Floor Statements

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

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

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

Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advocates wanting to engage lenders ``face a challenge even

finding someone with whom to begin the conversation,''

according to a report by NeighborWorks America. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

With that, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 1038 to Amendment No. 1018

Certainly.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The clerk will call the roll.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield the floor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amendment No. 1038

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

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

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

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Will my colleague yield?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amendment No. 1036

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With that, I yield the floor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I have a series of unanimous consent requests to make.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on

Tuesday, May 5, at 9:45 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, in room 106 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 5, 2009, at 3:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, at 3 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Passport Issuance Process: Closing the Door to Fraud'' on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 128, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 129, submitted earlier today.

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

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

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

Mr. President, I am going to take a few minutes to explain. I know the leadership has already made these announcements, but as I have been told, at 5:30 there will be two votes on amendments offered by our colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter. I am going to take a few minutes here, once again, to review the underlying proposals Senator Shelby of Alabama and I have crafted as part of this bill. Then I will take a few minutes to express my views on the two Vitter amendments. I presume Senator Vitter himself may come over and talk about this or others who are interested in the two amendments may show up to express their interest in them as well.

I thank the majority leader, Senator Reid, for scheduling the time for the consideration of this bill. Obviously, the importance of foreclosure mitigation is still critical. I still believe, as many do, that the root cause of our financial problems in this country began with the residential mortgage market, the predatory lending that went on with literally millions of people in this country. The Wall Street Journal reported that some 60 to 65 percent of people who were talked into predatory loans, subprime loans, actually qualified for conventional mortgages. Conventional mortgages are far less costly than subprime mortgages, but because there was a greater financial reward for brokers and others who were able to market and sell the subprime mortgages, they were marketed to people. Of course, those mortgages became far more costly. There were adjustable rate mortgages, there were teaser rates with almost no downpayments required and very little interest payments for months on end and then, of course, ballooning to the point that many people could ill-afford them. For many, they could not the afford them at all, to the point that problem migrated to other areas of our economy. As a result, today we find ourselves in a recession, and a deep one at that.

This bill is designed to help families save their homes. That is what it is designed to do. There are a lot of provisions that relate to the smaller banks in the country and how we can be of some help to them to get credit moving.

I did this last week at the close of business, but I thought I would spend a few minutes to review, once again, the major provisions of the bill without going into great detail as to what is included in each provision and then, as I said, address the two Vitter amendments that will be offered later this afternoon.

This amendment we have offered is a substitute amendment that Senator Shelby and I have before us now, which is S. 896. It expands the number of tools available to try to prevent foreclosures and the ability of homeowners and loan servicers to use those tools. In addition, the bill includes provisions to make the banking system more stable and improve the availability of credit.

Specifically, there are about 8 or 9 or 10 major provisions of the bill.

The first of these provisions expands the ability of the Federal Housing Administration in rural housing to modify loans. I made the point last week that this is absolutely critical. FHA has been a savior in many cases, providing credit when credit has not been available elsewhere to keep a limited housing market open. It is very important that they have the tools to do that--certainly the tools to modify FHA or USDA loans, as they do for non-Government loans they service.

This part of the bill is one that is critically important and can make a huge difference to people. There will be amendments offered to modify this provision of the bill. If we end up undermining the role of the FHA at this critical time, we can make it far more difficult for these foreclosures to be mitigated and decrease the possibility of people remaining in their homes.

Second, it expands access to the HOPE for Homeowners legislation, which makes a number of changes to that bill we adopted last summer. It was a program that was well intended but left a lot of problems in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of the legislation. This bill will allow for the option to lower fees and streamline the borrower certification requirements. We give the Secretary of the housing agency in our country limited discretion to determine the amount and distribution of future appreciation. We ban the very wealthiest in our country from being involved in this program. It was never intended to be such. We allow for incentive payments to servicers and originators who participate in the program. Again, it is something designed to be of help to the average citizens, working families in this country.

Third, we create more enforcement tools for the FHA to eliminate bad lenders. This was an important provision that provides the tools to the housing and urban development agency to more expeditiously drop lenders that break FHA rules. This was needed to strengthen those provisions and make sure resources go to the areas that need them. They are certainly not to be used by lenders who are violating the rules of FHA.

We then provide for a safe harbor for servicers who would either modify a loan consistent with the Obama foreclosure mitigation program or refinance the borrower into a HOPE for Homeowners loan. This has been a contentious issue between bankers and investors, trying to do something with regard to mitigation. This has been narrowly drawn.

The House-passed bill--and I say this respectfully of the other body--had a broad provision in this area. This was an idea Senator Martinez offered a number of weeks ago. He has since modified this--and I agree with him--to try to restrict time, duration, and circumstances in which a safe harbor would apply.

What is a safe harbor? A safe harbor is designed to encourage the servicers to modify loans, servicers who have had contracts with investors. The investors obviously are somewhat reluctant to watch a modification of any of these things that would deprive them of the ability to take legal action against a servicer who engaged in a modification creating a safe harbor for the servicer. We encourage them--it doesn't mandate but encourages them to modify those loans with the borrower, in the absence of which I doubt any servicer will be willing to step forward do so.

So this is an absolutely critical area. While there are still concerns on the part of some, I believe it is the right step to be taking. It is limited in duration. It is limited to only the Obama foreclosure mitigation and the HOPE for Homeowners, only in those two instances, and therefore would not be as open and broad-based as provisions that have been adopted elsewhere.

So I encourage my colleagues to be supportive. There will be an effort to change this in a way that I think would make it unworkable in terms of achieving the desired results here. Again, with 10,000 foreclosures going on every single day in our country, we need to try to bring closure to that problem where we can. This is not going to solve every foreclosure, but it can certainly make a huge difference. An estimated 1.7 to 2 million foreclosures can be avoided with this kind of proposal in the bill.

With the Obama proposals and HOPE for Homeowners proposals, we think that would make a significant difference, allow people to stay in their homes, and allow the lenders to get some payment back rather than the property falling into foreclosure.

As the Presiding Officer knows, the contagion effect of a foreclosed property in a neighborhood is very daunting. We know for a fact that with one foreclosure in a neighborhood of a one-square-block area, the value of every other property in that square block declines by as much as $5,000 that very day. The last thing you want to see on your block, in your neighborhood, is foreclosed, boarded-up properties deteriorating. If you have a home there and that property is declining in value by the day, obviously everyone is adversely affected.

So while I know this is a contentious issue for some, I am pleased that most

of the consumer groups, the realtors, the Financial Roundtable, and others strongly support the provisions Senator Shelby and I have in this bill when it comes to the issue of safe harbor. Again, I thank Senator Martinez, my colleague from Florida, for initiating the idea of this proposal.

The next provision authorizes an additional $130 million for foreclosure prevention activities. Senator Reid is the author. I mentioned earlier that his support in creating the space and time for this bill to come up has been critically important but also the addition of this language which we now know is terribly effective.

Earlier, Senator Schumer and others offered language to provide resources for the support of the prevention activities; that is, counseling activities. It proved very helpful. These can be complicated areas. To get into the issue of modifying a mortgage requires some good counseling. This is not a matter where the average person can just walk in and negotiate by themselves. I think having people who are experienced and knowledgeable, as we now have across the country, who can assist in this process, has been a great asset. These additional resources Senator Reid of Nevada has offered here will make a huge difference for people across our Nation, in addition to what has already been allocated.

Then we have some provisions to increase the deposit insurance with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from $100,000 to $250,000. I mentioned earlier how important that is to people to avoid the kinds of runs that can occur when fear grips investors and depositors. Certainly, those who have even a passing knowledge of history, of the Great Depression, know what happened when fear gripped the country and there were great runs on the banks, people running and taking their deposits out of the banks, feeling as though they were going to lose them, and the old notion of hiding it in your mattress was not a joke; people actually did that. They buried their hard-earned money on their property rather than keep it in what they perceived as an unsafe institution where they could lose those resources.

So back in the 1930s, the FDIC was created to provide, among other things, an ability, when a bank is in trouble, to make that transition from a closed bank to one that could open so the people would not loose their resources, as well as providing insurance so that money would not be lost, a full guarantee of up to $100,000.

The world has changed a lot since the 1980s, which is when I believe that provision, the $100,000, was added, over the last 29 or 30 years. Raising it to $250,000 we believed was necessary to assist, providing further guarantee and assistance as well.

We increased borrowing authority in this bill for both the FDIC and the National Credit Union Administration, from $100 billion in the case of the FDIC and $6 billion for the National Credit Union Administration. There is additional authority that requires the approval of a two-thirds vote of the FDIC or National Credit Union Administration, a two-thirds vote of the Federal Reserve Board, and agreement by the Secretary of Treasury in consultation with the President of the United States.

We stretch out the payment of assessments to rebuild bank thrift and credit union deposit insurance funds to 8 years. This was a very important provision; for many of our lending institutions, that period of assessment is absolutely essential. If it is too short, it obviously puts a huge financial burden on these institutions. I believe the 8 years was a provision that was very important to these institutions and one that they are very pleased our legislation includes. I hope that will work as well as we intend it to.

We also improve the FDIC systemic risk special assessment authority. Again, that is a real relief to institutions that would not participate in that program, that would have been assessed anyway. This provision of the bill protects them from that kind of assessment. Again, it is essentially important.

That is a very quick review of the major provisions of the bill. As I mentioned earlier, this legislation enjoys broad-based support in our country, from major groups of people from major consumer groups in our Nation: The National Consumer Law Center, the Independent Community Bankers, the Center for Responsible Lending, along with the Housing Policy Council, the Financial Services Roundtable, the American Bankers Association. Rarely do I find these organizations coming together around a bill.

You will normally have the consumer groups on one side and your financial services sector on the other side. That is normally how it works. But because of the effort made by so many people on our committee and elsewhere, we have put together a piece of legislation which we think will make a difference on foreclosure, provide some needed reform to our major financial institutions, provide counseling and additional support for people who seek that kind of help, as well as attract the kind of support from diverse institutions that watch and care very much about these groups.

Last week I included letters of support. I should add as well that Lenders One, an association of mid-sized independent mortgage brokers, and the Mortgage Bankers Association, have endorsed what Senator Shelby and I have put together in this bill.

That is a rough summary of the legislation. Of course, anybody who is interested in further information about this, we would welcome them to come over and discuss any provision they have interest in.

Let me, at this point, if I can, address the two amendments which this body will consider at 5:30. The first one I will discuss is the amendment of Senator Vitter of Louisiana No. 1015.

This amendment, as I understand it--obviously Senator Vitter will come and explain his own amendment. I hope I am accurately describing it. Under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, currently it requires the Treasury to permit a TARP recipient to repay the financial assistance it receives subject to consultation with the appropriate Federal banking agency. When the assistance is repaid, the recipient must also buy back the warrants it provided to the Treasury at the current market price.

As I understand the Vitter amendment, it would require the Treasury to permit a TARP recipient to repay TARP assistance it received if the institution would be ``well capitalized'' after repaying the funds.

Capitalization of our lending institutions is a critical component, as the Presiding Officer knows, very important, certainly essential, before one would even consider, again, having TARP money come back, the whole idea of insisting upon properly capitalized institutions.

Under the amendment, Treasury could not condition the right of a TARP recipient to repay TARP on an agreement to also buy back the warrants. Under the current law, payback of the TARP money must be accompanied by the repurchase of those warrants.

In fact, the amendment gives the TARP recipient the right to determine when the Treasury must buy back the warrants it received; the TARP recipient is not required to pay market price for them.

I oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote against it, I say respectfully of the author of the amendment, Senator Vitter, a member of our committee. I am concerned this amendment, if adopted, would further destabilize our financial system and could harm taxpayers who, of course, are the ones who put up the TARP money.

Under this amendment, the Treasury would be forced to permit a bank that received TARP money to repay that assistance based on the sole criterion that the bank would remain well capitalized. Again, I emphasize that is an important consideration, but it is not the only one.

If there is one lesson we have learned from this crisis, the definition for what ``well capitalized'' means is inadequate. For example, Citibank and Bank of America are well capitalized according to the standard in the amendment, and despite their obvious troubles, they would be able to return the TARP money they received. The standard the amendment would establish is simply ineffective and not comprehensive enough.

Currently, the regulators can consider the bank's condition in a more complete, holistic way in assessing its

fitness to return TARP funds. The amendment would tie the hands of the regulators to this one particular factor, capital, a very important one but not the only one, a factor that has already proven to be faulty and insufficient to weather today's economic climate.

To get out from under the executive compensation restrictions and other conditions imposed by Treasury, for example, institutions that are in a weakened condition may put themselves and the broader economy at risk. That is why this is important. If we are only talking about one institution, certainly getting the TARP money back is something we would all welcome. But I think we need to look at this beyond just what the effect is on that one institution but what is the effect of the overall financial system. That was the reason why these TARP dollars went out in the first place.

So while being well capitalized is very important, if you limit it to that and that only and allow an institution, such as the ones I have mentioned, to then move beyond that, there could be put at risk the larger economy, which is, of course, the major goal here, to get the overall economy functioning and moving in the right direction.

If banks were allowed to move in that direction merely on that basis alone, then I think we would regret that. Again, I think it is something we ought to be striving for, but this amendment is too narrow, in my view, to limit the decisions strictly on that one criterion. If lending is limited as a result of this amendment, that would mean more businesses closing for lack of financing, more job losses in our country, and a further weakening of the overall economy, delaying even further the recovery we all seek.

It also would mean more foreclosures, which is at the heart of the bill. Foreclosed homes will stay on the market longer because people would not be able to get mortgages to buy these homes.

As my colleagues know, the large banks have gone through the so- called stress tests. Many of them, despite being designated as ``well- capitalized,'' may still be forced to raise more capital, we are told.

It strikes me as unwise that we want to tie Treasury's hands at this important time, right when the results of the stress tests are to be announced.

The amendment would also harm the taxpayer by allowing the TARP recipient to decide when warrants may be exercised and by limiting the Treasury's ability to require the repurchase of warrants when TARP funds have been repaid.

It also harms the taxpayer by eliminating the requirement that Treasury pay market price for the warrants and would allow banks to try to negotiate a better price, thereby reducing the returns to the taxpayers who put up the money in the first place.

In conclusion, I would respectfully oppose this amendment. Current law already allows the banks to repay their TARP funding--in fact, we would encourage it--when it is the right time and safe to do so, examining an array of criteria, not just being well-capitalized. The quicker we can do that, the better off we are going to be. But it will be important that when some of these major institutions repay that, that in so doing they are not going to be jeopardizing the economy at large.

The amendment, however, could cut credit availability at a time when credit is desperately needed; and could put more institutions at risk when stability is needed; and it is a bad deal, further, for the American taxpayer who, ultimately, is the one who put up the resources and hopes to get repaid when this economy begins to recover.

Again, respectfully I say to my colleague and friend from Louisiana, I would oppose that amendment.

The second amendment is No. 1017. This amendment deals with the Federal Housing Administration. The Vitter amendment would establish ``solvency'' as the ``primary foundational responsibility'' of the Federal Housing Administration, the FHA.

The amendment then requires the Secretary to close down any FHA program if it seems ``reasonably likely'' that the FHA might need credit subsidy from Congress. Again, I oppose this amendment because it does exactly the opposite of what we ought to be doing at a moment such as this.

We thank our lucky stars that we have the FHA providing credit at this time. In exactly a moment such as this, you need the FHA out there to provide that credit when credit is so unavailable through the clogged-up financial system in our Nation. First and foremost, this amendment fails to reflect the fact that the primary mission of the Federal Housing Administration is to help create and sustain home ownership for American families.

The mission of the FHA is especially important now, while we are struggling through such troubled economic times. FHA currently insures nearly 30 percent of the mortgage market in our Nation.

If you extend the logic that the amendment proposes, you would shut the doors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right now because both have had to draw on their credit lines from the Treasury. Without them, we would lose the other 70 percent of the mortgage market overnight, turning a housing recession into a deep housing depression.

In my view, if it were not for the Federal Government at this hour, working through FHA and other federally supported institutions, there would be no mortgage credit available at all.

The FHA has a mission. It is to ensure that adequate and affordable mortgage credit is available in every part of our Nation. It is currently fulfilling that mission admirably, while many other sources of credit, as I mentioned earlier, have totally disappeared or almost completely disappeared.

The Federal Housing Administration pushes against the prevailing downward winds in our economy. It is countercyclical. The Senator's amendment would turn the FHA into a procyclical program, withdrawing credit, pulling it back, when credit is so difficult to come by. This change would help deepen the worst housing recession we are experiencing since the Great Depression.

Moreover, I think it is important to know that FHA fund is not at risk. As of the second half of the fiscal year 2009, the sum of FHA's investments and cash on hand is nearly $32 billion. Its net position, assets minus liabilities, on March 31 of this year, was a positive $11.8 billion. Although FHA's capital has fallen to 3 percent, it is still 50 percent above its statutorily mandated level of 2 percent. Falling capital in tough times is to be expected. That is what is going on. We all understand that. That is what you have capital for, to protect yourself in the bad times.

In addition, it is important to remember that FHA has always been a fixed-rate mortgage insurer. It never got involved in the exotic and often predatory practices offered by the subprime lenders. FHA has also required income to be documented and verified.

In fact, because FHA has been known for its solid loan products, more and more people with better credit quality are using FHA today. Over the past 6 months, the average credit score in FHA has increased by nearly 40 points.

Finally, current law already establishes a fiduciary duty ``to ensure that the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund remains financially sound.'' The Secretary is already required to make program changes or adjust premiums if FHA's performance is expected to differ substantially from the baseline established by an independent actuarial report.

Secretary Donovan has assured me and the Congress that the Congress would be immediately alerted if he thought the FHA was at risk at all.

In short, I ask my colleagues, again, I say this respectfully of its author, to oppose this amendment. It is not needed. It would be exactly the wrong message, the wrong action to be taking at this critical time. Solvency is not an insignificant issue, but the role of the FHA is not to provide solvency, necessarily, but it is to provide credit at a time when credit is not available.

When as many people as I have indicated by the facts are relying on the FHA at a time when we are trying to encourage home ownership on responsible terms--and the FHA, as I pointed out earlier, was not one of these exotic lenders that was out there with these predatory practices. Quite the contrary. So rather than, in a sense, changing the mission of the FHA, fundamentally altering what its goal is

and ought to be at these times, we need to oppose this amendment.

Again, we need to rely, as we can and must, on the fact that the FHA is in sound shape. If it is not for some reason, we have every reason to believe we can take improvement steps.

Accordingly, again, I would urge our colleagues, when talking about both of these amendments, join me in opposing them, given the difficulty that both these amendments would raise if they were to be adopted.

Again, I will be happy to be in the Chamber for the next hour or so. If people wish to come over and engage in a discussion or debate, I welcome that opportunity. But at 5:30, in a little more than an hour, we will have a vote on both these amendments of our colleague from Louisiana.

Let me say, again, I think we assume this is personal in nature. It is not. I have respect for my colleague. We have a different point of view on matters. That is the nature of the institution and the debate that occurs.

I don't question his motives or the sincerity behind his amendments, but I believe in both cases they would move us in the opposite direction from where we need to be going.

With regard to TARP funding, all of us wish to get the TARP money back to the taxpayers as quickly as we can with interest. But we need to understand it is more than just capitalization when we make that decision. We don't want to do harm to our economy at a critical moment such as this. Secondly, with regard to FHA, solvency is important. The mission of FHA is, of course, to be countercyclical, not procyclical. At a critical time such as this, depriving them of that opportunity to fill a credit gap that does not exist today would be exactly the wrong message and do great damage to a critical component of home ownership.

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

Madam President, I know this may confuse some people. I am going to call up a couple amendments for my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley. He cannot be here.

I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendments and call up amendments Nos. 1020 and 1021 on behalf of the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley.

Madam President, let me just say that my offering these amendments should not necessarily indicate we have reached an agreement on these amendments. Senator Grassley's staff and our staff are working together to see if we can achieve an agreement on them. We hope we do. But certainly he has the right to raise those amendments, and I was more than happy to offer them on his behalf.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I see my friend from Louisiana is here. I spoke earlier about my colleague's two amendments. I appreciate the spirit and motivation behind them. I will take a couple of minutes to review my concern about them.

First, regarding Senator Vitter's first amendment, No. 1016, dealing with TARP money, I think we all would like money coming back sooner rather than later--getting to a point where these resources come back, with additional interest, to the extent that taxpayers can be made whole as a result of coming up with that money in the first instance and trying to bring stability to the financial markets. There is no debate about that. We agree about that.

There was significant debate that occurred about whether there should be TARP money to begin with. It wasn't all one way. I supported it. I thought it made sense to try to stabilize our economy. I believe most believe that the decision made last September, early October, was the right one. In fact, had we not done that, we probably would have lost major lending institutions in the country over many months. Obviously, this administration inherited a good part of the problem, which didn't begin overnight, and it is trying to grapple with it in a holistic fashion, institution by institution.

My concern with the amendment of my friend from Louisiana is this: He is absolutely correct that, again, if we have an institution that is well capitalized, that is a very important criteria in consideration of when these TARP moneys ought to be repaid. My concern is it is not the only criteria. We have major lending institutions, which I could make a case both in Citi and Bank of America, that are well capitalized but, frankly, they have other issues they are grappling with beyond being well capitalized.

If that was the sole criterion, then we would be able to have the TARP money come back. Citi may want to do that, and Bank of America-- and I am not suggesting they do, but they may--

their problems could migrate very quickly to the larger financial problems with which we are trying to deal.

On the one hand, I agree with the motivation, and that is we ought to try to get to the bottom of this as quickly as we can, get the TARP moneys back so the Treasury is replenished with these resources. On the other hand, if we do so prematurely solely on the basis of being well capitalized, we can end up compounding a problem that is already serious and making it far worse.

For that reason, I urge this amendment be rejected. I say that respectfully to my colleague. I don't like getting up and opposing amendments for the simple reason of opposing them. There is a difference here, to have one criteria on which we would depend solely on the determination of returning these dollars, putting the larger issues at risk, I think would not be the right move to make at this point. Therefore, at the appropriate time I will ask for the amendment to be rejected.

Regarding FHA--and, again, I find myself in the awkward position of not disagreeing with my colleague. Solvency is obviously an important issue. Had the rest of the lending institutions in the country been as prudent as FHA, we wouldn't be here talking about this larger problem.

FHA never engaged in the exotic instruments that many others did in the subprime markets with teaser rates and no-doc loans, as they were called, or liar loans. FHA has been a well-run, prudent operation. Today, when very little credit is available for home mortgages, FHA is proving to be vitally important. Thirty percent of the mortgage market today is made up of FHA. If the goal of FHA is strictly the solvency of it--today it is 50 percent above statutorily what it is required to have on a cap of 2 percent, at 3 percent, less than 6 they had a while ago. Obviously, we have to keep an eye on this. But the law statutorily requires the Secretary of the Treasury to notify the Congress when, in fact, there is danger of FHA falling either at or below that 2-percent requirement.

Again, solvency is not insignificant. If that becomes the criteria at a time when we need to be getting more credit out so we begin to get the housing market moving again, I think it is absolutely essential. If FHA is forced to close down just as it is needed most, making it procyclical not countercyclical--which is exactly what we need to be is countercyclical, not procyclical--then we would be turning the recession in the housing area into a depression, which none of us want to see happen.

At this hour, it is very important that we keep FHA moving in that direction, watching, obviously, as my colleague from Louisiana suggests by his amendment, that solvency not be disregarded.

Current statute already requires the Secretary to adjust programs that ensure FHA remains financially sound. In fact, like all housing- focused activities, FHA has lost money in this crisis, but it still has more capital than the law requires, and the quality of its borrowers is improving as we speak. That is to be applauded.

At this very moment, were we to move away from FHA when so much of our housing market depends upon them, I think would be a step in the wrong direction. For that reason, I respectfully ask our colleagues to oppose this amendment. Again, I find myself in the awkward position of not disagreeing with what my colleague talks about in the case of both amendments; that is, getting TARP money back as soon as we can and that solvency is a critically important function at FHA. That is why the statute was written the way it was. I agree with him on those points. I am just concerned if in the first case we set a sole criteria of being well capitalized, and in the case of FHA if solvency is the only value, then we lose the value of FHA at a time when housing is having a hard time finding available credit.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to add regarding the FHA amendment,

for my colleague's information, joining me in opposing the amendment are the mortgage bankers, homebuilders, realtors, Lenders One--the people very involved in the residential mortgage market. I note they expressed a concern about the amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I think we are both prepared to waive that time. We have talked enough about the amendments, so I am prepared to waive that time and go right to the vote.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, I believe Senator Vitter and I are prepared to waive the 2 minutes equally divided.

Does my colleague want a recorded vote?

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I compliment our colleague from Ohio for his eloquent statement. I think it is important that we all hear our colleagues as to what goes on in our respective States.

I commend my colleague, who has had around 150 roundtables in his State where he has been listening to his constituents on a wide range of issues. I think we all benefit from his report on those meetings.

I say to my colleague from Ohio, those responses you are hearing from your constituents in Ohio are not any different from what we are hearing from all across the country, as I know my colleague is aware. So we thank our colleague very much for that, and his comments on health care are very important.

Mr. President, in the absence of the majority leader, who will be here a little later, I have been asked to say that following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 896, a bill to prevent mortgage foreclosures and enhance credit availability. We hope to reach an agreement today on a finite list of amendments--the leader does.

We have been working at that, I can say to the Presiding Officer, so we can complete the bill on Tuesday.

There will be no rollcall votes today. Senators should expect the first vote on Monday to begin at approximately 5:30 p.m. Senators should note we could have more than one vote Monday evening.

With that, I see my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, the pending business before the Senate is S. 896, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act. I would like to take a few minutes and review the provisions of this bill that Senator Shelby of Alabama and I have offered in the form of a substitute. It is similar to the original bill, but there are some changes. We have been told there are somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen amendments, maybe a little less, that our colleagues have proposed. We are trying to work out a finite list of amendments, to consider them on Monday, with the hope of getting to conclusion of this bill either by Monday or Tuesday--Monday may be a little optimistic but by Tuesday to be able to complete work before moving on to other business.

This is a very important piece of legislation. Many of our residents and citizens are deeply concerned about the foreclosure problems. I have repeated the numbers over and over. I suspect many people are aware, but 10,000 people a day run the risk of losing their homes through default or the auction process. Those numbers have not been shrinking at all. In fact, there are estimates that the numbers may actually increase.

We have tried over the last 2 years any number of steps to reduce and mitigate the foreclosure problem, including inviting the major lending institutions to step up and voluntarily talk about mitigation. That process began as early as the late winter of 2007 and the spring of 2007. Regretfully, those institutions did little or nothing to try to mitigate this problem.

In fact, the previous administration refused to accept the magnitude of the problem, despite overwhelming evidence, even in early 2007, that the foreclosure issue was going to mushroom

far beyond early predictions. Of course, that is exactly what has happened.

Today, most analysts tell us that while there are a lot of elements that contributed to the present condition the economy is in, no one disagrees that a major source of economic hardship began with the residential real estate market. This problem will not be solved until we get to the bottom of it. While there are a lot of other issues to talk about, and we are doing that, until this issue of keeping people in their homes at rates and mortgages they can afford is resolved, this problem will persist.

The legislation Senator Shelby and I offer, along with the support of committee members--and I note the Presiding Officer is a very distinguished member of the committee--is to try to offer some relief. I will explain briefly the provisions of the bill. I invite my colleagues to review it and, hopefully, be supportive on Monday or Tuesday when we try to reach final passage.

We expand the ability of the Federal Housing Administration and rural housing to modify loans. Servicers of the Federal Housing Administration and rural housing do not have the same ability to modify these Federal Housing Administration or USDA loans as they do for non- Government loans they service. Our legislation authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give these servicers the opportunity and incentive to participate in the Obama Loan Modification Program or to otherwise modify the loans in ways that are not presently available to distressed homeowners, including reducing interest rates, reducing principal, or stretching out the terms of these Government-insured loans. This is a major provision of the bill. To be able to provide the FHA and USDA with the authority to expand these opportunities can bring a tremendous amount of relief to people under those programs.

Secondly, we expand the access to the HOPE for Homeowners Act. This was legislation we adopted last summer. The legislation makes a number of changes to the HOPE for Homeowners Program to make it more user friendly and effective, including the option to lower fees, streamlining borrower certification requirements, giving the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development limited discretion to determine the amount and the distribution of future appreciation. It bans millionaires from the program and allows for incentive payments to servicers and originators who participate in the program.

The HOPE for Homeowners Act that passed overwhelmingly here, while the intentions for the bill were high, the reality is, the bill didn't even come close to achieving the goals those of us who crafted it thought it would. We have listened to a lot of people over the last number of months as to what could be done to make the proposal more effective and efficient to reach more people. The proposals I have mentioned were the ideas we have accumulated that we believe, and others believe, should make the program far more effective. It will not solve all the foreclosure problems, but it will be a major step in the right direction.

Thirdly, the bill creates more enforcement tools for the Federal Housing Administration to eliminate bad lenders. The bill empowers the Secretary of HUD to expeditiously drop lenders that break Federal Housing Administration rules, including, one, by authorizing the Department of Housing to go after lenders that break the rules but then withdraw from the program to avoid enforcement actions. We put a stop to that. We crack down on the misuse of FHA insurance issued on mortgages originated through unapproved third-party entities, and we authorize HUD to impose penalties on entities that misuse the Federal Housing Administration Ginnie Mae designations, another important housing program.

Fourth, this bill provides a safe harbor for servicers who modify a loan consistent with the Obama plan or refinance a borrower into a HOPE for Homeowners loan. This is a somewhat controversial provision because we end up having a contest between investors and bankers.

The problem is simply this: Even as more and more homeowners have fallen behind in their loans, the response of loan servicers has been inadequate to the issue. In part, their reason for not responding is because they fear they will be sued by investors or competing interests for doing so. The House of Representatives passed a very broad safe harbor provision, very similar to the one our colleague from Florida, Senator Martinez, offered and passed by a voice vote in this body as part of the Senate-passed stimulus bill several months ago. The provision was dropped in conference. The safe harbor provision in this bill is much more narrowly drawn than was the proposal by Senator Martinez. I thank him for it. He was very creative in offering the idea, but there were concerns raised that it was too broad, that we should make it more narrow in its application. So as to not disadvantage investors where they have a legitimate complaint and provide a safe harbor for those who don't deserve it, the safe harbor we crafted is much more narrowly drawn than the House provision or the one that passed the Senate in order to ensure that only servicers that provide modification consistent with the Obama plan get the benefit of the safe harbor.

In addition, this bill ensures that the HOPE for Homeowners refinances are covered as well. That will not satisfy all of the investor community, but it is far better than what was in the House bill or previously authored.

The fifth provision of this bill authorizes an additional $130 million for foreclosure prevention activities. We owe a special thanks to the majority leader, Senator Reid, for its inclusion. He has been consistent over the months that I have been involved in these issues since becoming chairman of the Banking Committee 2 years ago, along with Senator Schumer and others, about providing additional resources for counseling. This bill provides these additional moneys. We have found in the past that where consumers are aware of what is available to them and they get advice as to how to proceed, we are able to reduce the problems of people losing their homes. Once you are in the foreclosure legal web, it is very difficult to help people. Once you are in that court setting, it is hard. So the goal is to try to catch individuals who qualify for some assistance, who would qualify for some relief before they end up in the legal bureaucracy. That is why counseling services have been so valuable over the last number of months, because they have been overwhelmed by the amount of work.

I know in my case, the head of my office in Connecticut, who has been with me for many years, literally every morning he arrives at work, he has e-mails--30, 40, 50 a day--from constituents seeking help because they fear they are about to lose their homes. I know other congressional offices as well as, of course, counselors are also being inundated with requests for help. Obviously, getting good counseling, good solid advice, is important. Senator Reid has provided a very valuable contribution to this legislation with this proposal.

The sixth provision of this bill extends the $250,000 deposit insurance level for 4 years. Presently, that level would expire at the end of this year under an agreement reached earlier with the Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Most people are aware that normally deposits are insured up to $100,000 per account. However, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act increased coverage through the end of this year. This legislation extends the higher deposit insurance limit for banks, thrifts, and credit unions to the year 2013.

Deposit insurance has been a stabilizing force in our banking system since its inception in 1933. It is worth noting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation originated in the Depression years. There were three things done at that time that had as much to do with the 60 years of relative stability in our economy. One was the formation of the Securities Exchange Commission, which played a very valuable role in beginning to govern those markets and to prohibit or limit some of the wildcatting that went on that created in good part the Depression of the 1930s.

Secondly was Glass-Steagall, which has been controversial with the separation of commerce and banking. We have begun to blur those lines. I was

involved in that effort back a number of years ago when we dealt with the Community Reinvestment Act. Like everyone else in this Chamber, I suspect if we were all asked if we could have anything back and redo, I wish that was one we could go back and revisit. Candidly, it seemed reasonable at the time, the firewalls. But, frankly, I think we could have done a little more to protect and separate those activities.

Third, in addition to the SEC and Glass-Steagall was the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--the run on banks. The very day Franklin Roosevelt took office in March of 1933--do not hold me to this number, but something like 5,000 banks declared a holiday, and there was a substantial run. People were frightened they were going to lose the savings they had accumulated, the deposits they had invested or put in these banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, providing that insurance to people that their accounts would be protected in an economic difficulty, had as much to do, if anything, in providing the kind of stability we have seen over the years. But that level of $100,000 has been around for a while. I forget how long, but it goes back several decades--well, 1980. My good friend and colleague in the Chamber, Jonathan Miller, tells me it has probably been since the 1980s for the $100,000, maybe even earlier. So there has been a desire to move this level up with good cause, even in the absence of the predicaments we are in.

So for those reasons, we raised it. I, for one, would have preferred we almost make it permanent--the $250,000--but others wanted to restrain this by the amount of time, and I respect their judgment. So there was a debate whether it should be 1 year or permanent. We settled on 4 years. My sense is, we are not going to roll this back in 4 years; it is going to be at least $250,000.

So for those out there who are concerned about whether there is enough certainty in all of this, while I know they would have preferred a permanent increase, when you are serving with 99 other colleagues here and you are trying to get things done, you have to make some compromises. So the chairman would have liked it permanent, some of my good friends in this Chamber wanted far less than that, and we settled on 4 years. That is the reason that timeframe has come up.

This is going to be tremendously important. The significant extension of the increase in deposit insurance will be especially helpful to smaller financial institutions in our respective States that are worried there would be a run from these institutions, including community banks that derive 85 to 90 percent of their funding from deposits.

So to the community bankers across the country that rightly have been disappointed that every time we talk about banks, we fail to distinguish between the more conservative, responsible activities of our community bankers across the country and the activities of other financial institutions that have had far less than that level of responsibility--so to our friends in the community banking system across the United States: We heard you on this. Many of you would have preferred a permanent raising. I agree with you about that, but this is the best I could do with this bill. It will not roll back, in my view. Eventually, I think we will make this permanent. For the time being, it is 4 years.

By helping community banks protect and grow their deposit bases, this legislation contributes to the effort to improve the availability of capital for lending. That, of course, affects small businesses, microbusinesses, and our constituents across the country. So while this is seen as some security and stability, particularly in the community banking system, this also is very important to small businesses and investors and depositors as well. That is why this legislation needs to be seen in the full context of those who will benefit from it--not only those facing foreclosure but obviously businesses that need borrowing, need that capital to stay alive, let alone try to expand and grow during these difficult times.

The eighth provision of this bill increases the permanent borrowing authority for both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration. The bill increases the permanent borrowing authority for the FDIC from $30 billion to $100 billion. It has been since the 1990s--I think 1991, if I am not mistaken, was the time we settled on the $30 billion. It has been since then that there has been--actually long before this economic crisis--a desire to raise that borrowing authority level. So in this bill, we raise the authority from $30 billion to $100 billion. In the credit unions, we raise it to $6 billion.

We establish temporary additional borrowing authority from the $100 billion to $500 billion in the case of the FDIC and from $6 billion to $30 billion in the case of the National Credit Union Administration, to which the regulators may gain access only with--by the way, you only get beyond that $100 billion with the FDIC or beyond the $6 billion if you are part of the National Credit Union Administration if you are able to get the following agreements: The regulators may gain access only with a two-thirds vote by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the National Credit Union Administration, a two-thirds vote by the Federal Reserve Board, and agreement by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the President of the United States. Again, you have to have a two-thirds vote by the Federal Reserve Board, a two-thirds vote by the FDIC or National Credit Union Administration, approval by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the President of the United States. I hope my colleagues would feel those are enough safeguards that you would not find regulators being able to raise those amounts without going through some significant hoops, and the circumstances would have to be such that these various offices would agree.

FDIC--Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--Chairman Sheila Bair has said that the temporary authority would allow the FDIC to reduce the special assessments on banks by as much as 50 percent, increasing lending by as much as $75 billion.

Again, going back to our banking community and their concerns about assessments, the fact that we are doing it, reducing those assessments by as much as 50 percent, is no small achievement. Again, it is real relief. By doing so, there is the likelihood these institutions can provide additional lending because those assessments will not be too high, which helps small businesses and borrowers across the country. Again, it is not unlike raising insurance levels.

We think these provisions will also make a great contribution to getting lending going again. The one thing we all hear from our constituents over and over again is: We are having a hard time accessing capital. So we hope these provisions will provide some additional relief in that area.

The ninth provision of this bill stretches out the payment of assessments to rebuild the bank, thrift, and credit union deposit insurance funds to 8 years. This is a very important provision. Again, it goes and relates to the last two provisions I talked about because, again, while we think we are providing some relief in terms of the amount of assessments, over what period of time you have to pay them is also a critical issue for these smaller lending institutions. By doing what I have just suggested--stretching it out to 8 years--community banks and credit unions will be able to devote more of their resources to making loans in the communities they serve.

This provision is especially important for credit unions because of the way their deposit insurance system is structured; otherwise, these institutions would have to rebuild their fund in 1 year, which could lead to a severe reduction in lending. So it is a major provision for both community banks and credit unions but particularly in the case of credit unions.

The 10th provision of the bill improves the FDIC's systemic risk special assessment authority. Again, it is related to the last three provisions I have mentioned. The Government's recent use of its systemic risk authority benefited large bank holding companies and their nonbank affiliates, shareholders, and creditors as well. Yet to recover any losses from systemic risk, the FDIC may now only charge banks and thrifts themselves. Obviously, this would unfairly burden community and other traditional banks, particularly

those with few or no nonbank activities.

What we have done in this bill would allow the FDIC, with the Treasury Secretary's concurrence, to directly assess bank holding companies if they stand to benefit from the Government's actions and correspondingly to reduce the cost to our community banks. Again, this is a major provision. It is a technical one, maybe, to many, but again, since a lot of these institutions do not have any nonbanks--and therefore run the risk in the absence of this provision--they could end up being assessed for those charges. This would allow the Secretary of the Treasury and the regulators to seek those assessments for the institutions that ought to be assessed since they are the ones benefiting from that program.

So these provisions, while they are technical in nature, I say to my colleagues--and they are not the kinds of issues you can explain necessarily in a quick sentence before a townhall meeting--let me tell you, they are very important. Are they going to solve the economic crisis? Absolutely not. Are they going to make a difference? Absolutely. Absolutely. So while this bill does not get the same degree of notoriety that others have, it is a critical component to getting our economy moving again.

For those of you who have heard--as I have heard over and over--from our community bankers, our community small businesses: Where is the lending, we think this bill, while it is not going to cause a floodgate to open in terms of lending, it lifts a lot of those barriers and restraints that people have otherwise felt when it comes to lending practices.

So do some of these community banks and thrifts and credit unions benefit as a result of this? Yes, they do. But let me remind you, when they do, the borrowers, the homeowners, the small businesses who are desperate for that lending, that capital, or to mitigate foreclosure, are a direct beneficiary of this legislation. So this is a bill where literally both the lending institutions and the borrowers are direct beneficiaries, and one of the reasons I think it is so important we try to adopt this as quickly as we can.

My hope is that on Monday or Tuesday we will be able to handle a few of these amendments, some of which have nothing to do with this bill. We have to deal with the TARP money and others things, and I appreciate people's concerns about that issue. But let's not miss an opportunity now to get this right.

If this bill becomes loaded down with a lot of other amendments--and I am always hesitant to speak for the majority leader, but in my conversations with him, he has indicated he is not going to spend forever on this. We will come back to it--recognizing that at some point, whether it is later this summer or next fall or maybe next winter, we could come back to this, I think that would be a tragedy because I think we can get this done. Senator Shelby and I have worked hard on a bipartisan basis to put this legislation together. We have a very good Banking Committee that has worked on this legislation as well. And I think we would miss an opportunity not to get this done.

So to my colleagues who would like to bring up a lot of other issues--and I do not question their motives or sincerity behind those ideas that have little or nothing to do with this--I would urge restraint or we may run the risk of losing an opportunity to get this bill done.

There are a lot of other matters before this body that the leader has to get up for consideration. He cares deeply about this issue, as I have evidenced by the fact that he has contributed directly to this bill. But he also has other matters that deserve our attention. He has provided me the opportunity, along with Senator Shelby, to get this bill done. Let's not miss this opportunity.

People talk about bipartisanship, working together. That is exactly what Senator Shelby and I have done with our respective staffs to produce this product. It is not exactly everything Senator Shelby would agree on. It is not everything I would agree on. But together we feel this is a product that deserves the support of our colleagues.

Let me, lastly, if I can, suggest to you that there are a number of very diverse groups that support our efforts. The Center for Responsible Lending is a strong advocate of this bill. The Credit Union National Association supports this bill. The Independent Community Bankers Association strongly supports this bill. The National Consumer Law Center supports this legislation. The American Bankers Association, the National Association of Consumer Advocates supports this bill, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the Housing Policy Council. To those who think this is just another list of organizations, let my remind those who are not familiar with these organizations, that is a very diverse list. You do not normally find consumer groups and the American Bankers Association, community bankers and the Center for Responsible Lending all agreeing on a bill. Yet that is exactly what has occurred with this legislation. So if you have any doubts about the importance of it, I would invite my colleagues to contact any of these organizations and ask them how significant this bill is.

Technical, it may be, in nature, and yet it is these technical corrections and improvements which can make a difference in the lives of our fellow citizens who are anxious--to put it mildly--that we step up and get the job done, get our economy moving again, restore our optimism and confidence as a people, and provide the kinds of steps that will move us in that direction.

Mr. President, lastly, I ask unanimous consent that letters of endorsement from various organizations I have just recited be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, let me, first of all, thank our colleague from Illinois for his tireless work on behalf of this idea. I joined him, along with Senator Schumer, early on in recommending a proposal like this.

History is always a good source to go to. Back in the spring of 1933--which is about as close an example we could probably find over the last 100 years that compares to the days we are in today. Of course, that was the height--or the beginning--of the Great Depression. In 1929, certainly, it all began.

After the election of 1932--during that now often repeated ``first 100 days'' of each administration--and that was the first 100 days ever talked about. It was the Roosevelt administration. The inauguration was in March of 1933. Inaugurations occurred in March in those days, not in January. So that 100 days ran from March until June. One of the first things the new administration did in the face of significant foreclosures across the country--and there were significant ones. They were major. Those days were, in many ways, far more difficult than the ones we are in.

These are bad days, obviously, with 10,000 homes a day going into foreclosure, with 20,000 people a day on average losing their jobs. Retirement accounts are evaporating. We have all heard about, read about, and know people that has occurred to.

But one of the things the new administration did in those days was to go out and actually purchase the home mortgages. The Federal Government actually did that. In order to stem the tide of foreclosures, the U.S. Government decided in those days that it would take over that responsibility. They did other things as well: put capital into banks to stop the runs that were occurring across the country--major steps. But in home foreclosures, they took the unprecedented step of trying to stem that tide, knowing how much damage foreclosures could cause, not only to families and neighborhoods and communities but also to the financial system.

Senator Durbin is not advocating anything quite as revolutionary as the Government acquiring the mortgages of every home. While some have made that suggestion, he is not doing so. What he is suggesting is modifying the bankruptcy laws of our country for a limited amount of time, in a very narrow set of circumstances, to say: Where your primary residence is concerned--and for those who have not followed the debate, let me explain.

There is no restriction in a bankruptcy court for a bankruptcy judge to modify--or at least to negotiate--the modification of your mortgage if you have a vacation home or if you have a pleasure boat and have a mortgage on that. The bankruptcy judge can modify the mortgage on that beach house, that mountain cabin, that yacht you may have. That is perfectly legitimate under bankruptcy laws. What you are not allowed to do, if you are a bankruptcy judge, is to modify the mortgage on a principal residence.

I don't know if statistically what I am about to say is accurate. I suspect that most Americans who have a principal residence don't have vacation homes. I know some do, and that is perfectly legitimate. I am not arguing that you shouldn't have one. But explain to me, if someone will, the distinction on why a vacation home, a yacht, a mountain cabin--as nice as it is to have one--ought to be able to be subjected to a workout with the mortgage involved, and yet, for the person who only owns one home, as most do--you own one house--a bankruptcy judge is prohibited from engaging in a workout between the lender and the borrower on that principal place of residence. For the life of me, over the last number of months we have been involved in this debate and discussion, I have failed to hear an adequate explanation of why there is a distinction on a principal place of residence where a mortgage is involved and there is no hesitation, no restriction whatsoever, on whatever other number of homes you may have. Some have a lot more than two; some have three, four, and five. All of those can be subject to a workout, but not a principal place of residence. That is all we are trying to do here. Not forever, not looking back, not looking forward forever--Senator Durbin's amendment says for a limited amount of time, under limited circumstances--under the total control of the lender, by the way, because if you turn down a workout as a borrower, then basically you lose the option of working it out.

It is so narrowly drawn under these circumstances that, for the life of me, I don't understand the objection. It is one of those moments where I try--when preparing for debate, we all ask: What is the other side going to argue? So I thought last night, I have to get ready for the other side. I tried thinking through what is the argument I would make if I believed this would somehow cause great harm to the economy, was going to flood our courts or was going to require hundreds more bankruptcy judges to deal with it. What is the argument I would make to my constituents and to the American people that we ought not allow a bankruptcy judge to sit down between the borrower and the lender and work out a financial arrangement that allows the borrower to stay in their home, the lender to be paid--at least getting something back-- turning that property into a foreclosed, vacant property, contaminating the value of every other home in that neighborhood. What is the logic? For the life of me, I can't come up with that, and I have tried.

So I would urge my colleagues, as you are thinking about this and listening to these debates, why can't we do what the Senator from Illinois has suggested: For a limited amount of time, try this. It is not forever. It just might do what the authors have suggested, and I am proud to be one of them. It might just do what we failed to be able to achieve despite the efforts of all of my colleagues here.

As chairman of the Banking Committee, we have come up with all sorts of very complicated proposals to try to assist homeowners, and I regret to report that while I think these ideas have great merit and we have all tried hard, they have not been terribly successful, despite the good intentions of everyone to work it out. This is the one idea we have not yet tried to make a difference in the foreclosure crisis.

Before the Sun sets tonight, 10,000 families are going to potentially lose their homes, and that will be true tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Just think about that. As we all go home tonight to our respective dwelling places here, 10,000 of our fellow citizens in this country will end up losing their homes. They have to come back and face their families. Imagine, if you will, if you were in that position, walking into that house tonight and facing your children and facing your family and saying: We can't make this happen financially. We are being pushed out of this house.

This body cannot, for a limited amount of time, under limited circumstances, try something that might make a difference in that family's condition? I hope, in these very difficult

days--if almost 100 years ago, 90 years ago, another body sitting here in the wake of economic circumstances that were as trying as they were could do something as unprecedented as the Government actually purchasing the mortgages, can we not now ask the Federal bankruptcy courts to sit down and try, for a limited amount of time, to make it possible for that family to stay in their home?

It may not work in every case. The Senator from Illinois has pointed out that of the potentially 8 million foreclosures, his bill may only affect 1.7 million of the 8 million, and for a lot of people, this won't even work, regretfully. But for 1.7 million, it might just make a difference to those families. The value of that--how do I put an economic value on that? What does it say to a family who can stay in a home they have bought, they watched the value decline--the mortgage probably exceeds the value of the home in many cases--but that sense of optimism and confidence, that family staying together during very difficult times?

If you are the next-door neighbor, you live down the block, what happens to the value of your home? We know what happens. In fact, that very day, the value of that home that is not in foreclosure and there is no threat of it, but your neighbor's home now declines by as much as $5,000, then, of course, that property and those other properties could fall into a similar situation. All of a sudden, what was otherwise a healthy neighborhood--people meeting their obligations, equity in their homes--all of a sudden, you watch a neighborhood begin to decline. Just imagine, if you would, you are in the market to buy a home and you are riding down that street and you see a couple of places you might be interested in buying but you see foreclosure notices up on two or three. How willing are you going to be to buy a home in a neighborhood where there are foreclosures? So there is a contagion effect, a ripple effect, beyond just the plight of that family, which ought to be enough motivation to try to make a difference, but if you are not impressed by that, think about that neighborhood and community.

In the city of Bridgeport, CT, in my State, there are over 5,000 homes in that city that are subprime mortgages in danger of going to foreclosure--5,000 homes in 1 city. I don't need to tell anyone in this body what that will mean to that community. The tax base gets lost, but far beyond the financial implications is what it does to the heart of a community, what it does to the heart of a neighborhood, what it does to the heart of a family.

So all we are asking for with the Durbin amendment is let's try this for a limited amount of time to see whether it will make a difference. Maybe it won't achieve the results we authors claim it will, but is it not worth a try to see if we can't bring that lender and that borrower together, to work something out so they can stay in that home? The lender gets paid. It seems to me that has to help.

I agree completely with my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer, who made the case, and did so simply. There is a direct connection here. If we are unable to get our housing situation stabilized, all of these other efforts we are making to get the financial system working are not going to succeed. At the root cause of this issue is the residential mortgage market. The failure of us to reach that bottom--to begin to see these values improve and people out purchasing homes will also be not only indicative of the direction we are heading in but also essential if we are going to recover.

Beyond the issue of housing and what happens to families, the very heart of the economic crisis, its roots, began in the housing market. I believe very strongly, as others do who are far more knowledgeable about macroeconomics than I will ever be, that our inability or unwillingness or failure to address the residential mortgage market will make it almost impossible for us to get the kind of recovery we are all seeking on the larger economic issues.

So I wish to commend my colleague from Illinois. He has worked tirelessly. He has brought together the financial institutions. I know many of them mean the very best. There is no ill will involved in this, I presume. I think there is a culture that goes back a long time which says that if a house is in foreclosure or about to go into it, get the family out, put it on the market, sell it to someone else, because the likelihood of that family redefaulting is pretty high. That may be true statistically, but it seems to me that in these circumstances, we are dealing with something very different, far more pernicious, far more widespread, with far greater implications. So even the best argument one might make that historically you do better in getting an economy back on its feet by allowing these properties to go into foreclosure, I think all of us recognize, with the numbers we are talking about here, that accepting that kind of conclusion could be disastrous, as it has proven to be.

I recall January and February of 2007. I became chairman of the Banking Committee for the first time in January of 2007. We had a couple of hearings on currency manipulation, I believe it was, in those days in January, but the first hearings I held in February of 2007 were on this issue. In the 110th Congress, I think we had 80, 82 hearings, and a third and a half were on this subject matter as we tried over and over again to get the industry to step up, to come up with various ideas that would mitigate the foreclosure problem.

I recall at the very first hearing we had a witness who was very knowledgeable about housing issues, and he testified that he thought there might be somewhere between 1.5 million and 2 million foreclosures. He was sort of ridiculed because these numbers were hyperbolic; this was an exaggeration of what would happen. In fact, the critics were correct. It was. He was wrong. It wasn't 1.5 million or 2 million; it has now become 8 million. So those dire predictions in February 2007 have proven to be painfully off the mark because, in fact, the problem is a lot worse.

I believe very strongly that had we in 2007 been able to convince the previous administration to step up and engage this issue in 2007, and even a good part of 2008, we could have avoided what we went through last fall and are going through today as we try to get this economy back on its feet again. But there was tremendous resistance to doing anything despite countless meetings we had, including with the financial institutions, where commitments were made in March and April of 2007 to actually sit down and engage in a workout with borrowers and lenders. None of that ever really happened at all. The numbers are embarrassingly small where workouts occurred, despite the efforts to achieve this without going through a legislative proposal.

Of course, the idea of modifying the bankruptcy laws was one that Senator Durbin raised early on. We were unable to get it done. Today, we are trying one more time, in a far more constricted and narrow construct of this proposal, over a limited period of time, to affect as many people as possible.

This amendment would also preserve some $800 billion in home equity for neighbors, we are projecting. The list I have of just the properties that could be affected--in my own State, some 15,000 homes could be saved by the Durbin amendment. Looking down the list, the numbers are stunning. In California, I think the numbers I saw are 385,000 homes could be saved by the Durbin amendment. I see my friend from New Mexico is here, and there we are talking about over 6,000 homes would be affected in New Mexico. In the State of Oregon, it is like Connecticut. Over 15,000 homes would be affected, I say to my colleague from Oregon. In North Carolina, I am looking at 38,000 homes, it is projected, could actually be saved from foreclosure, the State of the Presiding Officer.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed in the Record so Members can actually look down and see what a difference this amendment could make in their State.

I thank the Chair.

Again, I can't speak with absolute certainty. Maybe the numbers are a bit lower or higher. What if in my State it wasn't 15,000; what if it was 10,000? Frankly, 10,000 homes would be a lot, a lot of families in a lot of neighborhoods in an economy that would be vastly improved if 10,000 homes in my State could be saved from the terrible conclusion of foreclosure.

So we will consider this amendment in a couple of hours. We will vote up or down on it. Then we will go about our business on the housing bill that is before us. But as Senators think about how they are going to vote on this matter in a couple of hours, think about what it would mean tonight at 6 or 7 o'clock when another 10,000 of our fellow citizens find themselves in the serious condition of losing their homes.

What do you say to your children, your family, what it does to your neighborhood. Can we not take a chance and try an idea that colleagues have worked on for weeks now, not overnight--this is not a quickly drawn amendment; it does not consider the concerns of the lenders in the country--to bring this together and give this an effort, as we did last summer with the HOPE for Homeowners and last spring as well.

I urge my colleagues to give this an opportunity to work. In my office, we get about 30 or 40 letters every day from constituents waiting to know whether they can keep their homes. I suspect I am not terribly different in that regard from my colleagues--or the e-mails that arrive in our office in Hartford on a daily basis. In many cases, the answer is--and we hear this over and over. Ed Mann has been with me 30 years. Ed Mann does not engage in hyperbole. He is a quiet, serious man. What he hears day after day in our office is: I have tried to reach my lender. I have called and called and I can't get hold of anyone. Can I get any help? That is repeated over and over.

I say this respectfully, but I believe in this proposal, which I think will cause lenders and borrowers to get together to try and work these matters out, the lender controls everything under the Durbin amendment. They have total control of the process. It is not in the hands of the borrower; it is in the hands of the lender and, obviously, the proposal of a bankruptcy judge being able to engage.

I met with my Federal judges--district court judges, appeals and bankruptcy court judges. To a person, every one of them said: You ought to pass this.

These are people who work on this every day. These are serious appointees in the Bush administration, as well as the Clinton administration. Some go back further, in fact, to the Reagan administration. To a person, all of them said: Get this done. This makes sense. These are bankruptcy judges. They are not frightened of the caseload. They are not afraid of trying to bring people together to save home ownership. Our bankruptcy judges believe this is right.

The civil rights groups of this country believe this is right. A long list of people worked on this. But our principal debt of gratitude goes to the Senator from Illinois who has been tirelessly championing this concept and idea. Senator Schumer has worked very hard as well on this issue.

My hope is, in the next couple of hours, we might surprise the country and actually do something to keep people in their homes. What a great message tonight that would be, instead of walking through the door saying: I think we lost our home, saying: There is a chance we can keep our home, keep our family together, weather this storm, and come out of it stronger and better because the Government is not going to just sit back and allow nature to take its course and subject me and my family and my neighborhood to the vagaries of the foreclosure process. People are on my side fighting for me. We can do that today in a united, bipartisan fashion by allowing this simple idea to have a chance to succeed.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I know that in a few minutes we are going to be voting on the amendment offered by our colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, and I wish to once again commend him and Senator Schumer and others who have been involved not just in the crafting of the amendment, but I wish to thank their staffs. Brad McConnell has done a Herculean job over these past number of weeks, including the 2- week recess period we were out of session, to try to reach a compromise with major lending institutions and others across the country to be supportive of this proposal that Senator Durbin has asked us to approve, which is to allow judges under the bankruptcy law to work out modifications between lenders and borrowers with home mortgages that are involved in principal residences.

Again, Senator Durbin has significantly shrunken his original idea to the point where this is a very modest proposal, for a very limited amount of time, affecting circumstances that would be very controlled due to the fears that were raised by others that this would be too broad and far-reaching. As to the point I attempted to make this morning, I am confounded by those who would oppose this amendment. Bankruptcy judges can engage in workouts between borrowers and lenders where vacation homes, holiday homes, recreational vehicles or yachts are involved, but they can't do it on a principal place of residence.

I think that is a hard argument to explain to the American people, most of whom--while they might like to have a vacation or a holiday home or other residences--only have a principal place of residence, so they are restricted. What strikes them--and those of us who are supportive of the Durbin amendment--is how you explain to two families who live next door to each other, one of whom only has a principal place of residence, as most Americans do, and the next-door neighbor who, because of economic circumstances, inheritances or whatever else it may be, has that wonderful beach house or that cabin up in the mountains or that yacht on the lake, and if they are in trouble on those mortgages, the bankruptcy judge can work out a new financial arrangement which allows them to keep that vacation home or keep that boat or log cabin up in the hills. Yet the next-door neighbor, with just a principal place of residence, hears: I am sorry, you are going to foreclosure. We are not allowed to work that out for you.

I don't know how you explain that to people, not to mention the damage you do, of course, to every other neighbor in that community whose property value declines because of the foreclosure, that family who is affected, neighborhood that is affected, economy that is affected.

What the Senator from Illinois has proposed is a very narrow, restricted, commonsense idea. As I mentioned earlier, meeting with bankruptcy judges in Connecticut on Monday, I raised with them what they thought of the Durbin amendment. They thought it was a wonderful idea. I half expected they would say the courts are crowded, already overcrowded. That was not the argument at all.

Again, I hope my colleagues, as they come to this Chamber, give this that additional consideration. This ought not be a matter that divides us here. This is one that could make some sense, even if it doesn't do as much as we hope it does. I mentioned earlier some 15,000 homes in my State could be positively affected by this amendment. What if it were only 5,000? What if we were off? Is it wrong to try to save 5,000 homes in my State? Or the 325,000, or a number like that, in California, not to mention States that have numbers that vastly exceed what Connecticut could benefit from?

We will not know unless we try. All the things we have tried--and I have been involved with most of them--have never done quite as much as we hoped they would. But until we get to the bottom of the mortgage market problem, until you get to the bottom of that, all these other economic problems are going to be more difficult to solve.

I applaud my colleague from Illinois. He has been tireless in his effort. I express my strong support for what he is trying to achieve here and hope my colleagues will do so as well in the few moments remaining before they come to cast a ballot on this important issue.

You may never do anything that will allow for as much relief to as many families as you will if you cast a positive vote on the Durbin amendment. I would love to tell you these other ideas we are going to work on will have great opportunity, but I must tell you candidly, as the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, this idea offers more hope for more people than any other idea you possibly ever will vote on.

This is the moment, this is the hour, this is the day to make a difference and I know all my colleagues would like to make a difference for the people in their States who are going through job loss, home loss, retirement loss. Here is one answer that could very well provide the kind of relief all of us would like to see.

I urge the adoption of the Durbin amendment.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Shelby and myself, I call up amendment 1018 and ask for its consideration.

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

I will wait until after the completion of the debate on the Strickland nomination to talk about the amendment. I am sure Senator Shelby will as well.

Madam President, I will yield to my colleague from Missouri for comments, and I ask unanimous consent to be recognized after she speaks to make opening remarks.

Let me inquire, Madam President, if I may, of my colleague: Do you want to offer the amendment at this juncture or do you want to make some comments on it?

Why not go ahead and do that.

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

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee. Let me--since we are across the room from each other--invite you and your staff to meet with our staff and talk about the amendment since we are not sure what it is. But let's see if we can reach some accommodation.

Madam President, I would expect nothing less from the Senator from Tennessee.

Madam President, let me first of all thank our colleague from Illinois. I know he did not prevail in his amendment dealing with the bankruptcy provisions, but I commend him for his efforts over the last number of weeks, I know in serious negotiations with others, to try to achieve an accommodation. That did not happen. I regret that was the case because I think that was one meaningful way to try to avoid some of the foreclosure problems we see in the country. So I am sorry that did not prevail.

Madam President, I wish to spend a few minutes, if I may, briefly describing the substitute amendment I have offered on behalf of myself and Senator Shelby that is before us and will be now open for amendment--as the Senator from Tennessee has his amendment, and I know my colleague from Louisiana also has at least one--maybe two amendments--to offer on this bill as well.

Let me say to others, we would urge, if you have amendments, to let us know what they are. I also say to my colleagues this is a bill that, while it is going to be helpful to consumers and helpful to homeowners in trying to deal with the underlying problems, it is being sought after primarily by the financial institutions, the banks across the country, dealing with the FDIC, the insurance limits, among other matters. So it is very important to them, and Senator Shelby and I recently worked this out to move forward.

But I want to say to my colleagues, there were other matters that are important as well. If this gets bogged down for days on end, the leader has indicated to me he will pull this bill down and we will maybe deal with it next fall. So to those out there who have an interest in what we have worked on here, I urge them to communicate with people that it is important we try to get this done fairly quickly.

We spent a lot of time on it. I think it is a good bill. It is a balanced bill. Senator Shelby and I worked hard on these matters with our committee members. So this substitute is bipartisan, and we hope our colleagues will respect that and let this not become a vehicle for an awful lot of other issues for which I do not question the motivations or the sincerity of those who might offer amendments, but this is not going to become a vehicle for all these other ideas that do not relate to the underlying purpose of this bill.

As we all know, and I have mentioned before, we have a staggering number of foreclosures in the country. Some 9,000 to 10,000 homeowners, before this evening is out, will receive a default or action notice. If current trends continue, two-thirds of those people will lose their home. So of the 10,000 today who will receive that default or action notice, two-thirds of them will probably lose their home unless some action is taken. In all, some 3.4 million homes are expected to go into foreclosure this year alone--between 8 and 12 million homeowners over the next several years. Those are breathtaking numbers when you consider the damage to families, to neighborhoods, and to communities across our Nation.

According to industry figures, by the end of last year, 20 percent of all mortgage loans were already under water--1 in 5--that is, the cost of the mortgage exceeded the value of the home. Those are stunning numbers: One out of every five homeowners owed more on their mortgage than the home was worth.

In my home State of Connecticut, the problem is very serious and spreading. The Center for Responsible Lending projects that some 17,000 homes in my State of Connecticut will go into foreclosure in 2009-- nearly 60,000 over the next 4 years.

I recently invited HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan to my State. We visited Bridgeport, CT, which alone has some 5,200 subprime mortgages-- many already in foreclosure. Joan Carty, the CEO of the Housing Development Fund, a housing nonprofit group in Bridgeport, CT, showed the Secretary and me a series of maps of the city of Bridgeport. She had in those maps the locations of each subprime loan and each foreclosure. It literally looked like a cancer spreading across the body politic of that city.

We visited New Haven, CT, where we saw how property values for homes located within an eighth of a mile of a foreclosed home dropped by an average of $5,000 the day of that action or default. And as we saw across Hartford, CT, where home prices have sunk almost 8 percent in the last year alone, it does not take long before the epidemic affects whole cities.

In fact, this crisis could even result in a net loss in home ownership rates for African Americans, wiping out a generation of hard work and gains in wealth.

The people I have met who are losing their homes are not statistics. They are grandmothers on fixed incomes who trusted a mortgage broker who put them in adjustable rate mortgages with exploding payments. Their incomes were not going to ever adjust to a level where they could afford the fully indexed price of that mortgage. But their mortgages adjusted, and the brokers knew these borrowers were headed for trouble.

I have met working parents who lost a job or are facing a health care crisis. Fifty percent of the foreclosures are related to a health care crisis in that family--not acquiring an automobile

you cannot afford or a big-screen television, as some have been suggesting. Fifty percent are related to a health care crisis. One victim of predatory lending I met in Hartford, CT, tests children for lead poisoning for a living.

These are good people, decent Americans, many of whom were taken advantage of, often by deceptive practices. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that 61 percent of those in subprime mortgages could have qualified for prime mortgages but were urged or pushed into riskier mortgages by lenders and brokers who knew better. Why did they do so? Because those brokers and lenders made more money by putting these unsuspecting borrowers into riskier, higher priced mortgages.

So we have an obligation, I think as a body, to do everything we can to get this right. That is not to excuse irresponsible behavior. I am not suggesting such. But in matter after matter, this was not a matter of irresponsibility; it was either deceptive practices or conditions which forced a family--through a job loss or a health care crisis or others--to be put at risk of losing their home. This effort is to get this right not only for the families but even, in a larger sense, for the economy as a whole, which hinges on our ability to put a stop to these foreclosures.

Protecting families and our economy was what motivated me 2 years ago--this month, in fact--when I convened a Homeowners Preservation Summit, at which leaders and servicers agreed to a set of principles. This was in the spring of 2007, 2 years ago. We met, and they committed themselves to a series of principles to making their best efforts to reduce foreclosures through loan modifications.

To say there was a total failure by the industry to follow through on that agreement would be a vast understatement.

Thankfully, even if lenders, servicers, and the previous administration failed to understand the magnitude or the severity of the crisis and the obligation to act, there has been no such problem with the current administration, I am pleased to report. In putting forward a $275 billion plan, the Obama administration clearly understands that we cannot get our economy back on track until we stop the tidal wave of foreclosures sweeping across our country.

The underlying legislation Senator Shelby and I have offered gives them the tools to do that as effectively as possible by expanding the ability of FHA, the Federal Housing Administration, and Rural Housing-- and I have mentioned cities. But I want to point out, rural housing is also suffering from foreclosures; this is not just an urban problem. This affects rural States. I know the Presiding Officer and my friend from Louisiana will testify to this: In their rural communities, foreclosures are not limited to the larger cities in their States but it also affects rural people as well. That point needs to be made.

The underlying legislation gives them the tools to do that as effectively as possible by expanding the ability of FHA and Rural Housing to do loan modifications, by creating more enforcement tools for FHA, the Federal Housing Administration, to drop lenders who break FHA rules, by expanding access to the HOPE for Homeowners Program, and by providing safe harbor for servicers who modify a loan consistent with the Obama plan or refinance a borrower into a HOPE for Homeowners loan.

It is disheartening that even as more and more homeowners have fallen behind on their loans, the response of loan servicers has been so inadequate. We have heard over and over that the reason servicers are hesitant to use the tools we have given them is that they fear they will be sued for violating pooling and servicing agreements.

You would think that from an investor's point of view, reduced interest payments from modified loans would be better than no interest payments from defaulted loans. Unfortunately, you would be wrong in that. The mortgage-backed securities market in which so many of these loans are tied up is--not to put too fine a point on it--a mess. These mortgages have been sliced and diced into thousands of pieces, with securities sold off to different investors all over the globe. These investors have different interests in the loan pools--some rated triple-A, others have more risky segments. Untangling this complex mess of competing interests has been nearly impossible. One direct solution to this problem would have been the bankruptcy amendment offered by Senator Durbin. That failed.

Another, which we provide for in this amendment, is to make modifications more likely by ensuring that servicers who provide modifications consistent with the administration's plan get the benefit of safe harbor from needless lawsuits.

Our colleague from Florida, Mel Martinez, is the author of this provision. This, again, is a bipartisan proposal. Senator Martinez, I think, will come to the floor and address the issue in greater detail. Senator Martinez is a former Secretary of HUD under the Bush administration and brings a wealth of knowledge to these debates and discussions. It was his contribution on the safe harbor provision which caused it to be included in this legislation.

Another provision, which we provide for in this amendment Senator Shelby and I have offered, is to make modifications more likely by ensuring that servicers who provide modifications, consistent with the administration's plan, get the benefit of safe harbor from needless lawsuits. I mentioned that. To ensure more servicers take advantage of the HOPE for Homeowners legislation we created last summer, those refinances are covered as well. Indeed, the legislation also streamlines the HOPE for Homeowners program. My colleagues will recall we adopted that last summer. We all hoped it would be a great source of modification for these mortgages. And, candidly, it ended up being a lot less than we hoped for. As the author of those provisions, it was a complicated proposal. There were a lot of fingerprints on it to try to get it out of the Congress. Unfortunately, I think we made it far more complicated than we needed to.

Our bill today is designed to streamline that program and to make it more workable for families across the country. The truth is, despite the efforts of Senator Shelby, myself, and others, the HOPE program has not worked to date--in large part because of servicers' steadfast refusal to accept reasonable settlements for second mortgages, which belong to about half of all at-risk mortgage holders.

This is a problem the administration recognizes, with its recently announced Second Lien Program, which will make it easier for borrowers to modify or refinance their loans under the HOPE for Homeowners program.

With this legislation, we make the program far more user-friendly for borrowers and servicers alike by lowering fees and streamlining borrower certification requirements. In addition, we allow for incentive payments to servicers and originators to participate in the program, while giving the HUD Secretary limited discretion to determine who reaps the benefits of any future appreciation on that home.

For all these reasons, it is time for the banks, I believe, to step to the plate.

Consider for a moment all that we are doing to prevent foreclosures and restart lending in this legislation alone, this substitute.

As I said, we are offering banks a safe harbor to do modifications and refinancing.

To free up credit, we increase permanent borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration to $100 billion and $6 billion respectively. On a temporary basis, we increase that authority to five times those amounts. Chairman Sheila Bair has said those levels will allow the FDIC to reduce the special assessments on banks by as much as 50 percent, making credit more available in our communities. According to the Independent Community Bankers Association, which strongly supports this legislation--and I thank them for it--this will increase lending by some $75 billion.

In addition, Senator Shelby and I extend for 4 years--to December 31, 2013--the increase in deposit insurance limits from $100,000 to $250,000. We initially did this in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. However, in that legislation we increased the limit only through this year.

For 75 years, deposit insurance has been a stabilizing force during some of

our Nation's most troubling economic times. This increase will prove especially helpful for smaller financial institutions today, particularly our community banks across the country, which derive 85 to 90 percent of their funding from deposits.

The increase from $100,000 to $250,000 goes a long way toward eliminating uncertainty in the system. If you are planning for your retirement and buy a 3-year certificate of deposit at a bank for $150,000, you want to know your investment will be safe after 2009 comes to a close. This is to say nothing of the many other programs and capital injections already in place to protect and sustain them in our credit markets.

I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to commend our majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, for a very important contribution he has made to this legislation. Section 103 of this bill authorizes an additional $127.5 million, on top of other amounts that may be authorized, for foreclosure counseling and outreach efforts targeted to the areas that are the hardest hit by foreclosures. In addition, the provision provides for funding to increase public awareness such as through advertising, including Spanish language advertising, to try to steer people away from foreclosure and other financial scams that proliferate in hard times such as these.

Ultimately, this legislation by itself, of course, will not turn this Nation's economy around, but it will be a contribution, and a positive one, both to a healthier banking system and, more importantly, to more stable home ownership. There is no silver bullet--I know my colleagues know that--when it comes to solving our financial crisis, but each step such as this that we take brings us closer to seeing this come to an end, these most troubling economic times for our country. So by providing additional stability and certainty within the banking system, by providing assurances and help in rural housing as well as urban housing, by providing additional support for these efforts with the HOPE for Homeowners Act, this legislation goes a long way to contributing to that stability and that certainty.

Again, I am very pleased to have as my partner in this, as we have on many occasions, my colleague from Alabama, the former chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Shelby, along with the members of my committee who have worked very hard on these matters as well. As I said at the outset, I regret the Durbin amendment is not part of this, but my colleagues have expressed their views on it and that is why it is no longer on this bill.

I know my colleagues have other ideas they wish to offer to this bill. I will include them if I can. If there is some reason I can't, I will explain why. If we can reach some compromise, I will try to do that as well. This is the background of this substitute proposal that Senator Shelby and I are offering. Again, I wish to move quickly if we can on this. I think it would be an important message to send to the financial sector of our communities that we are stepping to the plate. These are matters that have been before us for some weeks now. They have been waiting patiently for us to move on these matters. We have a chance to do that. That is not to say that other people have ideas that don't have merit, but we have to make decisions about whether to move forward, and my hope is that we will, either by this evening or tomorrow. What better way to conclude this week than to conclude this bill and send a message to the citizens of this country that the Senate of the United States has moved to rise to the challenge of this crisis.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me say I am going to have to object at some point because we have too long a stack here. This is not aimed at my colleague from Louisiana, but I want to be careful and check with leadership as to how many amendments we can lay aside in terms of what their plans are for this evening and for tomorrow. I won't object to this particular one, but I want to use a moment here to express to my colleague that at some point we will have to put some limitation on this so we can start to grapple with the amendments before us.

I thank the Senator.

Madam President, it will take unanimous consent to temporarily lay aside the pending amendment; is that correct?

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I say respectfully to my colleague and friend from South Carolina, a member of the Banking Committee, reluctantly I will object to that request at this point. We have amendments pending, and I will explain, as I did to him, the detail. At this very moment, I respectfully and reluctantly object to temporarily laying aside the pending amendment.

Madam President, as I said a moment ago, we already have a lot of amendments filed on this bill. I can tell my colleagues and those who are following this debate, this bill is critically important to our financial institutions. They have been waiting weeks for this bill that Senator Shelby and I put together. I am not, in any way, suggesting the amendments being offered are not motivated by the best of intentions, but the net effect of it is to virtually bring down this bill. I say to my colleagues, I know they are hearing from others across the country who have been waiting for this bill to come up, to be considered, and moved along. There is no way we can spend the amount of days now that may be confronting us with the list of amendments to go forward.

The leadership--and I agree with them on this--needs some clarity. If I am going to be faced with a stack of amendments being offered, then I am going to have to, as the leadership said, take this bill down and maybe in the fall at some future date get back to it, if at all.

That is a tragedy and unfortunate because it is an important matter. It is widely supported across the country. It is essential in many ways we get it done. I wish for my colleagues to know it is not aimed at any particular amendment. It is not suggested their amendments are not well motivated. But when you load up a bill such as this with that many amendments, it makes it impossible to get the job done.

I objected to laying aside the pending amendment because we have several amendments now pending. We will try, over the coming day or so, to see if we can resolve some of those amendments, maybe accept some. I have to speak with, of course, my colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby, to see if there is agreement on some of the matters or some modification to make them acceptable.

I suggest to my colleagues, any additional people coming over to temporarily lay aside the pending amendments, that I will object to doing that until we get clarity and try to clear out the underbrush to determine whether we bring down the bill, which I will do, or to get a reasonable number of these amendments which we can handle to go forward. One or the other.

For those who are following this debate, the possibility of this bill being taken down is very real. I hope those who are interested in this bill will notify their respective Members who wish to offer amendments and suggest there may be a better time for those amendments to be offered.

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

Mr. President, I want to begin by commending our colleague from Oregon for this proposal. We have had a chance to talk about it, and he is exactly right. He described it more adequately as to what happened, what goes on, what went on, that contributed so much to the overall economic mess we are in today. This is where it all began. This was not a natural disaster that occurred like Katrina, an act of God. These were intentional decisions made by people to abuse purchasers, borrowers, luring them into financial situations where they were fully aware that borrower could never meet the fully indexed cost of that mortgage as it matured.

In fact, I recall one of the early hearings we held in 2007, the Web site of the brokers. The first piece of advice to a broker was: Convince the borrower that you are their financial adviser.

Not that you were their financial adviser, but to convince them that you are so that you can then engage them in such a way as to convince them to enter arrangements that they could hardly afford. As we now know from a number of different studies, somewhere between 60 and 65 percent of the people who ended up with subprime mortgages actually qualified for conventional mortgages.

For those who may not understand the differentiation, the cost of a conventional mortgage is substantially less than a subprime mortgage.

The Presiding Officer, the Senator from Alaska, spent a good part of his career in this business, so he knows firsthand how all of this works and appreciates the proposal by our colleague from Oregon. Yield spread premiums were one of the key causes of the current crisis because these premiums create incentives for brokers to upsell borrowers; in other words, to convince them and to draw them into arrangements that would be more costly because that is how they got paid. It was nothing more complicated than that. You got a better fee if you could convince someone, talk them into a situation that cost the borrower more. The borrower could never meet those obligations, particularly people on fixed incomes.

One of the first witnesses I ever called before the committee as chairman in 2007 was a woman from Chicago whose husband had passed away. She worked for 30 or 40 years, had retired, was living in a home that she and her husband had bought years before, had $3,000 of consumer debt. A broker convinced her that she needed to refinance that home to meet that obligation. Of course, the fully indexed cost of that mortgage blew through her fixed income as a retiree. She came very close to losing the home. We stepped in. The bank stepped up, was embarrassed by what it had done. She ended up keeping the home but only because, candidly, she was a witness before a Senate committee. Had she been out there in Chicago without any other recognition or notoriety, I am not sure she would have fared as well as she did when she achieved some notoriety in appearing before the committee.

The bank in question was sitting at the table next to her, so they decided to work it out in her case. But literally hundreds of thousands of people across the country were not so fortunate. Again, they were lured into these arrangements our colleague has talked about.

I thank him for his amendment. We have had a lot of discussions about this matter. In the last Congress we put together a whole bill on predatory lending, and yield spread premiums was one of the key provisions.

What I would like to suggest, if he would be amenable, this is a matter that needs to be revived. We had a hearing almost 2 years ago now so it has gotten a little dated in terms of

the information. As chair of the committee, I would like to ask him, as a new member, whether he would be willing to chair a hearing on the subject matter of predatory lending, including yield spread premiums, and arrange that in the coming weeks. My intention would be that as we move forward to deal with the modernization of financial regulations, that this is an area we will want to include as part of our consideration of that larger bill.

I, for one, would look forward to some specific ideas that we could use to address this kind of problem. I thank him for bringing the matter to our attention this evening. I look forward to working with him on this matter as well.

I thank our colleague. He is, obviously, very knowledgable about this area, as is the Presiding Officer. It is tremendously important in this body. My two colleagues are relatively new Members, but believe me, they could not be here at a more opportune time with their backgrounds and experiences for this debate and discussion.

As a senior Member, I welcome their presence in the Senate. I look forward to working with our colleague from Oregon and to include his idea as part of a larger bill on predatory lending.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--and I said to my friend, this is not a personal matter--we are trying to get a finite list of the amendments and get time agreements on all of them. I have had to object to other amendments being offered--laying aside temporarily the pending amendments--both on the minority side as well as the majority side. It is with reluctance, I say to my friend, that I will have to object.

My hope would be that he would let us have the amendment and the arguments, and so forth, so we could take a look at it--Senator Shelby and I. If we could agree in some way or work on something together so we could possibly accommodate him or give him a clear indication of some time so we can debate it and discuss it and go forward, that is my intention.

With that, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Confronting Piracy off the Somali Coast.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Primary Health Care Access Reform: Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps'' on Thursday, April 30, 2009. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 30, 2009 at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee

on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Refugees, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do It and How?'' on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 2 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``National Security Reform: Implementing a National Security Service Workforce.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that members of my staff, Deborah Katz, Amy Widestrom, Matthew Green, Ella Humphry, and James Bair be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the consideration of this bill.

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

Mr. President, may I inquire, what is the business before the Senate?

I would like to, if I may, spend a few minutes addressing that issue.

I rise in strong support of Governor Sebelius.

Let me thank the people of Kansas. This is a remarkable nominee. I know she has served the people of Kansas well during her tenure as Governor, insurance commissioner, State representative, and we are fortunate indeed that President Obama has asked the Governor of Kansas to come to our Nation's Capital to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

We owe her a debt of gratitude as well for being willing to accept this responsibility at a time that, with the exception of some 15 years ago, only the second time in more than half a century, this institution and this city will grapple with one of the compelling issues of our day; that is, to deal with a national health care crisis in America. Governor Sebelius has demonstrated a willingness to take on a very large issue which is highly complicated and brings out passionate responses from people across the political spectrum. So we are grateful. I am grateful to her for taking on this challenge. I am appreciative of the President for asking her to do so. I would hope our colleagues would come together.

There is always too much delay in a lot of nominations. I have been a Member of this body for many years. I think I can count on one or two hands the number of times, in more than two decades, that I have opposed nominees of either party. I have always been of the view that Presidents and elections mean things. If you are elected President of the United States, then a President ought to have an opportunity to carry out the mandates or the promises they have made as a candidate.

So those of us who are in the opposition from time to time, other than disagreeing with or deciding to vote against someone because maybe there is some serious problem that underlies that nomination--but I have never felt the views of a nominee ought to necessarily decide my vote in favor of or against them; that Presidents ought to be able to have people they believe will help carry out their wishes and campaign promises; that if we in the opposition try to guarantee that people who share our views are going to be in the Cabinet, that seems to be contrary to the will of the American people who have made a different choice on election day. I know that is disappointing to people from time to time. I know that when I have supported various nominees of President Reagan, President Bush, No. 41, and George Bush, his son, No. 43, voted in support of those nominees, there were those who were disappointed that I would cast a ballot for the nominee. But my answer always was that they were elected--obviously a very controversial election in the case of George W. Bush in 2000, but nonetheless ultimately he was the choice to be our President and as such deserved to be able to have the nominees in his Cabinet, the people he thought would best serve the country. There were occasions when I did vote against some nominees but never on the basis of what their views were. There may have been some other disqualifying factor, but there were very few over the years.

So at this hour, it has been since March 2 that the President nominated Kathleen Sebelius to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We are now ending the month of April and

going into the month of May. We have been told as a nation over the last several days that we are now potentially facing a pandemic issue in the swine flu problem. Having a Secretary of Health and Human Services, which is the job that would necessarily coordinate and lead the efforts both at home and working with Secretary of State Clinton and others, coordinate the effort internationally on this matter--it is time to move along.

While I know there are those who have very strongly held views about various matters that will come before the Department of Health and Human Services, elections have consequences. President Obama won the election. This is his choice to lead that agency and to deal with the myriad of other problems we must grapple with as a country. I think it is time for this body to discuss these matters over the appropriate period of time and then to move along and to not delay for as long a time as we have seen already a nomination of this importance.

The HELP Committee, on which I serve--the Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--and the Finance Committee held hearings on Governor Sebelius back at the end of the last month, and the majority leader attempted to get unanimous consent to move her nomination almost a week ago. Those efforts have been blocked by the minority party here. Now we find ourselves in the midst of what appears to be a global crisis, as I mentioned, and for no apparent reason that I can determine, other than maybe some politics, we still do not have the Secretary of Health and Human Services confirmed.

I believe most Americans, regardless of political party, would like to see someone leading this agency and helping us grapple with these issues. I do not think they are going to be pleased, even if they disagree with the politics of the nominee, to have that spot vacant at a time when we need leadership, particularly someone as highly qualified as Governor Sebelius is.

Again, I commend the Obama administration for its handling of the swine flu threat so far. It is clear that the various agencies in Government are working closely and collaboratively. As a result of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and many of my colleagues in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, we were able to pass and fund what was called the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act and the predecessor bioterrorism legislation. The country as a whole has made great strides in surveillance, coordination, communications, and treatment capabilities.

Let me specifically thank several of our colleagues, because I was deeply involved in those negotiations on that legislation many years ago--well, several years ago. They include Richard Burr of North Carolina, a Republican Member, our colleague, who is deeply involved in the issue; then-Majority Leader Frist of Tennessee was very involved; Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and myself are the four, along with Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, involved from time to time in trying to craft that legislation dealing with the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act and some of the bioterrorism legislation. My colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, put that together. Richard Burr was very deeply involved in that question, and we ought to thank him for his insistence so many years ago. So we have been involved in these issues on a bipartisan basis, and I would hope, again, this nomination can go forward on a similar basis.

The U.S. response to this current global threat is evidence that those efforts taken some years ago are paying off. But the lead agency in all of this, and other possible health threats, is the Health and Human Services Department. That Department lacks a leader today, and that is the reason we are still here a week later debating whether this nominee of incredibly impeccable credentials is being held up for as long as she is.

Having served on the so-called HELP Committee for many years, I cannot recall another time when the challenges facing the Secretary of Health and Human Services were so complex. I have already addressed some of those issues. Our economy is in the worst shape it has been in for decades. We have a health care system that is broken, impacting families, businesses, and our competitiveness as a nation.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies within its purview are in need of attention and leadership. It is critical that the Department once again base its decisions on the best available science, not the political ideology of the moment. President Obama has already made tremendous progress in this respect with the signing of an Executive order overturning the previous administration's harmful restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and the signing of a Presidential memorandum on scientific integrity. I commend him for it.

He has moved quickly to appoint highly qualified candidates such as Governor Sebelius to key positions within the Department, such as the FDA Commissioner and the head of the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Governor Sebelius brings a wealth of experience I have referenced already, working in a bipartisan fashion to improve the lives of families in her State. The outpouring of support, on a bipartisan basis, ought to be welcome and celebrated. Rarely do you see someone bring that much support across the political spectrum that Governor Sebelius has to this, the nomination to head this Department.

The knowledge and expertise she gained as Governor, the insurance commissioner of her State, and the State representative will be instrumental in achieving comprehensive health care reform--reform that at long last will bring affordable quality health care, we hope, to all Americans.

The case for reform of our health care system has never been stronger or more urgent, and I happen to be one who is optimistic about the prospects of achieving health care reform this year under the leadership of Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee; Senator Ted Kennedy, the chairman of the HELP Committee; and the respective leadership on the House side along with, obviously, President Obama; the participation of other people--our colleagues, such as Orrin Hatch, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, certainly Chuck Grassley, the Republican former chairman of the Finance Committee, now the Republican ranking member, and many others with whom we have had extensive meetings already trying to achieve what our majority leader has called for, and that is a strong, bipartisan effort here to put together a national health reform package. So a lot of good people are already buying in, trying to achieve that result. What we have been missing in all of this is the head of the Health and Human Services Department, to help pull that piece of the puzzle together for us as well.

We are in such a different place than we were 15 years ago on this issue. Then we had a host of opposition lined up. Today, those who organized to torpedo those efforts 15 years ago, frankly, are at the table today anxious for us to share and put together a proposal that would enjoy that kind of support I mentioned a moment ago.

The economics of our country are certainly in a much different place than they were in 1993 and 1994. Today, health care accounts for over 16 percent of the gross domestic product of our country--health care costs. According to the Office of Management and Budget, by the year 2018--not that far away--national health spending, if unabated, could account for a fifth, more than 20 percent of our gross domestic product. There are those who believe that within 10 years that figure of 16 percent could double to more than 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That is unacceptable.

If you are not motivated by the morality and ethics of having 45 million Americans without any health care, of which 9 million in that number are children, today we rank among the lowest scores or the worst scores of infant mortality among industrialized nations. There are 100,000 people a year who die in this country from avoidable medical errors. Those are not the kinds of statistics we want to associate with our great country. So, in addition to the moral, the health care issues, the ethical questions, the economics of this issue demand attention.

If you are not impressed by any other motivation on why we ought to achieve universal, quality, affordable health care, founded on the notion of prevention, then the economic justification

ought to persuade you. The health care system we have today puts personal finances at risk, threatens our global competitiveness. General Motors, to give you one example, estimates that health care costs add over $1,500 to the selling price of each automobile it produces, and it paid $5.2 billion in health benefits in 2004. That is more than it paid for steel. That will give you an idea why that company is facing as much pressure as it is, as well as other automobile manufacturers.

Look at the foreclosure issue. There are 10,000 people today who will be at risk of losing their homes. That is true every day in our country in the midst of this major economic crisis. There are 20,000 people a day, on average, who are losing their jobs in the United States. So when you are losing your job, you may lose your home and retirement. Remember this: Almost half of all of those foreclosures that will occur today are partly caused by the financial crisis stemming from medical costs. I will repeat that. Almost half--50 percent of those 10,000 foreclosures that will occur today are partly caused by the financial crisis stemming from health care costs.

As chairman of the Banking Committee and a 26-year veteran on the HELP Committee, I share the President's belief that fixing the health care crisis is essential to fixing our economy.

We can talk about all the other issues dealing with availability of credit and what is happening to banks and to the financial stability of the Nation, but we cannot have a conversation about all that and disregard the issue of health care. Twenty-eight million Americans who work for small businesses are without health care. Premiums on average are 18 percent higher than they were a few years ago. In Connecticut, premium costs have gone up 42 percent in 8 years. Imagine what that has done at a time when wages and salaries have not increased anything remotely close to that. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs for health care and individuals continue to skyrocket.

Chairmen Kennedy and Baucus of the respective HELP and Finance Committees are working closely together on this process, trying to fashion a timeline and policy that will fit together. Both chairmen have stated a shared goal of marking up health care legislation in early June. I strongly believe that timetable is achievable. But we need to have a Secretary of Health and Human Services, if we are going to mark up a bill in June. We have had this nomination pending for more than a month, have spent a week debating it, and we are in the month of May. Most Americans want the petty politics put aside and the people in place we need to lead this effort. They care about health care. They understand what happens: When one loses their job, they lose their health care.

Last year one in three Americans, between 2007 and 2008, had a gap where they had no health care for one reason or another. Lord forbid someone is in that gap and something happens to them or their spouse or a child and they end up having to pay out-of-pocket expenses for the care of that individual. That is a fear everyone has who faces that possibility or is in that situation today.

I say this respectfully. It is time to get the people in place who can help us get this job done. Delaying this nomination because you don't agree with everything that Kathleen Sebelius says or supports is not justification for denying this administration and, more importantly, the American people a leader at the Department of HHS to move forward.

I wish to say a quick word about the comparative effectiveness research which has been mentioned as a reason for holding up the nomination. This effort is about expanding Americans' access to health care, not restricting it. We also want to give patients and their doctors the tools they need to make the right decisions about care. That is what comparative effectiveness research is all about, empowering patients and medical providers. It is not about rationing care. Comparative effectiveness research is about helping patients and providers figure out together which therapies and treatments work best for them. It is not about restricting or limiting health care options but, rather, about helping them understand their health care better and more accurately chart a course of treatment. The President has made such research a high priority by having invested in it through the recovery act's $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health and $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research.

I support the President and Governor Sebelius in this effort to inform patients and providers. This is the moment for health care reform. Failure is not an option for our Nation. I look forward to working with Governor Sebelius to make meaningful, lasting change to our Nation's health care system.

While health care reform is a top priority, I also wish to address quickly another vitally important issue to the responsibility of the department; that is, early childhood education and development. This is an issue that has long been near and dear to my heart, since 1981, when I started the children's caucus in the Senate almost 30 years ago with Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who was a new Senator as well that year, along with people such as Patrick Moynihan, Bob Dole, and Bill Bradley. Each brought a deepening interest in what was happening to one out of four Americans who are children. As a result of our efforts over the years, we have made a difference.

I am encouraged by the commitment of President Obama to early childhood education. I look forward to working on new proposals as well as strengthening current programs such as Head Start and the CCDBG for childcare to benefit children and families. An investment in our youngest Americans pays off in their readiness for school, their health, and job creation now and in the future and the need for fewer social services later in the child's life.

Now is the time to put partisan politics aside, confirm Governor Sebelius so we can have the kind of leader most Americans are looking for and provide the guidance the Department of Health and Human Services will need if we are going to succeed in this effort.

I urge confirmation of this remarkable individual who has offered her services to the country, who is making the kind of sacrifice to come forward and serve our Nation at a critical moment. That is to be celebrated. That is patriotism. I hope my colleagues will quickly confirm this nominee and allow us to begin the critical work of fashioning a national health care reform package.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of quorum.