Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to an extraordinary officer and gentleman--my dear friend BG Patrick Finnegan.

Pat Finnegan and I go back a long way. We were classmates from the class of 1971 at West Point. We went to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University together. We went to the infantry officer basic course together, the airborne school. In fact, I was Lieutenant Finnegan's platoon leader.

Pat went on to serve first as an infantry officer and then as a military intelligence officer. He was so talented and so obviously marked for big things that he was selected by the Army to attend the University of Virginia Law School. There he demonstrated his great legal mind and talent by his remarkable success in the classroom. He was a member of the Law Review, and then went into the Judge Advocate General Corps. He served with distinction, never serving a Washington billet, but always with the troops in the field, overseas in Germany, but particularly with the Special Operations Command, those warriors who are the tip of the spear for our military forces.

Pat returned to West Point as a full colonel to become the head of the Department of Law. There he nurtured a generation of cadets. His success was such that he was the most obvious and the best choice to become the dean of the Military Academy, and he assumed those duties. For the last several years he has led the academic department at West Point with distinction.

West Point has been selected by Forbes magazine as the best undergraduate institution in the country. It has been recognized in terms of the scholarships awarded to its students and in terms of the excellence of its academic programs.

Pat contributed a lot more than just academic expertise. He and his wife Joan and their children and their grandchildren were a large part of the fabric of the West Point experience. They were there cheering on the cadets at their athletic events. They were there in the good times and the bad times of cadets. They were a source of inspiration and encouragement for class after class at West Point. Pat and Joan have left an indelible mark on the academy. They have done it with great learning and great character, and they have inspired all of us with their dedication to the Army, to the country, and a dedication to each other and to their children.

It is with a great deal of pride that I salute BG Patrick Finnegan on his retirement from the U.S. Army and salute him also upon his appointment as president of Longwood University. Longwood will never regret their choice of a distinguished soldier and a great gentleman as their new president.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to an extraordinary Senator--Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Chairman Byrd was the longest serving Senator in the history of this country. He served with extraordinary distinction not only on behalf of the people of West Virginia but on behalf of all of us.

The great lesson of his life is that through constant self- improvement, through constant education, not only can one rise to great heights but one can also contribute to one's country and community.

Senator Byrd was born in very humble circumstances. At his birth, I do not think anyone would have predicted he would become the longest serving Senator in the history of the United States. In fact, tragically, within a year of his birth, his mother passed away, and he went to live with his father's sister. But in those difficult circumstances in West Virginia, he rose above it through tenacious effort, through hard work.

Through his life's path, he had an extraordinary companion, the love of his life--Erma. Together they not only had a family but they built a life of service to others. I know how dear his dear Erma was to Senator Byrd.

Their children, Mona, Marjorie, their sons-in-law, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren all at this moment are reflecting on the wonderful person Robert Byrd was, how much he meant to them, and also I hope recognizing how much he meant to all of us. In this very difficult moment, I am sure his memory and his example will sustain them as it sustains all of us.

Senator Byrd, from these humble circumstances through hard work in shipyards, in the coal fields of West Virginia, rose up. He rose up because of his incredible talent, not only intellectual talent, but I had the great good fortune once to hear him play the fiddle. Anyone who can play a fiddle like that has great hope of employment, at least in the musical world. But he went beyond that.

Again the lesson Senator Byrd teaches us all is constant striving. He was someone who received his law degree while a member of the Congress, the first and perhaps only person to go to law school while he was also serving the people of West Virginia and the Congress.

He wrote what is regarded as the foremost history of the Senate, not only this Senate but also the Roman Senate. He did that because he was committed to finding out about history, about life, about human challenges, about great human endeavors, and using that knowledge to help others.

He was someone whom we all revered. When I arrived in the Senate, he was gracious and kind and helpful. I can always remember he would greet me as ``my captain.'' He had a deep affection for those who served, even someone as myself who did not serve at the same level of distinction as Dan Inouye, John Kerry, John McCain, and others. He is someone who helped and supported me, and I appreciated very much his kindness.

I also appreciate the passion he brought in defense of the Constitution of the United States and the passion he brought to ensure the Senate and the Congress played its rightful role in the deliberations of this government.

He would say quite often that he had not served under numerous Presidents; he had served with them as a Senator, in the legislature, a coequal branch of government. He fought not simply for personal prerogatives, he fought for principle, that this government would be based on, as our Founding Fathers' designed it, the interplay between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. His passion for the Constitution was evident and obvious.

He also was passionate in the last few years about the foreign policy of the United States. He spoke with eloquence and with passion against our engagement in Iraq. He saw it, as now it is becoming clearer and clearer, as a strategic distraction from the true challenge, which was to defeat our opponents, al-Qaida and their affiliated terrorist groups, and to do that to protect this country.

He was a remarkable man, born of humble origin, self-educated, unceasingly educating himself and always

seeking to better and improve himself. I would suspect in his last few days he was still striving to learn more.

I simply close by thanking him for his service, thanking his family for supporting him in his service, and thanking the people of West Virginia for their wisdom in sending Robert Byrd to the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I am proud to be here with Senator Stabenow who is leading this effort to remind all of us of our obligations to the most vulnerable Americans--those who have lost their work in this economic crisis, who are looking desperately for work. They have to maintain their families in this very difficult time. Traditionally, we always offer extended unemployment benefits, but memories are too short around here.

Let me take my colleagues back a few years to March of 2002 when the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent and we authorized extended unemployment benefits for 2 years and 1 month. I can't recall any great battles month to month about extending the benefits. I can't recall the ``perils of Pauline'' episodes where, as soon as we finish the 30-day extension, we have to literally begin the debate on the next one because we understand there will be five or six or seven procedural delays built in to prevent us from doing that.

Today, we are looking at, in my home State of Rhode Island, 12.3 percent unemployment. That is the official numbers. The unofficial numbers are much higher because the underemployment rate--people who are working part time, working odd jobs just to get by--adds significantly more people to the under- and unemployed rolls. We have never in this country declined to extend unemployment benefits as long as the unemployment rate was at least 7.4 percent nationally. Today, that rate is about 9.7 percent. We are more than two percentage points above what is traditionally--going back to the Eisenhower administration--the standard of when we can sort of release and dispense with extended unemployment benefits.

By any proportion, we are in the midst of a very serious economic crisis. What we have done routinely is extend unemployment benefits. Yet, we have had fierce opposition. Even in those times when we have been able to extend them, it has been after numerous procedural votes. That was not the situation in other administrations--Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Clinton administration, and the most recent Bush administration.

The reason, as my colleague from Vermont so passionately and eloquently pointed out, was we have to get hold of the deficit. Well, we are the people who got hold of the deficit. I can recall being a rather junior Member of the House of Representatives and voting for President Clinton's proposal, with not one Republican vote in the House or the Senate. Yet, that policy, together with the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, resulted several years later in a budget surplus. Then President George Walker Bush walked into Washington with a $236 billion budget surplus. But it weighed heavy. President Bush felt that he had to move that money out as quick as possible through significant tax cuts, which benefited the wealthiest Americans. Part of that tax bill was the estate tax, which has been dispensed with this year--a tax on the books since 1916.

All of that dissipated, undercut the surplus, and now we are in a significant deficit. Add the cost of the war in Iraq and other operations, and the cost of the Part D Medicare entitlement program that left many seniors without coverage--unpaid for, but a huge boon to the drug industry--all of that was on their watch. Now, suddenly, they are deficit hawks again. It doesn't ring true to people out there who are desperately looking for work and need something to support them.

There is also a very pernicious sort of argument that is made-- sometimes between the lines and sometimes explicitly--that people want to be on unemployment because they are doing much better, and they are inherently lazy and they want to collect that money. In Rhode Island, unemployment benefits are about $360 a week, or about $15,000 a year. That doesn't buy much in terms of gasoline, in terms of food for your family; and it doesn't take care of those bills, such as a health care bill that comes up, or tuition, if you are trying to send your children to school.

One of the phenomenons today of this economic crisis is that it is not just affecting young workers entering the workforce, or transient workers, those who have a record of working and being laid off; this is hitting at people in their forties and fifties, who have had good, hard, high-paying jobs, relatively speaking, who have a mortgage and are trying to send children to college. That, unfortunately, is the face too often of unemployment today in the United States. Those people want to live on $360 a week, and they don't want to work? I think that is nonsense. We have to extend unemployment benefits. We always have in the past, and we have to do it now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I would like to recognize the accomplishments of William A. Richards--a friend, a colleague, and a dedicated public servant. Bill is retiring this month after nearly half a century of service to the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense. I had the privilege of working with Bill as an instructor at West Point. His lengthy career, as a soldier and as a civilian, truly exemplifies the motto of the Academy--``Duty, Honor, Country.''

Bill graduated from West Point in 1967 and served as an infantry officer in Vietnam and Germany. He continued his education at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, receiving a master's degree in public policy. He then returned to West Point to supervise the core curriculum in American Government.

Following his return to West Point, Bill was selected for the prestigious position of speechwriter and executive assistant to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander--Europe. His exceptional work in this position resulted in his next assignment as speechwriter to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Bill held this position until his retirement in 1989, after serving for 22 years in uniform.

Bill then started a second career as a budget analyst in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, at the Pentagon. His military experience and speechwriting skills enabled him to analyze and translate the complexity of the annual defense budget. After 20 years of serving our Nation in this role, Bill retires as someone who is highly respected for his knowledge, experience, and dedication.

I congratulate him on a job well done. He leaves a proud and enduring legacy of public service. I wish Bill and his wife Donna the very best in the years to come.

Today, in the midst of the biggest oil spill in our Nation's history, we are debating a joint resolution, supported by the oil industry, among others, that effectively says that the Senate, with its extensive expertise, believes the Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to conclude that greenhouse gases are pollutants despite the preponderance of the evidence, scientific evidence, that shows this to be an accurate and correct assessment. The Senate can pass a resolution saying practically anything, but it does not change reality. The fact is, the best science tells us that climate change is real and that greenhouse gas emissions contribute significantly to it.

It is also true that our continuing reliance on fossil fuel undermines not only our environmental quality but our national and economic security. We have seen the environmental effects played out dramatically and catastrophically in the Gulf of Mexico with the BP disaster. But if we do nothing, we will continue to see our economy held hostage by our need for fossil fuels and the billions of dollars a year we send overseas to buy oil. We will see our national security imperiled by our over-reliance on these fossil fuels and our continuing inability to take effective, measured action based on science to control these greenhouse gases.

This resolution is more than just our opinion; it would effectively and permanently block the EPA from taking concrete steps today to deal with this problem. For example, it would prevent the EPA from collaborating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on new vehicle efficiency and emission standards. These are commonsense, doable achievements, and, in fact, we are seeing even the automobile industry support this. It is estimated that if the EPA and the highway traffic safety administration move forward, they could save consumers more than $3,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of their vehicles. Think of that. If we were talking about a $3,000 tax rebate to Americans, everybody would be jumping up and down saying that is great.

By improving the efficiency of automobiles and doing it in a thoughtful way, we can provide consumers, families, over the lifetime of a vehicle--several years--$3,000 in benefits rather than shipping that $3,000 overseas to buy petroleum. That is a pretty good deal. This resolution would effectively prevent that.

The proponents of the resolution say: Congress has to act on this. That is true, but I would be more encouraged with that line of argument if it were matched by effective action to deal with the serious problems that face this country today. Indeed, we have spent months and weeks laboring over the extension of unemployment benefits. Every significant bill that has come to this floor has been filibustered time and time again. To suggest disingenuously that we will pass this resolution and get on to a climate change bill, pass it within several weeks or months is, I think, not borne out by the evidence of what we have seen in this Chamber over the last several months.

We have to move forward. As I said, this is not only an economic issue. It is a national security issue. The Quadrennial Defense Review in February 2010 noted--this is the review that is done periodically to assess the strategic position of the United States:

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community

indicate climate change could have significant geopolitical

impacts around the world, contributing to poverty,

environmental degradation, and the further weakening of

fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food

and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and

may spur or exacerbate mass migration.

In effect, what this review suggested is that it is very likely climate change will be an accelerant of instability. At this moment in time, the last thing we need is to accelerate instability in the world.

One of the challenges we face is that this is not the Cold War where we are facing a monolithic Soviet Union and its allies in a strategic conflict that can be managed through deterrence. This is a situation where our greatest danger today is in unstable parts of the world, and that instability is going to be accelerated if we do not take steps. This is not just an issue of the economy, environmental rules, whether Congress should act or the agencies act. This is whether we are going to deal with the forces that are causing turmoil and instability in the world.

For these reasons and many others, I urge rejection of this resolution.

I reserve the remainder of our time, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in March my State was hit with back-to-back historic floods that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Rhode Island. I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Inouye, and the ranking member, Senator Cochran, and my colleagues on the committee especially, who have recognized the needs of Rhode Island in the appropriations bill we recently completed. We are struggling to overcome the effects of the worst flooding in centuries in the midst of the worst economic environment we have seen since the 1930s.

Indeed, Rhode Island was among the first States to sink into this latest recession. In the last 2 years, Rhode Island has consistently ranked among the top three States in unemployment, with as many as 12.7 percent of our workforce without jobs. By the latest estimates, 12.5 percent of the State is out of work, and this is not including all of the jobs that have been lost in the flooding.

Our major commercial mall in Warwick, RI, has been closed since March. Hundreds, perhaps even 1,000 or more jobs, have been lost. They are rapidly trying to reopen this facility under the incredible leadership of the owner, Aram Garabedian, but to date they have opened one store. Soon they hope to open another. For those hundreds of people, they have lost their jobs and are waiting to go back to work.

The reach of the flood was widespread, covering every county of the State. In the space of 2 weeks, separate rainstorms caused four rivers--the Blackstone, Pawtuxet, the Pawcatuck, and the Pocasset--to go above flood stage. Interstate 95, the major north-south route in the Northeast of this country, was closed for 2 days. It has never been closed for that length of time. The last time I can recall it being closed was in 1978 during a huge blizzard which shut down traffic for about a day or so.

President Obama and FEMA issued major disaster declarations for the entire State, and I thank the President. He moved very quickly and very aggressively. I also thank FEMA. They dispatched immediately their deputy for disaster operations. They had on the ground within, it seemed, hours, key personnel. I particularly want to recognize Gracia Szczech, an incredible woman who, in fact, frankly, left Rhode Island to be sent down to the next great flood in Tennessee. Senator Alexander and Senator Corker have spoken about their problems. I thank both the President and FEMA for the incredible response.

But what you find in a flood like this--all of my colleagues have been subject to them and, frankly, this is a phenomenon that is usually found in other parts of the country--but what you find in floods is that the water recedes, the Sun comes out, but the damage and devastation remains. We have about 2,000 households that are still not able to live in their homes. This is something that has caused a tremendous shock to our economy and to our workforce and to the people of Rhode Island.

After 2 months, homeowners and businesses in much of the State are still struggling with these effects. The flooding caused job losses in a number of sectors; 1,800 jobs were lost in the food services and accommodation sector alone. I mentioned the Warwick Mall. Approximately 1,100 people have lost their jobs because of the shutdown of that commercial center. Health, education, manufacturing, construction, transportation, art and recreation--all of these sectors have experienced significant job losses.

As my colleagues know, Rhode Island has been fortunate for many decades to have avoided this kind of natural disaster, particularly from flooding. The last major natural disaster of the State was Hurricane Bob in 1991. It roared up and hit our State, like other parts of the Northeast, and we suffered significant damage. Since that time we have been rather fortunate, but our fortune ran out with these floods this spring.

There has been no question about the support of people of Rhode Island or my colleagues in our State's congressional delegation when this type of disaster hits elsewhere. Midwest flooding, Katrina in Louisiana and along the gulf coast--we are there because we know, No. 1, Americans, our neighbors, are suffering, and that is when we all have to pull together and help them. We also know, too, and expect that when it happens in our home States that same spirit of pulling together, of helping out, of getting people back in their homes and opening up businesses would be something we would experience and we would see too.

I am grateful, again, in the midst of this challenging fiscal environment, the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis has included assistance for Rhode Island and for Tennessee. They have responded, as they have so many times before, to the needs of people who have lost homes, lost jobs.

One thing they do not want them to lose is hope. So they stepped forward to provide the resources necessary to begin the difficult task of rebuilding. I thank again Chairman Inouye and Vice Chairman Cochran, gentlemen of extraordinary kindness but extraordinary faithfulness to the core values of this country.

One of the basic values is, when difficult times affect people in this country, we are not going to look away, we are going to try to help them. They have done it again for Rhode Island and Tennessee. We still have a long way to go for recovery. I look forward to continuing to work with the chairman and other members of the committee as we go forward. But their efforts will provide meaningful and material support to the people of Rhode Island. I thank them very much.

Extending Unemployment Insurance

This is a moment also, as we reflect upon the damage caused by the flood, to once again underscore the damage that has been caused for now several years by an economy that has lost millions of jobs.

Few States, have felt the impact of this job loss more severely than Rhode Island. If we fail to act on unemployment compensation before June 2--and I am so disappointed that it seems quite obvious that we will not act--we are going to once again put thousands of Rhode Islanders and millions of Americans who are looking for work and cannot find it, in jeopardy of not being able to receive unemployment compensation.

All of the economic arguments about unemployment compensation are obvious but bear repeating. This is one of those programs that for every dollar we invest we get significantly more in terms of economic activity in the country. So it is part of our recovery package as well as part of keeping faith with people who have worked hard, paid their dues, literally, and now are looking for the benefits of this program.

In March, the Senate passed, on a bipartisan basis, with six of my Republican colleagues, an extension of unemployment benefits as part of an early extenders package to the end of the year, 62 to 36. The unemployment extension, as it was then and has been in the past, was unpaid for. It was deemed emergency spending. I find it ironic and interesting that we can deem billions of dollars as an emergency to support our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and, frankly, part of that support is not simply to buy ammunition and fuel products and HUMVEES for American troops, it is to give our commanders CERP money so they can go into the communities of Iraq and Afghanistan and put people to work because of their unemployment problems.

It is very difficult to go back to Rhode Island and tell them it is an emergency to put people in Kabul to work, put people in Kandahar to work, put people in Basra and Baghdad to work, but it is not an emergency to put people to work in Boise, not an emergency to put people to work in Keokuk, IA. And, certainly, in places such as Providence, Cranston, Central Falls, Woonsocket, all through my State.

It is truly unfortunate that we are now, at this juncture, in a position where these benefits for which a long-term extension has been passed separately in both the Senate and the House will lapse. That is regrettable, to say the least; in fact, it is deplorable.

I am optimistic that when we come back after this Memorial Day recess, we will craft an extension. I am afraid it is going to be a short-term extension. I am also afraid, once again, millions of Americans are going to be living month to month with an ocean of, I have benefits, but how long can I keep them? That uncertainty is unacceptable. We can do better. We have done it individually by extending benefits at least to the end of this year. We have to do that. If we do not extend them at least for a short period, millions of unemployed workers will lose benefits throughout the country, including 2,000 in Rhode Island.

Since last year's passage of the Recovery Act, I would point out, there have been eight filibusters of legislation to extend unemployment benefits. I think the people in this country who need help and not just pointless debate are those who are out of work, looking for it, and needing the support of unemployment compensation.

We have allowed it to lapse twice this year. Weeks have gone by, as they will go by, unfortunately, in the next few weeks, where there is uncertainty and doubt about payments being maintained. I think it is outrageous that having my colleagues on the other side repeatedly approve budgets sent by President Bush that were unpaid for, not even an attempt to pay for them, that provided tax cuts to the wealthiest citizens, that conducted two major military conflicts without paying for them, suddenly feel they have got to pay for unemployment benefits for workers in America. We have to be focused on this deficit. That is correct. Let me remind my colleagues, we did focus on the deficit. In the 1990s when I was a Member of the House, we focused on it to the extent that we reversed the deficit and created a surplus. Critical votes under President Clinton without any Republican support. When push comes to shove, when it is not about the rhetoric but it is about standing up and doing tough things to eliminate a deficit, many of my colleagues on the other side are missing in action.

We can and we must reverse this deficit. It will take difficult votes, not rhetoric alone. But at this juncture to once again engage in rhetorical debate rather than actively helping our countrymen and our constituents is missing the point. I think we have to go forward. I think we must go forward to provide these short-term benefits, and to do it in a way that is consistent with our history and our values.

When times are tough, yes, we have always talked about the deficit and everything else, but we have reached out and helped our citizens who need this kind of help. Congress has never ended emergency unemployment benefits until unemployment has declined to at least 7.4 percent in this Nation.

In Rhode Island it is 12.5 percent. We have got a long way to go before we get to the point where we can talk about a self-correcting economy. If you look at our history through every administration, Republicans and Democrats, when we had unemployment at this level affecting so many Americans, affecting not just their wallets but their future and their hopes for a future, we have extended, almost automatically, emergency unemployment benefits.

The rate today is 9.9 percent nationally, and again, 12.5 percent in Rhode Island. We have a long way to go before we can start talking about this unemployment crisis as something of the past. We need to extend unemployment benefits at least through the end of this year. We have got to do it because we need to help people and give them the certainty of that help.

We have to move. We have to act. It is going to be something we will do. I think we should do it now. I think we should put aside the posturing and extend benefits and then get on to the difficult work, not just the easy talk, but the difficult work of deficit reduction.

I have done that work. I have listened to complaints in campaigns repeatedly about tough votes we took in the 1990s. But because we took those tough votes, by 2000 we had an economy that was producing jobs, not losing them; we had a budget that was in surplus, not in deficit; we had the wherewithal to make investments in education, in energy, and in health care that would make us even more productive and more successful and more equitable in terms of the benefits to this country.

But many of the same people who now are talking about deficits sort of cavalierly said, let's cut taxes for the rich. Let's engage in a military operation that is not paid for. So from 2000 to 2008, the economy collapsed, the deficit soared, opportunities narrowed, unemployment grew. I do not think that is a coincidence. Let's get back to business. Let's first give people who need unemployment benefits those benefits. And let's take those tough steps--and they will not be easy--to reduce the deficit. Do not use the deficit as an excuse to break faith with the

American public. One article of faith is when we have unemployment levels of 10 percent nationally, we have never failed to extend, in a routine fashion, emergency unemployment compensation.

We have got a lot of work to do when we get back. I am sorely disappointed we could not conclude this work before we left.

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

Madam President, I yield myself 2 minutes from Senator Levin's time or Senator Inouye's time.

Madam President, this legislation clearly calls for a report to be submitted by the President of the United States to establish a timetable, and I think the suggestion that will not have incredible consequences in the real world is somewhat naive.

If the President of the United States is forced to give Congress a timetable stating dates, even if those dates have some variables attached to them, that sets in motion a train of events that is anything but a simple statement of vision. That statement of vision was given by the President at West Point. In fact, he was criticized for specifically indicating that there would be a point at which American forces begin the withdrawal, but he did that. I think anyone questioning the President's not only willingness to do this, but understanding the need to redeploy our forces, should look at today's headlines in the Washington Post where the Vice President has, once again, reiterated that we are coming out of Iraq; that the timetables the President talked about, the vision he talked about, all of those things he is following through on, and he will do the same thing in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the President's strategy is clear: to provide military resources to reseize the momentum; to provide the opportunity to build civilian capacity; and starting, as the Senator from Wisconsin indicated, at a fixed date will begin a drawdown and will begin changing our mission from combat operations to more counterterrorism operations, more training of Afghani forces.

Frankly, what I think the President--and I will presume to speak at this moment, at last in my view--sees in the future is a significant drawdown of our military presence while we build up our civilian presence. That civilian presence might include some trainers, police trainers. It might include a lot of folks. Indeed, this vision is tied directly to the concern we all have. There are active al-Qaida cells in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Yemen, and one of the advantages of a presence in Afghanistan is effectively cooperating with and encouraging the Pakistanis.

I urge rejection of the amendment.

Mr. President, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the chairman, Mr. Inouye, and vice chairman, Mr. Cochran, of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as my colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander.

I want to thank my colleagues who have recognized the needs of Rhode Island, which is struggling to overcome the effects of the worst flooding in centuries in midst of the worst economic environment in generations. Indeed, Rhode Island was among the first States to sink into recession. In the last 2 years it has consistently ranked among the top three States in unemployment, with as much as 13 percent of the workforce without jobs. As my colleagues know, Rhode Island has been fortunate for many decades until now to have avoided the kind of major natural disaster damage that has affected so many other States. When those disasters have occurred in other States, there has been no question about the support of the people of Rhode Island or our State's congressional delegation for Federal disaster assistance. I am grateful that in the midst of challenging fiscal environment that the committee, on a bipartisan basis has included assistance for flood-impacted States, specifically Rhode Island and Tennessee. I am particularly grateful for the inclusion of additional community development block grant, CDBG, and economic development assistance, EDA, grant funding, along with a reduction of the non-Federal cost share for FEMA assistance. I also appreciate the challenge of including this funding while trying to stay within the President's top-line request for emergency funding. In the past, the committee has had greater flexibility in responding to emergencies, including in 2008 when over $20 billion was provided to States with major disasters in that year. Given the comparatively limited funding available, I would like to ask the chairman and vice chairman to help clarify the intent of the funding included in the underlying bill, specifically that the intent with respect tothe CDBG and EDA funding provided in the bill is to assist hard-hit communities in Rhode Island and Tennessee. I would

ask my colleagues for their support in maintaining this position in negotiations with the House on the final package.

Mr. President, I thank also my colleagues for their assistance and look forward to working with them to secure passage of this important bill.

amendment no. 4251, as modified

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on the Dodd-Lincoln substitute amendment No. 3739 occur at 2 p.m., Wednesday, May 19; and that Members have until 1 p.m. to file germane second-degree amendments.

Under a previous order, a Shelby amendment No. 4010 and a Vitter amendment No. 4003 were ordered to be called up. I would like to state for the record that those amendments are still in order to be called up and hope that the Record will so reflect.

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

Mr. President, I request to be recognized in morning business.

Mr. President, like many of my colleagues, I have several amendments that have been filed. At this moment, it is not possible to call up all the amendments, but I wish to speak to one of them and hope that prior to the conclusion of our debate, I will have the opportunity, and I hope my colleagues do have an opportunity, to call up amendments that are still important to the legislation and deserve consideration by the body.

My amendment would require registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission for private equity funds, hedge funds, and venture capital funds that are larger than $100 million. It recognizes that large pools of capital without any connection to regulatory authority could pose a systemic risk. It is a function, as we found out, in some cases, that if they make erroneous judgments, that could cause a systemic problem.

This proposal has been embraced by a wide cross-section of interested and knowledgeable parties. It has the support of the Obama Administration. It has the support of the North American Securities Administrators Association, who represent State securities regulators. It has the support of the Private Equity Council, the Managed Funds Association, Americans for Financial Reform, the AFL-CIO, and AFSCME. It has broad-based support, and I think it is part of the major effort of this legislation to increase transparency and, as a result, to preclude and prevent fraud, particularly when we are dealing with these large pools of private capital.

Private equity firms' activities can often make or break companies, resulting in a significant loss of jobs. We have seen of the 163 nonfinancial companies that went bankrupt last year, nearly half were backed by leveraged buyout firms.

There are startling examples of companies, going concerns that employ thousands of Americans, that are acquired by private equity companies. Their business model, in many cases, is to leverage that company by borrowing extensively and by using these proceeds to purchase the company and then hopefully to repay themselves handsomely. If they are at a point in which the company is burdened with too much debt, they will either attempt to sell it off or they are forced into bankruptcy. The result, unfortunately, in many cases, is thousands of working men and women in this country lose their jobs. The company goes bust. There is nothing left.

This behavior has to, at least, be on the radar screen, if you will, of the regulators. They have to know that these

funds above $100 million are operating. There are many other examples we can cite.

The bill before us has one category. That is hedge funds. We have to recognize there are other major private pools of capital, venture capital funds and private equity funds that should also have to register. The other thing we have to recognize is that the regulatory capacity of any agency is limited. What we have seen over the last several years is a situation where regulators may have had the authority, but they did not have the resources, or they saw situations where certain activity was regulated and other activity was not.

What this amendment argues for is to ensure that we recognize both the potential dangers of large pools of private capital and the limitations of regulations to really differentiate between the pools. That is why the amendment I propose provides no categorical exemptions for these private pools. The rationale is that I do not think, frankly, the regulators can keep up with private funds that can describe their business plan in a way to qualify for an exemption but very well might be conducting the same type of behavior that causes concerns. So I have suggested, and it has been supported by a wide number of individuals and institutions, that we provide this broad-based registration requirement--firms above $100 million would be required to have Federal registration. That is something, I think, that is important. Therefore, we have proposed the amendment.

The investors in these firms deserve, I think, our protection as well. The benefits to the financial system outweigh, in my view, the modest associated costs, and as a result I think we could and should move forward. Many of these firms, frankly, if you have $100 million under management or for investment, and if you don't have good financial controls, I think we have to ask ourselves: Should these firms be operating? Should they be allowed to continue to operate?

The second aspect of this, too, is that the infrastructure of compliance--the infrastructure of risk management--is built into these firms. If it is not, frankly, we should ask: Why are they still doing business? The cost of registration--and this is simply registration; simply telling the Federal regulators, the SEC, that we are doing business like this; we have a certain amount of assets under management or investments that we are managing, and several other items of basic information--has been estimated to be rather modest compared to the money under management and the other operational expenses of these firms.

So again, I think this is a valuable amendment. It is a valuable amendment that reinforces the basic tenets of this legislation-- transparency, accountability, and giving our regulators an overall view of the financial situation--the money that is there, the types of business activities that are there--so that they can develop appropriate information for their regulatory endeavors.

The other point I would make is that if we were to stop the camera today and look at the financial scene, we might make judgments that, well, this entity is not very large, this particular entity doesn't do the type of business, et cetera. With the dynamism of our economy, which is a value, going forward 2 or 3 years, those firms could change dramatically, and something that seemed innocuous today could be systematically risky in the future. It might be called the same thing, but its functions are different.

I make a final point in this regard. In some respects, legislation that was considered here in the 1990s looked at derivatives, looked at securitization as a phenomenon that would be static and that wouldn't change. But we know it changed, and it changed in a way the regulators didn't anticipate and weren't prepared to anticipate. So mortgage funds in the 1990s were based on those old-fashioned 20 percent down, a FICO score of 680, income sufficient to amortize the mortgage over the lifetime. The mortgages they were securitizing in 2005-2006--no money down, no income statement, liar loans, et cetera--was a different product. And yet we legislated for products and for business entities that transformed dramatically in the subsequent years.

We have to provide our regulators with the flexibility to not only deal with the problems of today but to fairly anticipate a dynamic and changing financial situation. That is at the heart of this legislation also. So I hope we have an opportunity to further debate this and to offer it and to ask colleagues for their consideration.

With that, I yield the floor to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to reject the proposal by Senator Shelby and Senator Chambliss. It is well intentioned. It is designed, as other proposals are, to try to provide some appropriate regulation to a very complex and complicated area of financial transactions--derivatives.

Like my colleagues, I have spent some time trying to understand this area. The only major point I can make is that in concept, derivatives are simple. It is a contract that derives its value from reference to another entity such as soybeans or mortgages. That is where the simplicity stops.

These financial instruments are incredibly complicated, and they have been made more so by very sophisticated financial engineers on Wall Street.

What we have recognized in the last several months is we have to take an appropriate step to regulate their sale in the United States and, frankly, influence the worldwide sale and use of derivatives.

The Dodd-Lincoln proposal in this bill is, I think, not only a principled but an effective way to deal with the issue of the sale and use of derivatives. They start off with a premise which is fundamental: We need transparency in the marketplace. There was no transparency in the marketplace when it came to derivatives.

Senator Levin held hearings which brought forth individuals from Wall Street, from Goldman Sachs. Frankly, if you listen to the hearings, even they did not understand the products they were selling-- complicated, deduced, created by Ph.Ds in mathematics using supercomputers. We need transparency. People have to know what they are selling. Apparently, some people on Wall Street did not even know what they were selling. But certainly consumers have to know what they are buying. Transparency is the key.

The way you arrive at it, in my view, is the way this underlying legislation Chairman Dodd has sponsored, along with Chairman Lincoln, does.

First, it establishes the requirement that all derivatives transactions be reported to a repository so that regulators will have a sense of where the market is moving in terms of specific products.

Second, there is a requirement that you clear these products. Clearing is absolutely critical because an over-the-counter transaction is bilateral in nature. It is someone dealing directly with another party. What you have there is the danger of counterparty risk, the fact that one side of the transaction cannot perform. They go bankrupt, they do not have the resources, they miscalculated tremendously as to the nature of this transaction. And their failure affects other financial institutions.

In those bilateral situations, the danger for counterparty risk is significant. To minimize that, you put it on a clearing platform. You put a party between the two parties of the contract who will assess collateral and margin and do it in a systematic way. These transactions on a clearing platform will be more transparent and there will be reduced risk between counterparties. That is, I think, a sensible and, at this point, nondebatable point because the Chambliss proposal also has a clearing platform aspect to it.

But the next step--and I think it is an essential step--is to move to a trading platform because there you further reduce and manage counterparty risk because it is not just an intermediary clearinghouse that is handling the risk, it is participation in a market. It is individuals who broker deals who come in and buy and leave. It is at the heart of price discovery because the key aspect in all of these discussions is what is this instrument worth? Is it worth $100 or $2? If I am betting it is worth $100 and, of course, it is $2, I will lose. If I am betting it is $5 or $6 and it is $100, I lose on the other side.

Part of this is essential price discovery. This is an esoteric point. It goes right to the nature of our markets--price discovery. That is why we all claim markets are the best form of economic transaction because in a market, you know the price, and if you can meet the price, you can make the transaction.

One of the things that is implied in a marketplace, though, in Econ 101, is perfect information. Buyers and sellers each know what it costs. One of the problems with the derivatives markets is information is asymmetric, it is skewed, it is dramatically skewed to the Wall Street insiders who designed these products. That was one of the lessons of the Goldman Sachs hearings: Who knew what these things were? They did not even know, but they knew a lot more than people they were selling them to.

We have to reduce that asymmetric nature of the market, and the best place to do that is not simply clearing a product, having someone say you have to have this much margin if you want to participate, but actually trade in the product. Again, this is not an academic issue.

Let me paraphrase a story from Michael Lewis's book called ``The Big Short.'' On February 21, 2007, the market began to trade an index of collateralized debt obligations. They called it the TABX--T-A-B-X. For the first time, everyone in the marketplace could actually see on a screen what these CDOs were worth, what someone was going to pay for them. No longer were they waiting on just the dealer, the Wall Street insiders saying: No, no, these are great, buy them; they are terrific, buy them. There was a price. The price confirmed a simple thesis in a way that as Lewis says no amount of conversations with market insiders ever could ever have.

After the first day of trading, those AA-rated tranches closed at 49.25 from a par value of 100. They lost more than half their value in one day of trading. There was now this huge disconnect, and I quote:

With one hand the Wall Street firms were selling low

interest rate-bearing double-A rated CDOs at par, or 100;

with the other hand they were trading this index composed of

those very same bonds for 49 cents on the dollar. In a flurry

of e-mails, their sales people at Morgan Stanley and Deutche

Bank tried to explain to clients that they should not deduce

anything about the value of their bets against subprime CDOs

from the prices on these new, publicly traded subprime CDOs.

That it was all very complicated.

Trading illustrates the real value of a product. When the Shelby- Chambliss proposal says, We are not going to trade these, what they are saying is business as usual. Let's let those folks on Wall Street tell us what they are worth. Tell it to the banks, the small community banks, tell it to the farmers, tell it to all those business men and women at the National Association of Manufacturers, this is what it is worth. They will not have to explain the fact that a market might rate it half of what they are claiming the value is.

If we really want to reform what is happening on Wall Street, we are not going to abandon the requirement to trade as many products as we can trade.

I will admit some products are so unique that a trading market might not be established. But the presumption by Wall Street--in fact, I think the head of J.P. Morgan said practically 70 percent of the derivatives could be cleared and probably a significant fraction of that could be traded. If you want transparency, if you want price discovery, if you want efficient markets, reject the Chambliss proposal, support the Dodd proposal.

There is another aspect of the bill, and that is section 716, which does not deal with the mechanics of trading derivatives as much as who can do it. Can it be in a bank? Must it be separated? There are discussions about different approaches. Senator Levin and Senator Merkley have an approach that bars proprietary trading, that would leave that out of the bank but still leave traditional hedging within the bank. That is part of the debate. That, I think, is a seriously significant open question. In my mind, there is absolutely no question that to accept the Chambliss-Shelby approach that doesn't require trading is the wrong way to proceed.

There is another issue here, too, and that goes to the nature of these over-the-counter contracts. Some of them could be cleared, but some are so unique they cannot. It goes to the exemption for end-users. In the Dodd bill, they have made a successful attempt to separate those over-the-counter transactions which have an economic rationale--it is an airliner hedging their fuel prices--and they have done it in a way which makes sure that this is not a loophole for the sophisticated financial engineer to exploit but a way in which business can continue to conduct their operations.

The exceptions in the Shelby-Chambliss amendment are much too large. In fact, I think this is a drafting error, but as I read the amendment, it could be read as only requiring clearing of swaps between two counterparties under common ownership within the same company, which essentially means there is no requirement whatsoever. I do not think that is what the sponsors proposed but that is what the language says, at least as I read it.

If you want huge loopholes to begin this process, support this amendment. If you want to maintain well-structured exemptions for the economic use of derivatives, that is incorporated within the underlying Dodd-Lincoln bill, and it makes a great deal of sense to me.

There are issues here we have to be conscious of and we can still debate about the allocation of responsibilities between regulatory authorities with respect to these derivatives. That is an issue that I think is still outstanding. But the underlying architecture of derivative regulation has been accomplished by Senator Dodd and Senator Lincoln in their bill.

Again, we have learned a lot. I think we should have learned a bit of collective humility about the ability to deal with these complicated products. So we have to build in multiple lines of defense, if you will. Simply requiring the reporting of transactions to a repository-- that is good but not sufficient. Requiring that the majority of these instruments be cleared unless they have an economic value or they are so unique that the clearing would be inappropriate--that is a step forward, too, but insufficient. It is only when you put together the entire spectrum of reporting, clearing, and trading of appropriately traded derivatives do you have the full panoply of protections we need to deal with these complicated products today. Frankly, there is a sense that maybe we haven't seen nothing yet. The sophistication, the ingenuity of the financial engineers may be absent at the moment, but it will return, and we need these multiple lines of defense.

There is another point I wish to make. We have to recognize when we are building this new structure that it, too, has weaknesses. One of the most significant weaknesses is that in a clearing platform, if there is not full transparency and if the clearing platform isn't adept at setting margin requirements and collateral, there is a danger that platform becomes a source of systemic risk. And these platforms are dealing with notional values of trillions of dollars. If they misjudge by a little bit, a clearinghouse could have a significant situation in which it is unable to meet its responsibilities. Once again, I think that is a strong argument for, not a single or a double line of defense, but a triple line of defense with respect to trading also.

Because if there is trading and price discovery, they will have a much better idea of what the product really is worth and they will be able to set margin and collateral much more adequately.

There are many issues that have to be dealt with as we proceed through this markup and on to the conference, I hope. But in my mind, clearly the superior vehicle to pursue those ends is the language incorporated in the Dodd bill, and I would urge all my colleagues to reject the amendment by the gentleman from Georgia.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3943.

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

Mr. President, I propose to make very brief remarks about this amendment. My colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Scott Brown, will make remarks. We would like to expedite a vote, but I would ask that the yeas and nays on a recorded vote be taken when I conclude and when Senator Brown concludes.

Mr. President, this amendment is very straightforward. It would provide within the new office of consumer financial protection a military liaison, an individual who is charged with protecting the interests of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines as consumers.

Let me tell my colleagues--and I will elaborate later, but let me be very brief and to the point. We have soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and their families who are consistently exploited by unscrupulous car dealers, payday lenders--a whole panoply of people who flock around military bases to exploit these individuals. They are in a very difficult situation. They have stress because they are on constant deployments. In many cases, military families today have one spouse deployed and one military spouse back taking care of children. I don't have to go much further. The Presiding Officer understands this from his dealings with the USO and families across the country.

Let me give my colleagues two examples. I could give you 200 examples. If this was not true, it would be almost humorous, but it is sadly true. This is one I like. This is the ``free transportation to the beach'' ploy. True story: A car dealer from Virginia Beach went to Camp Lejeune and offered free round trips to the beach. These are young marines. If you have been to Camp Lejeune, you know it is not the Paris of North Carolina. It is a place where you need a little diversion. They wanted to go to Virginia Beach. They were given this round trip. They got to Virginia Beach. There was no round trip unless they bought a car from this car dealer. Well, he was caught, lost his license, but reappeared later without a license, making the same ploy.

I wish to make a point. I am not condemning car dealers. In my home State, they are great. They do wonderful work for the community. But exploitation by car dealers of military personnel is a significant problem. Seventy-two percent of military financial counselors recently surveyed had counseled Servicemembers on auto lending abuses in the past six months.

One other example. Fort Riley, KS. Army Specialist Jennifer Howard bought a car while she was stationed there. It turns out the dealership which arranged her financing charged her for features on the car she never got, such as a moon roof and alloy wheels. In her words:

The dealership knows that we're busy, we're tired. We don't

take the time, because we don't have a lot of time. It's like

get in, get out, do what we got to do. If we get taken

advantage of later, we'll deal with it then.

That is no way to treat soldiers. It is no way to treat consumers. This liaison would be very important, but I should say it has to have the authority within the bill to actually act against the disruptive behavior of auto dealers, payday lenders, and a whole host of individuals.

The rent-to-own people, they are trying to scam our troops. They are trying to scam consumers.

Frankly, they don't care if you are wearing a uniform or not, they are out to scam who they can. We need to set up a strong consumer financial protection agency, and we particularly have to have somebody in there watching over the troops.

I yield to my colleague.

Mr. President, I take the floor today to talk about an amendment which I have been working on with Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. I am very fortunate to have Senator Brown's help, insight, and advice because of his extensive experience not only as a public servant but as a member of the Massachusetts National Guard. As a lawyer, as a company commander, and as someone who has served in various capacities within the Guard, Scott Brown knows from firsthand experience that young troops

particularly, men and women of our Armed Forces, can be exploited by unscrupulous business practices, and that it is essential when we create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that there be a particular and explicit liaison for military issues.

Many of these young men and women are not in their home towns. In the context of today's operations, they are returning from duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have not been spending a lot of money in Afghanistan because there is not a lot to buy, and they come home and they want to buy a new car or they want to do something, and they can be exploited. That exploitation is particularly hard to bear when it is at the expense of a young person who is risking their life in service to his country.

Senator Brown and I are working on a joint amendment which would create an office of military liaison within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The office would educate and empower servicemembers and their families to make better and more informed decisions, and it would work closely with existing personnel with the Department of Defense and the particular services so there is not only a place to go with a complaint, but also proactive information to avoid some of these missteps.

It would help monitor and respond to complaints by servicemembers and their families, and it would also coordinate efforts among Federal and State agencies, and that I think is absolutely critical. You have local insurance regulators, you have local attorneys general, you have the Better Business Bureau, you have the Department of Defense offices. We have all of these things, but often, particularly for a young soldier, where to go and get comprehensive one-stop help is hard to figure out. Many times they will approach an office and they will be told, well, you have a good case but we don't do that, and they are sent away. Given the time and commitment they have to devote to their service, this is another burden they have to bear, and we hope we can reduce this burden.

Senator Brown and I are working to develop the details of this office. I think it is absolutely necessary.

We have looked at--and I have been looking at this problem for years now, and communicating with the Department of Defense, Secretary Gates, and others at the Department of the Treasury about how to protect better our service men and women. We think this initiative will help us in that regard.

The Department of Defense and the Government Accountability Office have found that servicemembers are particularly vulnerable to expensive and often abusive products. I will take off my Senate hat and put on my old company commander hat in a paratrooper company. You have 18- and 19-year-old men and women. They receive an enlistment bonus of sometimes $20,000. They don't have a home. They have bought the most expensive stereo equipment they already can buy. What they are looking for is something they can call their own, and usually that is a big, expensive car or truck. When they walk in the door, I think some of these dealers are aware of their vulnerability: lack of information, the short time they are back from an overseas deployment, the time before they are moving on to a deployment. So they are vulnerable. They are also vulnerable in another sense, not just with respect to products but there are so many families now where one of the spouses is in the military and the other spouse is in the military, and that other spouse is deployed overseas. So you have a member of the U.S. military with children, with a father or mother overseas, and they are struggling. Even with the pay they receive at the end of the month, it is a tough go. They are looking for good deals. There are too many people out there who are looking for people who are vulnerable to good deals. That is the reality today in the military. It is a different military force in terms of Operation TEMPO where I served where you were rather stabilized in one area for 3 years at least and then moved to another. Now you have families where the husband returns and 3 months later the wife deploys. That is a huge burden on the children, but it creates a kind of uncertainty and turmoil where financial problems are much more likely to occur. That is another factor of vulnerability, and we have to recognize that.

We also understand too that some of the more unscrupulous operators out there know these soldiers are getting steady paychecks, but they might not last all the way through the month. So they are a good sort of subject for some of these ploys. They have steady pay. You can go after them legally to try to attempt to do something, subject to the Servicemembers Civil Service Relief Act and all the other laws we try to protect them with. This is a target population in some respects, I hesitate to say, but unfortunately I think it is true.

The Under Secretary of Defense Clifford Stanley, who has been charged to be the champion for quality of life for protecting service families, has stated recently: ``The personal financial readiness of our troops and families equates to mission readiness.'' He reports that 72 percent of military financial counselors surveyed--these are the individuals at DOT, all the personnel whose job is to talk to troops about their well- being--72 percent surveyed had counseled servicemembers on auto lending abuses in the past 6 months. So this is not an isolated incident in one part of the country; this is across the country, across the Department of Defense, and that is a significant situation.

It is not just auto abuses. Payday loans, for example. As I said, anybody who is working around a military base knows that come the end of the month, that paycheck will probably be deposited into the checking account, so that is a good bet to lend money to. But the interest rates they are lending at, sometimes the APR is up to 800 to 900 percent. That is staggering. But they are doing it, and they are doing it to young soldiers who have their heads, some of them, looking forward to a deployment. Some of them have not even gotten over the last deployment, and we have to be conscious of that.

Rent-to-own loans. This is where you go to a shop and you say I would like to rent a TV for 30 days because you am deploying in 45 days. Then you don't deploy so you keep it, and in some cases you end up paying two to three times the retail price of the appliance. At least individual soldiers have to be informed of those practices and know about it. We have to be sure they are getting that information.

Refund anticipation loan is a classic. You are going to get your tax refund and if you let us give you a loan right now, we will take that tax refund. These turn out in some cases to have APRs reaching as high as 250 percent as you are borrowing against your prospective tax refund.

Automobile title pawns. Short-term loans are given to soldiers--and again, as a company commander, I never--well, let me see. It was more common to see a soldier in debt than to see a soldier investing in bonds and safe investments. It is the nature of being 18 years old, with some money and the feeling that you have to spend it. But automobile title pawns, short-term loans with very high interest rates to give the title of their car to the lender as collateral. Again, the whole notion to some youngsters in the military about what is a title, what is collateral, when they are looking at $2,000 or $3,000 on the table, that is only details. But when the time comes to pay the loan, they don't, and they lose their $25,000, $30,000 car or truck, and then it is a reality.

I think we have to be conscious of this. All of this is compelling in the abstract. It becomes even more compelling when you listen to the stories of individual soldiers.

Three years ago, Army SPC Jennifer Howard bought a car while she was stationed at Fort Riley, KS. As it turns out, the dealership that arranged her financing charged her for features on the car that she never got, such as a Moon roof and alloy wheels. You may say to yourself, how could anybody be so gullible? If you are a young soldier who just got back or is getting ready to go and you look at a shiny car and you know you didn't order the alloy wheels and Moon roof but you are not going to take time checking the manifest to see what you are charged with--that has been my experience. A dealer should know that, but apparently, in this case, they charged her anyway.

She says:

The dealership knows that we're busy, we're tired. We don't

take the time, because

we don't have a lot of time. It's like get in, get out, do

what we got to do. If we get taken advantage of later we'll

deal with it then.

SGT Diann Traina bought her car from a dealership that didn't actually own it. When it was repossessed, she was stuck with a $10,000 bill. She said:

Trying to concentrate on my job and the mission in Iraq and

then trying to figure out stuff that's going on at home, it

was really stressful.

She goes on to say:

If there's some type of regulation or agency that's out

there to back you up, you know who to go to to complain about

somebody if you're experiencing a problem.

That is what we want to do--coordinate these activities through a military liaison at a consumer financial protection agency. We want to do that because it is the right thing to do and because if we cannot protect the men and women who are protecting us, then we have to ask seriously whether we are doing our job. I know they are doing their job.

With that, I yield the floor.