Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, if I may, I will inform Senators as to where we are on the housing bill. Most of my colleagues know that we voted for cloture yesterday with a substantial vote of 83 to 9--not something that occurs with great frequency, getting that kind of strong, bipartisan support for the housing bill, which Senator Shelby and I have spent weeks crafting, with the support of our members on the Banking Committee. The most recent vote was 19 to 2, on a committee with 21 members, where we ended up with strong, bipartisan support to deal with the foreclosure crisis in this country, to reform government- sponsored enterprises, and to provide for an affordable housing program. That is not to mention other provisions that came out of the Finance Committee, under the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, to deal with mortgage revenue bonds, tax incentives, first- time home buyers, and counseling services. As well, we have expanded the numbers to assist individuals who are seeking to stay in their homes and are trying to achieve workouts with lenders at a cost that is affordable for them.

There are many aspects of this important bill. There is no more important issue before us today than dealing with our economy. One need only look at the headlines of the major newspapers in the Nation this morning saying that consumer confidence is the lowest it has been, according to some, in 40 years. The prospects people see for themselves and their families are very low. That in itself is a source of great concern, and it ought to be to every Member of this body--that our fellow citizens don't see a very bright future for themselves and that we need to take some steps on energy and health care costs and housing. We have 8,400 people every day filing for foreclosure. That ought to alarm everybody. We need to take some steps to allow people to work this out and stabilize this cascading housing problem.

When you have home values falling by the hour and you have problems with the lack of new starts, unemployment rates occurring, with it spreading to student loans and commercial lending, this problem has at its center the housing crisis and foreclosure crisis all across our country, and it is not localized in one or two areas.

The fact we have been able to put together a major proposal that addresses this issue, and yet as we stand here, I am stymied because one Senator has decided this bill is not going to go forward--one-- because it takes unanimous consent for us to move to the bill.

We already worked out a number of amendments on this bill. People have ideas they want to bring to it, and I welcome those. We wish to get to those ideas, even take the agreements we have reached with Republican and Democratic Senators. One Senator is saying: You can't do that. Again 8,000 more people are about to lose their homes today, but one Senator has said: No, I am sorry, but my bill is more important than the 8,000 of you yesterday or the 8,000 tomorrow who will come up.

We are trying to get this bill done. There are several other Senators, Democrats and Republicans, who have ideas they wish to bring to this debate. Some we can agree to, some we cannot. But they deserve a debate and a vote on their idea. I welcome the opportunity to have that conversation with them. In many cases, we will try to work them out if we can. Where that is impossible, then this body has a right or obligation to vote them up or down, whether or not to accept those ideas.

We had very constructive conversations with the House of Representatives. I am very grateful to Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has welcomed our work here as we try to work out the differences between the House-passed bill and our bill, which are not substantial, in my view. We ought to come to some agreement on those differences. Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts, chairman of the Financial Services Committee in the House, has been working with us so we can resolve these differences. I had hoped before we left for the Independence Day recess we would have been able to send a bill to the President for his signature. What greater signal could we send, as I said yesterday, to the American people than this Congress--highly divided, partisan beyond belief in too many cases--was able to come together on an issue that affects so many of our fellow citizens. We are this close to doing it. But I cannot offer an amendment today or invite Members to resolve their differences because one Senator has decided we should not do anything except his bill.

Unfortunately, that is how this institution works too often. As people know, I have been sitting here patiently for the last day and a half, along with Senator Shelby, trying to resolve these matters. We have to wait until the end of this day. We will go another 5 or 6 hours doing nothing, sitting around in quorum calls and listening to speeches until we run out the clock and then have an opportunity to get to these issues.

I know there are people who care about Medicare. They care about the supplemental appropriations bill. People care about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The majority leader has laid this out in clear, concise terms that we need to deal with these matters before we leave, and we are going to do it the hard way or the easy way. But it requires cooperation. It requires people being able to put aside their differences and let us get to the matters before us.

No other issue is more important. I apologize for getting emotional about this issue, but it is awfully difficult to go back home when people are facing gasoline prices that have gone through the ceiling, they are watching their fellow citizens lose their homes, the values of theirs, if not losing them, are declining, joblessness rising in the country, and they are wondering why we cannot manage to get anything done on their behalf.

While we cannot solve every problem, here we have a collection of bills worked out in one package, crafted by Democrats and Republicans coming together, and we cannot even get to debate the issue or bring up ideas other Members have on how we might improve this legislation.

I wanted to inform my colleagues as to why we have not been able to get much done here. It is not for the lack of leadership by Harry Reid. He has been leading and asking the other side to work with us to get this job done. As he said last evening, there are moments, we all understand, when partisan politics take over. There are other moments when you have to set that aside, and this is one of those moments.

So my urging at this moment at 11:15 this morning is, would this one Senator reconsider what he is objecting to and allow us to get to this matter. That Senator has had four different opportunities to vote on his bill. I happen to support his bill, by the way. I think I am a cosponsor of it. If not a cosponsor, I certainly have been supportive of it. I also understand there are other issues with which we have to grapple, and the housing issue is a major one for us.

We are right on the brink. In a couple of hours, we can resolve this matter, vote on it, send it to the House, and hopefully they will agree, and send that bill to the President. We can do that literally in the next 2 or 3 hours if I can only get an opportunity to raise these matters on the floor of the Senate.

I am deeply grateful to the majority leader who has done everything conceivable to make this happen. What we are lacking is the kind of cooperation required to get this bill done. This is not a bill I would have written on my money, nor would Senator Shelby. There are 100 of us here. We all have our ideas on how we would frame these matters. But we are elected to a body that includes 99 other Members, and you have to sit down with each other and work to achieve anything. When you refuse to do that, you make it impossible to step forward.

My urging at this hour of the morning is let us get to this bill, allow these Members--Democrats and Republicans--to have their ideas brought up, resolved, or voted on so we can conclude this work, send it to the House, and hopefully to the President of the United States for his signature.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time the Senate spends in quorum calls during today's session count toward the time postcloture.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, before our colleague leaves the Chamber, I commend him for his statement. I had a chance to listen to part of it before coming to the floor of the Senate. This is a long-held view of my colleague when it comes to civil liberties and the rule of law. I commend him for remaining consistent in that insistence. He is absolutely correct that this is not a choice between security or liberty. In fact, I argue, as he has, that when we begin to retreat on the rule of law, we become less secure as a people. We have learned that lesson painfully throughout history. This is the time for us to be vigilant, both in terms of our security and also when it comes to our rights. This is an issue that ought not divide people based on our determination to deal with terrorism or those who wish to do great harm to our country but to recognize that historically, when we have been motivated by fear and have failed to stand up for basic rights, we have made horrendous mistakes. When we have stood up for our rights as well as insisting on our security, we have done our job as a generation, as previous ones have as well.

This is one of those moments history will look back upon. Why did we say that 17 phone companies that relied on a letter and not much more than that decided for over 5 years to invade the privacy of millions of Americans and would still be doing it today but for a whistleblower who revealed the program? Why did they not seek the FISA Court, as 18,748 other cases that been submitted and only 5 examples when they were turned down seeking a warrant since 1978? Why in this case did the Bush administration decide to avoid that normal process and go with a simple letter, without any legal justification I can determine, and get that kind of reaction? Why should we not know that? Why should not the American people know that? What happened here?

That is what the Senator is insisting upon. We will not know the answers to those questions if we, as a legislative body, by a simple vote here, declare that the courts have no business examining the legality of this action. We will avoid that responsibility by casting a vote to keep this immunity process in place. I will be joining him. In fact, I will be offering the amendment to strike the immunity provisions, to do our job when it comes to dealing with FISA, to modernizing it, but not to grant immunity to 17 phone companies.

Quest, to their great credit, when they were given that letter, said: We need more legal justification. They did

not engage in this program. Not all phone companies did. But the ones that did bear the responsibility to determine whether what they did was legal. We will never know the answer to that if the Senator from Oregon and I do not prevail on our amendment.

I commend him immensely for his statement.

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

Madam President, I see my good friend from West Virginia on the floor. While I have some disagreement with him on the effort he has made on the FISA bill, I commend my friend from West Virginia. He has the thankless task of heading up the Intelligence Committee, which is a difficult job. I wish to acknowledge that and recognize that. My respect for him and the work he is doing and trying to do on this issue is something I respect immensely. Unfortunately, we don't agree on one aspect--at least one aspect--of this bill, but that in no way diminishes my respect for the effort he has made to try to produce as good a bill as he can under the circumstances. You only have to try and manage a bill around here to understand how difficult that can be, as someone who is engaged right now in this housing proposal.

Senator Shelby and I have spent weeks putting together a bill that has enjoyed almost unanimous support in our committee--19 to 2--coming out of the Banking Committee. We had the vote of 83 to 9 the other day on a cloture motion to deal with a proposal we put together covering everything from mortgage revenue bonds and tax incentives for people to buy foreclosed properties, not to mention the GSE--the government sponsored enterprises--reform, an affordable housing program in perpetuity to assist rental housing opportunities in the Nation, as well as the HOPE for Homeowners Act to deal with the foreclosure crisis. Here we are now approaching the late afternoon of Wednesday. We had the cloture vote yesterday morning, about 30 hours ago. We have yet to have one amendment I can deal with because one Senator is insisting that his bill be paramount, that we disregard the efforts we have made to listen to ideas, to take additional suggestions that have come from other Members to incorporate as part of this bill.

Senator Kohl of Wisconsin has a very good proposal which we have worked out. Senator Sununu has made a proposal as well and we have been able to modify it and work with him to be a part of it. Senator Isakson has made a proposal we are working on to deal with a date in this bill that could make a difference. Senator Bond has a proposal we are working on dealing with disclosures. Senator Kohl and Senator Nelson are working on a proposal dealing with 401(k)s. All of these ideas have to be held in abeyance because one Senator won't even let us consider these matters on the floor, to bring them up and to deal with them.

It is awfully difficult to understand, when you consider that between 8,000 and 9,000 people every day are filing for foreclosure in this country. This is the center of our economic problems in the Nation.

The Wall Street Journal reported today in a banner headline that consumer confidence in this Nation is at the lowest point it has been since the late 1980s, early 1990s. A report yesterday actually takes it back to 1967. We are also told that home values are declining by the hour in this country. The Case-Schiller Index indicates that home values may decline by as much as 30 percent over the next 2 or 3 years. This is affecting student loans, it is affecting municipal finance, and it is affecting commercial borrowing. We are literally in a stall with the economy growing worse and the level of optimism and confidence of the American people declining at a rapid rate.

There is nothing more important we could do before adjourning for the next week to go home for Independence Day than to deal with this bill. We could literally complete this housing bill in about an hour. That is about all it would take to consider the amendments we can agree to, to adopt the ones we have, and then move this bill off this floor, out of this Chamber to the point that I think the House may accept what we have done, and send the bill to the President for his signature.

What better message to send to those who are facing potential foreclosure, of losing their most important and valuable asset that the overwhelming majority of Americans will ever have, not just in financial terms, but in the context of having a home for their families. This is something most Americans wish for their children, wish for their grandchildren, wish to have themselves, that idea of a home where you grow up and live. The fact that between 8,000 and 9,000 people--not on a weekly basis, not on a monthly basis, but every single day--every day we are home next week, every day we are gone from here, remind yourselves that another 9,000 people are beginning to file foreclosure and losing their homes. Neighborhoods collapse, values in these neighborhoods go down, and we see the continued suffering that goes on in our country, all because I can't even bring up and allow consideration of some amendments on this bill.

We have been at this now since January, trying to put this together and here we are in late June and still unable to get even consideration of amendments or to vote on some we may disagree with. There are many others of our colleagues here who have some ideas. I failed to mention Senator Voinovich. We have proposals from Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow involving important projects in their State, not to mention Massachusetts as well. There are a number of other things included in this legislation providing the kind of support for those who are out there, including counseling to people going through foreclosure or who could go through foreclosure. All of these elements could make a difference; the community development block grants to mayors, county supervisors, and Governors that could provide some targeted help in neighborhoods that have foreclosed properties.

We learn from screaming headlines on a daily basis--you need not hear my voice; just listen to what is going on in almost every State in the country. Now the States of California and Nevada are particularly hard- pressed, as well as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio are seeing these numbers at record levels. The State of Nevada, in fact, I think, on a per capita basis has the worst foreclosure rate in the country, what that State is going through and the people are suffering from in that jurisdiction, with 10, I am told, centers around the State trying to help people hang on to their homes if they can.

Here we have a proposal that would provide that kind of relief, a system that would allow for workouts where people could have a new mortgage they could afford to pay, as well as paying into the program at some cost, and the lenders taking, of course, a significant cut in what they would otherwise be getting. But it would allow us to keep people in their homes.

So in those States that are feeling this particularly, I want them to know there are those of us here--and they ought to know the majority leader of this body, Senator Harry Reid, has been on the forefront of trying to get this bill up, trying to allow us to vote on it to get the job done. I wish to thank him for that, as the chairman of the Banking Committee, to have a majority leader who understands this priority is at the top of our list. I am deeply grateful to him for making it possible for us to get as far as we have.

But to know we are down here with a few remaining hours before we will be leaving for a week or 10 days; knowing that in that period of time, unnecessarily, in my view, more Americans may end up paying that awful price, watching their home value decline, watching them possibly lose their homes; that idea of being able to build that equity and provide for your children's education, to contribute to your retirement, to deal with an unexpected illness in the family where that equity could make a difference, all of that is eroding because we can't get off the dime because we have a colleague who wants to insist that his proposal be paramount, that we drop everything else and deal with that bill. I say that respectfully. I have been here 27 years and this happens periodically. But at this moment, at this time, facing the worst crisis in housing since the Great Depression, this is not the kind of reaction we ought to be getting.

I am going to come here periodically as long as we are here to talk about this. I will make unanimous consent requests, or the leader will, to try and

let us move on this. When objection is heard, then that Senator ought to have the courage, in my view, to stand up and express that objection on why we can't deal with this housing bill. Even if you disagree with the bill, allow us to vote. Allow your colleagues to offer their amendments. They need to explain to the American people why it is that after all of this effort, with an 83-to-9 vote yesterday, that Democrats and Republicans want to do something about housing, but we can't get a bill up and can't consider these outstanding amendments.

I apologize to my colleagues for this, but they ought to know what is going on and why it is. Members have asked me: Why aren't we voting? Why can't we bring up these matters? The reason is because I need unanimous consent to do so and one Senator can object, and because they object, none of these other amendments, Republican or Democratic amendments, can be considered or modified, even, in this context. So that is why we are here and where we are. If people are wondering why, after this long time, despite the efforts of bringing people together, we are not managing to get this bill done, that is the reason. My hope is that common sense and reasonableness may prevail in the coming hour or so that will allow us to get to this. But if we are unable to do so, then that is the reason.

With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

I thank my colleague and agree with him on several fronts. The first is that I commend Attorney General Cuomo for his aggressive pursuit in ferreting out fraudulent appraisal practices. Law enforcement has said repeatedly that unscrupulous appraisers are the ``enablers'' of mortgage fraud.

Appraisers, seeking new business, are eager to ``hit the number'' needed to make sure a mortgage is approved. If they fail to give the lenders and brokers the appraisal needed to close the loan, they simply don't get any more referrals from those lenders. As a result, appraisers were inflating their estimates of house value, adding to the frenzy that created the housing bubble.

The guidelines negotiated by Attorney General Cuomo with Fannie and Freddie, and approved by OFHEO, seek to ensure that this kind of pressure cannot be brought to bear on appraisers. They are designed to ensure independence and address the significant evidence of collusion between lenders and appraisers that Mr. Cuomo uncovered.

I understand there is great concern about the process for the reforms the attorney general is demanding. I also understand that some people don't like the new standards which will affect the practices of the lenders that sell their mortgages to Fannie and Freddie.

As a result, I agree with my colleague that the Federal banking agencies have a role in this process. These agencies already have regulations in place that set forth appraisal standards for their lenders. However, the appraisal fraud over the past couple of years, and the attorney general's action, should serve as a wake-up call to the regulators that their standards must be revamped and their enforcement stepped up.

Amendment No. 4984 Withdrawn

Mr. President, briefly, I want to thank our colleagues. I thank the majority leader for his tremendous help in getting us this far on the housing bill. We have worked together, and we would not have been this far without the cooperation of the minority leader as well. So I thank Senator McConnell for that. I am grateful for my colleagues to let us get cloture. Before we leave here--and the Presiding Officer knows how important this legislation is to our States--if we can get this done, I cannot think of a better message to send to the country than having Democrats and Republicans come together to make a difference to thousands of constituents who, over the next week and a half, will be in foreclosure and in danger of losing their homes.

I am grateful for the vote we just had on the Dodd-Shelby substitute. There are other hurdles to go because of the way this matter was sent to us. Any individual Senator can drag this out further. Given the overwhelming vote we have had, it seems to me it would be in our interest to try to get to the other amendments that remain and make this bill as supportive as we can in recognition of what the other body has done, with the hopes that the President might even have this on his desk for signature while we are back in our States during the Independence Day holiday. I think we can do it if we really want to. It is not that much of a difference that remains. As long as one or two individuals insist that we go through all of the remaining procedural hoops, they can delay the outcome. The outcome will happen. Unfortunately, their delays will cause others who might otherwise have been helped by this bill to possibly lose their homes. I think that is tragic indeed.

I hope the leadership will prevail upon those Senators to allow us to continue the amendment process, get through the hurdles, and complete work on this bill before we leave.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 25, 2008, at 2:30 p.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 in order to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 10 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ''Future Federal Role for Surface Transportation.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 2:30 p.m.

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 Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, beginning at 10 a.m., in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Laptop Searches and Other Violations of Privacy Faced by Americans Returning from Overseas Travel'' on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, at 9 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the Finance Committee be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the debate on the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008: Bridget Mallon, Damian Kudelka, Jeremiah Langston, Mike Unden, Thea Murray, Matt Smith, Tom Louthan, and Mary Baker.

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

Mr. President, I understand I have 6 minutes; is that correct?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, let me make a couple observations.

First of all, I see my colleague from Vermont in the Chamber. I, once again, commend him for his strong interest--a shared interest I have-- in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and our effort to, one way or another, get to this matter, given the importance of this issue to all of us.

Let me, if I can, review the bidding a little bit as to where we are. This morning, there are two new reports out that relate directly to the subject matter that is before the Senate: the housing crisis, which is at the heart of the economic crisis; the foreclosure issue is, of course, the heart of the housing issue.

As I pointed out over the last number of days, we now have a staggering number of foreclosure filings on a daily basis in the country. The latest report shows that 8,427, on average, filings for foreclosure are occurring on a daily basis--not on a weekly or monthly basis. But every single day in this country between 8,000 and 9,000 people are filing for foreclosure on their homes. This is obviously a statistic that is deeply troubling and an indication of broader problems in our economy.

In fact, this morning, one report has the consumer confidence levels at the lowest since they have been recorded in 1967--40 years. People's anticipation about the future, about the well-being of their children or their grandchildren, their ability to own a home, to raise a family, to be able to meet their obligations, to be able to retire with dignity, to be able to afford higher education--all these things working families in this country historically, for the most part, have been optimistic and confident about, today, are showing the lowest level in 40 years.

So the issue we are grappling with is not one that is necessarily going to guarantee we are going to right the problems overnight, but it is a reflection that this body--made up of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--can, in fact, come together and do something constructive and positive at the epicenter of our economic problems.

That is the opportunity we are going to have in a few short moments, to decide whether to go forward and adopt legislation that would allow us to begin to put a tourniquet on the hemorrhaging of foreclosures in this country with the adoption of the HOPE for Homeowners Act, to be able to do something about the government-sponsored enterprises and to see to it we have a strong regulator, and to establish, for the first time ever, a permanent affordable housing program.

There is a lead story in the New York Times this morning that talks about families who have had their children going to four and five and eight different schools in a school year in some cases because they have had to move out of rental properties as the costs have moved up. So the affordable housing issue, while it is not directly related to the foreclosure crisis, does deal with the issue of affordable, decent shelter in this country. The fact that families are having to move as frequently as they do and their children are having to go to as many different schools in a year as they do because of the cost of housing is a problem we address with this legislation as well.

There is nothing that is as important as this bill for the country at this moment. That is not to say there are not other issues we ought to be grappling with. But there is a great danger we will miss the opportunity of doing something about housing in this country.

The Case-Shiller index now indicates--and I quote them this morning:

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, a closely watched

gauge of U.S. home prices, show price declines continued to

get steeper in April, with prices in every region surveyed

now showing year-over-year drops.

Those predictions indicate we may have as much as a 30-percent decline in home values. That is evaporating the long built-up equity people have acquired as a result of purchasing their homes and holding on to them.

So that idea of selling your home one day after your children are grown to provide for your long-term security, to deal with the cost of higher education, to deal with an unpredictable health care crisis that could emerge--today we have almost 15 million homes in this country where debt exceeds equity, and those numbers are predicted to grow steeper and steeper, as the Case-Shiller report this morning indicates.

So the level of optimism, the declining value of homes, and the serious problems in rental housing--all this is contributing to the most serious economic crisis we have had in decades.

What Senator Shelby and I and the other 19 members of our committee have tried to do is to put together, on a bipartisan basis, with a 19- to-2 vote out of our committee--not a highly divided committee, having held almost 50 different hearings over the last year as to what we ought to do to get our hands around this issue--our best recommendation to the Members of this body. Those of us on the committee, working together--all 21 of us on this committee--have tried to fashion and cobble together a proposal that deals with the heart of this issue.

So with the remaining minutes we have to debate this subject matter before the vote at around 11:15--in the next 5, 6 or 7 minutes--I urge my colleagues to join with us. We are not telling you what we have written is perfect. We are not telling you it is going to solve all the problems. If it does nothing more than to restore some

confidence the American people ought to have in their Congress, that in itself will be an achievement.

Beyond that confidence and optimism, we think we have recommended some specific ideas that can very well begin to treat the problem of growing foreclosures, declining values in our homes, and the spread and contagion effect this is having on student loans, municipal finance, corporate finance, and the rest, in our Nation and around the world as well. This issue is going beyond our own shores.

So we urge our colleagues to join with us, and over the remainder of today, as these various amendments are offered, to keep our eye on the ball. The idea is to get a bill done, to work out our differences with the other body, and then to give a bill to the President of the United States, I would hope, by the Fourth of July, by Independence Day. What better gift on independence could we give the American people than a sense that this, their Congress of the United States, can come together, despite political differences, and craft legislation to make a difference for our country.

I urge the adoption of the motion when the question is asked.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I believe all time has been yielded back. We are prepared to move forward.

Cloture Motion

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I want to take a couple of minutes, if I can. We had a very strong vote again this morning on the housing proposal. I thank my colleagues. This morning I believe that vote was 83 to 9 to invoke cloture, to begin the 30 hours of debate on this aspect of the bill.

I would remind my colleagues, going back a little bit to the end of last year on the FHA modernization bill, the Senate voted 94 to 2, in December of 2007 on the Foreclosure Prevention Act in April, we voted 84 to 12; then the government-sponsored enterprises, HOPE for Homeowners vote out of committee, which included the affordable housing program, as well as the GSE reform and the HOPE for Homeowners, passed 19 to 2 in our committee, an overwhelming vote on a controversial bill involving substantial resources and ideas to deal with the housing problem.

Then late last week, we had amendments to strike the affordable housing program. That was defeated 77 to 11. An amendment basically to stop or cut out the HOPE for Homeowners Act was defeated 69 to 12.

The point I make with these votes is it is quite clear that this body, both Democrats and Republicans, believes it is important that we craft and move forward with a major housing bill. I cited earlier this morning in the discussion the two recent reports dealing with consumer confidence and the value of homes in America.

The value of homes in America reported by the Case-Shiller Index, which is the most respected index on home values in our country, has reported yet further decline in housing values. In fact, Professor Shiller has predicted we may have as much as a 30-percent decline in home values. That would be the most significant drop nationally since the Great Depression, to the point where now we have millions of homes where the equity in the homes is exceeded by the debt. Of course, for families, that home ownership has not only been a stable environment for them and their families, but it has also been a source of wealth creation; that is, building up the equity in that home to provide for the retirement years, where that home can be sold and the value, the increased equity, can be a source for financial support.

For many families that has been one source of additional income for middle-income families to provide that higher education they promised their children since the day they were born. If you work hard, do the right things, your family is going to stick with you. When that cost of education comes up, for college or community college or a technical school, we are going to be there to help you because the equity in our home is going to give us some additional cash to make that possible.

Let me tell you what it is like for that family today, those 15 million homes across our country where that debt exceeds equity. They turn to that child and say: We can no longer do it because our financial obligations exceed the value of our house because it has declined because of the foreclosure crisis, where more than 8,400 homes are filing for foreclosure every single day in the country.

So we have done what we can in our committee, and our colleagues have

supported these ideas. The HOPE for Homeowners Act, the GSE reform, the affordable housing ideas have been embraced by overwhelming majorities. So what we need to do today, if we can, is to come over. The amendments have been suggested. I want to work out as many amendments on housing as I can. There are some we can work out and accept. Some I will not be able to accept, obviously, working with Senator Shelby and others who are involved. But we need to get this done.

If we go again into the middle of July--and just remember that if we take next week off, which we do, we will go back to our respective States. While we are back there walking in our parades and celebrating Independence Day, every day we are there, somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 of our fellow citizens, on Independence Day, will be filing foreclosure on their homes. So we may leave here Friday or Saturday without having gotten this done, but as you are flying back home and visiting your States and celebrating Independence Day, remember if we did not get this done many more Americans are going to be paying an awful price.

So I urge my colleagues with amendments, give us a chance to work these out. For those who want to offer amendments that are not directly related to this but are terribly important, I do not minimize it. I beg your indulgence to spare us the opportunity of having to engage in that debate on this bill. That does not minimize the importance of your idea. But if you put it on this bill and it is not paid for, the House will reject it, and you will lose both ideas--both your idea and this idea that we are trying to move forward. So some discipline is needed, some understanding is needed. This is the issue of the hour. This is the problem that is causing so much depression in terms of people's aspects of their future.

That report this morning about consumer confidence is so alarming. That, more than anything else, is what I worry about: the optimism and confidence of our fellow citizens. It is at the lowest since data has been collected on consumer confidence. It is at a 40-year low; 40 years have transpired since the confidence and optimism of our fellow citizens have been as low as it is today.

We bear responsibility more than anything else to offer a future, some hope for our fellow citizens and people who count on us. I think this housing proposal gives us a chance to do that. It is not going to solve everyone's problems, but it can make a difference in saying to the American people: We hear what you are saying, and we are doing something about it.

I have often cited historically those first 100 days from March of 1933 to June of 1933, the beginning of the Franklin Roosevelt administration when the country was in a deep depression, millions had lost their jobs, homes were being foreclosed. In that 100 days, there were a lot of ideas that were posed to get us back on our feet again. Many of them never went anywhere; some did.

The most important thing, more than anything else that the Congress or the President achieved in those 100 days, was the American people saw a government that had rolled up its sleeves and gone to work on their behalf. That, more than anything else, was what was needed in those days to give people a sense of hope and optimism and confidence that their Government, their President, their Congress was going to work on their problems and give them a chance to have a better day. And that is as much as what is needed today.

We need to demonstrate to the people of this country who have lost an awful lot of faith in almost everything but certainly in ourselves here, that we can get something done, that we can put aside differences and make a difference in their lives. That is the opportunity that Senator Shelby and I are offering to our colleagues in the remaining hours of this debate.

So we need your help to come over and bring people together so we can wrap this up and send a bill to the House which, hopefully, they can accept. I am confident they will. Not that they are going to agree with everything that we have done, but I believe Barney Frank, the Congressman from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee; Nancy Pelosi, the distinguished Speaker of the House--they get this, they understand this. They understand the difficulties we have over here procedurally to deal with things, to deal with matters that are different from the House of Representatives.

But they also understand we basically embrace three of the major concepts: HOPE for Homeowners, affordable housing, GSE reform. That is the centerpiece of what we are trying to achieve. The Presiding Officer, as a member of the Banking Committee, has been tremendously helpful, and I thank him for it, as well as other members of the committee, putting aside our own specific ideas of how we would do this to come up with a product that could be embraced by 19 of our 21 members of that committee to bring the bill forward as we have today, with the added provisions that have been included in this bill.

So we urge our colleagues to come over. Senator Shelby and I are more than happy to entertain ideas. Where we can accommodate them, we will do so. If we cannot, we will be candid and tell them that we cannot. There is always another day, but we cannot deal with every bill and every idea that people have been waiting for on this bill. We urge our colleagues to do that.

I ask unanimous consent that the time while the Senate is in recess for the conference lunches count under the time postcloture.

With that, we have had a strong vote. I say this to my colleague from Alabama, through the chair, that 83-to-9 vote, not to mention 94 to 2 on modernization; 84 to 12, the various votes on other matters late last week--all indicate the strong willingness on the part of our colleagues, the overwhelming majority here, to get something done on this issue. That is the best news of all. Now we need to come to closure.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, to inform my colleagues and others interested, we are making progress on various amendments that people are proposing to the housing bill. As the majority leader has indicated, the only amendments we are going to consider are housing amendments. This is a housing debate. These are the issues on which people are anxious to see resolution so we can begin to make some serious movement on the foreclosure crisis in our country.

I have a long list of potential amendments, some 44 of them. I am not sure all are going to be offered. Some, because we are in a postcloture environment, might fall. But I strongly urge those who have amendments, Democrats and Republicans, to come to the floor to meet with staff to try to resolve their amendments if at all possible, to reach some compromise on

them so they can be agreed to or in some cases clarity as to how to proceed so we can begin to organize how these amendments can be handled.

It is my intention shortly on a couple of amendments--a Democratic amendment and a Republican amendment--where we have reached agreement and compromise, to propose those, as my colleague from Alabama will, and to agree to those amendments, and then at some point my hope is to try to propose a unanimous consent proposal to accommodate those who insist on floor votes, to accommodate those with time agreements so we can have some clarity as to how the rest of this bill will unfold.

There are complicated procedural hurdles we have to weave our way through, but I think, given the overwhelming vote of 83 to 9 on cloture, there is a strong bipartisan desire to complete this housing measure. We have the opportunity to do that. I need Members or staff, whomever they designate, to come over with their amendments to give Senator Shelby and I an opportunity to try to resolve them, to declare whether they are going to qualify for working out some agreement. That would be a great help. There are some, I know, to which we can agree. There are other matters that Members want to bring up on this bill, but I know there is going to be strong resistance--and properly so--by the majority leader to entertain ideas that are not pertaining to housing. There will be other opportunities, and there have been other opportunities, for the consideration of such ideas, but they are not going to be a part of this bill, knowing that when we go to the other body with provisions that will not be accepted by the other body, they will kill those ideas, as well as this one, the housing bill.

So for reasons that are very practical, not political, we have to stay on the theme we are dealing with, housing, foreclosures, and what we can do to put our housing situation on a far better footing and give the institutions and the regulatory bodies the necessary reforms and tools that allow them to do their jobs. That is fundamentally what is at the heart of this legislation.

The other body has completed their proposals, and we are talking with them in productive meetings, with Congressman Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, along with Jack Reed, our colleague from Rhode Island, talking about how we might resolve some of these differences on these two bills.

There are a number of efforts ongoing. Even though we have not been engaged in a public debate in this Chamber over the last several hours, there is movement.

Those who have amendments, I strongly urge them to come to the floor, bring their ideas, and see if we can't resolve how we are going to handle them, either a vote up or down to agree to them or inform the authors that they will probably fail in a postcloture environment.

I am grateful to all of our colleagues for their support this morning on invoking cloture and getting us close to adoption of this complicated housing proposal. We had very strong votes beginning in December with the FHA modernization bill, in April with the foreclosure proposals, and most recently 19 to 2 out of our committee on this particular proposal, and, of course, the vote this morning on cloture, 83 to 9. So there is a strong indication that I take from our colleagues' actions that there is a desire to get this bill done. We have the opportunity to do that in the next few hours, a day or so, to complete this process before the Independence Day recess.

The ideas I just suggested, the proposals we are making, will help us come closer to that reality if people will take advantage of them.

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

Mr. President, 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, with the time to count postcloture.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 10:30 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell 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, June 24, 2008, 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 Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 2:15 p.m.

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 ``Emergence of the Superbug: Antimicrobial Resistance in the U.S.'' on Tuesday, June 24, 2008. The hearing will commence at 10:30 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 Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 10:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ending Excessive Speculation in Commodity Markets: Legislative Options.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``From Nuremberg to Darfur: Accountability for Crimes Against Humanity'' on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, at 10:30 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Matthew Solomon, a detailee on Senator Leahy's staff, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the FISA debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Ryan Kehmna and Ben Weingrod, both staff members from my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the debate on H.R. 6304.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3145, and that it then be referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the EPW Committee be discharged and the Senate immediately proceed to the following naming bills en bloc: H.R. 430, H.R. 2728, H.R. 3712, S. 3145.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bills be read a third time and passed, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of the following named bills on the calendar, all en bloc: Calendar No. 760, S. 2403; Calendar No. 761, S. 2837; Calendar No. 762, S. 3009; Calendar No. 763, H.R. 781; Calendar No. 764, H.R. 1019; Calendar No. 766, H.R. 4140.

I further ask unanimous consent that the bills be read a third time and passed en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 599 submitted earlier today.

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 Armed Services Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to H. Con. Res. 32.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.