[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 13, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      THE INTERSTATE BANKING BILL

  Mr. RIEGLE. Madam President, thank you very much. I thank all Senator 
colleagues for the vote that was just taken. The interstate banking 
bill that we had before us was passed by a vote of 94 to 4. That is 
about as close to a unanimous vote as we often get here in the Senate, 
and I think it shows very strong bipartisan support for this 
legislation, and for that I am most appreciative.
  This will be the last major piece of legislation that I bring to the 
Senate floor, having served now as chairman of the Senate Banking, 
Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee for the last 6 years.
  During that period of time we had an extraordinary number of major 
legislative items to deal with. It would not have been possible to do 
that work successfully without very important bipartisan cooperation, 
first with Senator Garn, who was my ranking member, and then Senator 
D'Amato and my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, on the committee. 
I want to make comments about that, but I want now to pay particular 
attention and tribute to the staff members who have assisted me and the 
committee not just on this landmark measure just passed, but on a 
succession of bills over the past 6 years, that I will touch on a 
little bit later.
  With reference to today's interstate banking bill and the successful 
94 to 4 passage vote, I particularly want to thank Mr. Pat Mulloy, who 
is seated here with me. He has worked tirelessly over a long period of 
time to ensure the enactment of this legislation, and he has done an 
outstanding job.
  Major contributions were made by many others; Kay Bondahagen, Tim 
McTaggart, Marty Gruenberg, Courtney Ward, and Cindy Lasker, among 
them.
  As with every piece of legislation that we have enacted during my 
chairmanship, this bill was crafted on a bipartisan basis.
  The Republican staff, now under the direction of Senator D'Amato, 
earlier Senator Garn, is at present extremely ably led by Howard 
Menell. It was our great good fortune to have him assume that position 
when Senator D'Amato took over and, together with Ray Natter and Laura 
Unger, along with Frank Polk and J.C. Boggs of Senator Roth's staff, 
they deserve special thanks and commendation for their work on this 
bill and others as well.
  I also want to recognize the individual efforts of a number of other 
staff who have been extraordinarily helpful to me in this session, both 
on the CDFI bill and now the interstate banking bill. CDFI stands for 
community development and financial institutions. They include Chuck 
Marr, Christan Givhan, Jonathan Winer, Andy Vermilye, Michele Jolin, 
Mark Engman, Bill Mattea, Jim Jones, and Ron Mangas on the Democratic 
side, as well as Wayne Abernathy, Maggie Fisher, Jon Kamarck, Buz 
Gorman, Glen Downs, Robert Cresanti, and Denise Ramonas on the 
Republican side.
  I want to continue, but I will digress for a minute to say a lot of 
the times when people see, for example, I think of the breakdown of the 
process along partisan lines--we have not had that in our committee 
over the last 6 years, and I am very proud of that fact. I am proud of 
the fact that I can stand here and salute Members on both sides of the 
aisle--both Members and staff--for that kind of bipartisan cooperation. 
It is the way the system ought to work, and it has worked that way in 
our committee.
  I want to now take a little time to pay special tribute and thank 
other members of our committee staff who have been so extraordinary in 
their efforts and instrumental in enabling my period of chairman in the 
last 6 years to be a particularly productive one for the committee.
  I want to touch on some of those items, and I will suspend if the 
majority leader needs to take the floor.
  Looking back to our first efforts in 1989, we passed the historic 
Financial Institutions and Recovery, Reform and Enforcement Act to deal 
with the problems of the thrift industry. That was an enormously 
complex task. It was my opportunity to serve as the conference chairman 
there, and with the help of Henry Gonzalez on the House side and 
Members on both sides we got that job done.
  In 1989, though, we also passed and saw enacted into law the HUD 
Reform Act, an important piece of legislation; the Export-Import Bank 
Tied-Aid Credit; the Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Control Act; the 
Defense Production Act Amendments of 1989; and the Export 
Administration Act, also of that year.
  Then in 1990, the committee enacted and the President signed into law 
some major securities legislation, including the Securities Act 
Amendments of 1990; the Market Reform Act; the Securities Law 
Enforcement Remedies and Penny Stock Reform Act; as well as the 
historic National Affordable Housing Act. The committee was also active 
with respect to the Budget Reconciliation Act and the Omnibus Crime 
Act.
  So 1990 was also a very full, productive, year for us. These are 
major items. I will not take the time to elaborate on them here now.
  In 1991, we again passed major legislation in the banking area with 
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act, another 
major piece of legislation. We, as well, enacted the Defense Production 
Act Extensions of 1991, and the Intermodal Surface Transport Efficiency 
Act of that same year.
  In 1992, we enacted the historic Housing and Community Development 
Act, as well as the Federal Housing Financial Safety and Soundness Act. 
In that year we also took to enactment the Anti-Money Laundering Act; 
the Export Enhancement Act; the Defense Production Act Amendments of 
1992; and the Depository Institutions Disaster Relief Act of 1992. All 
of these were major items.
  In 1993, the Senate again took the lead in funding the RTC, and we 
saw enacted the Government Securities Act Amendments of that year; the 
Limited Partnership Rollup Reform Act; the Depository Institutions 
Disaster Relief Act; the HUD Demonstration Act; and the Multifamily 
Housing Act.
  Of course, this year we have just passed what I am proud to say 
carries my name, the Riegle Community Development and Financial 
Institutions Act, now awaiting the President's signature. And today we 
have passed here the Interstate Banking bill known as the Riegle-Neal 
Interstate Banking bill.
  Again, I am very proud to see that matter moved to conclusion and now 
ready for the President's signature.
  So in every major area within our committee's jurisdiction--consumer 
protection, banking, savings and loan, securities, credit unions, 
financial institutions, deposit insurance, export and foreign trade 
promotion, and housing and urban development, to name several major 
areas--we have enacted into law over these last 6 years landmark 
legislation.
  I believe we could now say that the financial services industry today 
is much safer and sounder and far better capitalized than the one that 
we were dealing with back in 1989 when the staff and I and the current 
membership started down this track under my chairmanship. I think it is 
also fair to say that the American taxpayers are now much better 
protected with respect to our financial services institutions and our 
deposit insurance system than they have been in many, many years.
  I also want to say that I am especially proud of the record of the 
committee in the area of consumer items. I have given particular 
attention to that. Members like Senator Metzenbaum and others have 
cared greatly about that and have assisted us.
  But during the 6 years of my chairmanship, we have amended the 
Community Reinvestment Act to require public disclosure of CRA ratings; 
amended the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to require all insured 
depository institutions and mortgage banks to maintain logs showing the 
race, income, and census tract of all mortgage borrowers and 
applicants; and included in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 
Improvement Act an amendment requiring banking regulators to refer 
lending-discrimination cases to the Justice Department and the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development.

  Any anybody who has been reading the financial pages recently knows 
that the Justice Department has been taking action in specific cases to 
bring to bear remedies in the cases where mortgage discrimination and 
other discrimination has been taking place. It cannot be tolerated, and 
these laws, duly on the books and being enforced, are making a 
difference.
  In addition, we passed the Truth-in-Savings Act as part of the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act in 1991. The 
Truth-in-Savings Act requires uniformity in the calculation of interest 
payable on deposits to individual savers in insured depository 
institutions and prohibits a variety of deceptive calculation practices 
that have been in widespread use prior to that time.
  The Federal Housing Enterprise Safety and Soundness Act significantly 
expands the mandate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to serve low- and 
moderately low-income families in inner city neighborhoods by setting 
specific annual housing goals.
  We also amended the Truth-in-Lending Act to provide enhanced consumer 
protections for certain home equity loans with extremely high interest 
rates or up-front fees. This legislation also created a special 
disclosure for reverse mortgages in order to ensure that elderly 
borrowers, who typically enter into such transactions, are aware of the 
risks involved.
  And in May 1994, the Senate passed the Consumer Reporting Reform Act, 
which amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act, to comprehensively reform 
regulation of the credit reporting system.
  This is just a partial list.
  I might say that earlier in the community development banking bill, 
we also had several additional items in there. One is to provide for 
the securitization of small business loans. And that is a matter that, 
as time goes on, I think will bring a whole new source of capital out 
of the capital markets and down into loan opportunities and business 
startup nurturing in our inner cities and elsewhere that otherwise 
would not be possible.
  So a lot has been done, and I am very proud of this record.
  I am very grateful and proud of the staff that has done so much of 
the hard work to make this possible. I suppose every chairman feels 
this way but I think this record on these issues, for people who 
understand the significance and the consequences of these matters over 
the timeframe we are talking about would sustain the view that this has 
had to be the best professional staff of any committee over this period 
of time. Certainly, the challenges were the most daunting and 
difficult, and they have been met one after the other.
  There have been a number of our staff members who have moved on over 
this period of 6 years, but I am extremely grateful to all of them, 
from the beginning up to the present day.
  Extraordinary contributions were made by, among others, Kevin 
Gottlieb, Don Campbell, Richard S. Carnell, Konrad Alt, Bart Dzivi, 
Gillian G. Garcia, Darina McKelvie, Kevin Chavers, and Matthew D. 
Roberts, as well as Bruce J. Katz, Larry Parks, Martha L. Cochran, Lory 
Breneman, Deborah DeYoung, Cheryl A. Fox, Eileen Gallagher, Taegan D. 
Goddard, Patricia Hamel, Tara S. Law, Ted Rozeboom, Kim Leslie Shafer, 
Nancy D. Smith, Michael J. Stein, Laura S. Trachtman, and Angela Chiu.
  I also am especially grateful and deeply appreciative to Sharon 
Heaton, Ken Jarboe, and Jim Tuite, who have all worked in different 
ways on a number of special matters that I will not enumerate here. 
They have done exceptional and outstanding work.
  So I am very grateful to all of these individuals that I have named. 
I think around here, people like the ones I am naming, who do not get 
heard about or get the recognition they deserve, are essential to the 
work that goes on here that makes such a difference for our country.
  Finally, I want to talk about one additional group this year, and 
stretching back beyond this year, but particularly the productiveness 
of this year: Mitchell Feuer heads that list; Mark Kaufman, Glenn Ivey, 
Sarah Bloom-Raskin, as well as Jeannine Jacokes, Clem Dinsmore, Tammy 
Boyer, and Pat Lawler, who for the past 6 years has done an excellent 
job as our chief economist and been involved in so many important 
issues. Ed Malan has done a superior job as the committee's editor, and 
I would also like to recognize the superb contributions of Sharon 
Bauman and Elizabeth Rozman, as well as Sarah Frazier.
  Finally, saving the most important person for last, I want to thank--
and I feel a lot of emotion about this--my friend and my staff director 
and chief counsel, Steve Harris. Steve is an amazing individual. Steve 
comes from a very distinguished family. He has carried the traditions 
of his family, his father, in a way that is truly exceptional. I do not 
know anybody who works as hard or as long or as well, day in and day 
out, weekends, through holidays, whatever, and without seeking the 
limelight. It has always been his practice to give the credit to 
others, which is a great credit to him. There is no way in the world 
that we could have done this work over this period of time without the 
extraordinary leadership and skill and tireless effort of Steve Harris. 
So I thank him and all the rest of the staff.
  So, with that, again, it is a major bill we have passed today. I want 
to thank all of my colleagues for their help and support. A lot has 
been done, and we look forward to other challenges ahead.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. First of all, let me commend our distinguished chairman, 
Senator Riegle, the chairman of the Banking Committee, for his efforts 
on this piece of legislation.
  But I would also like to make note, Madam President, that, barring 
some other circumstance, which this Senator would not be opposed to at 
all, this may be the last major piece of legislation coming from the 
Banking Committee in this session of Congress.
  I would just like to take a moment to express my deep gratitude, as a 
member of the Banking Committee, for the leadership of Senator Riegle 
over these past number of years. As a member of his committee, on 
countless occasions, all of us have our own particular matters of 
interest. And the job of a chairman is not an easy one, to try to sort 
out those desires of each of the members of the committee and to try to 
fashion pieces of legislation to serve the entire Nation. But Don 
Riegle, Chairman Riegle, has done that with great success, great 
fairness, and great equanimity over the years.
  And so today, we celebrate the passage of what I think is a very good 
piece of legislation. I am proud to have played a small part in the 
drafting of it; in putting it together. I know from time to time I was 
probably a source of some frustration on a variety of issues that we 
dealt with, but we all have our points of view and concerns.
  I say to my good friend from Ohio, who I am looking at here, we have 
had our disagreements, honest ones, about what was in the best interest 
of the country. But, nonetheless, I think we have put together a good 
bill here.
  It is a reflection, Madam President, of the chairman's work over the 
years. This is not the only example of his good work. It may be the 
last example of his good work from this committee. It may be the last 
example of his good work from this committee.
  If so, I think all of us in this body, regardless of political 
persuasion or ideology, whether or not we voted for or against this 
bill, owe the Senator from Michigan a deep, deep expression of 
gratitude for his work over many, many years in the U.S. Congress. His 
presence, his thoughts, his compassion, and his conviction will be 
missed and the American public will be less well served in many ways 
because he is not a part of this deliberative process. My commendations 
to him, my thanks to him, and my best wishes to him as well.
  Madam President I would like, if I could, to make a statement. I know 
my colleague has a matter of some import he would like to address. Let 
me yield. I have a couple of other matters. I do not know what the 
order of business is here, but I do have a couple of matters I would 
like to address regarding Haiti, as well as the situation in Northern 
Ireland, if I could.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator would like to make a unanimous 
consent request that immediately following the remarks of the Senator--
--
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent immediately 
following the remarks of the Senator from Ohio that I be recognized for 
15 or 20 minutes--up to 20 minutes--on the two matters I have expressed 
interest in, on Haiti and Northern Ireland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. MITCHELL. I have no objection, but I will seek recognition after 
the request is granted.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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