Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 1547 be discharged from the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and be referred to the Committee on Veterans Affairs.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, August 6; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that there be a period of morning business until 10 a.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; that following morning business the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as provided for under the previous order.

Under the previous order, at 3 p.m. tomorrow, the Senate will proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Upon disposition of the nomination, the Senate will return to the consideration of the supplemental appropriations bill for the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Program.

Under the agreement, up to seven amendments are in order prior to a vote on the passage of the bill. When we return from the August recess, at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, the Senate will proceed to a cloture vote on the Dorgan substitute amendment to the Travel Promotion Act.

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

Madam President, as the Highway Trust Fund Act moves through the Senate, I would like to take a moment to stress the importance and urgency of reforming our national transportation system.

I commend Chairman Boxer for her leadership on this effort to keep the trust fund solvent. But the fact that we needed this emergency infusion indicates a much greater problem with the transportation system and how it is funded. I recognize and appreciate the desire to pass a clean 18-month extension of SAFETEA-LU. However, I think we can all agree that fundamental reform will be needed when the time

comes to consider a full 6-year authorization bill.

Our Nation's infrastructure is currently inadequate to preserve our global competitiveness and the way we allocate funds for surface transportation lacks true accountability. In short, we do not tie funding to performance. To move to a true performance-based system, there are some immediate steps that should be taken.

An 18-month extension provides a unique opportunity to take some of these steps. Without making any policy reforms or adding any programs, we can begin to collect information on how well transportation funds are serving the public, which will ease our transition to a reformed and effective long-term policy. I have drafted an amendment that would direct the Secretary of Transportation to coordinate with states, metropolitan planning organizations and our new chief performance officer to develop metrics to address the following factors: (1) National Connectivity: How have transportation investments improved the connection of people and goods across the Nation?

(2) Metropolitan Accessibility: How have transportation investments allowed Americans in metropolitan regions to access their jobs and other activities more reliably and efficiently?

(3) Energy Security and Environmental Protection: How have transportation investments reduced carbon emissions and petroleum consumption?

(4) Safety: How have transportation investments improved safety by reducing fatalities and injuries associated with transportation?

My proposal outlines how States and metropolitan regions can begin to report these measures. The factors above are outcome-oriented, objective and measurable. They are also designed to cut across all modes of transportation, and to measure performance across an entire region as opposed to measuring specific projects in a vacuum.

This legislation will help ease the transition to a more performance- based system. Not only will it provide us with actual performance data, but it will help clarify what additional resources states will need to better provide such data in the future.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate on this initiative to ensure its inclusion in any extension of SAFETEA-LU.

Mr. President, during yesterday's consideration of the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill, I noted that the managers included certain report language related to modeling and simulation capabilities for an unconventional fossil fuels program. I would like to ask the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee if their intent was to improve modeling and simulation for unconventional fossil energy technologies, by working in collaboration with universities and industry to establish joint programs for research and development.

I am pleased to learn that, because the Virginia Modeling and Simulation Center--VMASC--at Old Dominion University has extensive experience in modeling, simulation, and visualization of complex systems and events. Its capabilities include a complete suite of visualization software that can incorporate geospatial information with simulation and analysis of energy-related systems and the impact of those systems on various aspects of the environment. It also has extensive experience modeling critical infrastructure components of fossil fuel, electric and natural gas systems. VMASC has also developed capabilities for modeling policy aspects of global warming that can be adapted specifically to fossil fuel systems, and help to identify unconventional oil, natural gas, and coal resources.

VMASC has developed capabilities to model the production of unconventional resources using a combination of computational techniques that can be adapted to simulate a wide variety of scenarios associated with the fossil fuel industry and its relationship to environmental impacts.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

First, I would like to applaud Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Sessions for conducting a successful confirmation hearing. The hearings lasted 4 days, 15 witnesses testified, and thousands of people attended the hearing in person.

The topics of discussion ranged from executive privilege to property rights. In the end, the reviews were that the hearing was constructive and fair. At the same time, millions of Americans all across the country tuned in to the confirmation hearings on television to find out who Justice Sotomayor is.

As a U.S. Senator, I had the privilege of meeting with Judge Sotomayor in person and can say that the American people say what I witnessed firsthand, an individual with extensive judicial experience, a clear understanding of the law, and the judicial temperament to be an excellent Supreme Court Justice. Judge Sotomayor's nomination is a historic moment for several reasons. With 17 years as a Federal district and appellate court judge, Judge Sotomayor has more judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 100 years. She is also part of a small group of judges who have been nominated to the Federal judiciary by Presidents of different parties: President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. With the addition of President Obama, she will become the first person nominated by three Presidents to serve on the Federal judiciary.

Judge Sotomayor is also the first Hispanic American nominated to serve on the Supreme Court in its 220-year history.

Her family immigrated to the United States from Puerto Rico. The family didn't have a lot of money, but her mother valued education and hard work. Judge Sotomayor would go on to Princeton and Yale Law School, where she excelled academically. Judge Sotomayor did not have the benefit of a family name or wealth but she had ambition. She proved that one can improve their life in a single generation. I am confident many young men and women of all backgrounds are inspired by her example. Perhaps they will hit the books a little harder, practice their craft a little more, and not give up on reaching their own individual dreams.

As Governor of Virginia and now U.S. Senator, I have carried out the responsibility of selecting, vetting, and nominating individuals to serve on the bench. It is an enormous responsibility, because the decisions judges make affect people's lives. Much has been said about Judge Sotomayor's judicial philosophy. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she made clear to me that she fully understands the role of a judge. In her own words, her judicial philosophy is simple: ``Fidelity to the law'' and a ``rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms.''

Independent institutions can attest to this. The American Bar Association unanimously found Judge Sotomayor to be highly qualified, its highest rating. A number of other nonpartisan groups have found her constitutional decisions to be solidly in the mainstream. Judge Sotomayor's commitment to public service, extensive judicial experience, and fidelity to the law make her an excellent candidate to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. I look forward to casting my vote in support of Judge Sotomayor and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same.

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

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Dean Harold Hongju Koh to serve as Legal Adviser to the Department of State. Dean Koh is a close friend of mine, whom I have known and respected for many years. His distinguished career reflects a long history of public service and bipartisanship. For example, Dean Koh served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, beginning his career in government in the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan administration and at the Department of Justice and as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Clinton administration.

Dean Koh also has strong academic and professional credentials. He was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, a Marshall scholar and a law clerk for the Honorable Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has been awarded with several honorary degrees and more than 30 human rights awards.

Dean Koh's established expertise in international law makes him a strong candidate for the position. I am certain that he will protect the U.S. Constitution and execute the job with extraordinary professionalism. I strongly support his nomination.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I am not sure whether we are in a quorum call.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss bipartisan legislation that I am cosponsoring with my colleague Senator Corker concerning the Federal Government's recently acquired ownership stake in a number of private companies.

I think we all know the taxpayers have been on a roller coaster ride for the past 9 months, and from their perspective, each twist and turn has left us more deeply invested in troubled markets and oftentimes troubled companies. Americans are concerned about getting their money back and want to keep politics out of how we manage these investments we have had to make over the last few months.

Last week, Senator Corker and I introduced S. 1280, the TARP Recipient Ownership Trust Act. What will this bill do? Three very simple things. First, it will remove politics from our management of taxpayer investments in private companies. Second, it will ensure these investments are managed in order to maximize taxpayer returns. Third, it will allow us to plan for removing the government from the private sector by setting a date certain for selling these investments.

To achieve these goals, Senator Corker and I are proposing that if the government owns more than 20 percent of a private company we place that ownership stake in an independent trust. This trust would be run with a fiduciary duty for taxpayers by three independent directors appointed by the President. These directors would agree to perform this work for free as a service to the country and in doing so would give the American taxpayers what they deserve: the upside of the massive investments they have provided over the past 9 months. The trust wouldn't be an open-ended ownership in these companies; the trust would have to sell all of these assets by the end of 2011, though they could ask for a brief extension if it were, again, in the interest of the taxpayers' return. In this way, taxpayers can know we won't own stock in these companies for the next 20 years. In practice, this means that taxpayer ownership of AIG, Citigroup, and General Motors would be managed in order to maximize the return on these taxpayer investments.

We have all seen how political and contentious the TARP program is becoming. I know back when we voted on this matter earlier this year how controversial it was. I still think it was unfortunate that we got into this circumstance but fortunately the right thing to do. While there are a lot of challenges about how we got into this program, if we did look around--actually, Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post pointed out in an article recently that if 9 months ago, if 6 months ago, or even 3 months ago, back in the middle of March when the stock market was at its all-time low in terms of reacting to this crisis, any economist would have said by the end of June, would you be willing to look at a circumstance where the market was up 25, 30 percent--although it was a little bit down today--if many of the banks we had invested TARP funds in were actually trying to repay those TARP funds, and if we had seen the housing market, at least in many communities, start to stabilize, would we view that as a good outcome. Well, that is basically where we are. While we have enormous problems, we are seeing some progress. But one needs only to look at the number of TARP-related amendments that have been filed in the Senate in these past months. As a matter of fact, the leader was speaking today about the number of TARP amendments that could potentially be on the travel bill that we will have before us to know that this has become a lightning rod.

Some of the reasons for this concern are truly relevant and they are because the American people don't know when and how the TARP program is supposed to end. The American people, unfortunately, who invested in individual companies--some of the companies that now we have invested in--don't know how much we as the public will get back, or whether we, as the public investment, will politically interfere with the management of these companies. That is, again, why we need to implement this legislation Senator Corker and I have laid out that will put these ownership shares in this independent fiduciary trust.

I don't support cutting off TARP right now or limiting the tools it currently provides the administration, including the limited reuse of money that is repaid to the government. TARP already has a sunset date after which more funds cannot be spent, and since markets are not back to normal, even though there is improvement, we shouldn't prevent the use of the tools we currently have. But we do need to set parameters for managing our investments and winding them down in order to take the politics out of this program.

American taxpayers deserve to have their investments managed in order to maximize their returns. That is what the trust will do, and I hope we will consider using this model for other investments as well.

This trust will also help us take some of the politics out of the TARP program, and that is why I am proud of this legislation as bipartisan and led by my friend from Tennessee, Senator Corker. I hope my colleagues will join in supporting this bipartisan legislation, S. 1280, the TARP Recipient Ownership Trust Act. While this measure won't resolve all of our concerns surrounding TARP, I hope it can serve as a model to maximize the taxpayer returns on their investment.

Let me also take one additional moment to speak about another investment-related matter. Under the leadership of Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island, when the initial investments and the initial TARP plan were put together, Senator Reed, I think appropriately, said if we invest in banks in addition to getting a traditional return, we, the public, who are taking

these risks ought to see some upside potential for taking the risks in terms of warrants. Luckily, the Congress went along with that and we did receive warrants from a number of the banks we invested in. I personally am very happy to see that a number of these banks are starting to repay the investments the public made. However, there remains the question: What are we going to do with the warrants? Senator Reed and I have asked Secretary Geithner a number of times, and we hope he would also consider placing these warrants into some type of independent trust as well so that, again, we, the taxpayers, can receive the upside of these investments.

We took the risks with these banks during these troubled times. I am happy to see these banks return these funds. However, for the banks to buy back or sell back these warrants at what I believe today is still a discounted price would not allow us, the taxpayers, to maximize our investments. So, again, I hope Secretary Geithner responds to the requests that Senator Reed and I have made in making sure that these warrants are appropriately put into the same type of independent fiduciary trusts that I am proposing for the private investments we have made under TARP.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the state of our financial system and to provide some thoughts on systemic risk regulation, as we set about crafting an overall reform to our financial regulatory approach.

Yesterday, Treasure Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Director of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, published an editorial in the Washington Post laying out the broad outline of their proposal for regulatory reform. I share their views on how we arrived at this moment. I share the broader goals they discussed and look forward to working with the administration on comprehensive and timely regulatory reform. However, I wish to speak today about one area where I disagree, and that is how to address systemic risk.

Let me step back for a moment.

In the past 2 years we have witnessed events that have shaken our financial system to its core, altered our markets in ways that we still struggle to understand, and imposed costs that will burden our economy and our taxpayers for decades to come. We have grown numb to the news, but let me briefly recount these events.

The investment banking sector that built our capital markets has collapsed. Two of our largest investment banks have failed. Another has merged

with a commercial bank to avoid failure. Two others became commercial banking organizations.

Our residential mortgage finance sector has collapsed. The largest mortgage banks in the country have failed. Our two largest savings and loan associations have failed. Our two largest housing GSEs are operating under Federal Government conservatorship.

Our commercial banking sector has avoided collapse only through the infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars in equity support from the U.S. Treasury and massive liquidity support from the FDIC and the Federal Reserve. And despite these interventions, some of our largest commercial banks continue to face an uncertain future and dozens of smaller commercial banks have failed. Our insurance sector has been badly damaged. The largest insurance organization in the United States has been nationalized to avoid collapse. Other major insurers have received billions of dollars from the Treasury.

The magnitude of the events of the past 2 years strains comprehension. I believe what we have seen over the last couple years is the equivalent, in economic terms, of the 100-year flood. Millions of families and retirees have lost their financial security. Millions of people are out of work. Each day, we read about more layoffs, more losses, more bankruptcies, and more bank failures. We call this a financial crisis, but for the American people it is a very personal crisis of lost homes, derailed careers, forgone education, deferred retirement, communities less cared for, and at its core, the confidence of the American people has been shaken.

This crisis has uncovered the flaws of our current regulatory model and has revealed a shadow financial system which lies beyond the current regulatory structure.

We all share the hope that we will soon return to healthy, competitive financial markets and a vibrant economy. We have seen some positive signs that markets are stabilizing. But for our long-term prosperity, we do need a new model. What has happened to our financial system and our economy should not have happened. We must find and adopt reforms that will ensure that it never happens again.

We cannot shrink from the needed reform because it will be difficult or because some will oppose it. Right now there is a lack of faith in our system or its long term prospects. You can see that in our bond markets. We are not turning to the financial sector as a source of positive innovation so that the broader economy can grow. You can see that in the lack of credit in our markets, and the jobs lost every month.

To innovate and create jobs, not only in the financial system but across our whole economy, we do need comprehensive reform. Quality will attract capital, but only change will restore the quality of our markets.

This is the fundamental challenge facing the Banking Committee, of which I am a new member. However, before I joined this Banking Committee, before I joined this August body, I did spend 20 years in the private sector around the financial system, taking companies public, looking at and learning about the markets. So I came to this body, I believe, with some background. But only since that time have I learned how complex the problems and the challenges are of trying to get financial reregulation or financial reform right.

Since joining the Banking Committee, I have been working to educate myself, meeting with a range of experts to learn more about the issues and to collect their thoughts on potential solutions to financial reregulation. There are a number of things we must do, including providing full regulatory coverage for all markets, ending too big to fail with a robust resolution authority, and ending regulatory arbitrage.

Today I would like to speak about one issue I discussed at length with these experts--systemic risk regulation. I hope, in the coming days, to come back to the floor and discuss other parts of securities and banking regulation.

``Systemic risk'' is a term that, quite candidly, probably most of us even around the financial markets had not even heard of or thought very much about until the last couple years. Obviously, systemic risk is not the only area we need to address, but it is an area in which the current system has unequivocally failed.

Systemic risk is a tricky concept. Systemic risk is not a specific kind of risk at all. It is a catchall phrase that includes risks of all kinds, united only by the possibility that if left uncontrolled, they could have consequences for entire markets or even our entire financial system. Counterparty exposures can present systemic risk. So can interest rate shifts. So can bad laws and regulations. Because they come in all shapes and sizes, we should not expect to control systemic risks with a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach.

Our current system has failed to provide checks and balances and has replaced healthy competition with a system where a handful of firms are called too large to fail, and these so-called too-large-to-fail firms can threaten the safety of the entire system and, unfortunately, enjoy an implicit or even now even more explicit government guarantee that destroys any notion of market competition.

Secretary Geithner and Professor Summers have proposed empowering the Federal Reserve to manage systemic risk. But as I have discussed this approach with a number of experts, they have raised a number what of what I think are very serious and legitimate concerns.

My primary concern with placing this added new responsibility with the Federal Reserve is structural. There are already tensions between the Federal Reserve's responsibilities for the conduct of monetary policy and its responsibilities for bank supervision. No less an authority on this matter than Paul Volcker told the Joint Economic Committee last year that broadening the Federal Reserve's responsibilities ``would be a way of destroying the Federal Reserve in the long run, because it does need independence.'' Adding this additional responsibility on the Federal Reserve, I believe, is a step too far.

My other concern is rooted in the governing philosophy of this country, which I think has, quite honestly, served us well. That philosophy is that too much economic power placed in one place puts our system of government at risk.

Our Founding Fathers opposed that concentration of power, economic or otherwise, and favored a system of checks and balances. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that ``[t]he Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution.'' That is why America, unlike so many European countries, never created a single, all-powerful national bank. We have, consequently, even since that time, resisted creating that all-powerful central bank. The experience of countries which have concentrated too much power in one entity I think should serve as cautionary tales.

Also, we should not ignore that the Fed has had some responsibility for systemic risk regulation under the current structure. Over the course of the past year, we have seen the Federal Reserve and the Treasury strike private deals with our largest and most powerful financial institutions--deals that might have protected the shareholders and creditors of those banks, but, consequently, by those actions, put smaller and less powerful and often better run institutions at a competitive disadvantage and undermining the long- term vitality of our financial system.

An old African proverb says that when elephants dance, the grass gets trampled. We have a trampled grass problem at this point, and I don't think we can solve it with bigger elephants, whether those bigger elephants are regulators or institutions. If we do not give the Federal Reserve the responsibility for systemic risk regulation, what should we do instead?

I believe the answer to this question has two parts. The first part is that many systemic risks already lie squarely within the responsibilities of the day-to-day financial regulators. We did not just discover systemic risks. We have been discovering them for generations. We have passed laws to deal with them, and we have entrusted those laws to the administration of substantial regulatory agencies.

We need to make sure our current regulators, the folks who, for the most of the last century, have done their jobs well, have clear missions, including managing risks within their regulated institutions and markets, and we

must ensure that these regulators do their jobs.

But that is only half the problem. Even if we get the day-to-day prudential regulator to be more efficient in evaluating particular institutions' risk profile, we have to recognize that some part of systemic risk may lay outside of the regulator's day-to-day responsibilities and actually fall between the cracks of our existing regulatory system.

Working with folks across the financial spectrum, they have suggested the creation of a systemic risk council. I don't mean to claim on this floor that a systemic risk council is a silver bullet, but it avoids the pitfalls of entrusting the systemic risk responsibility in one agency that already has responsibilities and can be a potential source of conflict. Instead, a council can see across the horizon and gather all the information and expertise can flow to it, thereby addressing our stovepipe problem of our various regulatory agencies and making sure, as well, by having this council, it would have the intrinsic conflicts that would come if you also have to have responsibility for monetary policy. Making sure we have this council would also avoid the very real challenge of regulatory capture. Let me briefly outline this concept.

Our belief would be the systemic risk council would consist of the Treasury Secretary, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the heads of the major financial regulatory agencies. It would be charged with the responsibility for working to improve our understanding and control of systemic risks and, in a narrow set of circumstances or emergencies, it would have the ability to act.

People would say: What does this look like? It builds on the model of the President's working group on financial markets. The idea is, the systemic risk council would have an independent chair appointed by the President and approved by the Congress and supported by a permanent staff. The best analogy of the systemic risk council might be the resemblance it might bear to the National Transportation Safety Board or the National Security Council. Just as the NTSB leaves rulemaking on a day-to-day basis to the FAA, the systemic risk council would leave most of the day-to-day rulemaking to the financial regulatory agency.

I understand criticism of the council's approach today is we don't just want a debating society at moments of crisis. That is why it needs this independent chair, independent staff, and resources. We must ensure it could act.

It would have the authority to review every bit of information that the individual, prudential, day-to-day Federal regulatory agencies possess, to require those agencies to collect information from the institutions they regulate.

It would also have, as I mentioned, an independent staff capable of analyzing this data, understanding how the pieces of the regulatory system work together, and then at that council level, at that staff level, feed that information up to the council so it could identify weaknesses or gaps within our system or potential systemic risks that might be arising outside the purview of the independent Federal regulatory agency.

The council would also have the authority to require the financial regulators to develop clear, written plans for dealing with potential financial crises. In effect, it would have the potential to ask any institution to come forward with a winddown resolution plan for its particular circumstances. These plans would be created in advance of any crisis, maintained and even simulated from time to time to make sure they are adequate.

Again, if we put in place these kinds of credible plans to handle the potential failure of every systemically important financial institution, then we will no longer have the excuse that we have constantly heard over the last few months: Gosh, it is tough we have to put up this much public money to support this institution, but it is too big to fail.

As we have seen time and again in this crisis, because we didn't have these plans in place, unfortunately, the American taxpayers have taken on unfounded, quite honestly, financial risk in shoring up these institutions.

Because a systemic risk council would not directly interact with our major financial institutions on a day-to-day basis, it would be less prone to capture than the financial regulatory agencies. During normal times, the council could help to determine how to regulate new products and markets in order to minimize regulatory gaps, regulatory arbitrage, and the blind spots that currently exist in our system. As we know at this point, too many of those blind spots exist and have allowed the creation of some of the financial products that led to the financial meltdown we have seen.

The council will not identify firms that are too big or too large to fail but instead will work to prevent firms from becoming too large to fail. It would do this specifically in two ways.

First, it would have the authority to establish systemwide, counterparty exposure limits, increased capital requirements, reduced leverage, and strengthened risk management requirements--all of these, in effect, to put not an absolute prescription but at least barriers on those institutions that choose to get so large that they might potentially fall into that ``too big to fail'' category.

Second, it would ensure that the resolution authority would be able to resolve any institution that got to that size and then potentially posed a systemic risk.

In a crisis, the council could work with its member organizations to promote coordinated and comprehensive responses. The systemic risk council's responsibilities would be clear and focused. Systemic risk would be its only job.

Using a council, prudential regulators would remain empowered and responsible for systemic risks that arose in their jurisdiction. If they encountered a risk that extended beyond their authority they could go to the council to ensure coordinated and comprehensive action. On top of that, if the evidence of risk is spread across different agencies like pieces of a puzzle, the council would have the information and expertise to spot it, and the ability to coordinate action in order to address it.

What I am proposing today boils down to a simple, commonsense idea. If we want to do something constructive about systemic risk, we should create a mechanism that can help ensure our regulators do their jobs on a day-to-day basis, avoid conflicts of interest, and fully leverage our existing regulatory resources to promote the proactive identification and control of systemic risks.

Let me acknowledge at the outset that there are many details that still need to be worked out, and I will, as I mentioned, have a series of other ideas of how we can modernize our financial system in the coming weeks ahead. But I believe the general approach I have outlined today, in terms of a systemic risk council, hopefully, will spark the debate so we do not simply default to further empowering an already extraordinarily important and critical institution, in terms of the Federal Reserve, without a thorough debate about this issue.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a resolution in support of the goals and ideals of National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month and National Memory Screening Day, including the development of a national health policy on dementia screening and care.

As co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, and as someone with a mother who has been diagnoses with disease, I strongly believe that our health care system needs to do a much better job of promoting early detection of dementia and other memory problems. Events such as National Memory Screening Day are a meaningful step in raising the awareness needed to move us in that direction.

The National Institute on Aging, NIA, estimates that between 2.4 million and 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease--a progressive degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skill, behavioral changes, and ultimately, death. Alzheimer's disease is not a normal part of aging; however, age is the greatest known risk factor with the incidence doubling for every, 5 year interval beyond age 65.

Alzheimer's disease exacts a huge toll on caregivers. Nearly 60 percent of individuals with the disease live at home under the care of family members. Caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease face a variety of challenges and spend more time providing assistance than caregivers of people with other types of diseases, from helping loved ones with bathing and dressing to managing their legal and financial affairs.

Alzheimer's disease drains more than $148 billion from the nation's economy each year. If the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease continues to increase as expected, the $91 billion spent in 2005 on Medicare costs for care of individuals with Alzheimer's disease and dementia patients is projected to increase to $189 billion by 2015.

There are serious deficiencies in our current healthcare system related to diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. A 2006 editorial in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society estimated that missed diagnoses represent greater than 25 percent of the dementia cases and may be as high as 90 percent. This precludes many from getting early treatment which most researchers agree leads to optimal therapy with available and emerging medications.

Screening is a simple and safe evaluation tool that assesses memory and other intellectual functions to determine whether additional testing is necessary. Memory screening can be done in a medical environment, e.g. dementia clinic, physician's office, or in a community setting, e.g. senior center, pharmacy. Such screenings are not a diagnosis, but can indicate whether a complete medical evaluation would be beneficial. Memory can be affected by a number of factors, ranging from stress, lack of sleep, vitamin deficiencies, depression and thyroid problems, to such illnesses as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. In general, the earlier the diagnosis, the easier it is to treat these conditions.

Memory screenings are one of the major focal points of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America's, AFA, national initiatives. Since 2003, AFA has sponsored National Memory Screening Day, NMSD, annually in collaboration with community organizations to promote early detection of memory problems as well as Alzheimer's disease and related illnesses, and encourage appropriate intervention. It has been held each November to coincide with National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month. On November 18, 2008, qualified health care professionals at nearly 2,200 sites nationwide offered free confidential memory screenings to an estimated 54,000 participants, as well as follow-up resources and educational materials about dementia and successful aging. In 2009, AFA will hold National Memory Screening Day on November 17.

Most people are not inclined to discuss memory concerns with their health care providers. A survey conducted during AFA's 2007 National Memory Screening Day found that 68 percent of respondents had concerns about their memory. However, while more than 44 percent had visited their primary care physician within the last 6 months, fewer than one in four of those with self-identified memory problems had discussed the issue with their physician. Primary care providers might be more likely to recommend further evaluation if individuals presented their abnormal memory screening results from events like National Memory Screening Day. Community screenings such as National Memory Screening Day generally educate participants about questions to ask their health care providers and empower them to begin a dialogue.

With this resolution I hope we can draw attention to these efforts and further this important cause. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month and National Memory Screening Day by cosponsoring this measure.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about legislation to help

seniors navigate through a complicated and often overwhelming health care delivery system. Because of the fragmented nature of our health care system, we often fail to provide patients, their families, and caregivers with the necessary tools, information, and support to both age well and with dignity in the setting of their preference, oftentimes their homes.

I believe if we provide patients with better information about advanced care planning in noncrisis situations, they will make decisions for themselves and their families that result in better care and a better quality of life.

Today I am introducing the Senior Navigation and Planning Act of 2009 to help seniors and their families navigate through a complex system and to help them make informed medical decisions. My legislation would provide access to an advanced illness care management benefit, a benefit that does not exist currently in our health care delivery system.

My legislation, as well, would increase the awareness of advanced care planning through a national education campaign and clearinghouse. It would also reduce legal hurdles to the enforcement of advanced directives. It would create incentives for hospitals and physicians to get accredited and certified in palliative care. It would increase compliance with medical orders and discharge instructions. Too often a patient may leave a hospital, not do the appropriate actions afterwards, and not follow the discharge information, which can result in the patient being readmitted to the hospital or ending up with their health care provider not having the appropriate followup. We have to make sure we put an end to that.

My legislation would also educate entities, including faith-based organizations, on advanced care planning issues. Oftentimes an individual or family, when dealing with end-of-life issues, will turn not only to their medical provider but oftentimes to their priest or rabbi or minister. We want to make sure folks in the faith-based community understand the challenges and opportunities people have with advanced care planning.

My legislation, as well, would increase coordination and integration between the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. Too often these programs that both deal with seniors, their health care issues, and aging issues do not cooperate or collaborate.

Collectively, these initiatives will create a more accessible environment for seniors to receive the care they need when they need it, and in the setting they prefer.

Let me be clear, this legislation does not deny or withhold services. However, it does recognize that overall health reform should include a thoughtful process that informs patients, their families, and caregivers on how to navigate and think through difficult decisions about when and how to pursue treatments at the end of life.

By enacting these reforms, we will begin to develop a culture in which all of us will have the ability to age well, with dignity, and, again, in the setting of our choosing.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support from the following organizations: the AARP, the Alzheimer's Foundation, the Duke University Divinity School, the Institute on Care at the End of Life, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, UnitedHealth Group, and Aetna.

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

Mr. President, the bill before us grants standby authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to regulate ``tobacco warehouses.'' Because the bill already draws a bright line between tobacco companies that actually manufacture tobacco products and those, including growers and ``tobacco warehouses,'' that do not manufacture, I would expect that the Secretary would utilize the standby authority to regulate tobacco warehouses only under unforeseen and unanticipated circumstances that give rise to public health concerns.

I thank the Senator.

Pesticide Regulation