a political commitment without understanding what is at stake is not true. By losing this bill and having the status quo remain, bailouts then are in place. Taxpayers are exposed. The 8 million jobs that have been lost, the 7 million homes, others who have suffered as a result of this economic crisis get little or no relief. That is a stunning conclusion of the efforts that have gone on. It isn't about us. It is about the people out there who deserve far better than they are getting.

Still, even after it has become apparent that the Republican strategy is to delay and obstruct, even after it has become clear that the minority has very little to offer in this debate except for some false talking points read verbatim from the big banks' script, the minority leader took the floor again this morning and said:

Republicans believe the solution is for bipartisan talks to

continue.

They will. As frustrated as I am, my door has never been shut. The door is still open to sit and resolve and work together to get to this bill. But I will not sit around days on end in the rope-a-dope game of never knowing who I am talking with, whether they have any ability to bring people to the table, ``just agree with my idea and I am still against the bill.'' I have to ask myself, why did I go through this process over the last 4 or 5 months, agreeing to much of what they were offering, and there is not a single political vote to show for it; in fact, a vote against even debating the bill in the end? Why would one ever go through what I did to end up at this particular point?

Apparently, someone finally informed the minority leader that those talks had been going on for over a year. So they will continue. But then again, he once again made the false statement that the bill would ``allow taxpayer dollars to bail out Wall Street banks.''

There they go again, the same old talking point, the mantra repeated. If one says it often enough, I guess it becomes true in some people's minds.

I say to my friend, the minority leader, if he wants to continue the debate, he could start by ceasing efforts to filibuster this bill before it gets to the floor; before, I would suggest, no more than probably two or three people have even seen it or have any idea how many titles are in it, what it includes, and what we try to achieve. If you want to debate, if you have ideas, then bring them to the floor. That is why this body exists.

If the debate is going to consist of Democrats offering ideas to tackle these very complex--and it is a complex set of issues--and critical challenges on behalf of American families and businesses and Republicans reading false talking points from Wall Street's playbook, then count me out. I will not engage in that kind of a debate or negotiation. I have no interest in that whatsoever.

We have a job to do. If my friends on the other side of the aisle don't feel like doing the work, maybe they should think about the millions of unemployed Americans who didn't go to work this morning because they lost a job in this economy, created by the mismanagement, the failure to step up and take steps to correct these problems over the last number of years. Those Americans would love nothing more than to put in an honest day's work for a good day's pay. But they can't because the same banks sponsoring this parade of bamboozlement on one side of the aisle cost our country 8.4 million jobs, 7 million homes, lost health care, and destroyed futures and retirement accounts. That is all gone.

What about them in this debate? Are their issues, their views, their concerns going to be discussed? No, just shut it down. Don't even debate the issue because ``you can't agree with my idea.''

That is not why this institution exists. It is not about the process. It is not about committee assignments. It is not about your idea or mine. It is about people beyond the walls of this Chamber who are counting on us to get a job done for them. Our failure to step up and even debate these issues and consider each other's ideas is a tragedy.

I know my friends on the other side of the aisle are faced with a difficult choice between supporting their party leadership and participating in this complicated, difficult debate. I am not naive. I know that is a hard place to be. But if we can't act like U.S. Senators for the sake of this issue, for the sake of legislation whose success or failure has such an enormous impact on the very survival of the middle class and the economy as we know it, then why are we even here? Why are we even engaged in this, if that is what the choice is?

It is easy to understand why the big banks don't like this bill. It is far harder for me to understand why any of us would be sympathetic to those arguments. We don't work for the big banks. We work for the American people who sent us here from our respective States. We work for families who have paid a steep price for Wall Street's risky behavior. We work for the American public that lost those jobs, those more than 8 million jobs, and still faces near double-digit unemployment. We work for an American public that lost nearly 7 million homes

to foreclosure, for millions of people who have seen their small businesses fail or their retirement accounts evaporate in a matter of hours. We work for an American public that is sick and tired of feeling like no one is looking out for their interests, like the political hacks and lobbyists hold all the cards in these discussions.

The minority seems intent on proving them right--I hope that is wrong, but I am worried they may be right--on proving that there is no issue more important than saying no, stopping all discussion, currying favor with special interests, and trying to gain petty political advantage, strangling this bill with a filibuster or suffocating it with false claims that stick our Nation and its taxpayers with bailouts forever; that will continue this era of greed and recklessness on Wall Street; that will leave us vulnerable once again to another economic crisis.

I have been here a long time. I know this institution is better than that. I know there are friends of mine on the other side who care about this bill, who want to be a part of the debate, who want to be part of the solution and have ideas to bring to the table and recognize no one group, no one Senator is going to write this bill exclusively. But I can't get there if the attitude is: We won't even let you debate or discuss it. That attitude is not what the American people expect of the Members of this body.

On their behalf, who desperately need us to act, I hope we are better than that; that in the coming days before this bill reaches the floor, we can find that common ground. If not, we need to go forward. But we need to have that debate on the floor of the Senate.

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

Will my colleague yield?

That was the intention. But there were 401 amendments filed by 2 p.m. on Friday, before the announced markup of the bill. Over the weekend, staff came to work on amendments.

I say respectfully, no one from the minority side came in on the weekend. But over the weekend, it was suggested to me by the minority-- --

No, but that they wouldn't offer any amendments. It turned out to be a 21-minute markup. I was prepared to stay there all week, as my colleagues know, and announced in advance that would be the case.

So for the purposes of understanding here, again, that was their decision. I hope we could get to some agreement farther down the road. We agreed to a lot. The bill that was on the table that day for the markup was substantially different than the bill I offered as a discussion draft in November.

So it reflected a lot of ideas and thoughts that have been incorporated between that date and the actual markup date. I say that.

My colleague wanted a colloquy here, and I am glad to be an audience for him. But if he wants a colloquy I will stay around.

Let me say, again, I came here--if I have been strong it is because I am responding to the minority leader. The minority leader has come every morning now saying this bill perpetuates bailouts. I am not going to sit here idly and allow those accusations to be spread across the country when you and I both know that is not true--when I am told this is a partisan bill.

I have spent too much time here over too many years doing exactly what I have done in the 38 months I have been chairman of this committee; that is, to develop wherever I can bipartisan solutions to this bill. It has motivated me in everything I have done.

So to all of a sudden, out of the blue, knowing all the efforts I have made, along with others, to try and find that common ground--as my colleague from Tennessee well knows here--and then to be faced with a minority leader who should know better than coming to the floor making these silly accusations, false accusations about a process that has been anything but partisan, about conclusions in a bill that are anything but accurate in terms, in fact, of what is included in the legislation.

I am willing to listen to ideas on how we can make this tighter, if, in fact, that is the case, to stop the bailouts that are occurring in the country, all of that. But then having a letter being circulated, where 41 people, most of whom have no idea what is in this bill but just taking a political position because they are being asked to do so, without at least having some appreciation for those of us, including yourself, who have worked so hard on this to produce as good a bill as we can--understanding there are still ideas that many of our colleagues want to bring to this debate, and they should have a right to do that-- that having a full-throated debate on the floor of the Senate--I am disturbed.

What does that say to future chairs? Why would you even bother doing what I went through if, in fact, at the end of it all the answer is: No, I am sorry, we did not get our way, so we are going to stop the debate? I find that terribly distressing. As a Member of this body, leaving it in a few months--I will not be here any longer next year for the debates--I have to say to the younger Members, the newer Members coming along: Be careful. If this is the template on how we operate, then all of the things I tried to do over the last year on this bill-- from the hearings, involving everyone, going through the discussions, recognizing you did not solve every issue--then you have to ask yourself the question: Why would you do that if at the end of the process you get a letter circulated stopping a motion to proceed on a bill of this import after all the effort?

If this had been a purely partisan--you know, you are not allowed in the room. We are just going to keep you outside. We just want to write it--then I get that. You would be right, in my view. I would sign the letter, in fact, if that were the case. This is not that case, in my view. I say that respectfully to my colleague.

And I was not gaining Republicans.

I hope it can be the case.

I thank my colleague.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise this morning to try and set the record straight, if I can, on some of the rhetoric I have heard over the last 24 hours or so regarding the financial reform efforts I have been engaged in along with my colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee for the past 38 months.

I became chairman of the Banking Committee in January of 2007, about 38, 39 months ago. Since that time, of course, we have held countless hearings and meetings to deal with the financial crisis beginning in January and February of 2007. In fact, the very first hearings we held were on the foreclosure crisis in the Nation and trying to get the attention of the previous administration, Secretary Paulson and others, to pay attention to the situation that was emerging. Our economy was collapsing and too many people were losing their homes, an economic catastrophe was looming, and, frankly, there was not enough attention being paid initially to this issue by the previous administration. Nonetheless, we worked forward. So, today, we find ourselves on the brink of making an effort to deal with this problem.

After listening to some of the rhetoric of the last 24 hours, I wonder if we are in not only the same Chamber in the same city but on the same planet when it comes to the efforts that have been made to try and reach bipartisan agreement to deal with financial reform. I have almost unlimited patience, as many of my colleagues know, but that unlimited patience is being tested by some of the comments I have heard. So I felt incumbent to respond this morning to some of these accusations about the effort being made to achieve a proposal on financial reform that might attract broad support in this Chamber, unlike other efforts that have been made over the past several years, as I have said repeatedly during the many months we have been working on this important legislation.

These are complex issues. We have gone through the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. That is how serious this is. In the words of financial leaders in this country and elsewhere, we were on the brink of a meltdown of the entire financial system in this country, and we came perilously close to having that occur. For those 7 million who lost their homes or the 8.5 million who have lost their jobs, it might as well have been a financial meltdown, not to mention the retirement incomes that evaporated and, of course, the loss of confidence in our future, along with health care and a variety of other things that have happened to working families in this country.

During the course of this debate, as critical as it is, of these complex matters that make up the structure of the architecture of our financial system, it is critical to the future of our economy and the livelihoods of millions of middle-class Americans across this Nation that this debate should not be sullied by misinformation or derailed by those who would try and make it just another partisan game. Playing politics with this issue is dangerous indeed. Unfortunately, the talking points deployed by the Wall Street lobbyists, in an effort to protect the status quo, leave my constituents and many Americans vulnerable to yet another economic crisis. Those arguments are littered with falsehoods--outright falsehoods--that I regret to say are now being repeated by people who should know better and, frankly, do know better.

So today and this morning I wish to set the record straight. I wish to start by attacking one of the wildest and, frankly, most dishonest objections to this legislation, which is the notion that it is somehow a partisan document. I consider the minority leader and the ranking member of the Banking Committee to be good friends. They are patriots, with whom I have worked over many years on many issues. Senator Shelby and I have been working together for over 1 year on these issues, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand how anyone can claim with a straight face that what I have tried to achieve on this bill is a partisan effort. I have spent the last year seeking bipartisan consensus.

In February of 2009, over 1 year ago, with the new Obama administration freshly sworn in, I insisted from the very beginning that Senator Shelby's staff be included in meetings with the White House and Treasury Department on all financial matters. When I had the opportunity to take over the chairmanship of the HELP Committee, the committee charged with the responsibility of writing the health care reform legislation, I chose to stay as chairman of the Banking Committee, in no small part because I received commitments from Senator Shelby and others that we would work together on this financial reform legislation.

When I introduced a discussion draft of this proposal back in November--almost 6 months ago--Senator Shelby indicated we had bipartisan consensus on at least 70 percent of the bill back in November. To get closer to a full agreement, I created four bipartisan working groups almost 6 months ago, each of which was charged with achieving real and meaningful progress in various sections of the bill. Even when Senator Shelby and I found areas where we could not agree, I continued to reach out to other members of the committee, including my friend and colleague from Tennessee, Senator Corker, and others, spending weeks working to try to achieve a consensus on financial reform. It is not even a slight exaggeration to say we spent countless hours--phone calls, meetings, e-mails, discussion drafts--day after day, week after week, month after month, to try to get closer and closer to a proposal our colleagues could support.

We can see the results. The bill we marked up in our committee last month was much changed from the proposal I made in November, the initial discussion draft, to reflect the work that had gone on over those many weeks and months and the ideas brought to the table by colleagues of both parties from members of that committee and others. My friends on the other side of the aisle may not like every line in the bill that will now be before us in a few short days, but at the very least let us not pretend the bipartisan work that produced this legislation didn't happen. It did happen. That is a disservice to yourselves--those who make these allegations--and their good staffs who worked hard over these many weeks with my Democratic staff and others to produce this product.

If Members wish to vote against the bill, they can do that. That is their right to do so. They can go on record in support of leaving their constituents vulnerable to more lost jobs, more foreclosures, more shuttered small businesses, more wiped out retirement accounts. It is up to each individual Member to decide for themselves that is the vote they wish to cast when it comes to this effort. But the outcome of this debate will, mark my words, affect the economic security of ordinary Americans, and they deserve to know the truth of what has happened.

Today, I wish to talk about bailouts. Nobody likes them.

Under our proposal, they will never happen again. As the President said in his State of the Union Address, bailing out some of the large banks whose own mismanagement caused the crisis was ``about as popular as a root canal.'' That, of course, happened under the previous administration, I should note.

But serious legislators of both parties realized that we had no choice. Our system was so broken that these companies had become too big to fail. If we did nothing else, our entire economy could collapse, we were told.

You would think that if you wanted to avoid being backed into that corner again, if you wanted to avoid more bailouts, you would oppose efforts to protect the status quo. But Wall Street special interests needed a way to defend this broken system. After all, for many of them, the kind of mismanagement that costs us millions of jobs is the way they pad their profits and pay their lobbyists. So they turned to Frank Luntz, their political strategist.

Let me tell you what he came up with. I will quote from Mr. Luntz's memo that was leaked, I will quote from his partisan memo:

The single best way to kill this legislation is to link it

to the big bank bailout.

No matter what is proposed, no matter what is in the bill, no matter what protections it includes, call it a bailout. It is a naked political strategy. If it succeeds and this legislation goes down, and another crisis sinks the American economy, then the next recession and all of the damage it will bring to the working families of this country will have happened for the sake of that false talking point that Mr. Luntz has been proposing. I don't expect Frank Luntz to care about the truth of what we are engaged in here. That is not his job. He is a political strategist. He is to provide political talking points to people when you want to defeat something. I don't expect the bank lobbyists and special interests to care about the truth; they don't seem to worry about that. But the American people deserve better from us in this Chamber.

That is why I have been so dismayed over these last 24 hours to hear Members of this body repeat the utter falsehood--concocted by special interests whose jobs and pensions are plenty secure, thank you very much--that this bill will lead to more bailouts.

Frank Luntz suggested that allies of the big banks say:

If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that the

bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats

that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be

repeated.

The minority leader, speaking yesterday, said:

If there's one thing Americans agree on when it comes to

financial reform, it's this: Never again should taxpayers be

expected to bail out Wall Street from its own mistakes. We

cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall

Street banks. That's why we must not pass the financial

reform bill that's about to hit the floor.

Remember what Frank Luntz said:

The single best way to kill any legislation is to link it

to the big bank bailout.

It is straight from the Wall Street special interest talking points. That is what they are determined to do to defeat this bill--suggest somehow that there is a bailout provision in this bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The bill, as drafted, ends bailouts. Nothing can be more clear in the legislation. For the very first time, our Nation will have someone with the job of monitoring risks to the financial system and sounding the alarm before those risks can take down the entire system, as it almost did. The bill imposes sufficient standards on Wall Street firms that create those risks.

Our bill establishes a financial stability oversight council to monitor risks and requires the Federal Reserve to write strict rules, including stronger requirements regarding capital, leverage, liquidity, and risk management on the largest financial companies, making it hard for them to get too large and limiting the risk they represent. Cracking down on the biggest players is critical to ending bailouts.

If a Wall Street firm does become too large or too complex and poses a grave threat to our financial stability, the Federal Reserve has the power to restrict its risky activities, restrict its growth, and even to break up those institutions. I will repeat that. If a Wall Street firm becomes too large and too complex, the Federal Reserve has the power under our bill to prohibit those activities, including even breaking up those institutions.

Additionally, our bill extends oversight to dangerous nonbank financial companies, such as AIG, that could pose a risk to our financial stability, as it did.

It prohibits banks and other financial institutions that own banks from engaging in proprietary trading, making risky bets with money that doesn't even belong to them.

Second, our bill eliminates the Federal Reserve's ability to prop up individual institutions using what is called

the 13(3) authority, another way to stop banks from thinking that they could be bailed out if in fact they engage in activities that cause them to begin to fail. The Fed's lending authority is strictly restricted, not expanded, as some have claimed.

Third, our bill sets up predictable, orderly, and safe processes for shutting down dangerous Wall Street firms that fail without endangering the entire economy. No financial firm will ever again be ``too big to fail.'' Quite the opposite. We insist that the provisions be in place so that it can never again make the claim that they are too big to fail.

Large, complex financial companies will be required to submit plans for their own shutdown--we call them living wills--if the company goes under. Companies that fail to produce a realistic plan will be hit with tougher capital requirements, restricted in how much they can grow, and even can be broken up.

Most large financial companies would be resolved through the normal bankruptcy process. That is the presumption in our bill--receivership.

Where bankruptcy is not an option, the bill creates a mechanism for the FDIC to unwind those companies. The management will be fired, shareholders will be wiped out, and creditors will take their losses. Middle-income families on Main Street won't have to pay a penny. The largest Wall Street firms would have to put up money for a $50 billion fund to cover the costs of liquidating the failed financial firm, and any shortfall will be made up by the largest and riskiest financial firms. Why should the American taxpayer have to pay for unwinding these companies? They should put up the money themselves. Let them pay for the unwinding that goes on. Don't charge it to the American taxpayer. Our bill includes those provisions.

Wall Street doesn't like this fund, and they are plenty content to let taxpayers continue to pay the price for industry mistakes. Let me be clear, despite what their apologists may claim, these funds can only be used by the FDIC and only used to liquidate the failed company, not prop it up.

To review, our bill imposes tougher standards on large, risky Wall Street firms. It eliminates the Federal Government's capacity to bail out individual companies. It requires that financial firms write their own shutdown plans and even pay for the liquidation process if it is needed.

Here is what I have to say to Wall Street. If you have a better idea, let's hear it. If you have other ideas, let's debate them. But if all you have is black-and-white talking points that bear no relation to reality, don't reflect the efforts that have gone on for months to try to produce a proposal that might gain broad support here in this Chamber, then get out of the way and let the serious legislators work. Don't write this off by quoting a political strategist's talking points, when all of this effort has been made over these many months.

I am told by my staff--and I have dealt with 42 pieces of legislation in 39 months--that about 37 have become the law of the land. I made a determination as chairman to work together, wherever possible, to achieve common points. So my history is to try to achieve that wherever possible, and I take great offense at the suggestion that it has been otherwise.

The outcome of this debate affects the economic security of every single American and every single American family. What we have been through, we should never have to go through again. Our bill takes steps to try to achieve that. It is not that we are going to stop every economic crisis in the future. That would be a foolish suggestion. But what we have done is fill in the gaps that allowed this crisis to occur and provide tools for the coming generation so they can address future economic crises and still allow for the vitality of a financial services sector to produce jobs, create wealth, allow credit to flow and capital to form so our economy can prosper again.

Trying to achieve those three goals has been the hallmark of what I have tried to put together with the bill, along with my colleagues on the committee. I believe we have done a good job in achieving that. I would be the last one to claim perfection. If people have other ideas, that is what the process is for. But to castigate it and label it as nothing more than a partisan debate and suggest that somehow what we have done here is to perpetuate ``too big to fail'' is poppycock. It is unfortunate that at this hour in this debate, that is all we hear from on the other side.

The door is still open. We are not yet on the floor debating this bill. I will have meetings with Senator Shelby and others. My patience is running out. I have extended the hand, and I have written provisions in the bill to accommodate various interests. I will not continue doing this if all I am getting from the other side is a suggestion that this is a partisan effort. We have been through it over and over on the floor for the last year and a half. I think the American people are sick of it. They want to see us work together to achieve results that benefit them, not some political party, or narrow ideology, and certainly not the narrow interests on Wall Street.

In the coming days, I will give you a bill I think we can vote for and stand up and proudly support and, more importantly, one that we can say to the American people we will not have to go through what we have been through in the last 2 years, and never again should another generation face the kinds of risks we did because of the gaps that existed in our financial regulatory structure.

I ask unanimous consent that the entire Frank Luntz memo be printed in the Record. I want the public to read it so they will know what we are up against here with this political chicanery.

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes, if I can. I know we are in the waning minutes of going out of session and Members have, I think by and large, probably left the city for their respective States--as I will be doing in a day or so, going back to Connecticut to spend time with my family and constituents over the Easter-Passover break.

I wish to take a couple of minutes to talk briefly about my responsibilities as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on which I serve with 22 others of our colleagues. Almost a quarter of this institution sits on that committee. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama is my ranking Republican member and former chairman of the committee, I might point out.

We finished our work, at least in our committee, last Monday--a rather abbreviated markup, I might point out. I didn't plan it to be that way, but we ended up with a pretty short markup of a fairly complicated bill.

A week ago today, at about this time or a little after this time, we received amendments. Almost 400 amendments were filed, so I anticipated a rather elongated markup, but members decided they weren't going to offer their amendments in the committee, which is their right. I had a responsibility as chairman of the committee to consider those amendments if they were offered, and we were prepared to accept some, modify some, and reject others. But the conclusion of the committee was to take what changes we had made and move forward. So it is my hope that shortly after our return in the second week of April, we will come to the floor of the Senate to debate--hopefully a full-throated debate--about how we reform the financial services sector of our Nation.

In light of the events over the last several years, this is a compelling issue that mandates our involvement and participation. We can hardly allow this Congress to leave the door wide open again to the kind of abuses that brought our Nation to the brink of financial collapse. Those were the words used by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Ben Bernanke, on September 18 of 2008, as they were the words of the former Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, when they met with the leadership of the House and the Senate and the respective leaderships of the committees of jurisdiction. They predicted that had we not acted in the remaining weeks of that session before the adjournment in 2008, in fact, we might very well be looking at a very different country today. Certainly we avoided the collapse they talked about but at great cost. The fact that this country and its taxpayers had to write a check for $700 billion, resources of which went to a handful of financial institutions to ``bail them out'' in order to preserve the safety and soundness of a fragile financial system is something that still causes remarkable levels of anger and frustration--understandable levels of frustration and anger--of the American people all across the country, regardless of where one lives. The idea is that a firm on Wall Street could get near the brink of disaster and get massive resources poured into them and then we have to watch someone's home in Connecticut or Delaware or Colorado, Tennessee or Alabama foreclosed, a business closed, a retirement account evaporating within a matter of hours, despite the fact these larger institutions were getting the resources from the American taxpayers.

We made an effort--I don't claim by any stretch of the imagination perfection--to try to deal with the reforms. Obviously, it is a complicated matter and complications are added to it. We have 23 members of a committee, not to mention 100 Members of this body who all have various views on what ought to be done, not to mention the other body, the White House, stakeholders, and others, trying to fashion legislation, not saying we are going to stop all financial problems in the future--that would be ludicrous to make such a suggestion--but there will be other financial problems.

What we are going to try and do with this bill and what we think we have done to a large extent with this bill is to say there may be other financial problems but never again should a financial problem of a major financial institution put the rest of the country at risk. That is what happened. Because of their abuses, their greed, the failure of regulators, or the failure of the government to regulate certain institutions, we saw a system go haywire.

I do not mind if some firm wants to go to the casino and gamble with their money. I understand that. But the idea that they would do that with the taxpayers' money or with the well-being of our economy has to stop. Our legislation is designed to do that.

First and foremost, never, ever again should a financial institution get so large, so interconnected, and produce products that put the rest of us at risk. Our legislation shuts that door, we believe, firmly.

Others are arguing because, frankly, they do not want to admit what the real argument is about, they do not like the fact we have a consumer protection agency for the first time in the history of our country, so people who buy a mortgage, buy stock, buy an insurance policy, whatever else it may be, will have someplace to go if, in fact, they are being abused. That is exactly what happened. They were abused in too many instances. Rather than focus their criticism on that, they are focusing on other things that, frankly, we are dealing with very effectively in the legislation.

We also set up an early warning system to the largest extent possible so we know what is going on out there with products and firms that bring us to the brink of disaster as they did only a few short months ago.

We are looking at some of these exotic instruments--credit default swaps, derivatives, over the counter--an industry that went from about $90 billion and within the space of 6 or 7 years, to close to $600 billion. It exploded in large measure because it was in the shadow economy. That ends with this bill. They are going to have the glaring light of sunshine on them through exchanges so the American people can know exactly what these instruments are and how much risk is being taken with their use.

There are elements of this country that do not like that idea because they would rather not have the light shone on them to examine what they are, but we are determined to see to it that is going to be the case in our legislation as well.

There are a lot of other provisions in a 1,400-page bill that deal with other matters related to all of this business. I wanted to inform my colleagues that we have a strong bill coming out of our committee--a fully independent consumer protection agency, bureau or division. It is housed in the Federal Reserve in our bill, which has caused some people to wonder how independent it can be. It is totally independent. Its head will be appointed by the President of the United States. That head would then have to be confirmed by the Senate. The budget this agency would have is going to be separate from other budgets. It will have its own line of funding to go forward. It has independent authority on rulemaking, examination, and enforcement with institutions that have assets in excess of $10 billion. And for those that are smaller than that, the examination and enforcement will be done at the State level or others will be responsible.

Many are concerned this would reach down to the community banks. We separated that out. I know my colleagues expressed that view. That we have finally someone watching out is going to be very important. We were told for years our system was safe and sound because they were making a lot of money. As we learned painfully, that is not the only criteria to determine whether a financial institution is safe or sound. In fact, they were anything but safe and sound, despite their earnings reports. We subsequently learned that people were put into homes they never could afford, did not understand because these institutions were securitizing those mortgages, bundling them together and then selling them to unwitting investors because they had ratings on them that never reflected the reality of what those instruments were worth in our country. Our legislation deals with that as well in a very strong and effective manner.

My only purpose in sharing a few thoughts this afternoon before adjournment occurs is to say I hope my colleagues in their visits back to their States, in talking with their constituents, will talk about these issues. Listen to your businesses on Main Street. Listen to the borrowers. Listen to the users and the customers of financial institutions.

The institutions are going to call you. They are going to write you. They are going to find you, believe me, because many of them do not like what I have done in this bill. They would like the status quo to be maintained. You are going to hear from them, I promise you. You are going to have to work a little harder to listen to the voices out there who may not contact you about this but will tell you what it is like to try to borrow money, make an investment, get credit, buy a home, get a student loan in order to afford the cost of higher education. I urge my colleagues

to listen to those voices as well. They deserve to be heard in this debate. Then I hope we will have the kind of full-throated debate when we get back, meet with the other body with a final product, and hopefully give the President of the United States a bill worthy of the challenge before us.

This is the single largest reform of financial services since the thirties. It is long overdue. We must not fail in our obligation to meet the challenges. If we leave here failing to do this, we will expose our economy, and the American public will never, ever again write a check as they did in the fall of 2008. You can forget about that. We need to make sure these firms that get into trouble understand the presumption is bankruptcy, receivership. Shareholders will pay a price, and management goes. The idea that you are going to be able to count somehow on the American taxpayer pulling your chestnuts out of the fire is over within the ``too big to fail'' concept.

The importance of achieving that goal along with these other reforms I think will have the desired effect. Failure to do that leaves us exposed to the kinds of financial challenges we have witnessed over the last several years.

Again, a business, I say respectfully, in Connecticut, Delaware, or Colorado, a homeowner in those States should not have to pay the price because a handful of financial institutions got too greedy, too risky, and were unwilling to examine what they were doing or did, recognizing the Federal Government would bail them out if they made a bad choice, which they did.

I look forward to that debate and presenting the bill our committee marked up on Monday of this past week.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I wish to spend a couple of minutes to express my gratitude to a lot of people. I begin by thanking my colleagues here, both Democrats and Republicans. Obviously, all of us would have liked to have had a health care bill that was more than a partisan vote. It didn't turn out that way. I am glad we ended up with the result we did.

I thank the members of the HELP Committee on which I serve, both Democrats and Republicans. Although we didn't end up with a bipartisan vote on that committee, there was a very vibrant, active, civilized discussion over many days last summer regarding the HELP Committee's portion of this health care product. Obviously, having been the acting or temporary chair of the committee in the absence of our friend and colleague from Massachusetts who was obviously ill and could not be there, I begin by thanking Tom Harkin. You have heard people talk about him already. He has taken over the reins of that committee and has done an excellent job. I thank Barbara Mikulski, my long-time friend and colleague, who did a tremendous job in dealing with various aspects of the health care debate, as Tom Harkin did, Jeff Bingaman, Patty Murray--again, seasoned members of the committee and Members of this body who have contributed to many pieces of legislation over the years. Jack Reed, my neighbor and great friend from Rhode Island, was tremendously helpful on the committee, as well as Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who played a critical role working with people like Senator Hagan of North Carolina, working with Sheldon Whitehouse, who was on our committee at the time and played a critical role in fashioning our public option. Jeff Merkley and Bob Casey were very productive and serious members of the committee effort. Al Franken and Michael Bennet have since joined the committee, and Sheldon Whitehouse has moved on. But I want the record to reflect my deep appreciation for their work.

Let me also thank Mike Enzi and the people such as Tom Coburn and others, Judd Gregg, from the committee. I can't go down the whole list, but the Republicans on the committee, while they don't necessarily like to admit it, made a contribution to the bill. One hundred sixty-one amendments--I know they are tired of hearing me talk about over the last several months--were their additions to the HELP Committee final product.

I have talked about Max Baucus, my friend. We have served together, along with Tom Harkin in this Chamber and the other, for 35 years together. The work of the Finance Committee, which bore a tremendous share of this responsibility, dealing with very complicated issues that are within the jurisdiction of that committee, was tremendously important. I won't go down and list all the members of the Finance Committee. In fact, we had several on our committee who served both on Finance and on the HELP Committee: Jeff Bingaman on the Democratic side; I know there were several Republicans as well who filled a dual role by serving on both committees.

I thank my friend from Montana as well for his work. He has been recognized and acknowledged by many and deservedly so over the last number of days.

I commend, if I may, the staff members of the Finance Committee, beginning with Liz Fowler and the group I ask unanimous consent to include for the Record. They did a wonderful job. Senator Baucus has referred to them already, but I also wish to thank them this afternoon for their work.

On the Budget Committee, again you have heard Senator Kent Conrad talk about the Budget Committee staff. I ask unanimous consent that their names be printed as well at this juncture in the Record, if I may.

I want to make particular reference to the members of my staff, beginning with Jeremy Sharp and Tamar Magarik Haro who did a wonderful job. Jeremy Sharp's father is former Congressman Phil Sharp. He was part of the class with Max Baucus and Tom Harkin and me, Henry Waxman and George Miller, who played a critical role in the debate in the House. Both Tamar and Jeremy were tireless in this effort, going back many months. I am deeply grateful to them. Jim Fenton is my legislative director and played a very important role as well in those efforts.

Then, of course, there are the other members of the HELP Committee, many of whom, of course, were staff members of Ted Kennedy. I inherited their expertise, their knowledge, their great abilities when Ted was laid up. They continued to work with us, beginning with Carey Parker who is, of course, legendary in this institution, having served with Senator Kennedy since the day he arrived 47 years ago. While not directly on the HELP Committee staff, I can't tell you what a critical role Carey Parker played time and time again during the rough spots. Michael Myers, Pam Smith, Connie Garner, Stacey Sachs, David Bowen--all were tremendously influential in the process. Mark Childress, who worked with Tom Daschle before, was at the White House for a while, came back up and stayed with us on that effort. Mark was invaluable in understanding the rhythms of the Senate, understanding the White House, and we are deeply grateful. Jenelle Krishnamoorhty, who worked with Tom Harkin, I have gotten to know her very well, and the members of Tom's staff. I want Jenelle to know how much I appreciate her work. She did a tremendous job for us as well.

I want to thank the leader's staff as well, who were so valuable to us: Kate Leone, obviously; Carolyn Gluck; Bob Greenawalt; Bruce King; Randy Devalk; Jacqueline Lampert; and Gary Myrick, who we see here all the time pacing this Chamber at all hours of the day and night, keeping an eye on the movements of the Senate and what is occurring, keeping the leader well informed, about as knowledgeable as

anyone you will meet in understanding exactly what is happening at all moments. To Gary and the leader's staff, I apologize if I left anybody out, but I thank them for their work as well.

This bill also included the work on education issues. There were a number of people who played a very important role in that. In my office: Maddy Gitomer, Averi Pakulis, Joe Caldwell, and Anna Staton were all part of our efforts in that regard. I should have mentioned earlier Tom Kraus, Topher Spiro, and Andrea Harris who worked on HELP Committee efforts as we moved forward on the bill.

Those were a lot of names I have just recited. I said them so quickly that they may fly by. It hardly reflects the recognition they deserve for the time and effort they have put in. They will never be standing before a bank of microphones or getting their picture taken, probably won't have articles written about them and what they did or didn't do during their tenure in the Senate. But this place only functions and runs, the floor staff who are here and the respective cloakrooms who do the work every single day that make this institution work as well as it does, spending the hours, the weekends crafting ideas and compromises that allow us to move forward.

While there are a lot of people deservedly, in a very public way, getting credit for the work that has transpired over these many months, I didn't want this moment to pass without at least expressing my gratitude to them and others whose names I, unfortunately, have not mentioned, who have made this day possible.

To them, to my colleagues, to Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, House Members who valiantly took up a Senate-passed bill that they had strong reservations about and yet understood the value of the moment.

And to President Obama, who understood the importance of this issue and insisted it come up. I remember Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Max Baucus and I served with Dan Moynihan, and Max had served with him on the Finance Committee when he chaired that committee, a very wise man who understood the movements of the executive branch and the legislative branch. He once told me that American Presidents, whether they get one or two terms, only get somewhere between 18 and 24 months to do anything really meaningful. It is those first days from January 20, Inauguration Day, to maybe as late as Election Day of the midterm elections in their first term. If they are going to do anything really important, that is the window in which they have to try. After that, it gets harder. You campaign for reelection. If you are reelected, you are a lame duck. Your ability to affect huge issues narrows.

I thank our President. Whether you agree or disagree with his politics or his policies, the fact that he took on a major issue that had been crying out for decades for resolution is testimony to his willingness to put a political administration, a political campaign on the line. For those who work with him, from his chief of staff to his advisers on these various matters, history will be and should be deeply grateful to President Barack Obama for having the courage to take up a big issue that deserved and needed resolution by the Congress for the American people. Whatever else transpires in the remaining tenure of his office, whether he serves one term or two, in large measure he will be defined by his willingness, his courage to raise this issue, when many others suggested this was a worthless task to take on, we couldn't succeed, he would be wiser to follow a course where less significant issues might be at stake.

So to the President, I thank you immensely for having the courage to take this on. I believe in the long call of history the American people will thank you as well for having the courage to bring up this important issue.

With that, again, this is one of those very few rare days we get in this institution historically, but it is one in which I am deeply proud to have been involved. I thank all who made it come to pass.

I yield the floor.

I thank my colleague and commend him for his leadership on this issue, along with, of course, our distinguished majority leader so many others, including the wonderful staff we don't often mention--the remarkable work being done by the individual staff of Members and the committee staff of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I see my good friend, Tom Harkin, who now chairs that committee, along with Max Baucus, and so many others of the leadership staff who have brought us to this moment.

I rise to discuss the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. Although none of us are ignorant of the historic nature of the health care portion of our work this past week, I wish to take a few moments to talk about the significance of the education portion of the bill. I listened intently to my friend from Tennessee talk about this part of the bill as well. I have great admiration for him, having served as the Secretary of Education and as Governor of Tennessee. He has a wealth of knowledge on the subject matter. I commend him for it. However, we disagree with this particular portion.

I rise to express a different point of view about why I believe what we have included in this bill has great value. Obviously, the major attention has been focused on the health aspects of what we are doing. That in itself is a major achievement. The reconciliation portion of this bill before us now strengthens a good bill and makes it even better.

Last evening I discussed portions of the bill that I think add tremendous value to our efforts to provide health care once and for all for all Americans. But the education portion of this bill also has great significance.

Since the Pell grant was established in the 1970s, as all of us know, it has made college a possibility for millions and millions of young Americans. I had the great pleasure of serving with Claiborne Pell as a Member of this body. He served in the 1960s up until only a few years ago. We lost him a number of months ago; he passed away. But it is incredible to think of what a difference that individual, that one Senator made in the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. In years to come, some may not know who Claiborne Pell was, but I would like the record to reflect he was a remarkable Senator. He authored legislation creating the Northeast Corridor, wrote the legislation that banned the testing of nuclear weapons on the ocean floor. He was the author, along with Jacob Javits, of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, and he was the author of Pell grants. Unique and remarkable contributions, each and every one of them, but he should long be remembered for making education an opportunity that would not be denied because one lacked the resources to afford it.

Those millions of young Americans are now leaders in our Nation. They are innovators, some of our most productive and successful citizens. This bill is not unlike the GI bill at the end of World War II, when we recall men who came back from the theaters of the Pacific and Europe who were able to receive an education under the GI bill, who would tell us what a remarkable investment it was.

It has been repaid millions of times over by those who today make contributions to our country because they got an education because there was a creative Congress, because there was an administration that understood the value of an education in the midpart of the 20th century. Here we are now into the second decade of the 21st century facing a similar issue.

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the value not only of making us a healthier country by the adoption of the health care provision of this bill, but a better educated country--

not only to advance our own needs--but to make sure individuals have the opportunity to maximize all of their potential. Today that wouldn't be the case without Pell grants. What they have done to and for our society has been remarkable. Countless individuals would not have had the opportunity to attend college without Pell grants.

Since then the importance of a college education has only grown, not only for the individual students who want to achieve their full potential, but our Nation as well. America's ability to compete in the global economy depends on having a well-educated workforce in the 21st century. Today, that means a college-educated workforce. Unfortunately, while the urgency of opening the door to college has grown, the support provided to our most important college aid program has slipped. In fact, it has gone further--it has fallen off a cliff. In 1975, the maximum Pell grant covered 80 percent of the average student's tuition, fees, room and board at a 4-year public university. Today it covers less than one-third at a public university.

Our failure to keep pace with the exploding cost of college threatens to slam the door on a generation of Americans, making college impossible for many and leaving those who do find a way to further their education with a debilitating burden of overwhelming debt.

Make no mistake, allowing the Pell Grant Program to wither, as would be the case without the adoption of the language in this bill, isn't just a slap in the face to low and middle-income hardworking American families. It is a serious threat to America's competitiveness in the 21st century. Fortunately, the legislation in front of us presents an opportunity to revitalize the Pell Grant Program and to unlock the opportunity of higher education for millions of Americans.

The bill invests $13.5 billion to fill the shortfall in the Pell Grant Program and ensures that such a shortfall doesn't develop again, as the cost of college continues to increase in the years ahead. For instance, if we fail to act, the maximum Pell grant award could be a paltry $2,100 for the year 2010. Never before has the effectiveness of this program been at such risk. The legislation before us protects the maximum award at a level of $5,500 and increases to almost $6,000 by 2017, 7 years from now.

We all know that in 7 years the cost of education will have continued to skyrocket. I would be the first to admit that while we are putting tremendous resources into this program, we can imagine in 2017 what college education will be like, even at public universities. This Pell grant assistance, as important as it is, is not going to come close to meeting the needs of families, so we will continue to work to increase aid. But in this legislation, we also peg these increases to inflation in order to try to keep up with the cost of higher education.

In my home State of Connecticut, this would enable more than 4,300 additional students to go to college. In addition, this legislation makes important investments in Historically Black Colleges, community colleges, and the College Access Challenge Grant Program, which fosters partnerships between government and the nonprofit sector that helps low-income kids get a chance to go on to a higher education.

It invests in programs that help students determine what college is best for them, as well as prepares them not only to get into those schools but to graduate from them. When those students do graduate, they will no longer be faced with that mountain of debt we have heard about over and over again that puts so many of their own careers and contributions to society on hold while they have to pay off these debts, seeking jobs and opportunities that may not be what they need for their future growth and potential.

To help with this, our legislation caps repayment of Federal loans at 10 percent of discretionary income and forgives payments after 20 years. This represents an important investment not only in our children's future but in the future of our country. It will pay enormous dividends.

This investment isn't just smart, it is fully paid for. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates this legislation will reduce the national debt and deficit by $10 billion over the next 10 years. We accomplish that by eliminating what amounts to billions of dollars in wasteful spending within the Federal student loan program.

Let me explain. Currently, some Federal student loans are made through the Direct Loan Program, while others are made through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, the so-called FFEL Program. This program overpays banks for servicing these Federal loans. The result is that money intended to help students go on to a higher education ends up instead helping to pad the profits of those lenders. That is a waste of money.

What is more, banks in the FFEL Program get their loan guarantee and interest subsidy entitlements regardless of how they treat the student borrowers. While they bank the profits when the loans are repaid, taxpayers end up shouldering the risk of defaults. So our legislation converts all future Federal student loans to direct loans.

This doesn't cut the private sector out of the student loan industry. What it does is as American as apple pie. It makes them compete. It ends these unnecessary payments and force banks to compete for the job of servicing student loans. When institutions have to compete, consumers benefit.

For students and parents, it means better customer service and the same good rates that have always been the hallmark of Federal student loans.

As for taxpayers, it means a savings of $61 billion over 10 years, money that now flows into the coffers of banks, but under this legislation will be used to help more kids go on to college and bring down our national deficit.

In short, what we have here is a win-win, a fully paid for and much needed investment in equal opportunity and American competitiveness. I would be remiss if I did not note that we could and should be doing more. It comes as a serious disappointment to me and to education advocates across the country that funding for a new early childhood learning initiative was not included in this package. I desperately wanted it to be there, as did my friend Tom Harkin from Iowa who has worked with me, along with others, for years on early education. As important as it is to enable a high school student to graduate and attend college, it is just as critical that we prepare every child to be a viable candidate for their next step in the education process. The achievement gap that robs too many American children of their opportunity begins very early, before the age of 3, according to everything we know about child development. You know the statistics, as most of us do. Investments in early childhood education pay off tenfold when we consider the decreases in crime, the reduced need for special education and welfare services, and improved health of these children who have access to early education.

Just as the increasingly competitive global economy calls us to unlock the door to higher education, we must also do everything we can to bring every American child to that threshold of maximizing his or her potential. That important work requires a serious commitment to early education. This legislation would have been a perfect opportunity to follow through on that commitment. So the fight will continue, unfortunately, without the strength this bill would have provided. But for now we have the chance to do some real good for young people and for our Nation.

I urge my fellow Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, to support this commonsense measure, save the Pell Grant Program, and make a real difference in the lives of countless young Americans for years to come. I remind my colleagues this is just part of what is at stake in this debate. The amendments being offered, on too many occasions by our friends on the other side of the aisle, are doing nothing more than trying to stop this legislation from going forward. I hope that will stop. Let's pass this bill. We have a chance to not only change the quality of health in America but also to open the doors of opportunity for American students.

For those reasons, I urge adoption of this package.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a couple of minutes, if I can, this afternoon. I realize we are getting toward the close of the end of the week, and Members will be heading off to their respective districts and States for the weekend. We will be coming back on Monday or Tuesday.

I want to take a couple of minutes, because next week we will be having a markup in the Senate Banking Committee of the financial regulatory reform effort that we have been involved in now for about 2 years.

It was 2 years ago this past weekend that the collapse of Bear Stearns occurred in 2008. Not that that was the beginning of the problems; that was merely the evidence of how deep the problems were. Of course, the events that unfolded in 2008 only confirmed what was happening in March was the beginning of a near total collapse of the financial system in this country.

During those last 2 years, we have had countless hearings and meetings, gathering information from all sorts of sources both here as well as around the country to determine what best steps we could take to see to it that the country would never again face that kind of near collapse of our financial system; to see to it that the tools would be there, so that when the next emergency arose, as it surely will to one degree or another, that the next generation would have the tools necessary to avoid the economic system sort of spinning out of control, as it did over these last 2 years; and, thirdly, to make sure that in our efforts to plug the gaps that created the problems in the first instance, and the tools necessary to deal with future ones, we were not going to strangle the financial system of our Nation so that we could not create jobs, have credit flow, capital move, so that our Nation could again prosper economically.

The interrelationship between our financial system and economic growth is inseparable. Without a strong and dependable, secure, safe financial system, the idea of economic growth in our country is, of course, a fiction. So we have a deep and serious challenge, as we have had over these past 2 years, to reform a system that has not been reformed since the 1930s. There have been various new regulators who have been added, additional restrictions imposed at one time or another, but not the kind of comprehensive view that I think the country expects in light of the events that have unfolded over the last couple of years.

As chairman of the committee over the last 36 months, since I became chairman in January of 2007, we have tried to respond to this issue, first in 2007, by focusing on the root cause of the problem. That was, of course, in the mortgage lending market, where mortgages were going out the door from lending institutions that the borrowers did not understand, and could never afford, and the lenders knew that at the time. As a result, we began to see the collapse of our economy when those mortgages were then securitized and sold to investors only to discover that, of course, these mortgages were worth a lot less than the rating agencies claimed they were. That was not a minor problem. We have now had 7 million people in this country who have had their homes in foreclosure. Many of them, if not most of them, will lose their homes as a result of what happened.

The unemployment rate has cost 8\1/2\ million people their jobs in this country, and in certain parts of the Nation unemployment rates hover around 17 percent, on average a little less than 10 percent.

There are good signs that are occurring that indicate our economy may be recovering at certain levels. But tell that to the person who lost their job today, lost their retirement income, lost their homes, lost that sense of self-worth and value that you can never put a pricetag on but is essential for our Nation's sense of optimism and strength in these difficult days.

For all of those reasons, we have tried to craft a bill here that deals with those goals of plugging the loopholes, the gaps, providing the tools for the future, and creating a system that will allow our economy to grow and prosper once again.

There are four major areas of the bill I have talked about. One is for once and all end the notion that any financial entity never can become so complicated, so interconnected, so big, that it has an implicit guarantee that the taxpayers of this country are going to bail it out when it begins to fail, or fails.

The $700 billion paycheck the American people wrote in order to stabilize our financial institutions in the fall of 2008 should never, ever happen again. The bill I have crafted, along with my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, we believe achieves that goal. I owe a special thanks, a very special thanks to two of our colleagues, a Democrat and a Republican, who have worked over many weeks to try to do exactly what I have described doing for you, and that is to shut down the possibility that the American taxpayer will ever again be asked to write that kind of a check. So my thanks to Mark Warner of Virginia, a new Member of this body, one who, in his previous life, before being the Governor of Virginia, worked in the financial services arena of our country and knows it well. His partner in this was another member of the Banking Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, another new Member of this Chamber. He served as the mayor of Chattanooga, TN, a very successful businessman in his own right, who also understands these issues as well, if not better, than most Members who serve here, with all due respect.

The two of them have worked along with the Treasury Department and others. They have listened to an awful lot of people in crafting this title I and title II of our bill dealing with systemic risk and with ``too big to fail.''

In November I offered a proposal, what I called a ``discussion draft,'' for our consideration. Since that time we have modified that bill substantially as a result of the input and suggestions of Senators Warner and Corker--and others, I might add; not exclusively but they have been the leaders on this issue.

Earlier we had an independent agency with rule writing authority to address systemic risk. In our new version we created a Treasury-led council with the ability to make recommendations and rule writing. Senator Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican and former chairman of the Banking Committee, made those suggestions. That is different from what existed in November. It is a stronger provision; it makes more sense.

Working with Senator Corker and Senator Warner, we have included his and Senator Warner's ideas with respect to the power of the council to act as an early warning signal, and the establishment of a new Office of Financial Research at the Treasury Department to standardize, collect, and analyze financial data, to inform the work of the council. They were very worthwhile suggestions.

We have also taken Senator Corker's and Senator Warner's ideas on ending, as I said, ``too big to fail.'' We have a process in place for placing failing financial companies in receivership and liquidating them, unless they can go into bankruptcy. At Senator Shelby's request, we have this mechanism available for any failing financial firm, not just those who were previously subject to heightened regulation.

The Fed's emergency lending authority has also been changed. At Senator Shelby's request, we have significantly cut back on the Fed's use of its emergency lending authority, the so-called 13(3) section under the Fed rules.

No longer can the Federal Reserve Bank bail out a company such as AIG, which is what they did. Instead, the Fed must create broad programs subject to rulemaking and approval by the Treasury. Only then can the Fed lend against good collateral.

We have made a host of other changes, including in the area of credit rating agencies, audits of the Federal Reserve, Federal governance changes, securitization, credentialed supervision to protect the dual banking system, and on and on, of modifications to the November discussion draft that I offered last Monday as this new proposal.

The last thing I would do is claim perfection. I am trying to put together a bill that reflects the various ideas of our colleagues, necessary to garner the necessary support in order to move from the committee to the floor of this Chamber for further consideration. That is not easy. What I have tried to do is to maintain these principles of eliminating ``too big to fail,'' setting up that systemic risk radar operation, so we have far more early warnings of the kinds of looming problems that could threaten our economy and threaten the financial system of this Nation and others.

This bill does that in a very strong way. Again, I thank my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, for their contributions that are now reflected in the bill that I proposed on Monday, and it will be the subject of our markup of that bill beginning on Monday, late Monday afternoon, early Monday evening.

We made other changes as well. In November, I offered a proposal to create a free-standing consumer protection agency. I thought it made sense to do so. But there were suggestions that have come from my colleagues here, both Democrats and Republicans, to place that agency, renting space, nothing more than that, at the Federal Reserve.

There is a good reason for doing that, in my view, in terms of the budgetary authority and how we fund the operations. But I insisted that we have four major principles associated with consumer protection. I would remind my colleagues, never, ever before have we had a focused operation in this Nation that was dedicated to protecting the users of financial services.

We have all read about Toyota and the problems with its braking system. I am not here to characterize the legitimacy or the accuracy of those complaints. But what is not in doubt is that there is an agency of government today which exists which allows a consumer of a bad product, such as an automobile, or an appliance, or food they eat, to be able to register that complaint and get redress, so that other consumers would not be adversely affected by a bad product, a consumer product, something you buy, something you use, something you eat, something you drive, something you manipulate.

What we have never had in this country is a counterpart to that kind of protection when it comes to the mortgage you buy, the credit card you engage in, the loan you make, the check you deposit, the insurance policy you buy, or the stock you purchase.

This country deserves, in the 21st century, to be able to say to consumers of financial products, there is a place where we can offer some protection for those who might abuse you in the process, as happened in this most recent crisis.

But we try to do it in a responsible way, because we recognize there can be a conflict. I am not confident this happens as frequently as some might suggest, but if there is a conflict between the safety and soundness rules of a financial institution and the consumer protection of those who are the purchasers or users of financial services, we have now changed the proposal I offered on Monday.

This new proposal has our consumer protection agency renting space, if you will, at the Federal Reserve, but it is independent in its rulemaking, it is independent in its examination and its ability to have an enforcement of those financial institutions that have assets, particularly on examination enforcement above $10 billion, which means it will go after the largest institutions and the marketers of these financial products. But those principles of having a presidentially appointed director, confirmed by the Senate, having an independent source of funding, are now all reflected in this bill with the changes we have made.

There are other changes as well. For the first time, large financial companies will be subject to Federal examination enforcement as well. This means that for the first time, community banks will see their nonbank competitors examined and regulated on a level playing field as well. Small banks have a legitimate complaint, that they have been subject to regulation, but the nonbanks are not, and that is unfair.

Nonbanks also dispense financial products, and the users or the purchasers of those products ought to have the same degree of protection. Our bill that we presented on Monday does that.

There will be no assessments on small banks or large banks or nonbanks. The Federal Reserve will pay the freight of this agency. Concerns have been raised that somehow consumer protection will create safety and soundness. I already suggested to you, we have a mechanism here that I think will ease or eliminate any concerns people have about any potential conflict that could possibly occur.

The point I wanted to make in these two areas, one on ``too big to fail,'' systemic risk councils, looking at the consumer protection area, I have been listening carefully to my colleagues, all 22 Democrats and Republicans on the committee. We had over 50 hearings alone, I believe is the number, this past year on the subject matter.

Since November, it has been 4 months that have gone by with ideas that have been brought to the table, and they are reflected in this bill that I offered for consideration on Monday. Beginning on Monday of next week, we will begin the process of doing what we do here in this institution of the Senate, we will begin the so-called markup of a bill, where we sit around, all 23 of us, and try to narrow the differences that may exist as we try to come forth with a product for the full consideration of the Senate.

I am looking forward to the amendments that will be filed by noon tomorrow. It will give us the weekend to analyze those amendments, many of which I hope we will be able to accept to improve this bill; in others there may be differences that we cannot resolve in the markup of the committee.

But I have assured my good friend from Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, Senator Shelby, that I am determined to get a bill, to do it in an orderly fashion, to have the markup of this subject matter which is so important to all Americans be done in a civil fashion, so we listen and respect each other as we craft these ideas to try and make a difference and see to it that we never again see our country face the kind of near brink of utter disaster that we came close to accomplishing as a result of the gaps that have existed in our financial regulatory system.

I thank my colleagues for indulging me these few minutes to kind of share with you some of the changes that have occurred since November in the draft we have offered. There are many more I have not gone into in these few minutes that are reflected in the proposal.

But it is a balanced bill, one that is designed to be fair and clear, one that will give us better lines of authority reflecting the changes that have occurred in our country over many years, allowing for a greater, I think, sense of confidence that certain things will be done.

One of the changes we made, my good friend from Alabama made the suggestion and I have included it in the bill. Up to now, the New York Fed, which is a very important regional Federal bank--the Chair of that bank has always been chosen by the very banks the New York Fed regulates. Under our proposal, the head of that New York Fed will be chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate. That is a major change. I know it may not seem like much to others, but imagine the inherent potential contradiction that the very people you are charged with regulating decide who the regulator is going to be. This bill changes that, along with many other suggestions. Again, that one came from my friend from Alabama. I thank him for it, along with many other ideas reflected in the bill.

I know we have our differences. We have not resolved all of them, but that is why we are here--to resolve differences and come forward. I am confident we can do that and that we will end up in the next number of weeks with a financial reform package that will enjoy broad-based support in the Senate. We will work with our colleagues in the other body and offer to the President for his signature the first major comprehensive reform of financial services institutions since the Great Depression. The task is a huge one. It is daunting in many ways. The bill is almost 1,400 pages long. It is a reflection of weeks and months of work. It is not something crafted over the last weekend and thrown together. It is a reflection of hours and hours of consultation among Democrats and Republicans, stakeholders, advisers, and other people who bring a great deal of wealth and knowledge to this debate.

I felt the time had come to lay down a product and ask my colleagues to react to it, to ask those knowledgeable about the issue to examine it and then for us to get about the business we are sent here to do; that is, to change laws where they need changing, to strengthen regulators where they need strengthening, to create oversight and regulation where it is missing so that we can have a renewed confidence in our economic system. That was my goal at the outset. It is my goal with the presentation of the bill. It is my confidence that my colleagues will embrace this as well when we have a chance to cast final votes in this body.

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

Mr. President, I rise today, joined by my colleague Senator Grassley, to introduce legislation on behalf of the millions of talented, high-achieving American students who every day, despite our best efforts, are being left behind.

When we talk about reducing the achievement gap, we usually think of helping economically disadvantaged kids who are having a tough time in school keep up with their peers.

Unfortunately, there is also a growing gap between high-achieving kids from high-earning families and students with just as much potential and talent who come from difficult economic circumstances.

Potential is being squandered every day. Tragically, some estimates indicate that one in five of our highest-achieving students drops out of school. That is 20 percent of our best and brightest students, the hope of our nation and the key to our economic competitiveness in the 21st century, left behind.

Every child should have the opportunity to reach their full potential. So, today I introduce the Equity in Excellence Act of 2010, designed to eliminate this gap among high-achieving students by helping talented but economically disadvantaged kids find the challenging and enriching materials and programs they need to stay in school and on track.

Here is how it works.

First, our bill will help to evaluate how school districts are challenging their most talented students--and to diagnose the problem when they are not.

Second, it will put in place evidence-based programs--ranging from enrichment programs to academic acceleration strategies to high quality support material--designed to maximize learning among high-potential students.

Third, it provides funding to hire and train personnel--principals, counselors, psychologists--skilled in meeting the needs of high- achieving students.

Fourth, it provides funding to educate and inform parents of these students, so that they can partner with schools in supporting their kids.

This legislation has been endorsed by the National Association for Gifted

Children, an organization of more than 8,000 parents, teachers, education professionals, and community leaders united in support of high-achieving kids and their unique needs.

Of course we all want to ensure that every child--no matter what their strengths and weaknesses, no matter what their grades or test scores, no matter what their economic background--can get a good education that prepares them for the 21st century economy.

Every child who falls through the cracks represents a tragedy. When those who have displayed such tremendous potential are left behind, we all suffer. This legislation offers a step towards keeping those kids challenged, engaged--and in school.

I want to thank Senator Grassley for joining me in this effort, and encourage our colleagues to join as well.