Floor Statements

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

I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2516 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the Mikulski substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate and any statements be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 390 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 479, which was submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 306 received from the House and at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, March 12; that on Wednesday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and that the Senate then resume consideration of H. Con. Res. 70, the concurrent resolution on the budget.

Tomorrow, the Senate will resume debate on the budget resolution. Senator Bingaman is expected to be here to offer the next amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that all time during this period of morning business be charged equally against each side on the resolution and that morning business now be closed and that the Senate resume consideration of the budget resolution, and following the remarks of Senator Coburn, who was generous with his time this evening, and I am grateful for that, and the remarks of Senator Sanders, that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H. Con. Res. 270 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1593 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield the floor to my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Coburn.

Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Vermont for his courtesy.

Mr. President, I say to the Presiding Officer, it seems as though every day in your State of Pennsylvania and my State of Ohio and across the country the news brings us more evidence of the length and the breadth of the housing crisis in this country.

Yesterday, the Mortgage Bankers Association released statistics on the fourth quarter of 2007, and the news is grim. The rate of foreclosure starts and the percentage of loans in the foreclosure pipeline are the highest ever.

My State set a record for foreclosures last year of more than 83,000 foreclosures, according to the Ohio Supreme Court. That is more than 200 every day--Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday--more than 200 every day, and more than 300 a day for every day the courts are in session.

Every week, 1,500 families in Ohio--just in Ohio--lose their homes-- week in, week out. Four percent of home loans in Ohio are in foreclosure, the highest rate in the Nation. And the end is nowhere in sight. In Ohio, there are another 120,000 home loans that are delinquent. Nationally, one of the ratings agencies is now predicting a 50-percent--nationally, a 50-percent--default rate for subprime loans made in the fourth quarter of 2006. That means the rates for those loans will reset in the fourth quarter of this year.

Think about that: One of every two subprime loans made in the fall of 2006 will go bad. That is not lending; that is gambling with somebody else's home.

The losses on these loans to lenders are substantial--on the order of 40 percent nationwide and about 65 percent in my State. That means only 35 cents on the dollar is preserved, if you will.

We have sheriffs' sales in Ohio that are attracting no bidders whatsoever. And the trend lines have been straight down.

Congress must act in the face of this crisis. Majority Leader Reid, to his credit, brought legislation--of which the Presiding Officer is a cosponsor, and many others of us--before the Senate that would take several steps to help homeowners faced with foreclosure and the communities in which they live.

The needs of communities are critical because this crisis has an impact far beyond just the people--as large a number as that is, as tragic as it is for them--an impact far beyond just the people who lose their homes. Whenever a home goes into foreclosure, the value of neighboring properties is reduced. It is not confined to our large cities or to our small towns. It is rural areas. It is inner ring suburbs. It is outer ring suburbs.

In many areas, criminals move in quickly in these abandoned homes to strip the copper pipe and aluminum siding from a home. A copper processor in northwest Ohio told me the other day that copper prices are now exceeding $3 a pound, which just encourages more and more vandalism of these homes.

Crime goes up just when property tax revenues are plunging and the resources of a city or town are stretched to the limit.

So Senator Reid's bill would include $4 billion in funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program so communities that have been hit hard could renovate or rebuild or, in some cases, raze those properties. This legislation would also provide another $200 million for supporting the efforts of nonprofit agencies across the country to counsel homeowners on how to work with a lender to stave off foreclosure. That part is so very important.

Senator Casey, the Presiding Officer, Senator Schumer, and I, a year ago, on the Banking Committee, began to try to get money appropriated, which the President initially vetoed, to these counseling agencies, these not-for-profit groups in our communities that help people stave off foreclosure--no bailout, no Federal dollars to pay the mortgages, but simply to help them find a lender and trace their mortgage and help to restructure their payments so they can pay it off. This is no easy task.

Once upon a time, you took out a loan with your local bank to buy a home. You knew the people at the bank. They knew you. They had just as much interest in you paying off your loan as you did in paying off your loan and staying in your house. Today, especially for subprime loans, that doesn't happen. So help in navigating this mortgage maze is essential.

Senator Reid's bill also provided bankruptcy judges the ability to modify mortgage terms on a primary residence in the same way--get this--that the judge today can modify a mortgage on an investment home or vacation property or a boat. I heard one of my Republican colleagues today talk about this whole issue of bankruptcy and how that is going to be a problem, and that is why they seem to oppose this bill--because of the bankruptcy provisions. But they never really answer the question: Why can't a judge modify a mortgage in bankruptcy for a home, for a personal home, when under the law they can on a vacation home in Florida or Arizona? They can on a boat, they can on an investment property.

Lenders and their servicers cannot keep up with the flood of foreclosures they are facing. Much has been made of the number of loans that have been changed as a result of voluntary efforts. That is a good thing; I don't discount those efforts at all. But tacking late fees and penalties on the back end of a loan doesn't do much to help a family make their monthly payment.

One woman who called my office recently reported a loan modification she had gotten to reduce the interest rate on her loan from 11 percent to 10 percent. With the late fees and the penalties folded in, her monthly payment barely changed.

Modifications such as these simply aren't going to help. It is essential that we permit bankruptcy courts to serve as a backstop.

So with the housing crisis spreading across the country and Senator Reid's proposal before us, what did the Senate

do? My colleagues in the minority again chose to filibuster--filibuster again and again. Fifteen hundred families in Ohio every week are losing their homes, and over 100,000 are facing foreclosure. Multiply this all over the country, and almost half the Senate chose to filibuster.

What could possibly be the reasoning for this decision? The administration threatened a veto of the bill because it believed it was too costly and that the bankruptcy provisions were unwise. I don't agree, but can't we have a debate on that to make those decisions? I would love to discuss why we can afford to spend $3 billion a week on the war in Iraq--$3 billion on the war in Iraq--but we can't find $4 billion in 1 year, $4 billion in 1 year to help the towns and the cities, including Burlington and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Steubenville and Erie--why we can't find $4 billion in 1 year to help communities in this country that are being carpet-bombed by foreclosure. We can spend billions of dollars on Halliburton to rebuild Iraq, and we can't spend a few billion dollars on local businesses in my communities in Ohio to rebuild our communities.

My Republican colleagues apparently think it is OK for a bankruptcy judge to modify the mortgage on a multimillion-dollar vacation home, but it is not OK to provide the same relief to a family facing bankruptcy in a $100,000 home. When lenders are recovering only 35 cents on the dollar in my State--the national average is higher but not a lot higher--35 cents on the dollar on a foreclosed property, I don't think they have anything to fear from an alternative process supervised by bankruptcy courts that may result in avoiding foreclosure. The bankruptcy provisions are a significant change in our law, to be sure, but they are a responsible reaction to some extraordinarily irresponsible underwriting.

I understand the importance of protecting contract rights, but think for a minute about the contracts that are in question. The vast majority of subprime loans went to refinance homes, and they were designed to do three things: generate fees, strip out equity, and quickly become unaffordable. That is what they were designed to do. That is why so many people were able to take the money and run--the mortgage brokers--and, unfortunately, that is what happened. Do we really want to take the position that those contracts should be beyond the reach of a bankruptcy judge?

I may have answered my earlier question. I guess maybe a filibuster would be easier for my friends on the other side of the aisle than an actual debate on these issues. I know lenders want to avoid becoming real estate owners, but they don't have the capacity to deal with the problems that their lax underwriting standards have created. They are obviously not in the business of rebuilding the communities this crisis has devastated. That is why Senator Reid's legislation is so important.

I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will reconsider their tactics and will allow us to proceed on the legislation the majority leader has introduced and which I am proud to cosponsor. Maybe we will not have the votes in this body. In a fair and full debate, maybe we will not have the votes to maintain all of the provisions. Maybe there are alternative approaches. I am open to that. I want to see this solved. But let's at least vote, and let's do it quickly. Every day we delay, 200 people in my State--200 people--twice the membership of this body--every single day 200 people in my State lose their homes. They deserve more from us.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Madam President, around this time last year, we heard the news story of Deamonte Driver. He was a 12-year-old living in Prince George's County, MD, a short driving distance from this building.

Deamonte had a toothache. His family was poor and they didn't have health insurance. They could not afford to pay out of pocket for dental care. Although in the past they had Medicaid coverage, it was nearly impossible, as it is in most places--Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, and most places--to find a dentist who took Medicaid patients. The infection from Deamonte's tooth spread to his brain. His family took him to the hospital, only to find out that his Medicaid coverage had lapsed because the paperwork to confirm eligibility was mailed to a homeless shelter where the family had spent some time. Deamonte died after surgery, after 2 weeks in the hospital and $200,000 in medical bills.

Deamonte's death was tragic and needless and that is unconscionable. Families across the country were shocked by this story.

This story illustrates what is wrong with our health care system. Several years ago in Cleveland, an 11-year-old girl was missing. She had disappeared for some time. When they discovered her body, they could not check her dental records because she had never been to a dentist. It took some time to identify who she was.

The story of the girl in Cleveland and the story of Deamonte in Prince George's County, MD, illustrates what is wrong with our health care system. It also provides a map for how we can make it better.

This week, with a Congressman from Maryland, I am introducing the Deamonte Driver Dental Care Access Improvement Act. The goal of the bill is simple: to increase access to dental care for the underserved in our country and to tackle access problems for dental care from multiple angles.

This bill strengthens our system of care by providing grants to community health centers--they give terrific care in communities that are underserved all over the country--so they can expand the dental services they provide--not all of them do at this point--including mobile dentistry and teledentistry services.

The bill also provides grants to create dental health professionals whose mission is to work with communities to provide care for the underserved. People who are not dentists get some training, significant training, so they can help dentists and dental hygienists do their job.

To create incentives for dentists, the bill provides tax credits to dentists who serve Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and uninsured populations.

The bill invests also in prevention. Half of the battle will be to increase dental health promotion activities among families.

Other provisions address maternal health and Medicaid reimbursement.

In Ohio, dental care is the No. 1 unmet health care need among children, unequivocally. In the last year, as I have traveled around the State, I held 85 roundtables where I sat down with 20 or 25 people from the community and asked them questions about their community and what we can do together in this community with the Senate office. I have done it in about 55

counties. I hear stories about how families are struggling with dental problems. A lot of these stories are similar to that of Deamonte Driver.

Recently, I learned about the story of Tyler Panko, a 5-year-old with autism who lives in rural Ohio. His father is self-employed. He took Tyler to four dentists to try to get care for his son who suffered from debilitating tooth decay and poor weight gain. No dentist within a 100- mile radius would accept Tyler as a patient due to his medical condition and Medicaid coverage.

Tyler was ultimately referred to the Ohio State College of Dentistry where he was treated under general anesthesia due to the severity of his disease.

Tyler's parents were so distraught about their son's well-being that they wanted to stay in Columbus the night before the surgery so as to not miss the appointment. They live in a trailer in rural Ohio. They could not afford both transportation and lodging, so the pediatric dentistry faculty at OSU College of Dentistry covered the family's lodging costs.

Since then, Tyler has been eating, gaining weight, and no longer wakes up crying, holding his mouth. Imagine that. The parents of a child cannot do anything for their child, and the child wakes up crying at night holding his mouth.

Tyler's story ended well. But how many other children and adults in my State and around the country are suffering from lack of dental care.

Yet it is typically overlooked when policymakers turn to the issue of health care access. People often think of health care in terms of the physical body from the neck down, and they overlook the importance of dental health.

It is almost as if including dental health in the health care debate is a luxury or an afterthought, a minor concern that doesn't merit our time. It is a foolish, and sometimes even deadly, misperception.

Addressing dental care also helps our workforce.

It is not obvious to most of us in most of our lives most of the time, but dental health is an indicator of socioeconomic status in our society. Those with beautiful teeth, those who have had the luxury of braces, those who have gone to regular dental appointments because their families can afford it or their families have dental insurance can have the confidence of smiling at a potential employer at a job interview.

For people with missing teeth, many of them at amazingly young ages, or crooked teeth or other problems related to the lack of access to dental care, their economic struggle shows, and it causes them to be treated differently from those who can go to the dentist regularly.

Again, think about a job interview: You are 24 years old; you are looking for a job; you have bad teeth; you know how that makes everything much harder.

People with painful dental problems are also more likely to miss school and later on miss work. We need to remove barriers to care for every American. We need to address the entrenched racial and economic disparities that exist in dental health. I want to keep families from relying on emergency rooms for dental care. There is simply no reason for that to happen. I want people to know how to prevent cavities and gum disease. I want to find ways to encourage dentists to accept Medicaid and CHIP and uninsured people. I don't want anyone to be held back from their ambitions because of their dental problems.

I hope my colleagues will help me in reaching these goals by supporting this bill. I thank the senior Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, for his cosponsorship of this bill. It is bipartisan. It is legislation whose time has come. It is legislation for those whom we pretty often ignore in this Chamber.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 4132 and to set it aside.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, last Sunday marked the 1-year anniversary of a tragic bus crash outside Atlanta, GA, which was transporting members of the Bluffton University baseball team from my State of Ohio to play baseball in Florida. The crash took the lives of Tyler Williams and Cody Holp, Scott Harmon, Zack Arend, and David Joseph Betts. The driver, Jerome Niemeyer, and his wife Jean were also killed in the crash. Most of the other 33 passengers were treated for injuries.

While the investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, one thing is clear: Stronger safety regulations could have minimized the fatalities and injuries resulting from the crash.

John Betts, who lost his son in this accident, sees upgrading the safety laws for motor coaches as an opportunity to save the lives of future riders. One year ago, Mr. Betts made a promise to his late son. He promised to dedicate himself to motor coach safety. Thus, through this tragedy, a movement began to adopt commonsense safety regulations that lower the risk of injury or fatality in accidents. Mr. Betts launched a Web site to educate the public about motor coach safety. He agrees to do regular interviews so he can use his own heartbreaking experience to gain momentum for his cause.

Mr. Betts visits his son's grave twice a day. Of his visit the other day, he said:

I just asked him to give me strength, give me wisdom, give

me the words to keep fighting to make sure something good

comes from something so bad.

Last fall, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and I joined this effort, introducing the Motor Coach Enhanced Safety Act. This bill, which has the support of Mr. Betts and countless safety advocates, would codify recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board. It surprised me--and it will surprise my colleagues--that the safety improvements in this bill are not already standard safety practice. They include such basic and logical safety measures as the use of seatbelts and fire extinguishers. These are not new technologies. These are safety features widely used in other transportation equipment. They are commonsense. They save lives. They should be a given, not some distant goal.

Many of the injuries sustained in motor coaches could be prevented by incorporating high-quality safety technologies that exist today but, unfortunately, are not widely used, such as crush-proof roofing and glazed windows to prevent ejection.

Unfortunately, the Bluffton University baseball team's bus crash was not an isolated incident. Senator Hutchison quickly pointed to the many accidents in Texas while this bill was being drafted, such as the crash involving the Westbrook High School girl's soccer team in 2006.

As a father of four and recently a grandfather, it upsets me to know motor coaches are such unregulated vehicles that our kids don't have the option to buckle up. The tragedy of these and other motor coach accidents has created motivation and hope in Mr. Betts and others for increased safety in this industry in the future. It is our job to take that motivation and that hope and turn them into action.

I urge my colleagues to consider the Motor Coach Enhancement Safety Act. Passage of this bill would undoubtedly mean saved lives in the future. It is my hope in the future parents will not have to endure the anguish and the rest-of-his-life grief that John Betts and other families' members have experienced.

For those who suffered from the tragedy in Atlanta of the Bluffton baseball team on March 2, 2007, I offer my thoughts and prayers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, the senior Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, be allowed to speak.

Mr. President, housing is on the minds of so many Ohioans these days, as it is on people's minds across the country. My State has the unfortunate distinction of leading the Nation in the percentage of property in foreclosure.

Every day, 200 Ohio families lose their homes--200 families every single day. The strides we have made as a Nation in increasing home ownership in the last few years will be reversed if we don't act.

The foreclosure crisis is having a tremendous impact on all of Ohio. No city, no region has been spared. The past few years have seen an explosion of predatory lending. The State of Ohio was slow to respond, while the Federal Government--regulators and Congress and the President--have been even slower to respond. Today, we pay the price.

As late as this summer, President Bush and Secretary Paulson--the Bush administration--indicated the problem was largely contained and it would

play itself out. So long as the problem was largely contained to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and the Presiding Officer's State of West Virginia, the situation was nothing to worry about. But once the problem spread from Main Street, Cleveland, or Main Street, Dayton, to Wall Street, the administration suddenly became a bit concerned. Not overly concerned, mind you. For while it changed its tone a bit, its words have not been accompanied by much action. The budget submitted by President Bush shows, for example, no signs of a housing crisis. Congress appropriated $180 million for housing counseling last September at the urging of Senator Schumer, Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, and me, from the Banking Committee, but the President proposes only about one-third of that for the year ahead and criticizes the Reid proposal for continuing that funding.

As cities see their crime rates go up and their property tax bases shrink and more and more homes and families vandalized, with copper and aluminum being stripped from these homes, the President proposes to cut the community development block grant by more than 20 percent.

I appreciate Secretary Paulson's efforts to get voluntary action by lenders and servicers. That is a good thing, but it is not nearly enough. We have seen a rate of mortgage modifications rise from a measly 1 percent to a meager 3 percent. And I have to say, I am not confident how much progress even those numbers represent.

My office just heard from a struggling homeowner in Ohio whose lender offered to reduce her interest rate from 11 percent to 10 percent. But after penalties and late fees were added to the principal, her monthly payment barely budged.

Earlier this week, a couple from Lyndhurst, OH, joined Senators Klobuchar, Schumer, Durbin, and me in Washington to tell their story. John and Vicki Glicken went through a rough patch when John lost his job, but he found a new one, and they are doing their best to make their payments and stay in their home. They have done everything as citizens and as homeowners that we would ask, but doing so is going to be impossible for them so long as they are stuck with a loan that costs more and more every 6 months.

These families, and millions like them across America, need our help. Instead, they are facing foreclosure on one side and a filibuster on the other. That is unconscionable.

The legislation we are being prevented from considering, with the vote yesterday, when our efforts were blocked, would help hundreds of thousands of families like the Glickens. It would help the tens of thousands of communities from Ironton, across the river from West Virginia, to Steubenville, to Cleveland, to Dayton.

I applaud Majority Leader Reid for trying to act on the legislation that would provide vital help to communities and families across the country. Under this bill, which I am proud to cosponsor, housing agencies would have access to lower cost financing; businesses that are struggling would get a boost; cities would be helped by an infusion of community development funds, big cities and smaller cities alike; and families would be able to restructure their debts and get back on their feet.

The administration has made a lot of voluntary efforts to date, and to be sure, every bit helps. But the rate freeze will help only a very small sliver of people, of borrowers, and banks just aren't being responsive enough. They say they have no interest in foreclosing on homes, and that is perhaps true, but they do not seem to have the capacity to work out loans with people who could afford to make payments on a reasonable loan long term. I know lenders want to avoid becoming real estate owners, but they do not have the ability to deal with problems their lax underwriting standards have created, and they are obviously not in the business of rebuilding the communities this crisis has threatened.

That is why I think Senator Harry Reid's legislation is so important. If we can spend $3 billion a week on the war in Iraq, we can find room in our budget to spend $4 billion a year to help communities across America get back on their feet. There are billions, tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq. Yet President Bush says no to $4 billion to rebuild our cities.

The administration has argued this constitutes a bailout for lenders and speculators. In Ohio, we are going to meet these people in the courthouse, all right, but I assure my colleagues it won't be to record the title on some sweetheart deal. Anybody who tries to make the argument that cities, both large and small alike, will use community development funds to bail out lenders and speculators has no clue what is going on in communities such as Springfield and Zanesville and Chillicothe.

As we try to rebuild our communities, we must do everything we can to keep families in their homes. If lenders and their servicers can't keep up with the flood of foreclosures they are facing, it is essential we permit the bankruptcy courts to serve as a backdrop; otherwise, the problem only gets worse.

Consider this, Mr. President: One of the ratings agencies is now predicting a 50-percent default rate for subprime loans made in the fourth quarter of 2006--a 50-percent default rate for securitized subprime loans. That is not lending, that is putting a bet on black at the roulette table with somebody else's home. What happens when that bet goes bad? A family is put out on the street, a neighborhood is hurt, and a town has one more magnet for trouble.

The banks have trouble too. Nationwide, banks are recovering only about 60 cents on the dollar for what they are owed when a home goes into foreclosure. In Ohio, that number is only 35 cents, by one estimate. When lenders recover only 35 cents on the dollar on a foreclosure in my State, I don't think they have anything to fear from an alternative process that may result in avoiding foreclosure. Judges would only step in when voluntary efforts have failed and when a family is on the ropes.

That is why the Reid bill's proposal to permit the modification of the mortgages on primary residences makes so much sense. We know servicers can't keep up with the flood of bad loans, so we need a backstop for the 600,000 or so families that may well end up in bankruptcy. Allowing bankruptcy judges to modify a loan on a primary residence, just as they can do today on a loan for a vacation home or a boat or a family farm or a small business, will not just keep a family in a home, it will keep the bank from a 65-percent loss on that property.

Two years ago, there were a lot of slick promises made about how these loans could be refinanced. Today, we know that is just not the case. So we need to act, and we need to act soon so that 2 years from now we can focus again on expanding home ownership under reasonable terms rather than trying to stop the bleeding.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.