Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, the following letter to Secretary Sebelius which discusses my thoughts on the interim final rule, ``Rule'', regarding grandfathered plans--75 Fed. Reg. 34538--as part of the Affordable Care Act. While I will vote against the motion to proceed on Senator Enzi's joint resolution of disapproval, S.J. Res. 39, I do have concerns that the rule itself is overly restrictive. I look forward to working with the administration and my fellow colleagues on continuing to develop guidance on this issue.

Mr. President, for a variety of reasons, turnover in the Senate has been more rapid recently than at almost any other time in our history.

For some of us, the turnover has been the result of elections. For some, it has been the result of the passing of Senate legends Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, and as a result, as well, of filling Senate seats once held by our President, Vice President and the Secretaries of State and the Interior, while most of us--I think I saw a number of my colleagues from the freshman class here earlier listening to my good friend and colleague from Delaware--got here through the ballot box. We have been blessed to serve with some extraordinary individuals who were appointed to serve in this body.

Perhaps no one stands out more in this regard than our colleague for the past 21 months, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Ted Kaufman. But I think most of us have come to know Senator Kaufman's service to this body extends well beyond the 21 months he served as a Senator.

In fact, as we just heard from his comments, and he is oft to remind all of us freshmen, he actually has spent most of the last 20 years serving previously as a Senate staffer.

No matter how accomplished--I think we have former Governors, former State senators, folks who have been superintendent of school boards--no matter what our background was before we got to the Senate, we all have had a lot to learn about the peculiar institution rules, morays, and the flow of this body.

I think I may speak for some of my colleagues in the class of 2008, Ted Kaufman has been an extraordinarily generous resource. He has known the rhythms of this institution, has been someone who has counseled us at times as our--at least I can speak personally--my head was about to explode about some of the process, to kind of sometimes recognize the need to tune out some of the ceaseless distraction, to recognize the great power of this institution and, as he has demonstrated by his own conduct, that sometimes the best path is to simply keep your head down and do hard work.

Senator Kaufman, in his speech, went through the litany of activities he has participated in, in that short 21 months. I know we have other Members. I wish to speak about two of them, briefly. One was the incredibly important role he played on financial reform and, secondly, this, I think perhaps much underrecognized but incredibly important role, a role he has been kind enough to leave to me, pass the torch to me, in terms of recognizing our Federal workforce.

Senator Kaufman did not serve on the Banking Committee. But in terms of nonmembers on the Banking Committee, there was nobody more active in financial reform, on a host of issues, than Ted Kaufman. We did not always see eye to eye. But nobody approached issues with more thoughtfulness, more hard work, and more generosity of spirit, who recognized we could have different opinions, but we both realized the financial system needed to be dramatically reformed.

But the area I particularly wish to call attention to is the fact that it was Ted Kaufman, before virtually anybody else in this body, and for that matter beyond most of the commentators in the financial markets, who spotted and identified what could be the first sign of the next potential financial crisis, the lack of transparency, particularly around high-frequency trading and some of the techniques and tactics used by firms to institute that tool.

As the Member who oftentimes had the privilege, respectively, of sitting in the chair on Monday afternoons, I got to be educated by Ted Kaufman, as he mentioned earlier, as he went through an explanation of the challenges this technique posed.

Because of his actions and working with Members across the aisle, he has raised the attention of the SEC to this very important issue. Again, this is an area I hope to pick up the baton on. Because the actions of May 6, in terms of the precipitous fall in the stock market, could have been that first warning shot, in many ways perhaps due to some of the techniques Ted Kaufman has simply said let's bring more transparency to.

Senator Kaufman, as well, has done something that perhaps most of us in this institution and, for that matter, most of the 300 million Americans do not often pay enough homage and respect to, literally, millions of folks who work for the Federal Government.

As somebody who has committed his whole life to public service, and most of that public service in serving the Federal Government, Senator Kaufman decided, during his tenure, that each and every week he would come down and recognize somebody who works in the Federal Government who is a star. He has now recognized over 100 of these Federal employees, and Senator Kaufman has again reminded all of us that while we have challenges in terms of getting the Federal Government right, we still have in the Federal workforce the best in the world. I, again, look forward to the honor of picking up that baton.

Public service is never easy at any moment. But I cannot think of a time in my 20 years around public service that its times are tougher than now, with a great kind of disregard about many of us who serve. But I can think of no better example of someone throughout his whole life who exemplified the best of public service, serving the staff roll, serving as a Senator,

constantly calling us to our better angels, recognizing the great traditions of this body.

So while we heard that Senator Kaufman for the last time yielded the floor, at least it is my hope, and I believe the hope of many of my colleagues, that you will still continue to frequent this institution, that you will still continue to be an individual whom we can count on for respect, for guidance, and recommendations.

I have to say that while you will be missed, this body will be greatly diminished by your absence. I again wish to salute my colleague, I wish to salute my friend, and I thank Senator Kaufman for his distinguished service to not only the people of Delaware but to the people of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I commend my friend, the Senator from Illinois, for his comments, and I associate myself with his effort. This is recognition that is long overdue. I am pleased to support his efforts in this area. It is a part of American history that has not received appropriate recognition, these individuals' service to and in defense of our country. I believe strongly that we need to take action on this, as the clock for many of these individuals, as they get advanced in age, is ticking.

The Senator from Illinois will be leaving this Chamber at the end of this year. He and I came in together, as did the Senator from New Mexico. It has been a great honor of mine to serve with him. I consider Senator Burris a dear friend. I know there will be time for a more formal process, but I simply wish to say on this matter and countless others over the 2 years we have served together, it has been a real pleasure. I look forward to--perhaps not in this Chamber--other opportunities for us to serve and work together for many years to come.

(Mr. BURRIS assumed the chair.)

(The remarks of Mr. Warner pertaining to the introduction of S. 3853 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to offer new legislation that I urge all my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to support. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Carper, Akaka, Lieberman, Collins, and Voinovich as original cosponsors of this bill. The legislation we offer today, the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, is directly aimed at improving operations and quantifying results across the Federal Government.

I think most of my colleagues know I am a business guy. In fact, I have spent more time in the business world than in the public sector. I have always tried to apply commonsense business practices to the work of government, in my former job as Virginia Governor and now as Senator. This is a point I think most of us on both sides of the aisle would acknowledge: If I ran a business or if we ran any business the way we run the Federal Government, I would be out of business in short order. If we do not change--as we hear the kinds of folks across America say: We want to see more efficiency from our Federal Government--if we do not change, our government might get run out of business as well.

As chair of the Budget Committee Task Force on Government Performance, over the last 18 months I have been looking into how we use data and information to improve government operations. Over the last year, our task force has held a series of hearings, meetings, and conversations with public and private sector leaders from every level of government to learn more about what works and what does not work. Here is what we have learned.

At the beginning of every President's administration, it seems an entirely new performance agenda is established. The Bush administration had the President's Management Agenda, and the current administration has its own accountable government initiatives. With this frequent change in approach every 4 to 8 years, it is difficult to ensure that we are consistent in the data we collect, use the best tools and technology to analyze it, and then put the necessary accountability in place to orderly track performance and the basic functions of what government does. Let me give you a couple examples.

Agencies produce literally thousands of pages of data each year, but too often we do not use it. We do not use it in Congress. Public interest groups do

not use it. Enormous efforts are put into collecting this data, and then it sits on the shelf. Typically, this performance data is only reported once a year, so it is often too late by the time we discover whether we are improving or falling behind.

We also do not compare the results of similar programs. Too often, so many of our government functions are siloed by agency or Department and rarely is this data analyzed in any kind of crosscutting fashion. We in the task force took a look at this. We looked, for example, at workforce training programs across the Federal Government. We are currently funding 44 separate Federal programs in 9 different departments to support workforce training. We all would agree that in a changing world, workforce training is key to America's competitiveness. But 44 programs in 9 different departments without any kind of crosscutting analysis? No business could operate that way. And it is not just workforce training. In food safety--a piece of legislation that we are working on that I and I know the Presiding Officer hope we pass before the end of the year to put new food safety standards in place--in food safety, we currently fund 17 different entities within 7 different departments involved in food safety activities. So how can we assess what is working and what is not working?

In short, government operates in silos. We report by agency and by program, but we do not know what we are doing in government in any particular project area or specific policy goal area. We need a better system that enables us to review the results of each program as a whole in terms of how they feed into a policy objective, where we are having the most impact, and, candidly, where we could find some room to cut or curtail.

Our Federal performance system also needs to increase the accountability of senior agency leadership. In many agencies, the performance planning and reporting is disconnected from the senior officials and not part of the daily operations of the agency. In other words, somebody's got this task, but their functions of performance audits and measurements and metrics do not have a direct line of reporting to whoever the chief operating officer of the particular agency is.

I can say that at the State and local level, we have actually made some progress in changing this around. Let me parochially start with what we did in Virginia. This chart I have in the Chamber is a little bit busy, but we created a Virginia Performs Web site. We use this to track progress we are making in key policy areas that are important to Virginians. So whether it is the economy, education--and we set commonsense goals that everyone can agree on across party lines, and then we look at the measurement criteria that lead to that goal. This is one of the reasons Virginia has earned the recognition as the best managed State in the country.

It is not just happening in Virginia, though. In Indiana, a different tool has been created. It is called the Transparency Portal by GOV Mitch Daniels. It again tries to bring transparency to the policy goals. Then we can argue about how we get there or how we ought to fund how we get there. But unless we have common agreement on the goal and then see which programs lead to that goal and measure the effectiveness of the individual programs, we are not going to get, particularly in these budget-constrained times, the best value for our Federal tax dollar.

I believe Washington has much to learn from these local and State level examples in setting goals, holding managers accountable, and using performance metrics in a consistent, user-friendly way. State and local decisionmakers do not have to wait to look at the results once a year. They do it constantly. That is what we did in Virginia. That is what we need to do in our Nation's Capital as well.

In addition to this reporting and crosscutting, we also need to recognize that not all of these burdensome reporting requirements are of equal value. So the task force has focused on reducing reporting requirements to identify what reporting might be consolidated or eliminated. If you get overwhelmed with data at certain points, the data becomes somewhat less useful. So we want to focus these agencies on what are the key determinants on which they ought to report. I do not want to just add new reports and data requirements on agencies. There are bookshelves all over this town sagging from the weight of unread reports. So we must streamline and modernize what we are currently doing, and we need to examine outdated and overlapping agency reporting. We should only collect information that is useful.

The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act addresses many of our findings to improve the operations and results across government.

First, it will require all agencies to produce real-time data on results. As I mentioned earlier, in the past, agencies would report on performance only once a year. This bill would require agencies to post results quarterly so the public and Congress can use that real-time information about what works on targeted goals. With today's technology and if you are collecting data on an ongoing basis, there is no reason we should have this information only come out once a year. A quarterly requirement will allow us to correct and fine-tune on an ongoing basis.

Second, the bill requires agencies to post data on a single public Web site. This Web site will contain performance information from across government so we can see how we are performing and how national priorities such as education, public health, and safety, are being met. Again, I go back to Virginia Performs, which works. You agree on a top- line policy goal, and then you see across agencies how all these different programs feed in. So posting this on a single public Web site rather than having Members of Congress or the public sort through the myriad of sites right now is a step in the right direction.

Third, agencies will be required to identify low-priority programs that are not adequately contributing to the overall results. Now, this is controversial. Every agency likes to talk about its best performing programs. No agency likes to talk about which programs really are not getting the job done. But as we face increasingly budget constraining times, we must make sure we look not only at the winners but that we have the agencies themselves put forward those areas where programs are not meeting the goals.

Fourth, we need to take important steps to improve the accountability of the senior officers in government agencies. We formally establish that agency deputy secretaries are the chief operating officers and hold them accountable for the results the agencies are looking for. Again, you have to have a chain of command so somebody knows who is the chief operating officer and those people who are performing are responsible and those metrics are reported to that chief operating officer. We also establish a performance improvement officer who reports directly to the COO and, again, works across agencies to meet our crosscutting goals.

We also feel these efforts will generate ``back office'' savings, and we have as a policy goal--I do not believe this will be a stretch--a literally 10-percent reduction in written reports.

We sometimes get overloaded with data. We want to fine-tune the data. We want to make sure the more useful data is reported on a more regular basis, that extraneous amounts--some of the kind of burdensome stuff that has been put in in the past that may no longer be relevant--we want to eliminate. And within the agency, we want to make sure there is a clear chain of command.

I think the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act moves us forward in a major way. So this legislation--commonsense business practices, bipartisan, in an effort that will meet the 10- percent reduction in agency reports; the effort, finally, to make sure we can look at policy goals not by individual department or agency but across programmatic areas; the same kinds of business techniques that are used in Fortune 500 companies all across America and, for that matter, all across the world--will bring these best practices into the Federal Government and make sure we do not have this kind of start-and- stop effort that has, unfortunately, plagued modernization efforts over the past.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--since this is bipartisan supported--to join in this effort. As we think about many of the major issues

that we kind of fight through in these remaining days of this Congress, I hope, for this kind of commonsense piece of legislation, that we could get the time needed to get it passed. Again, I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. President, I rise to offer new legislation that I urge all my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to support. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Carper, Akaka, Lieberman, Collins, and Voinovich as original cosponsors of this bill. The legislation we offer today, the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, is directly aimed at improving operations and quantifying results across the Federal Government.

I think most of my colleagues know I am a business guy. In fact, I have spent more time in the business world than in the public sector. I have always tried to apply commonsense business practices to the work of government, in my former job as Virginia Governor and now as Senator. This is a point I think most of us on both sides of the aisle would acknowledge: If I ran a business or if we ran any business the way we run the Federal Government, I would be out of business in short order. If we do not change--as we hear the kinds of folks across America say: We want to see more efficiency from our Federal Government--if we do not change, our government might get run out of business as well.

As chair of the Budget Committee Task Force on Government Performance, over the last 18 months I have been looking into how we use data and information to improve government operations. Over the last year, our task force has held a series of hearings, meetings, and conversations with public and private sector leaders from every level of government to learn more about what works and what does not work. Here is what we have learned.

At the beginning of every President's administration, it seems an entirely new performance agenda is established. The Bush administration had the President's Management Agenda, and the current administration has its own accountable government initiatives. With this frequent change in approach every 4 to 8 years, it is difficult to ensure that we are consistent in the data we collect, use the best tools and technology to analyze it, and then put the necessary accountability in place to orderly track performance and the basic functions of what government does. Let me give you a couple examples.

Agencies produce literally thousands of pages of data each year, but too often we do not use it. We do not use it in Congress. Public interest groups do

not use it. Enormous efforts are put into collecting this data, and then it sits on the shelf. Typically, this performance data is only reported once a year, so it is often too late by the time we discover whether we are improving or falling behind.

We also do not compare the results of similar programs. Too often, so many of our government functions are siloed by agency or Department and rarely is this data analyzed in any kind of crosscutting fashion. We in the task force took a look at this. We looked, for example, at workforce training programs across the Federal Government. We are currently funding 44 separate Federal programs in 9 different departments to support workforce training. We all would agree that in a changing world, workforce training is key to America's competitiveness. But 44 programs in 9 different departments without any kind of crosscutting analysis? No business could operate that way. And it is not just workforce training. In food safety--a piece of legislation that we are working on that I and I know the Presiding Officer hope we pass before the end of the year to put new food safety standards in place--in food safety, we currently fund 17 different entities within 7 different departments involved in food safety activities. So how can we assess what is working and what is not working?

In short, government operates in silos. We report by agency and by program, but we do not know what we are doing in government in any particular project area or specific policy goal area. We need a better system that enables us to review the results of each program as a whole in terms of how they feed into a policy objective, where we are having the most impact, and, candidly, where we could find some room to cut or curtail.

Our Federal performance system also needs to increase the accountability of senior agency leadership. In many agencies, the performance planning and reporting is disconnected from the senior officials and not part of the daily operations of the agency. In other words, somebody's got this task, but their functions of performance audits and measurements and metrics do not have a direct line of reporting to whoever the chief operating officer of the particular agency is.

I can say that at the State and local level, we have actually made some progress in changing this around. Let me parochially start with what we did in Virginia. This chart I have in the Chamber is a little bit busy, but we created a Virginia Performs Web site. We use this to track progress we are making in key policy areas that are important to Virginians. So whether it is the economy, education--and we set commonsense goals that everyone can agree on across party lines, and then we look at the measurement criteria that lead to that goal. This is one of the reasons Virginia has earned the recognition as the best managed State in the country.

It is not just happening in Virginia, though. In Indiana, a different tool has been created. It is called the Transparency Portal by GOV Mitch Daniels. It again tries to bring transparency to the policy goals. Then we can argue about how we get there or how we ought to fund how we get there. But unless we have common agreement on the goal and then see which programs lead to that goal and measure the effectiveness of the individual programs, we are not going to get, particularly in these budget-constrained times, the best value for our Federal tax dollar.

I believe Washington has much to learn from these local and State level examples in setting goals, holding managers accountable, and using performance metrics in a consistent, user-friendly way. State and local decisionmakers do not have to wait to look at the results once a year. They do it constantly. That is what we did in Virginia. That is what we need to do in our Nation's Capital as well.

In addition to this reporting and crosscutting, we also need to recognize that not all of these burdensome reporting requirements are of equal value. So the task force has focused on reducing reporting requirements to identify what reporting might be consolidated or eliminated. If you get overwhelmed with data at certain points, the data becomes somewhat less useful. So we want to focus these agencies on what are the key determinants on which they ought to report. I do not want to just add new reports and data requirements on agencies. There are bookshelves all over this town sagging from the weight of unread reports. So we must streamline and modernize what we are currently doing, and we need to examine outdated and overlapping agency reporting. We should only collect information that is useful.

The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act addresses many of our findings to improve the operations and results across government.

First, it will require all agencies to produce real-time data on results. As I mentioned earlier, in the past, agencies would report on performance only once a year. This bill would require agencies to post results quarterly so the public and Congress can use that real-time information about what works on targeted goals. With today's technology and if you are collecting data on an ongoing basis, there is no reason we should have this information only come out once a year. A quarterly requirement will allow us to correct and fine-tune on an ongoing basis.

Second, the bill requires agencies to post data on a single public Web site. This Web site will contain performance information from across government so we can see how we are performing and how national priorities such as education, public health, and safety, are being met. Again, I go back to Virginia Performs, which works. You agree on a top- line policy goal, and then you see across agencies how all these different programs feed in. So posting this on a single public Web site rather than having Members of Congress or the public sort through the myriad of sites right now is a step in the right direction.

Third, agencies will be required to identify low-priority programs that are not adequately contributing to the overall results. Now, this is controversial. Every agency likes to talk about its best performing programs. No agency likes to talk about which programs really are not getting the job done. But as we face increasingly budget constraining times, we must make sure we look not only at the winners but that we have the agencies themselves put forward those areas where programs are not meeting the goals.

Fourth, we need to take important steps to improve the accountability of the senior officers in government agencies. We formally establish that agency deputy secretaries are the chief operating officers and hold them accountable for the results the agencies are looking for. Again, you have to have a chain of command so somebody knows who is the chief operating officer and those people who are performing are responsible and those metrics are reported to that chief operating officer. We also establish a performance improvement officer who reports directly to the COO and, again, works across agencies to meet our crosscutting goals.

We also feel these efforts will generate ``back office'' savings, and we have as a policy goal--I do not believe this will be a stretch--a literally 10-percent reduction in written reports.

We sometimes get overloaded with data. We want to fine-tune the data. We want to make sure the more useful data is reported on a more regular basis, that extraneous amounts--some of the kind of burdensome stuff that has been put in in the past that may no longer be relevant--we want to eliminate. And within the agency, we want to make sure there is a clear chain of command.

I think the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act moves us forward in a major way. So this legislation--commonsense business practices, bipartisan, in an effort that will meet the 10- percent reduction in agency reports; the effort, finally, to make sure we can look at policy goals not by individual department or agency but across programmatic areas; the same kinds of business techniques that are used in Fortune 500 companies all across America and, for that matter, all across the world--will bring these best practices into the Federal Government and make sure we do not have this kind of start-and- stop effort that has, unfortunately, plagued modernization efforts over the past.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--since this is bipartisan supported--to join in this effort. As we think about many of the major issues

that we kind of fight through in these remaining days of this Congress, I hope, for this kind of commonsense piece of legislation, that we could get the time needed to get it passed. Again, I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. President, first, I commend my friend and colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, who I know the Senate has heard repeatedly over the last few weeks, relentlessly over the last few weeks, come back time and again and again on this issue around small business. I think many Americans are getting a chance to see what those of us who have the privilege of serving with Mary Landrieu see regularly: This is somebody who does not take no. This is someone I know we sometimes need to prod to come out of her shell. But this is someone who is so passionate about the people of Louisiana and, in her role as Chair of the Small Business Committee, has been a tireless voice for small businesses, not just in Louisiana but in Virginia, New Mexico, all across the country. I want to join the majority leader and others in commending her for her ``stick-to-it-iveness'' on this critical piece of legislation.

I want to add a couple of other comments. I concur as well with the Senator from Louisiana on the issue of 1099s. We do need to have an accurate way to ensure that the standing law that has been the law of the land for 62 years is enforced. But this process of filing a 1099 at a $600 threshold at this moment in time is way overburdensome. I, like the Senator from Louisiana, and I think most Members, heard that loudly and clearly, and we do need to fix that.

I look forward to working with Senator Landrieu. I know Senator Begich and others have been involved in those efforts. I look forward to joining them in this effort.

I want to take a moment or two--our time is about up before we break for our caucus lunches--I think it is important that the pieces of this bill have been emphasized time and again, the lending facility, small businesses that can take capital in if they increase their percentage of lending, this is particularly helpful to small banks that might be in challenging financial times at this point.

The SBA, the replenishment of funding for the SBA, the one message I brought out everywhere across Virginia over the last month and a half was that the SBA today is not your grandfather's or even your daddy's SBA. It is not even 5 years ago's SBA. The SBA, under Administrator Karen Mills, is much less bureaucratic, much more streamlined.

With the work the Small Business Committee has done in terms of upping the guarantees, the SBA's role and the type of businesses the SBA has served during this crisis has expanded dramatically. Look at the number of banks that participate now with the SBA today versus 18 months ago. That remarkably successful effort ground to an immediate halt in June when funding ran out. Why in the heck it has taken us this long simply to replenish that proven program that does not add to the deficit is one of the things that gets a lot of folks in Virginia, Louisiana, and New Mexico scratching their heads.

There is another piece of this bill, one that the chairman was kind enough to work with me and others on, that builds upon an existing initiative in the private sector and I believe in about 26 States, a Capital Access Program, that helps those marginal small business loans become more bankable. I hear the same concerns the Chair of the Small Business Committee hears: A small business cannot get their loans, although I have got to say it is not only the bankers' fault, because, let's face it, a lot of small businesses today are not as financially healthy as they were 2 years ago. If they have real estate as collateral, it has decreased in value. If they are lending on cashflow, that has decreased as well. So how do we take that otherwise healthy small business, in good times and in normal recessions, and not let it fall off the cliff in this deepest recession since the Great Depression?

The Capital Access Program is one place where a borrower will be charged a couple of extra points, we will go in from the government and match those points, and we can create a first-dollar loss, a separate loss reserve pool, for a whole series of loans; another $30- to $60 billion of capacity in that aspect. Finally, what is not to like about the series of small business tax credits that have also been built into this legislation? So I commend the chairperson of the Small Business Committee. I am glad the Senate has come to its senses on this issue. Candidly, I wish we would have passed this legislation last spring, but better late than never.

I want to add two other points that I think are important. One other piece of legislation, a bipartisan piece of legislation that we passed recently--and I would be curious to hear the response of the Chair of the Small Business Committee on this with the financial reform bill, a very important piece of legislation. We set, appropriately, in that financial reform bill the requirement for banks to set higher capital standards. The challenge we have right now is starting to implement those higher capital standards in the trough of the recession. That sends a very mixed message to our bankers and to our regulators. I hope the Chair of the Small Business Committee and I and others can think about how we work with our regulators at the FDIC and the OCC and the Fed to ensure that while we want to build up the capital reserves and make our banks healthier, that some level of forbearance for those small business performing loans that may not meet every covenant in their loan document, because their real estate has depreciated in value, somehow we have to have some flex. Because what we are doing by having the regulators come down so hard on the banks at this point is we are, in many ways, even with this very good program that Senator Landrieu has put out, strangling that recovery because of this mixed message.

The final point I want to make is, with this piece of small business legislation, I think it may be--again, it is not going to be a single silver bullet, but one piece of good news that I do not think we have come back to enough in these discussions is that not only have large banks recovered nicely since the decline, but large cap companies, the Fortune 1,0000 companies, their balance sheets are healthier today than they have ever been. There is north of $2 trillion in cash sitting on Fortune 1,000 balance sheets. One of the things I am looking forward to working with my colleagues on is how we get that cash off the sidelines and invested back in the market. When they invest in the market, and the large companies go to their supply chains, which is the small businesses, those small businesses have to get the credit as well to keep functioning. So this piece of legislation is important not only to small businesses, but as

large cap companies start to spend out as well, it is important to the overall economic recovery.

I would ask my friend and my colleague, the leader on this important piece of legislation, if she might have some ideas as well about how we meet that appropriate long-term financial goal of making our financial standards appropriate, but not send this mixed message to regulators so that those small business loans that are still performing have the appropriate forbearance to get through this trough in the recession.

Mr. President, again I will close my comments and thank the chairman of the Small Business Committee for her leadership on this bill. We would not be here today but for her relentlessness on this legislation.

This legislation has had more hurdles, many of them false hurdles, put in its face, and Senator Landrieu does not know how to say no when it affects the well-being of small businesses, which are the lifeblood of job creation coming out of a recession.

I thank her for her leadership.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 8 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today, as this Chamber debates the nomination of Elena Kagan--someone I am looking forward to supporting when we vote--to raise another issue of ensuring justice in our country, an issue the Presiding Officer, I know, has been concerned about as well, and that is urging this Chamber to take action and approve funding for the settlement of racial discrimination claims made by thousands of African-American farmers.

This is an issue with which I have dealt for years, first as Governor of Virginia, now as a Senator. This issue was first brought to my attention by John Boyd, who is a fourth generation African-American farmer from Southside, VA. He founded the National Black Farmers Association in 1995.

He and a group of other African-American farmers brought forward a series of claims that were finally addressed in a lawsuit named Pigford v. Glickman. That lawsuit concerned allegations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had denied farm loans and other services to African-American farmers between 1983 and 1997, although I think history will show those acts of discrimination long preceded 1983.

That case was settled in 1999. But due to very tight deadlines, thousands of farmers missed the deadline to file their complaints.

An estimated 74,000 Black farmers now await approval of funding by this body, following the announcement of a settlement of these additional claims by the USDA in February of this year. The USDA has acknowledged these claims. They have agreed to a settlement. These funds have been appropriated. This funding has been paid for.

According to Mr. Boyd, this effort, if we can get this funding approved, will mark the seventh time the Senate has tried to act on providing the Black farmers settlement money.

I have to say that as we debate the nomination of a very talented individual to serve on the Supreme Court and we hear folks on both sides of the aisle talk about American justice and American jurisprudence, it is a varnish on that record and, to a certain degree, on this body that we in the Senate have not acted to make sure that close to $1 billion in these settlement claims--again, that have been authorized by USDA--that those funds are not fully appropriated and approved by this Senate body for these farmers, many of whom have been struggling for decades, some who struggle due to the discrimination that has been acknowledged by our own Department of Agriculture. We have not acted. Senate procedure has gotten in the way of authorizing payment of these funds.

Now it is the time to act. This week the Senate has the opportunity to finally authorize funding of the settlement costs and turn the page on past discriminatory practices.

As I stated earlier, this legislation is fully paid for and there does not appear to be any substantive opposition to honoring the terms of this settlement.

I know we are all anxious to vote on Elena Kagan. I know many of us are anxious to vote on the small business legislation. I know we are all anxious, as well, for the August recess to start. As we go through this process on a matter that reflects on the integrity of this body, reflects on the value of our jurisprudence system, as we think through trying to get out of town and getting home, I hope our leaders can come together and act to make sure that these Black farmers, many times waiting literally for decades for the appropriate compensation that everyone throughout the judicial system has said is owed to them, that in this rush to get out and get back home, the Senate can finally take action in the Pigford case and these farmers can receive their appropriate compensation.

I again thank those involved in this action. I particularly thank Mr. John Boyd, as I mentioned, from Southside, VA, who has been a passionate and tireless leader on this issue for more than two decades.

I see my good friend, the Senator from Delaware, is here to speak on behalf of Elena Kagan. I know he and the Presiding Officer have also raised this issue making sure these Black farmers get--not their day in court; they have had their day in court, but they are waiting for the Senate to act on a noncontroversial issue so they can receive the funding that is long overdue.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleague and friend, the chair of the Small Business Committee, the Senator from Louisiana, in support of this very important piece of legislation. Let me first of all say: In her inimitable style, she has been relentless on this issue. The Presiding Officer and I are both new Members. I think we have seen, in our short time here, certain Members who get that bit in their mouth and just will not let it go. On this issue, Senator Landrieu has truly been a leader. It is an issue of paramount importance.

I wish to answer the question of the Senator, but I wish to first of all preface it by saying what I hear in Virginia--and I know what the Senator hears in Louisiana, with all the other challenges Louisiana has--is our constituents want us to focus on jobs. On any historic basis coming out of recession, 65 to 70 percent of all the new jobs created come from small businesses.

And while we can point to certain positive signs in our economy right now--the Dow at 10,500 from a low of 6,500, 15, 16 months ago; corporate balance sheets, large Fortune 500 companies with more money on their balance sheets than at any point in recent history--good news. But if they are not hiring--and I hear from corporate CEOs, as well, their concern that the small businesses that are in their supply chain are going out of business, not just the small businesses that would normally go out with a traditional recession, but this recession has been so deep and so hard that we have now cut through the fat and we are into the muscle and bone. And if we continue to lose small businesses at the rate we are, then the ability to create a robust recovery will be dramatically stymied.

So what do we do? There is no single silver bullet. And what the Senator from Louisiana has crafted is a menu of options for small businesses, to get them that additional assistance, particularly in terms of access to credit, that will allow them to get back and do what they do best--continue to innovate, grow, and create jobs.

The Senator asked me what I am hearing from other Governors. Other Governors, Democratic and Republican alike, are saying that we in Congress have to focus on jobs. The issue of credit and access to credit to small businesses is paramount to all of them, and they want to see this legislation passed.

I was a former chair of the NGA. This is the kind of issue where Governors of both parties come together because we don't see these issues simply through Democratic or Republican partisan lenses. And sometimes this is the kind of bill that, candidly, as I remember as Governor, you kind of scratch your head and say: This is kind of a no- brainer. This bill is paid for. Why would not the Congress do all it can to support small business?

The Senator has outlined, and I know I was repeating some of the items, but I want to reinforce again--I want to particularly focus on one part of this legislation, but there are really four buckets here. They are, how can we expand some of the initiatives within the Small Business Administration that were put in place, particularly in the trough of the downturn, to make sure that these SBA programs, which have been vitally important to small business lending, are maintained-- the 90-percent matches, some of the other loan guarantee programs?

I should acknowledge right here that I think the Administrator of the SBA, Karen Mills, has done a remarkable job in streamlining a lot of the processes. I have heard from banks for years about their challenges in dealing with SBA. Well, the current SBA team realizes this is a moment of crisis, and they have done everything possible to streamline their procedures. They need to have these tools put back in place so that the SBA can continue to do the very important work and, candidly, work that goes much broader in terms of a portfolio of small businesses that they are now attracting to their programs than in the past.

I would also acknowledge the dramatic increase in the number of particularly independent and community-based banks that are now accessing and using SBA programs. If we don't pass this legislation, these programs will be dramatically cut back, No. 1.

No. 2, the Senator has crafted, again, at her committee, in a bipartisan way, a whole series of targeted small business tax cuts, a kind of accelerated depreciation that will have the ability to write off core investments, the ability to focus on these job creators. How can we give them a little bit of a break right now, during these challenging times, in our Tax Code?

The third bucket in this program is building on a proposal the Senator and I and others had. We actually suggested this to the administration last October, but they have now built in a $30 billion lending program. The interesting thing about this lending program is it actually, on CBO scoring, scores as a net positive. So this is money not only that we will recover, but we will make--albeit a small one--a profit on it, to shore up particularly independent and community-based banks and give them a direct incentive in terms of increasing their small business lending.

Then a fourth bucket, one that I have been working on--and I wish to commend both my colleagues from Michigan, Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow. They have been very active in this as well--which is saying: Can we take what is already working in the marketplace at a State level and build upon it? This is the so-called Capital Access Program. Twenty-six States in America already have this program in place, and those States that do not have it can, in effect, piggyback on other State programs. So there is no need to create new bureaucracy. There is no need to create tons of new paperwork.

I hear, I say to the Senator, from my banking community that this particular initiative is one that they are perhaps even the most supportive of because they know how to do it, they know how to access it, and it can immediately generate a great deal of additional lending.

Let me take a moment, at the Senator's discretion and time--I know this is her hour, but I wish to take one moment to explain it because I think we have focused on the lending facility, we focused on SBA, we focused on some of the tax cuts, but the Capital Access

Program has not received as much attention. Each State has slight variations, but let me describe how this initiative works.

Basically, the independent bank, frankly, at this point is probably a little leery of making a loan, even to a relatively healthy small business because chances are, most small businesses coming out of this recession, their cash flows are down, and if they have real estate as collateral, it has perhaps declined in value. So while I have great sympathy for the small businesses that cannot get their credit lines renewed, I also understand the bankers' predicament in that small business credit isn't quite as good as it was, perhaps, in 2007.

So how does this program work to benefit these small businesses? What it basically does is it creates a separate loss reserve pool for small businesses that fall into this category. What does that mean? If a small business was coming to a bank, a local bank in Baton Rouge or a local bank in Martinsville, VA, wanting to borrow $100,000, the bank would charge that small business a couple of extra points--$2,000 or $3,000 out of that loan that would go into a separate loss reserve pool. We, with this Capital Access Program, would then match that separate loss reserve pool for, again, a matching amount of points, 2 or 3 additional points. So on a $100,000 loan, you would have $6,000 that would be absorbed, first dollar loss, if this loan went into default. Now, the bank still has to do its due diligence because if you eat through that $6,000, the bank has to bear the burden. But it gives you a little cushion there. It takes that marginal credit and makes it creditworthy during these challenging times.

Think about this $100,000 with that $6,000 loss reserve pool taken times a hundred or times a million. You could have a $100 million basket of small business loans with a $6 million reserve, and suddenly you have a very valuable tool that can be used by banks across the country.

The roughly $1.4 billion, $1.5 billion that is in the legislation in this program, it has been estimated it will be leveraged. And I know ``leverage'' is a bad word in this Hall at this point, and I particularly have pointed out some of the concerns of overleveraging. But because the person who is receiving the loan is putting up money and we from the government side are putting up money, we actually double every dollar we put out, and on an actual dollar basis, we are going to be leveraging the Federal dollar commitment 20 to 30 times. So that means this $1.4 billion, $1.5 billion can create $50 billion of additional small business lending. Think about the power of this tool, a tool that banks are familiar with, a tool that already exists in 26 States, a short-term shot in the arm for an awful lot of small businesses that might not prefer to use the SBA program, might not want to go through a bank, that might want to access the lending facility. It just gives us one more tool.

So I hope my colleagues and folks who are watching and listening will recognize that what the Senator from Louisiana has tried to create is a menu of options because there is no one-size-fits-all in the case of small businesses. Their needs are different. The banking community's desires are different. I think she has crafted a great tool that will dramatically help small business lending.

If we want to go back to our constituents in the month of August and talk about a real, live deliverable, if we want to talk about what we have done in a tangible way that will get credit back into the small business lending pool, that could be delivered by Labor Day, we need to make sure we move forward on this important piece of legislation.

I again commend the chair of the Small Business committee for her relentless work on this issue. I hope our colleagues from the other side of the aisle will hear all of the various business organizations across the political spectrum that are supporting this legislation. My hope is that we can deal with the amendments, get those amendments dispensed with at some point during the day, and pass this bill today because it is very important to making sure this recovery we are just starting to creep into is actually not a jobless recovery but a recovery that creates jobs. To do that, we have to have these small businesses healthy.

Madam President, I thank the chairman for those kind remarks. It is a good feeling for all of us who have labored on this legislation--Members and staff--that we are finally coming to a successful conclusion on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and it is going to be enacted into law.

As those equally controversial pieces of legislation in the 1930s stood the test of time for decades, I think this bill will stand the test of time for decades as well in terms of creating a new set of rules of the road for not just America's financial sector but, in a sense, the world's financial sector for decades to come.

While not perfect--no piece of legislation is--one of the things that gives me some confidence that the right balance has been struck is that this bill has been criticized by both the left and the right. Some on the left, some on the Democratic side, have said the bill has not gone far enough in putting more requirements and restrictions on our financial institutions. Some of my colleagues on the Republican side, on the right, have said this bill goes too far.

The fact that it is getting perhaps that left-and-right criticism puts us maybe in that right-in-the-middle section, which is the appropriate balance we tried to strike since the chairman started this effort well over 2 years ago.

I think it is important at times we remember why we are here. Two years ago, the markets were in chaos. President Bush and Secretary Paulson had created TARP with a $700 billion unprecedented bailout to shore up our financial system. President Obama was in crisis mode with our economy still in free-fall from day one. The Dow was at 6,500, and there was a lot of talk of nationalizing banks.

Well, close to a year and a half to 2 years later, we have seen stimuluses and stress tests. We have seen a DOW that now has touched 11,000. While the economy is not creating jobs at the rate any of us would like to see, the talk of financial Armageddon or complete collapse has disappeared.

I think we went into this process with three goals: First, the taxpayers must never again hear that a company is too big to fail. Second, we had to fix our regulatory system to make sure the huge gaps that existed that allowed systemic regulatory arbitrage could no longer take place. And, finally, consumers and investors had to have confidence that our markets were fair, transparent, and that there would be an officer on the beat to make sure some of the excesses that took place in 2005, 2006, and 2007--where folks were being put into homes they could never afford to pay for or having financial instruments that were being created under the guise of lowering the cost of risk that were more about simply creating fee income--would never again prey on unweary investors or on homeowners who got themselves into trouble.

I think one of the most interesting critiques that some still make of the bill is that we have not addressed too big to fail. Well, candidly, with the United States moving first on this legislation, and the rest of the world waiting for the United States to move, we hear from our European colleagues that the framework we have set up, actually, they hope to emulate. We have created a new regulatory structure so the regulators can get out of their silos--depository institutions on one side, security institutions on another, derivatives trading on a third--and make sure we have a full systemic risk council so we can measure risk wherever it exists, regardless of the charter of the organization.

While some said we ought to go ahead and limit the asset size of some of our institutions, just on size alone, I think the chairman wisely decided as we went through a year and a half of hearings, what often precipitated the greatest risks to our system was not size alone-- America has only 4 of the 50 largest banks in the world--but it was the interconnectedness, their leverage, their failure to have appropriate risk management plans in place.

This new systemic risk council is specifically charged with making sure our large, more complex institutions have more stringent capital requirements, leverage ratios, liquidity requirements, and risk management tools. We even created two whole new categories, that while not fully tested--both of these categories actually came from colleagues on the other side of the aisle--they could be important new steps to prevent these large institutions from failing.

One is contingent debt that large institutions would have to have that if they get themselves even close to trouble, that debt would convert into equity, consequently diluting existing shareholders and management and keeping pressure on the board to make sure management would not take that risk.

Finally, a tool that, again, if implemented correctly, will be tremendously powerful; that is, to ensure that all these large, complex institutions provide a plan about how they will be able to unwind in an orderly fashion through traditional bankruptcy provisions. Our goal is to always have bankruptcy be the appropriate response. If that liquidation plan or if that debt plan is not blessed by the council of regulators, the council of regulators can dismember, break up, or put other restrictions on these large institutions.

I think Senator Dodd made the decision to task my good friend, Senator Corker of Tennessee, and I with this issue: If those processes still do not work, how do we make sure we have an orderly liquidation process? Our goal was twofold: One, taxpayers should never have to bear the risk; and, two, if an entity goes into liquidation, it will not come out. Liquidation or resolution is not an attempt to stand up an institution. But we wanted to make clear to shareholders, to management, if you go into resolution, you are toast, as my colleague, Senator Corker, often said.

We think we have reached that goal, and I am particularly proud of titles I and II of this bill. Actually, when Chairman Dodd and Senator Shelby put some amendments to it, it was endorsed by 95 of our colleagues. It is the broadest bipartisan section of this legislation. This bill addresses a number of other vital areas as well. It allows a single depository place to get the appropriate day-to-day information on our financial institutions--that still did not exist until we created the Financial Services Oversight Council--and having the ability to get on a daily basis the level of interconnectiveness of a future AIG.

It puts in place a consumer protection bureau to make sure, for example, mortgages are regulated in a way that consumers can understand, regardless of the charter of the organization. We often found banks had a fairly good ability to regulate some of their mortgages; whereas, mortgage lenders and others, who were unregulated, had no such restrictions. Now we have an even playing field.

It finally puts in place--there is some debate on this issue--an appropriate process to regulate derivatives and to bring these critical but potentially dangerous instruments out of the shadows, and the vast majority of these instruments will now be traded in a more transparent way on exchanges.

There is more to be done. Domestic and international implementation is vitally important. As I mentioned at the outset, the United States-- and this is one of the things that is kind of remarkable, when I hear from some of my colleagues we have moved too quickly or this bill does too much--candidly, the whole rest of the world has been waiting on America to act to set the template for broad-based financial reform. Now that we have acted, I think particularly Europe and Asia will follow our stead. But making sure we do this with appropriate international implementation is terribly important--the Basel circumstances--but also making sure we have the regulatory approach across the world correct so there is not an international ability to arbitrage with these large financial institutions.

I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have also raised the question that this bill does not fully address the GSEs. They are right. But I think it was the right and conscious decision of the chairman and others that to disrupt an already still fragile housing market at this moment in time in a piece of legislation that has already been accused by some as being too broad and covering too many items was not the appropriate choice.

We will have to come back and deal with GSEs. We have to make sure, as we deal with GSEs, international implementation, we stay vigilant. We have given the regulators the tools. How they use these tools will be up to us in Congress to make sure they are implemented correctly with appropriate oversight.

I am, in certain ways, disappointed this bill is not being passed with broader bipartisan legislation. But we have only gotten here because there is bipartisan support.

I want to close acknowledging again--the chairman was very kind in his remarks--I cannot think, in my short tenure in the Senate, of any other Senator who has worked harder on a piece of legislation, who has been more relentless, who has had more twists and turns, who has had more ``we are there; but, oh, my gosh, we may not be there,'' who has had probably more 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning, I believe at one point, telephone calls and meetings with other Members.

As the Senator from Texas mentioned earlier, even though the Senator from Texas could not support the overall bill, our chairman has worked with all Members regardless of party to try to accommodate their interests. I commend the Senator from Texas for pointing out, for example, the community-based and independent banks come out of this legislation as one of the real winners in terms of their ability to have more fair competition with the larger institutions.

So I commend the chairman, and I commend all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, even those who perhaps will not vote for the final product but were a part of building the product, where their ideas were implemented.

When we think about the Glass-Steagalls, and when we think about the bills that created the SEC, when we think about the legislation in the 1930s, in the moment of crisis, that created the financial framework for 20th-century American capitalism, what this bill has done--there will be work done to improve and fully implement it, but what this bill has done has set a framework for 21st-century American capitalism and, in a certain way, a framework for 21st-century capitalism across the world in a way that America can remain the center for financial markets but at the same time making sure both consumers and the investing public are protected in this new and very challenging world.

With that, I yield the floor. I again extend my compliments to the chairman and all who have been involved in this legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to mark a sad day for the National Capital region. On the eve of the 1 year anniversary of the deadliest accident in Metro's history, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the families of the nine victims who perished on June 22, 2009. On that day around 5 p.m., a Red Line train collided with another train that sat stopped between the Takoma and Fort Totten stops as it waited for the Fort Totten station to clear. The first car of the moving train, an outdated model over 30 years old, sustained tremendous structural damage which resulted in significant casualties. As Virginian, this issue is especially important to me because 1 of the 9 victims who died--the train's operator--as well as 15 of the 80 people injured were fellow Virginians.

The unfortunate events of that day shed light on some glaring problems with our Nation's public transportation systems, and should provide us with a sense of urgency to accomplish the task of ensuring the safety of public transportation users.

Metro itself and its oversight agency--the Tri-State Oversight Committee--TOC--are both in dire need of reform. While it has taken steps towards addressing the problem, Metro needs to continue to make safety its top priority. Full analysis of potential hazards and safety concerns needs to be done, and Metro must start regimented data collection efforts so that safety problems can be tracked and prioritized. Top Metro executives--those with decisionmaking authority--need to be involved in critical safety conversations, and need to have the relevant information in their hands when making important safety decisions.

I am proud that we have been able to provide $1.5 billion in Federal funds over 10 years to make capital improvements to Metro, but this cannot be a blank check. Replacing the outdated 1000 series railcars is a huge priority, and Metro is poised to sign the contract that will enable them to phase

out the older cars with newer, safer models. But more needs to be done. Metro needs to demonstrate safety improvements it has been making and ensure that it will continue to make safety its top priority if it expects continued financial support.

More broadly, this accident has highlighted that the safety of our public transportation systems should be a priority nationwide. We have been working in the Senate developing a legislative approach to ensuring proper safety standards are in place. Incredibly, FTA currently has no authority to regulate our Nation's transit agencies or develop national safety standards. A new draft bill developed by Senators Dodd, Shelby, and Menendez will give FTA the tools to develop a national transit safety plan while also providing states the resources and flexibility to develop more robust transit safety oversight. The Banking Committee, of which I am a member, will soon consider this legislation and I am pleased that we are moving towards making progress in this area so that preventable tragedies, such as the one that occurred a year ago, will be a thing of the past.

Mr. President, It has come to my attention that the normal rivalry between the House and Senate pages has reached new levels. While not aware of all the facts, I know the Senate pages serve with skill and dedication. I also understand that the Senate pages were successful in the Frisbee challenge but there may be some debate on the matter. I wish all the pages much success and wish them all well.

Mr. President, I just wish to briefly add to the discussion and thank both the chairman and Senator Carper and my good friend Senator Corker as well. We are breaking new ground. We are creating a new national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I share, I think, actually the goals of both Senator Corker and Senator Carper that the bureau ought to have a chance to enforce its rules on an orderly national basis. I know my good friend, Senator Corker, has a slightly different variation, but I think Senator Carper's amendment has struck that right balance: ensuring there are opportunities for Federal preemption but, at the same time, recognizing that the balance of the attorneys general role ought to be to focus on the regulations--regulations that it will have had an appropriate period to have been commented on by industry, to have gone through an orderly process, rather than simply what the initial draft would have had, which would have allowed the attorneys general to actually focus on the statute itself, that might have allowed them to run a little more without as many restraints.

So I realize this is a new area. We are trying to strike a balance. I agree with

the chairman that the Carper amendment strikes that right balance, and I look forward to supporting his amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on May 16, 2010, the Senate Pages played the House Pages in an annual ultimate Frisbee game on the National Mall. This year the Senate Pages won the game commandingly 6-3.

Congratulations Senate Pages.

Mr. President, I want to commend the chairman of the Small Business Committee, and my colleague and friend, Senator Landrieu, and Senator Isakson for this amendment. I am proud to be part of it.

I think those of us on the committee when we were drafting the legislation wanted to make sure that the mortgage security securitization process, the originators of mortgages, had skin in the game. I think as we went through this process, and working particularly with the expertise of the Senator from Georgia, we realized that while skin in the game is important, it is more the underlying quality of the mortgage.

If we have mortgages that have that 20 percent down, with a high FICO score, the same level of skin in the game is not required. I think this amendment stays true to the intent of the Banking Committee bill.

I am glad the chairman of the Banking Committee is supportive of it. I think this is an amendment that refines and improves the legislation. I am proud to be a cosponsor of it, and grateful for the expertise of the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Louisiana.

Madam President, I thank my friend, the Senator from Arkansas, for her statement today about the sacrifice of folks not only from Arkansas but across the country--Virginia, Delaware, and from North Carolina.

Madam President, I wasn't planning on speaking, and I will only do so briefly because my friend, the Senator from Delaware, is going to speak much more extensively on this issue. But I think many of us who have had the opportunity to preside have heard--and in particular on Monday afternoons--the Senator from Delaware come down on a regular basis, for months, to speak on what, until last Thursday, was a pretty esoteric issue--an issue that, for somebody who spent 20 years around the finance sector before I got into politics full time, I thought I might have some knowledge of.

But as the Senator started talking about high-frequency trading, collocation, sponsored access, and flash trading, I realized this was a whole realm of new terms that actually even makes derivatives look simple.

The Senator from Delaware sounded an early warning signal that the massive amounts of investments that have been made by certain firms to try to get what appears to be a fractional millisecond advantage in the trading process might come back to haunt us all. Last Thursday afternoon we saw potentially--and we still don't know, and the regulators were up testifying on the Hill yesterday on the House side-- what could have been the first warning shot across the bow of what could be the next systemic risk crisis when the stock markets in the United States lost over $1 trillion of value in a dramatic downsweep of about 16 to 20 minutes.

The market recovered, but almost a week later we still don't know the real cause, and I don't think we can blame the regulators. I have had conferences with the head of the SEC, and she acknowledges the difficulty in keeping up with the technology and having the oversight for all of this proliferation of new exchanges--electronic exchanges-- many that didn't even exist a few years back.

Most investors probably think they trade on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, or the NASDAQ. They don't realize the majority of trades are now on electronic exchanges they have probably never even heard of. The Senator from Delaware has consistently raised this issue, and whether we simply need additional speed limits, system brakes, or whether we need to make sure there is not an unfair advantage that is being created, these are all issues we need to come back to.

I want to personally say I am proud of the fact the Senator from Delaware and I contacted the chairman of the Banking Committee and we have spoken out. But he has been the leader on this issue, and I have been proud to follow his lead. I know he is going to speak more about this issue today, and I am sure in the coming weeks. I don't have all the knowledge, I don't know the right answer yet, but I know in my gut that the Senator from Delaware is onto something here; that we all need to make sure we take a better examination of it.

The last thing the market needs right now, particularly for that small-time investor, is some sense that somebody on Wall Street is getting even one further advantage through the use of technology or that there is not appropriate system brakes in the event of a mistake made.

So as I yield the floor, I commend my friend, the Senator from Delaware, and look forward to working with him and the chairman of the Banking Committee, who has said the committee will be taking up this issue. It is something I think we all need to take heed of to make sure in this very important legislation that Chairman Dodd is working on we not only make sure we fix the last crisis but we potentially get ahead of the next crisis.

With that, I yield the floor.