[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 53 (Thursday, April 15, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2334-S2335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            FINANCIAL REFORM

  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
financial reform. I know we have a number of issues before the body 
right now, and it will be a couple of weeks, maybe 3, before this body 
takes up what I think is a very important piece of legislation, 
financial reform.
  It is something the Banking Committee has been having hearings on now 
for about a year and a half. It is an issue that I think is very 
important to our country and Americans from all walks of life. At 
present, the bill that has come out of the committee is a partisan 
bill. It came out of committee on a 13-10 vote; came out of committee, 
believe it or not, a 1,336-page bill, came out in 21 minutes with no 
amendments, on a party-line vote and no debate.
  I could talk a lot about this function and activities on both sides 
of the aisle that may have put us where we are today. But the fact is, 
we have a very important piece of legislation that is getting ready to 
come before this body. It is one I believe we need to deal with in a 
bipartisan way.
  The stated reason by the chairman of the committee as to why we 
handled the bill the way we did in committee a few weeks ago--not to 
have amendments, not to debate the bill--was to, after the bill came 
out of committee, negotiate a bipartisan bill before it came to the 
floor and then have a debate on some of the smaller issues.
  There has been a lot of rhetoric flying around here over the last 
couple of weeks, some of which came from the White House, some of it 
came from the Democratic leadership, some of it came from our side of 
the aisle. It is evident that what is happening right now, instead of 
seeking a real bipartisan bill, what is happening is, one member, two 
members, two members on the Republican side are being reached out to to 
try to snag somebody and to make that, in fact, a bipartisan bill.
  That is not my understanding of what a good bipartisan bill is. That 
certainly was not my understanding as to why the Banking Committee 
handled the bill the way we did. Again, I want to say one more time, a 
1,336-page bill, coming out of committee in 21 minutes with no 
amendments.
  The reason that was done, or the stated reason, was so the two sides 
would not harden against each other, and that before the bill actually 
came to the floor, we would reach a true bipartisan amendment.
  I came here to try to solve problems for our country and put in place 
good policy. I think everybody knows I have worked hard, along with 
others on our side of the aisle, to reach a real, solid, good 
bipartisan bill, a bill that ends too big to fail. I think everybody in 
this country, on both sides of the aisle, of all walks of life, wants 
to expunge from the American vocabulary the fact that any company in 
this country is too big to fail.
  The bill that has come out of committee tried to address that. There 
are many good provisions in the bill under the title of ``Orderly 
Liquidation'' that deal with that. But what happened at the very end 
was, as one would expect, Treasury got involved, the FDIC got involved. 
They wanted to create some flexibility for themselves, as any agency or 
administration wishes to have. But in creating that flexibility, that 
foam on the runway, as some would call it, what has happened is we 
actually have a bill that does not end too big to fail.
  It is my belief--and I had a colloquy with my friend from Virginia 
yesterday, Senator Warner--that we could solve that in about 5 minutes. 
Maybe that is an exaggeration, maybe it is 15, maybe it is 30.
  But the fact is, there are provisions that we know could fix this 
piece of legislation so that it ends any chance of a company seeping 
through, if you will, and actually being bailed out. My guess is, if we 
again sat down as adults we could solve that problem. As a matter of 
fact, I think some of that activity, some of those discussions actually 
began yesterday.
  I think all of us want to make sure that consumers are protected. 
There is no question, both sides of the aisle understand that in many 
ways there needs to be more transparency, there needs to be more 
accountability.
  I had some great negotiations with Senator Dodd from Connecticut. We 
reached a middle ground. I will say that again. We reached a middle 
ground. We had an understanding that leadership on our side of the 
aisle was in agreement with. What I would say is let's get back there. 
Let's get this consumer protection, let's get this new agency back in 
the middle of the road, let's protect consumers, and let's make sure at 
the same time that it does not undermine the safety and soundness of 
our financial system. We can do that. We can do that in 2 or 3 or 4 
days. It can be done. It is not that complicated. We have worked 
through many of the issues.
  On to revenue. I could not agree more that we need to make sure that 
we use, to the extent we can, a clearinghouse to make sure when 
companies are trading in derivatives, and they are money baths at the 
end of the day, they settle up. They get back into a position where 
they are even. They put up collateral. They put up cash to make sure 
they are not money baths, so that we do not end up in the same position 
we were when AIG had not done that, had not trued up on a daily basis, 
and they found themselves with huge liabilities that they could not own 
up to which destabilized our financial system.

[[Page S2335]]

  That is not where we need to be. But we know what we need to do. 
Look, this is a very complex piece of legislation. There is no doubt. 
It is intellectually challenging to try to work through it and try to 
make sure that you do not have unintended consequences by not fully 
seeing what a piece of legislation or a sentence may do.
  But the fact is, we can do this. This is not that heavy. It is my 
understanding that the chairman of the Banking Committee plans to bring 
this bill forward on April 26, maybe a week later. It is my 
understanding we may deal with some other issues. Maybe it is the first 
week of May.
  What I would say to everybody in this body, and anybody who may be 
watching, is we can easily reach a bipartisan consensus on this. We 
have to have the ability to sit down and do that.

  I consider it not a good-faith effort to, instead of sitting down 
with many of the principals who have been involved in this from day 
one, the chairmen and ranking members on the committees, instead of 
sitting down and creating a template--it doesn't have to address every 
single issue but a template on the floor that deals with it--instead of 
doing that, reaching out and trying to find one person to come over, I 
don't consider that a good-faith effort. I am sorry. I hope that type 
of activity will end. That is not what has been stated as to how we can 
reach a bipartisan bill.
  Let me go back to the template. This is complex, this piece of 
legislation. To me what we need to do is sit down together. We could 
have it done in a week. We need to sit down together and work through 
the main issues in this template. Let's deal with derivatives, with 
consumers. Let's deal with systemic risk and orderly liquidation. There 
will be issues of Members on our side of the aisle where there is no 
way we could reach agreement on in our own caucus, and I know there are 
issues on the other side of the aisle on which their caucus will not be 
able to reach agreement, having to do with governance, some of the 
security issues that may exist in title IX. Let's debate those issues 
on the floor. My guess is that if we did that, there are going to be 
some amendments adopted that I don't think are particularly good ideas. 
There will be some amendments adopted that my friends on the other side 
of the aisle would not think are particularly good ideas. But at the 
end of the day, we would have come to the floor with a template that on 
the big issues we have reached bipartisan agreement, and then we could 
have amendments to debate on the floor, some of the other issues that 
may delve down into details that don't necessarily change the entire 
bill but address issues that Members in this body think are important.
  I consider it an honor to serve in this body. I have enjoyed this 
more than any issue we have dealt with, trying to reach a consensus on 
this financial regulation bill. There is plenty of fault to go around 
on both sides that does not need to be rehashed at this moment. The 
fact is, we are where we are. We are getting ready to deal with a major 
piece of legislation. There are numbers of people on both sides of the 
aisle who have spent a lot of time trying to understand the 
complexities of these issues. I am proud of the work Members on both 
sides of the aisle have done to try to understand these issues in a 
real way. Let's get those folks together. Let's sit down and work out 
the template. Let's bring a real bipartisan bill to the floor, not a 
bill where they go out and make a deal with one person and bring them 
over, and maybe there are other things going on at the same time. That 
is not what I call a bipartisan bill. Let's bring it to the floor. 
Let's debate it. Let's do what the people all across this country have 
elected us to do. Let's come to the floor and act like adults. Let's 
tone down the rhetoric. Let's don't exaggerate the pluses or the 
minuses.
  Let's do what the Senate was created to do. We were supposed to be 
the cool heads. We were supposed to be the people who took some of the 
red-hot activities that sometimes come from the other body and sat down 
with cooler heads and resolved the issues like adults. We can do that. 
As a matter of fact, I would say, if we cannot do that on financial 
regulation, an issue that doesn't have any real philosophical bearings 
to it--there are some differences in points of view, but at the end of 
the day, we all want to make sure we address financial regulation in an 
important way, that we do what we can to alleviate risk in the system 
without stifling innovation.
  I think everybody still wants this country to be the world leader in 
financial innovation. But we want to do so in a manner that doesn't 
create risk, that doesn't upset our economy, that doesn't have periods 
of time where we have such risk and instability that people are 
unemployed. We all want to do that.
  I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, I believe a 
commitment was made. I took it as a real commitment that after this 
bill came out of committee, we were going to sit down like adults and 
reach a bipartisan agreement on a template that would be brought to the 
floor and debated. I took that as a commitment. I expect that 
commitment to be honored. I look forward to that process beginning.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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